March 10, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“‘In righteousness you will be established: Tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you. If anyone does attack you, it will not be My doing; whoever attacks you will surrender to you.” (Isaiah 54.14-15)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

Jesus told His disciples, “In this world there will be trouble; take heart for I have overcome the world.” (John 16.33) You may not think that His words to the disciples on that fateful night of His being hunted down by Judas of Kerioth, arrested by the Temple Guard, tried by the Temple leadership, sentenced by Roman authority who then executed Him by crucifixion would have much in common with the words given to Isaiah, but they do. Of course, they share the “trouble” of the world which occurs because obedience to God is not in the heart of sinful nature. While Jesus did not have a sinful nature, He still suffered the greatest suffering because He took ours on. As for Isaiah’s Israel, sin was all around in their heart, mind and soul. It would seem that as they sought to do good or be good, the tendency leaned more in favor of “me first and God second.” God’s call into righteousness through the Law and the Prophets came with consequences. I read again of the consequences of Jeremiah’s Israel as Jerusalem was laid under siege. After eighteen months, their situation was dire. Some were so hungry they sacrificed their own children and ate them. We would think “How could a loving God so oppress those whom He called His people?” Let’s not think that God relished the situation. He could have most certainly stopped it but to what end? His intervention into the lives of those He called His People happened countless times. He wanted them to choose wisely the way in which they would go. He knew that there were always two paths; the proverbial high road and the eventual low road. Why is it we seem most often to take the low road. Is it because we are so overcome by the call to “walk by faith and not by sight” due to our inability to grasp that “all things can and do work together for good“? The words of Solomon “the wise” offer “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” were meant to be an encouragement for those “low road” moments. We know those words. Trusting in those words was different. What makes the difference? It is in “overcoming the world.”

We just can’t do it alone. And how often have we found that “words” are not enough? Today’s theological “culture and climate,” especially in the disdain of common religion, cites the call to relationship over religion. One popular proposition is the “Jesus is about relationship and not religion.” Without getting in a debate on the understanding of the word religion, I have to affirm that Jesus believed in relationships as the religion of the righteous. Such a religion embraces and engages “loving God, loving the neighbor, loving the self and loving others…even loving the enemy.” Jesus was all about demonstrating, modeling and even laying down His life for the sake of establishing the truth of God which is most visible in that “community of righteous relationships.” It is a road we cannot walk alone. To do so stands totally against our desire to be in community with those who love us. We know that God “loves us so much He gave us His only begotten Son.” God’s desire and intent was for us to believe so much in Him in the midst of our lives that we would choose to follow Him all the days of our lives. We would follow Him even to the cross, to the grave and “into all the world preaching, teaching and baptizing others in discipleship in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” This was the overcoming of the world that, I believe, Jesus was talking about. This kind of overcoming would not be easy. The gospel renders that image quite well as Jesus goes to the cross. History reveals to us the fate of many who were His disciples and many more who “followed Him.” Their demise and deaths were not of God’s doing. They believed in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit so much they stepped into the promise of that righteous community which God had established. Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise. He is the lens through which we can see the righteous community coming together on earth as it is in Heaven. This is God’s doing because this is the hope of God’s love for us. Even in, as David wrote, “the presence of our enemies You have established and set me at a banquet table.” There is a “world of difference” that is promised to us when we call Jesus Lord and acknowledge Him Messiah, Deliverer. By Him things will be different and even those who set themselves up as our enemies will bow and call Him Lord. Why is He truly Lord and Savior? It is only because He is God’s Word in action. He is the “living word” in whom we can trust and have our being. It is in Him alone that we will be able to overcome the world in which we live and are called to serve with the gospel of Jesus who is the Christ.

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.