Even to Old Age

Is. 46:4

Even to your old age I am He, and in gray hairs I will carry you, I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

 

In chapter 45, Isaiah clearly stated that God was, is, and always will be sovereign in blessing and in calamity. In ch. 46 God spoke directly to Jacob (Israel) saying, Listen to me...you who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; Even to your old age I am He, and in gray hairs I will carry you, I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save. Israel was God's chosen nation and people, and their lives were intricately woven with His. Since I am a chosen one as well, and since God knitted me together in my mother's womb...and saw my unformed substance; and in God's book...the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them were written. Yes, I am one whose life is intricately woven with God. What He has said to Israel, He says to me. What an assurance that He is there with me in old age and in gray hair! Since He made me, He will bear, carry, and save me! Even if my culture deems old age a time of uselessness, God does not. I am as precious to Him today as I was before the foundation of the world. How exciting! What an unbelievable truth! My days down to the smallest detail are God ordained. How can I complain and even rebel at what He has chosen for me?

 

God continued saying,  Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind...remember the former things of old...I am God, and there is no other, I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose...I have spoken and I will bring it to pass, I have purposed, and I will do it. How powerful! The sovereign God of the universe who put all things in their place, has spoken to me. He has given me favor with Him, yet it is up to me to obey, listen, and remember. I must know above all else that His word will stand, and His purpose will be carried out. I must check my heart so He can not say of me, Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, and you who are far from righteousness. How sad to be chosen of God and still be far from righteousess. My righteousness dwells within me in the person and work of Jesus. Eph. 6 reinforces these same thoughts. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. He has given me all I need to stand, the indwelling Son, the Holy Spirit, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation.  I must put it on and put off my flesh going forward in the power that only He gives!

 

Father,

I know You are sovereign and what You have said and purposed will be. Give me Your grace so that I might have a soft heart, a broken and a contrite spirit before You. Be in my mind. Tune up my ears so that I might hear all the leading and prompting of the Spirit.

In Jesus name,

Amen

Sovereign God

Is. 45:9-10

Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, 'What are you making?' or 'Your work has no handles?' Woe to him who says to a father, 'What are you begetting? or to a woman, "With what are you in labor?'

 

God declared emphatically that He is sovereign over all, even heathen nations and kings, specifically Cyrus. I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. It matters not whether the king or the nation knows God, because sovereignty is from the top down, God to man. Not only does He know them by name, but He uses them for His purposes.

 

I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no god. I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. What a great statement! It didn't change any part of God's sovereign nature or power that Cyrus and his nation worshipped false gods. God's declaration soundly developed this unchanging truth. He is the only God! Just because people deny His existence  doesn't alter or diminish God, His purposes, or His truth. Even though Cyrus does not acknowledge God, He is equipped by God to do His bidding and to accomplish His purpose, that people may know and see His great power.

 

I form the light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things. God is creator of all, and as Creator and sovereign, He makes well-being (blessings) and calamity (trials, tribulation, sickness, disease, plague, etc). God does it all! How confusing to some people! Many say, How can a loving God do such things? Yes, He is a loving God but also a just God! His purposes operate through all time not just the speck of time that a person lives. But for the believer, He says that all things He does are for his or her good. Even the negative will have as its conclusion a positive result.

 

 

Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, 'What are you making?' or 'Your work has no handles?' Woe to him who says to a father, 'What are you begetting? or to a woman, "With what are you in labor?' It is not for humanity to strive against God or to question what He has done, is doing, or will do. The conclusion to all of this is; There is no other god besides me, a righteous God, and a Savior; there is no besides me. Even though Israel was His chosen people, He sent calamity into their lives because they whored after the idols of heathen nations. He used those very heathen nations to capture and enslave them. This is the sovereign God that I love and worship. I must look carefully at my life. Am I pursuing idols of my world? Am I valuing worldly things above Him?

 

Father,

You are so powerful! Shape my vision so that I see Your hand in all the circumstances of my life.

In Jesus name,

Amen

Imitators of God

Eph. 5:1-2

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 

After concluding his teaching on the 'put off /put on', he emphatically states, Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. The logical conclusion, in light of all the believer has put off and put one, would be to imitate God since He is the source of faith and grace and the One who can make such a life a reality. Since Christ indwells us, we must walk in the same love that He gave us when He sacrificed Himself for our salvation. 

 

Following this, Paul draws more contrasts. First he says that no sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, filthiness, foolish talk, or crude talking must be evidenced but instead thanksgiving. These behaviors should not even be named among saints since they are entirely out of place. But why thanksgiving? Perhaps it is because a thankful heart is a contented heart, a heart not seeking fulfillment in evil things, but a heart resting totally in what God has provided. Paul warns believers that those who participate in immorality, impurity, and covetousness have no place in the kingdom of God. Why would a believer want to do things that were totally abhorrent to God and to the indwelling Christ? If he did, is he truly a believer at all?

 

As children of the light no longer of the darkness, believers must walk in this light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good, right, and true. The constant light in the believer's life is Jesus. As believers try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord, Paul takes much of the mystery out of it by continuing to teach this life-style. Take no part in the works of darkness, but instead expose them. This is an extension of the believer's commitment. Not only does the believer resist the darkness and refuse to participate, but now he must expose these works. Definitely not the road to popularity!

 

Look carefully, walk in wisdom not in darkness but in light. Make the best use of time because the days are evil. Don't waste the time that God has given us by participating on empty activities, but be involved in the work of the Lord and in understanding His will. Don't be drunk with wine which is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. This spirit-filled life is one of speaking psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making heart-felt melodies to the Lord. Give thanks always for everything. And to sum up all this teaching, Paul states,  And submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This walk in the light, in His love, and in the Spirit is all encompassing. If I were to live like this, I would have no time left for foolish, worldly activities. When Satan tempts, all I would have to say is, No Time! No times for darkness, but full-time for the Light! What a life I have been called to live! What a Savior who indwells me and fills me with His grace! What a Spirit who indwells me directing my every step!

 

Father,

Teach me more each day how to apply all these commands. Make my walk and my life be honoring to You. This is my desire!

In Jesus name,
Amen

Put Off and Put On

Eph. 4:20-24

But that is not the way you learned Christ--assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to the former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

 

 

Here Paul develops the put off and put on way of life. Believers are to live like they have learned Christ leaving behind the former life with all of its attitudes and actions. That life was corrupt through deceitful desires, futile in mind and thought, darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God, ignorant because of hardened hearts, callous, given over to sensuality, and greedy to practice impurity. This is not the way of Christ! Instead, believers are to be renewed in the spirit of the mind, and part of that renewal is living in true righteousness and holiness. Certainly, these two approaches to life are vastly different and at odds with one another. To clarify this principle, Paul develops some practical, specific areas and contrasts them with the old life. 

• since lying put off, believers should speak the truth since Christ is the Truth. 
• instead of anger consuming your life, don't let the sun go down on your anger. Make relationship be honoring to Christ.
• instead of stealing, work honestly with your own hands and share what you have with others.
• instead of corrupting talk, speak what is edifying and fits the occasion giving grace to those who hear.
• don't grieve the Holy Spirit who is your seal of redemption, but listen and respond to His promptings.
• instead of bitterness, wrath, clamor, and malice, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, and forgiving as God in Christ forgave you.

What a contrast! Christ living in and through me must be evident and visible in all that I do. If I hang on to old, worldly behaviors, I am grieving the Spirit who indwells me.

 

Father,

Give me grace and strength so that I might put off lingering fleshly behaviors and thought. Help me put on Your grace and show me how to manifest it in what I do and how I live.

In Jesus name,

Amen

Walk Worthy

Eph. 4:1-2

I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

 

 

Paul is urging believers to walk worthy of their calling. In my thinking urging carries with it a sense of  of deep emotion, concern, and timeliness. It needs to be done now! But how do believers walk worthy if salvation is all of grace? And what does it mean to walk worthy?

 

Paul developed walking working as first beginning with the personal qualities of humility, gentleness, patience, love, and peace. On many levels, these are nearly impossible for man, but the key is grace, grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Christ was grace and truth. In His death He gave those who believe a measure of grace, a measure that supplies the believer with the strength and endurance to walk worthy.

 

Christ gave grace to all believers, but He also gave a special calling to those who were apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teacher. Their function was to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ. This statement solidifies the need for church, the body of Christ, and for shepherds and teachers. The shepherd/teacher/pastor presents  the Word so that believers might obey, grow, and build up the body of Christ. Responding to this teaching is a mayor part of walking worthy. So then individuals are to be involved with the body and to be taught by the shepherd so that their will be unity among the body.

 

 This equipping continues until the entire body of Christ attains to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer by children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Walking worthy is not just personal character, but it is also the strength and wisdom to spot error or false doctrine. It is being a mature believers and not a child easily influenced and exploited. How glorious to grow into the stature of the fullness of Christ!

 

Rather , speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ. Instead of being children exploited by the current fad of religion, believers are to grow into Christ. We are to be like Him because He indwells each one of us and should shine out through us. A major evidence of this relationship is speaking the truth in love. Not criticizing or attacking others who differ from us on matters of personal interpretation, but speaking only what is true, only what Jesus would say. He is the Truth! So whatever I do, say, or feel should be evidence that I am growing in Christ. His indwelling me and His great gift of grace are the only way that I can walk worthy.

 

Father,

Thank You Lord for giving me the gift of You Son who lives and indwells me. Grow me up to the measure of the fullness of Christ. Teach me what it truly means and how it will change my life.

 

In Jesus name,

Amen

 

 

The Eternal Purpose

Eph. 3:11-13

This was according to the eternal purpose that He has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

 

What a great statement of the sovereignty of God! Paul explained that he was made a minister through the grace of God by the working of His power. It was in no way related to Paul's zeal, education, or even his past history. He was to minister to the Gentiles preaching to them the unsearchable riches of Christ and reveal the plan of the mystery hidden for ages, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. To do this he preached the gospel and established churches even when it brought dire personal consequences to his life. Paul's ministry, the establishing of the church, the riches of Christ, Gentile salvation, the mission of the church, and even his suffering were all according to the eternal purpose of God. Paul lived in the reality of a sovereign God, and he wanted the Ephesian believers to do the same. If anyone had a cause to doubt this fact, it would be Paul. He suffered so much and in so many different ways, but his faith in a sovereign God was his constant motivation to press on for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

 

For this very reason he bowed his knees before the Father...that according to the riches of His glory He would grant them to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in their inner being. Paul's concern was for them not for himself, but that they would live in the full understanding of the sovereignty of God and in the full strength that God offers to His children so that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith. He wanted them to live out the fulfillment of this great mystery! He prayed for them to be rooted and grounded in love, so that they would have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that they might be filled with all the fullness of God. What a prayer!  What an example of intercession!

 

Paul concluded his prayer by saying, Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Paul placed his petitions for these believers right back into the eternal purpose and sovereign plan of God. He knew that all circumstances were according to the power at work within himself and all believers. What a way to live! Not my will but yours, O Lord!

 

Father,

Teach me to live in the full scope of Your sovereign will and purpose. Show me how to see all circumstances as coming from You so that I can embrace them and rejoice in them even when they include suffering and frustration.

In Jesus name,

Amen



Grass and Flowers

Isa. 40:30-31

Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint.

 

 

How great is our God! All flesh, no matter how powerful or important, is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower dies, but the word of our God will stand forever. Nothing that man can achieve, build, invent, accomplish, etc. lasts any longer than God has proclaimed it would. Strangely enough, man, in his few short years on earth, thinks he is master of his destiny even when he sees evidence to the contrary. Meteorologists may be able to predict hurricane Sandy's path and fortify against her ravages, but they can do nothing to stop her, for that matter even their fortifications were sadly lacking. The same goes for illness and financial ruin. The best health insurance or physician cannot prevent man from dying or from disease destroying his physical body, and no amount of financial strategies will stave off a recession or a  depression. Certainly, it may appear that man is controlling things, but when God sends Sandy, it is all over! When God has decreed human events, man cannot circumvent them. His word will stand forever and will always be True. Just because someone says there is no god doesn't make that true in the least. In fact, many of man's grandiose statements are merely the ravings of grass and flower withering to eventual death. All nations are as nothing before Him, they are accounted by Him as less than nothing and emptiness.

 

But for the believer, He will tend His flock like a Shepard; He will gather the lambs in His arms; He will carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. He is there with us as we endure the hardships and storms of life. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. How ironic that people in their prime think they have maximum strength, intelligence, and power, and are in need of nothing, especially something coming from God. They seem to have forgotten aging, disease, storms, financial ruin, etc. They think they are superior to all those who have gone before, to all those who have left a record of their failures. They refuse to learn from history. Man cannot sustain strength for the long haul! There are too many factors that he cannot control even though he believes he can. Once again, just because he says he can doesn't make it true. I am waiting on the Lord for all my strength so that when He says run, I can run. When He says, don't faint, I won't. My life is in the hands of the eternal God whose word is everlastingly true! Why would I stoop so low as to follow my own human inclinations or allow humanity to diminish my faith in the One who truly is powerful!

 

Father,

Take away my fear of the future and of the ravings of politicians.  Keep me resting in You as the storms You have sent become a reality. I know that You are my sufficiency, but help me live that truth.

In Jesus name,

Amen