I am the Lord Your God (part 19)

And God is God, and He makes a pact with me and with others that believe in Him and believe that His Word is truth. Isaiah describes such a pact in Isaiah 61:1-11. He describes the covenant, the new covenant that is to come in Christ. Its purpose? To demonstrate God’s glory, not just in the nation of Israel but also in those who are not Jews that nevertheless believe in Him. The stranger, those who do not choose to know God but to either deny Him or to say that they are more powerful than He will lose everything. Those who are oppressed and homeless however will be protected in God’s holy place (Isaiah 62:1-12). God gives us a place that those on the outside marvel because of our faith and love for one another, and we will collectively be as the Bride of Christ and Christ is the bridegroom. Before this covenant, there’ll be no peace. Afterwards, all can come in and be called a holy people once again, taking on a new and blessed name. (Isaiah 65:1-25, 2 Cor 5:17) We are a new creation in Him, we have by virtue of Christ’s sacrifice become righteous in our belief in God, and in our obedience and love for Him. He allows us to know Him and His power. And the choice is simple. Do we love Him enough to surrender completely, or are we just giving lip-service? If I truly love God and truly believe in His power, then I look forward to heaven and earth is only a sojourn. Little things like traffic and hot weather and fluctuating stocks aren’t as upsetting, because God is in complete control. And it is a brand new day. And there is a new Jerusalem, one that no man can tear asunder. (Isaiah 66:7-24). Isaiah predicts the coming of Jesus, to bring a new way of life to all people, to invite all who believe to come to Him. He comes to bring peace, to make a torn people whole, but also to bring judgment by the word of God spoken through Jesus on those who refuse to believe and follow His direction and words. I often think of Isaiah as speaking of the House of the Lord, which all Jews understood as the temple, as being figurative for the spiritual House of the Lord which now Christians look as His Church or the extended version of heaven. I don’t believe that Temple will be rebuilt in the physical sense, but that it has been rebuilt in the spiritual sense via His Church and in the personal sense because we are all temples of God (according to Paul in 1 Cor 6:19) God rules in all cases and Isaiah gives this promise in Isaiah 54:1-17 that God will avenge the oppressed and those that call upon Him. God wants His people to sing and be happy and rejoice in their desolation because that’s not what is important in considering their circumstances. Instead it is joy in the knowledge that God indeed will protect His people, He rules, He provided, He wants us to know Him. He promises to always be with me and His people. God will not let His people suffer (Isaiah 52:1-25) not for long, although it may seem like an eternity. Because through Jesus, His people will overcome their spiritual enemies (the enemies that truly count). And God will be exalted. Although others mock Him now, He will be exalted in the long run. His time is not my time, nor are His thoughts my thoughts. I may wonder where He is, but in retrospect He was always, is always, there. In order to help me and to help other Christians, Isaiah has written of a few of God’s basic principles in Isaiah 51:3-17. First, God and only God heals. I have many wounds and God knows them all. And heals them all. I may not like to outcome, but in the long run God truly knows what is best for me and all concerned. Secondly, there can be growth in the wasteland but this can only occur in God. Only God performs miracles, only God knows each and every oasis and can bring us there and only God can bring us back to the fertile land. Thirdly, Worrying about men is fruitless, because men die away, men cannot last forever, and God is with us until and beyond the end of time. I need to put my faith in God, even though I cannot possibly understand Him for He is a great and wonderful God. Finally, Isaiah 49:6 show the plan of God from Isaiah’s time until its fruition in Christ. God planned to send His Son so that through Him we would be redeemed, and in fact God planned a way that people of diverse cultures and backgrounds could be fashioned into one body. Isaiah demonstrates the essence of God, because it demonstrates the promise of never going hungry or thirsty and never being in need because God always protects His people.