February 5, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“This is what the LORD says: ‘In the time of favor I will answer You. In the day of salvation, I will help You. I will keep You and appoint You to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land, to apportion its desolate inheritances, to say to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.‘” (Isaiah 49.8-9a)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

Why does it have to be “a time in favor” that God will answer us? Why can’t it be the time of our choosing that God will answer our cries for mercy, our pleas for justice and our prayers for healing? Could it be because our vision is a bit short-sighted? Could it be that when we are focusing so intently on our needs, our wants and our desires, that we forget about the world around us the whole earth upon which we dwell not in isolation? I see it asked often what hell is like with descriptions of fire and brimstone, fiery lakes and infinite darkness. We latch on to pictures in our mind of Pittsburgh forges of molten iron or Kilauea volcanic floes to give us a sense of the physical manifestation of Hell. What we miss is the true burning of the soul which aches for release but begs for the passion to be enflamed. Hell is a selfish place where the priority of “me” is accentuated and accelerated. Every “one” is so intent on escaping the pain but pressing into the same. Such focus puts blinders on the person so they cannot see anyone else. Every “one” else is doing the same. A myriad of individuals but no community. Misery will crave the company of one for relief and none is given because there is no sense of company, community or togetherness. The very pursuit of individual freedom enslaves each heart, mind, body and soul to itself and true freedom is lost.

Is it no wonder why God’s message of mercy, grace and love is so strongly presented? Only in the sharing of such things can a person experience life and freedom. Life and freedom is something that is shared not consumed. It is a treasure bestowed on others and not horded for one’s self. Bestowing is life giving. Hording is the fear of living. Yes, it is a living “without” that is feared but it becomes a way of life which depends upon fear as its sustenance. This is not the way of love. Consider the commands: love God; love neighbor, love self, love the enemy, love the foreigner and love one another. The focus is outward and not inward. Yet, the reward is inwardly experienced with each outward manifestation. The greatest example of that is Jesus Christ who said, “No greater love [life] is there than this- that a person would lay down their life for another.” Jesus did not do it for one or for some. Jesus did it for all: past, present and future. What must we do to gain such life? Receive it and give it away. Become the treasure that is then invested into others. The dividend is increased because of the investment. The more that is given, the more that is received. But the cycle must continue recognizing we can never outgive God. It is a blessed cycle of life.

So, God answers us in the time of favor not in the season of demand. Think of the Hebrew slaves, descendants of Jacob, who sojourned in Egypt for four hundred years. They indentured themselves to Pharoah for bread. They paid him back in bricks. For Pharoah, bricks were never enough to satisfy the lust for life he called self-love. His love of self was so great that near the end, he killed his own son [he made the decree of the death of all first born] and in the end he brought about his own death from the inside out. What of the slaves? In the time of God’s favor, Moses was raised up to deliver them out of Egypt and onto the road which led from desolate and dark places to the Promised Land. When they considered themselves and horded the gift of freedom believing it came without cost, they lost their way along with their faith. When they considered God first and others second, they found their way and the fulfillment of the promise of life and love. It would become a year of Jubilee. It is that time of favor. It is that time when all are set free to return to square one and ground zero and begin again with the full knowledge of the “the way, the truth and the life.”

Mighty ones, such a time of favor was promised those in Babylonian exile alongside of those who were domesticated servants in Israel indentured to their oppressors. God was declaring that a season of favor, the year of Jubilee, was coming. Jesus declared it in the midst of family and friends in Nazareth when He preached the very scripture from Isaiah the Prophet. He said “In your hearing, this Scripture has been fulfilled.” The debt of sin was being cancelled and the life of freedom was being given. However, it was not as they wanted nor expected. They desired it on their terms and not His. They desired limited freedom and not the unlimited freedom called righteousness which He was giving in the teaching of God’s Word…and by the living out of that same Word. This is our time of favor, mighty ones of God. What shall we do with it? Be free in Christ or slaves to sin?

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

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more 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.