A Promise of Help and Healing

It shall be said, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people’s way.” For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not continually accuse, nor will I always be angry; for then the spirits would grow faint before me, even the souls that I have made. Because of their wicked covetousness I was angry; I struck them, I hid and was angry; but they kept turning back to their own ways. I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will lead them and repay them with comfort, creating for their mourners the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the Lord; and I will heal them. But the wicked are like the tossing sea that cannot keep still; its waters toss up mire and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. (Isaiah 57:14-21, NRSV)

There is no peace for the wicked… I did an internet search on the last sentence in the above reading and this quote came up, “My mother always used to say, ‘there is no path to peace. Peace is the path.'”

Wow. isn’t that really what the passage from Isaiah is saying?

If you are contrite and humble you will seek after God and God will open your heart and answer your prayers. God will show you love and give you love for others.

But if you are covetous and wicked and self-focused, God will hide His face from you.

If you are seeking after God, God will heal you and fill you. If you are seeking after your own desires there will be no peace.

Because there is no path to peace. Peace is the path.

Follow after God and walk the path of peace!

The Suffering Servant

For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:2-12, NRSV)

The Suffering Servant, a passage that points us to Jesus.

He allowed those who controlled the organized religion to eliminate Him as a threat to them.

Honestly, it wasn’t about the Jews not liking Jesus, it was about those in power not wanting to lose that power. It is exactly what we are seeing in our country now. People will bend the truths of God to fit into the boxes we have made to hold God. So that God can’t make us do what we don’t want to and so everyone else conforms to our understanding of how God works in the world.

But here is the thing, God was not contained to a box then. The grave could not hold Him. Even after they killed Him, He came back to finish what was started.

God will not be contained by us. He will have His will done, through or in spite of us.

He was silent then so prophecy could come true, but now He will not be silenced.

Will we follow Him or try to force Him into our box?

God’s People are Comforted

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep. (Isaiah 40:1-11, NRSV)

A voice says, “Cry Out!”

What am I to cry?

God is always with us. Everything around you will fade away, but the promises of God will stand forever. Everything will be made level and all will be at peace in His kingdom.

So cry out the love of the Lord!

This will comfort His people and all people. Even in the valleys, in the dark places, God’s love will be with us. And those of us who know this and see His peace around us need to share it with others.

So cry out the love of the Lord!

Word Accomplishes God’s Purpose

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:1-11, NRSV)

God’s word goes forth from Him and out into the world and even when it seems to not have any effect, it does!

God’s word does not return empty but accomplishes all that God purposed it to. Everything that God does succeeds.

So why do we spend our money on things that will not last?

Why do we buy things that God can provide for us?

Why do we not trust God?

We see His word go out and not have the effect we want in the time frame we set up. But they aren’t our words, or our time frame, or our purpose. God’s timing and purpose are higher and different from ours.

We need to stop and trust God.

Trust God’s timing.

Trust God’s purpose.

For His word will never fail.

The Vision of the New Temple

There was a chamber with its door in the vestibule of the gate, where the burnt offering was to be washed. And in the vestibule of the gate were two tables on either side, on which the burnt offering and the sin offering and the guilt offering were to be slaughtered. On the outside of the vestibule at the entrance of the north gate were two tables; and on the other side of the vestibule of the gate were two tables. Four tables were on the inside, and four tables on the outside of the side of the gate, eight tables, on which the sacrifices were to be slaughtered. There were also four tables of hewn stone for the burnt offering, a cubit and a half long, and one cubit and a half wide, and one cubit high, on which the instruments were to be laid with which the burnt offerings and the sacrifices were slaughtered. There were pegs, one handbreadth long, fastened all around the inside. And on the tables the flesh of the offering was to be laid. On the outside of the inner gateway there were chambers for the singers in the inner court, one at the side of the north gate facing south, the other at the side of the east gate facing north. He said to me, “This chamber that faces south is for the priests who have charge of the temple, and the chamber that faces north is for the priests who have charge of the altar; these are the descendants of Zadok, who alone among the descendants of Levi may come near to the Lord to minister to him.” He measured the court, one hundred cubits deep, and one hundred cubits wide, a square; and the altar was in front of the temple. (Ezekiel 40:38-47, NRSV)

The court for the offerings to God a perfect square. Because when God does something it is perfect.

Just as God gave the vision for this house for people to gather and worship Him in a perfect way to Ezekiel, so will God build your life in a perfect way.

He will mold you through the coming king, who will take what He and His Father created and continue that process if you will but allow Him access to your life.

Let the coming baby, be the architect that He is and construct the perfect life for you!