I was asked to write a devotion for our church's Lenten devotional. The text was Isaiah 55:8-11 and there was a specific method to the writing. The result is below.
Read Isaiah
55:8-11
A person
drowning in water cannot save himself.
He must have a lifeguard. If he
could save himself then he would be the lifeguard and could save others who
were drowning. One downhome preacher
declared, “You can call out to God smelling like a pig. There you are, standing in slop, stinking as
bad as you will ever stink, and you can call out to God, and He will answer.”
We can’t
possibly conceive the significance and complete purpose of God’s ways. If we could, God would be too small – we’d be
the lifeguard; we wouldn’t need to be clean.
Yet, we question why continually.
Why are we here? Why did that
happen? Why doesn’t God do this or
that? The real question is, why do we
think we’re qualified to even ask?
That’s pretty audacious. God
spoke in a very determined response to Job in this regard (Job 38).
Were the
eternal up to me, or any other person, born in the natural state of sin, there
would be no salvation for the world. Who
among us would purposely, without the character of God, subject ourselves to
ridicule, suffering, and death for the single possibility that one person
might, not will, but might come to know you?
There is no way any person without God would ever reason that as a
proper action. Yet, God saw this as
necessary from the beginning. He loved
us first and gave.
Thank
the Lord and blessed are we that His ways are not our ways. Thank the Lord that
His thoughts are not our thoughts. Thank
the Lord that His ways and thoughts are higher than ours. If not, we have no hope. “Behold what manner of love the Father has
given unto us!” (1 Jn 3:1)
No comments:
Post a Comment