Thursday, May 25, 2017, 5:02 a.m. – The Lord Jesus put in mind the song “Your Lord is With You.” Speak, Lord,
your words to my heart. I read Isaiah 58
(Select vv. ESV).
Lift Up Your Voice (vv. 1-5)
“Cry aloud; do not hold back;
lift up your
voice like a trumpet;
declare to my people their transgression,
to the house
of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily
and delight
to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that did righteousness
and did not
forsake the judgment of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
they delight
to draw near to God.
‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?
Why have we
humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
and oppress
all your workers.
Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to hit
with a wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
will not
make your voice to be heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a
person to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed,
and to
spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
and a day
acceptable to the Lord?
God’s people are now the
church, the body of Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God. We are the
people of God who have repented of our sins, have trusted in Jesus Christ to be
Lord and Savior of our lives, and who have turned to God to follow (obey) him
in all our ways, at least initially. By God’s grace, through God-given faith in
Christ Jesus, we were crucified with Christ in death to sin, and we were
resurrected with Christ in newness of life, created to be like God in true
righteousness and holiness. Jesus died, not just that we might escape hell and
go to heaven when we die, but he died that we might die to sin and live to
righteousness.
Nonetheless, faith in Jesus
Christ does not mean we instantly reach divine perfection. We still live in
flesh bodies, thus we still have a propensity to sin against God. Yet, by God’s
grace to us, via Jesus’ death for us on a cross, we have been delivered from
the power sin once had over us, so we are no longer under its grip. Jesus
already won that battle for us against Satan and against sin, so there is no
reason we should still be under its control. So, as followers of Jesus Christ,
we should be walking in victory over sin, and we ought to be walking now
according to the Spirit, not in sinless perfection, necessarily, but no longer
under bondage (addiction) to sin’s deceitfulness.
Still, although Jesus paid
the price for our sins so we could go free from sin, and live for him and to
his righteousness, many have abandoned their initial faith in Christ and have
wandered off to follow after the gods of men, their own sinful passions and
desires, and have been engulfed once more in the ways of this sinful world.
Much of the church here in America has adopted the ways of the world for how to
grow their ministries, and they have partnered with an ungodly government,
making it the head over the church. And, the Holy Spirit is grieved, and God is
not pleased, so he is calling his church to come out of “Babylon,” for her sins
are piled high to heaven.
So, when the church, or when
individual Christians pray to God, and they pray to know God’s will, and they ask
God for his blessings, and for answered prayers, thinking God will hear them, and
that he will answer, they (we) need to first consider whether or not they (we)
are walking in his ways and in his truth, or if we are just going through the
motions, i.e. mere formalities of religious practice, but our hearts are truly not
sold out to our Lord. Have we forsaken the ways of the Lord? Are we yielding to
sin’s deceitfulness? Are we engrossed in the ways of this sinful world? Or, are
we truly walking in God’s ways, in his truth, and in his righteousness?
Break Every Yoke (vv. 6-11)
“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the
bonds of wickedness,
to undo the
straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break
every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring
the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your
healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of
the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall
cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing
of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy
the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your
gloom be as the noonday.
And the Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy
your desire in scorched places
and make
your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a
spring of water,
whose waters
do not fail.
God is calling out to his
wayward people, who have wandered away from their pure devotion to Jesus Christ,
in order to immerse themselves in the culture of this sinful world. He is
calling them to return to HIM as their ONLY GOD and LORD, and to once again
make HIM the owner-master of their lives. He is calling them to return the ways
he has marked out for them to follow, and to abandon their idols and their
spiritual adultery against him.
He is letting his church know
that the way of salvation from sin is a narrow road that few travel, not the
broad road that many have made it, which only leads to destruction. He wants to
remind us that he died to transform us, not just to forgive us our sins. We don’t
come to Christ merely by acknowledging his existence and by accepting his
forgiveness for our sins, although many would have you believe that is true.
When we believe in Jesus, with God-given faith in him, we die with him to sin,
and we are resurrected with him to newness of life. The old life of living for
sin and self is gone, and the new life of living to Christ and to his
righteousness has now been birthed in us of the Holy Spirit of God. This is
what it means to be “born again.”
Jesus Christ not only desires
that we walk in his righteousness and holiness, and no longer according to the
ways of our sinful flesh, but his desire is also that we proclaim to the world
around us that he died that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, so
that others might be delivered from their slavery to sin and might walk in
freedom, according to the ways of God. We need to be telling people the truth
of the gospel, and the church needs to cease with soft-pedaling the gospel in
order to make it more appealing and acceptable to the world. For truly, although
they may like us in this life, for telling them what they want to hear, we are
sending them straight to hell with our “feel-good” gospel messages, and this
needs to STOP!!
Yet, one thing the modern
church does seem to have right is that they do focus on feeding the hungry,
clothing the naked, comforting the sorrowful, and ministering to the needs of
the homeless and to those in prison, which is something many in the
old-fashioned evangelical churches have often neglected, sad to say. Yet, the church
which ministers to people’s physical needs often do this at the sacrifice of the
truth to the gospel, for they don’t want to offend anyone in the process. And,
that, as well, is sad indeed.
Yet, the other day I was in a
Chick-fil-A restaurant, and nearly bumped into a man who was wearing a
sweatshirt which had words about Jesus on its back, so I read them. It was a
prayer to Jesus Christ for salvation from sin, and included in the prayer it
said, “I repent and turn from my wicked ways.” I learned this was from a
ministry which feeds the homeless. Amen! What this shows is that it is possible
to hold on to the truths of scripture, and to not abandon the truth of the
gospel, and still be able to minister to the poor, the needy, the helpless, and
the homeless. Jesus never compromised truth to minister to people’s physical
needs, and neither should we! It is never loving to tell people lies. We should
be a people who make a practice always of speaking the truth in love, and be
those who meet people’s real needs, too.
God is saying here,
basically, that if we are people of integrity who live what we profess, not
necessarily in absolute sinful perfection, but in life practice, and we are not
those who are willfully yielding regularly to our sinful flesh and who are
denying the truths of scripture, that he will hear us when we call to him, he
will listen, and he will answer. This is not to say, though, that he will
always answer in the way we desire, so we need to be willing to accept whatever
he answers us, too. Yet, he is also promising us that we will then experience
his healing power in our lives, and that our burdens will be lifted, and we
will rejoice in what Christ has done for us. There is much healing that takes
place in our lives through our obedience to His Word.
Your Lord is With You
An Original Work / August 14, 2016
Based off Various Scriptures
Fear not for your Lord is with you.
He will not leave you, nor will He
abandon you.
When you walk through valleys of life’s
rough ways,
You must fear no evil, for God is near.
Be of courage, then, and be not
dismayed,
For your Lord is with you throughout
your days.
Fear not for your Lord is with you.
He will not leave you, nor will He
abandon you.
Trust Him with your life and witness.
He’ll go before you, and He will
prepare the way.
The Lord is our helper, so we’ll not
fear.
He will strengthen us. He sees all our
tears.
Do not be afraid, but to God do pray,
And the peace of God will be yours
today.
Trust Him with your life and witness.
He’ll go before you, and He will
prepare the way.
My God, He is my Rock and my Shield
And the Horn of my salvation, whom I
praise.
He reached down from heaven and rescued
me;
Drew me out of waters so deep I’d sink.
My God turned my darkness into His
light;
Opened up my blinded eyes, gave me
sight.
My God, He is my Rock and my Shield
And the Horn of my salvation, whom I
praise.
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