January 16, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Listen to Me, you stubborn people who are far removed from righteousness: I AM bringing My righteousness near; it is not far away. My salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion and adorn Israel with My splendor.” (Isaiah 46.12-13)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

In light of recent “natural” disasters, there is much speculation among Christ-followers and doomsayers (they are not necessarily the same), that the end of the world is at hand. We know of Jesus’ teaching about “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.” (Matthew 24.6-8) We can most definitely say that we are closer to the “end of the age” (re. Matthew 28.20). We can also say that we are closer to the “beginning of the end.” (re. Matthew 24.8) Who among us truly knows what “that time” is for any of us in the moment? What we are assured of is that those who fail to heed the warning and pursue all righteousness will suffer far more in an eternal perspective than those who prepare themselves daily to live and serve as if it is “that time.” Mighty ones of God in Christ Jesus, are we willing to pay attention to the Word of God that has been spoken in the past with the intentionality to listen to it in our current day? The Word of God is timeless and abides in every generation. We need only to look to Golgotha’s hill which now is barren but in the days of Jesus was the bearer of the gospel truth.

On the day when Jesus had been denied and turned over to those who would dare to judge Him as standing against God’s will, Golgotha’s hill became the evidence of “so great a love as this, that a man would lay down his life for another.” There in those closing moments of Jesus’ earthly ministry in the flesh which bore the Spirit of God in full, there were two who were crucified with Him on Passover Day. On one hand, we find one who was “far removed from righteousness.” (re. Isaiah 46.12) His part in the story of Jesus’ crucifixion (Luke 23.39) is a pointing back to what God had declared to Isaiah. It serves as a point of recognition about the fate of those to whom the truth has been given but who forsake it. His voice, in Luke, is the voice of those in leadership who hurled curses at Him from the foot of the cross (Matthew 27.39). The point dare not be lost on us. But in contrast is another thief who is equally guilty as the first. Perhaps it is that they were partners in crime, at the very least they were partners in prison awaiting the completion of the sentence. What may be lost in their part of the story is that they were not crucified for merely being thieves. Since they were being crucified by Roman authority, their crime had to be against Rome as well. We do not know what their particular crime was, but Rome did not execute common criminals but only those who were labeled “enemies of the state.” Yet, it was this “other” thief who stole from Rome who added the context of glory to Jesus’ sacrifice. In his final hour as he saw the “end of his age” coming, the thief chose the path of repentance. He defended “the faith” that Jesus was indeed the Christ and would be coming into “His Kingdom.” He did not believe he was worthy of forgiveness and pleaded merely to be remembered when the time of Jesus’ glorification arrived. Jesus responded, “Today, you will join Me in paradise.” (Of course, Luke’s gospel story varies from Matthew’s on this point as Matthew’s gospel story says both thieves hurled curses at Jesus. Guilty by association? Was the conversation lost to some who were there at the cross and only heard by others? And what of John’s remembrance of the event? Was he not there at the foot of the cross, too? But in those moments, his attention was so transfixed on Jesus whom he loved as he gathered Mary “under his wing.” The point of all of that is how we are all brought to our need for Jesus at the cross. Equally, then, we are all brought to the solution of our problem at the Garden Tomb with His resurrection.) So, are we able to hear, in whole or in part, the Word of God reflected here which had been given to Isaiah seven hundred years earlier that said “…My righteousness is here and My salvation is not far away“? Is this a warning and an encouragement for us considering the “signs of the times” in our world today?

Mighty ones of God, the point is we are hard pressed on every side to be authentic in our faith concerning Jesus as the Christ and in our faith expression as witnesses of the truth of the gospel for the sake of salvation which God has been working since the first Garden experience with sin and redemption from sin. Oh that “we” would have gotten it right the first time. That would have meant “we” would have fully accepted what God had done for “us” with the sanctification and anointing for forgiveness by the blood of the Lamb. To fully accept it would be to work all the days of our lives in obedience to God, as “we” would have known the truth and knowledge of “good and evil.” We would have rebuked temptation at every turn and sought to be obedient to God. How could we ignore this truth when “we” had been so engaged with both “good and evil,” righteousness and unrighteousness. Do we not also grasp that following “the fall of Adam and Eve,” that the serpent was not cast further away? When they hid themselves among the low branches of the sycamore fig tree where God “found” them, the serpent was there as well. It was Adam and Eve who were “saved.” Their redemption had drawn near, their salvation was at hand. It came to them upon their confession of wrongdoing even though they did not fully accept the blame for their transgressions. Regardless of how well they repented, the serpent did not. The time for his utter defeat was not at hand but yet to come at “the close of the age.” It would be at the close of “his” age and not theirs nor ours. The point of the matter is that we are to be true to the truth that is given us. Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. And so He was and so He is…the first and the last sacrifice made to redeem us from our sin: our choice to be enslaved to a pursuit of self-preservation or to the choice of ignoring how to be free from sin. Jesus Christ is the fruit of life by which only we can know the truth which will set us free. Mighty ones of God, that truth is here. What shall we do with it?

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more real than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness which we know is folly but righteous works which declare Your glory and further witness the truth that can set all who believe free from death. So may we live by the name of Jesus our Christ. AMEN.