Who am I? My relationship with God through prayer (part 16)

Isaiah 61:1-11 is the culmination of this exaltation, the covenant that God makes with me as one of His people, to heal, to free from my imprisonments whatever those may be, to comfort me and to anoint me and all of His people. All of us have the position in His family, this is His promise and those outside of His family will serve His people and me included. There are three things that ring clear in this passage, God loves judgment, hates robbery or deceitfulness, and will direct the work in truth. This is His everlasting covenant. He will be known to all people and will cause growth as seeds sown. What a lovely covenant! The thing that gets confusing for people reading Isaiah is the descriptions in Isaiah of Israel and concepts that it will be saved. (Isaiah 45:16) Is this the Israel of the past? Prior to the Babylonian and Assyrian invasions? Prior to the Roman occupation? Is this the “one nation” that Isaiah so often refers to? It would seem not, because of the exclusiveness of the Jewish religion at the time, but also because Judaism, while it serves to provide a moral and strong background to doing the will of God (if one followed the precepts and not the people), was becoming outmoded in favor of greed and idolatry and politics. No, the nation that Isaiah was describing was the result of the coming of Christ, that Christ would have the authority over this nation and all could come to Him. And He would have a new song, as described in Isaiah 42:1-12, much as Jesus in John 15:12-17 said that He was giving His apostles a new commandment. The new song was so new and at the same time what God had intended all along in order to provide for His children and to nurture His children. (Isaiah 41:12-20). Isaiah is so rich in the descriptions of the Spirit of God and how much He desires to come to Him and obey Him and  how much God desires to gather not just Israel but all people to Him. To accomplish this purpose, He will send His Son. What a breath of fresh air God is!

 

Who am I? My relationship with God through prayer (part 15)

 

God is the Father. That relationship encompasses and is far greater than any of the definitions I can put to Him. God is Good (Matt 19:17), God is Love (1 John 4:8) and all that is summed up in Father. Our Father. The Good and loving Father. He is in charge of His house, He knows and calls His children to Him. He supplies, supports, trains, instructs His children with, as in the Dan Fogelberg song, a thundering velvet hand. Most people cannot grasp that concept of God being Daddy, because they do expect thunderbolts to come down. Mostly because in their sin nature most people have been conditioned to fear Him, in the sense of worrying about their fate in His presence. And it is true, in the sense that it would be a shame to be in the hands of an angry God. But God, by letting his children put Christ on when baptized and by sending His son to earth that His children could learn and do His will, has given us this grace and love. He is Father, and He makes it plain to me that He wants me to be His child. Some people have the harsh God in mind only because human fathers are sometimes overly strict disciplinarians with no room for compassion. Some fathers on earth are alcoholics who don’t worry about the effect of that on their children, some are even abusive in that condition. Some are child abusers and pedophiles. No wonder some people see God as mean. But what we forget is that this is not God our Father. Because we forget that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. Isaiah 55:8, and our ways are not His ways. He is totally different from anything I will ever encounter, because I have put so much between the world and my true self, whereas God has nothing between Himself and His world. What one sees is what one gets.  “I am Who am” as God told Moses to tell His people. In conjunction with this, is God Who is the creator, Who sent Jesus (Who is after all God, but He is the God made flesh) to create this Earth (Isaiah 45:6-18) .God and only God can build. God and only God can raise some one from the dead. And it is God and Jesus that hold the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Isaiah 29:18-25 and Col 2:1-3. And again and forever God is in control. (Isaiah 40:4-11) God is exalted above all.

Who Am I? : My relationship with God through prayer (part 14)

He has given me His Name as He has all His children (Ephesians 3:15). He calls me one of His precious sheep, as He does all those that believe in Him. (Ezekiel 34:15; John 10:16) Just as the sheep know their master’s voice, so I, being in Him, know Him in truth when He speaks to me. And as such, in His house, I must worship Him and treat all things in worship with reverence and holiness and with the attitude of quietness with my hands.

 

God will tell me what He truly desires through His son. Habbakkuk 2:14 says, “For the earth shall look to His knowledge and wisdom," That is how I know that so often “Jerusalem” mean the purity and spirituality that once existed there and not specifically the geographical location. After all, God is not going to sit on the throne in a physical Jerusalem, anymore than Christ was to come to earth with a heavenly army. The city itself is a concept, an idea where God is understood as this spirit and shall build a Holy City or rather has built one, which had incomparable splendor and protection from the Father. I will, along with the rest of the world who are touched by God, kneel down and become prostrate before Him. All for Him (Zep 2:11) and not for me although my spirit enjoys being conjoined to His.

Who am I: my relationship with God through prayer (part 13)

God makes my voice heard, when otherwise I would be prattle. God gives me joy when I am confronted by pictures of starving children, or hear that a dear relative has fallen victim to cancer. God is the author of this. (Is 38:14-19) And I pray that when I sin, for I will sin being human, that God is not so mad at me that all is lost. All I have loved is gone. My father, my brother perished years ago. But God goes on forever, and He makes the nights seem more comforting and the days more exuberant than I can even imagine. (Is 64:9-12) And then God has taken His infinite mercy and compassion and has turned from me because that is how I treated Him for so long. (Jer 14:19-21) And He only gives me at times that which I think I need but in fact is that which I want. I don’t want to obey Him, I want to fullfill my lusts, like Isreal wanted a king, when God and only God is king. (Jeremiah 32:16-32) And because I am greedy and don’t want to care for those around me. (Lamenations 5:19-22)

 

Who am I? My relationship with God through prayer (part 12)

How well I know that sin is a disease only God can cure! My sin of lust has led me to do many things that I perhaps would disdain and call evil, but I was at one point in my life (and can again be, given the right circumstances) caught up in them. God calls me righteous in spite of myself because my prayer allows me to communicate with Him and only Him, going into His throne room. God in the form of the Jehovah-Raphthe heals all wounds, especially those caused by sin. (Ps 38:1-20). And while I am in the midst of my struggle against this sin, and while I am being tempted and tried, and while I am falling from such heights, God gives me the strength and peace and will fill me with His truth, if I will only keep my focus and thoughts upon Him and His glory. Because of God and His great judgments and mercies, I can worship and be joyful in Him and praise Him and please Him, much as David in Psalms 43:1-5. And while those that are deceitful will try to pull me away with temptations, God will still save me if I maintain my focus on Him. (Psalm 38:20-22) It is not difficult asking for help when my enemies are those who do not believe. The rubber meets the road when people that worship with me are the same as those that hurt me. It is when those that call themselves my brothers and sisters spurn or criticize or ridicule me that my heart is really sore and that I come to realize that they do not realize what they are doing, much as I do not know what I am doing when I give into temptations. For you see meanness is a temptation to be selfish and narrow. And if I keep my focus still that God is forever and is faithful then this too shall pass, and my relationships will be enjoyable or at least I will find some enjoyable relationships elsewhere., because God knows I need those just to combat the one sin of thinking I am unlovable. (Psalm 55:1-17) I already know that some people will hate me, but that doesn’t bother me. There are those who mock my worship of God and frankly I don’t care. God alone is worthy of my thoughts and prayers and He alone has the power to overcome my enemies, no matter who they are. (Ps 56:1-13)