I know my definition of love needs radical revision!
Here come the prophets "boiled over with what they had seen: dreadful terrors and unimaginable beauty. They spoke to change our understanding of love to what it needs to be if we're to know that God loves us, no matter what we are going through. He's doing us good right now...He is powerful enough to remove every block to holiness so we can be happy." 66 LL That's why there is rest in sorrow...a friend just sent me an e-mail tonight and it was not "good news" for her family with a brain and lung cancer diagnosis. Her take on it was: "Joy is often wedded to sorrow and peace often accentuated through pain."
Isaiah 1:1 - The vision:
God Himself had children and raised them well and they turned on Him.Running here and there, doing this and that— walked off and never really came back but thought they were okay. "No matter what is happening to you, your worst problem is in you. And that problem is not how badly you feel, it is how poorly you love. Your failure to love Me above all else and to love others at any cost to yourself defines your unholiness. When you recognize your unholiness and own it without excuse, your ears will be opened to hear My words of comfort and hope. And those words will set you on the narrow road to relating with holy love." Oh! God! Would you open our ears through conviction of sin in reading the words of Isaiah. Woe is me. Please reveal your Love to "win our day."
I ask you to make these words sink so deep into each of our weathered souls. It's all about journey not solutions. Sentiments. "Lying in a cancer ward or worried about a troubled child or mourning a loved one's death or feeling alone and insecure (all of which I have experienced) tends to take the focus off holiness and put it on solutions. Especially when life is tough, love is assumed to mean someone else's cooperation with our agenda to feel satisfied, full, happy, complete." Oh my word. Woe is me. Would you speak to us from Isaiah's words.
Isaiah 1:13 Quit your worship charades. I can't stand your trivial religious games: meetings, meetings, meetings.I'm sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning... Clean up your act. Isaiah 3:1 The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, is emptying Jerusalem and Judah of all the basic necessities like preachers.
Isaiah 3:26 - A city long ago, a person typing these words both brought to their knees by their sorrows.
Here come the prophets "boiled over with what they had seen: dreadful terrors and unimaginable beauty. They spoke to change our understanding of love to what it needs to be if we're to know that God loves us, no matter what we are going through. He's doing us good right now...He is powerful enough to remove every block to holiness so we can be happy." 66 LL That's why there is rest in sorrow...a friend just sent me an e-mail tonight and it was not "good news" for her family with a brain and lung cancer diagnosis. Her take on it was: "Joy is often wedded to sorrow and peace often accentuated through pain."
Isaiah 1:1 - The vision:
God Himself had children and raised them well and they turned on Him.
I ask you to make these words sink so deep into each of our weathered souls. It's all about journey not solutions. Sentiments. "Lying in a cancer ward or worried about a troubled child or mourning a loved one's death or feeling alone and insecure (all of which I have experienced) tends to take the focus off holiness and put it on solutions. Especially when life is tough, love is assumed to mean someone else's cooperation with our agenda to feel satisfied, full, happy, complete." Oh my word. Woe is me. Would you speak to us from Isaiah's words.
Isaiah 1:13 Quit your worship charades. I can't stand your trivial religious games: meetings, meetings, meetings.
Isaiah 3:26 - A city long ago, a person typing these words both brought to their knees by their sorrows.
Bev,
ReplyDeleteYour comment "its all about journeys not solutions" I read this morning as soon as I finished my devotional in My Utmost For His Highest. So GOD speaking to me...to us..
July 28th.
AFTER OBEDIENCE - WHAT?
And straightway He constrained His disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side. . . ." Mark 6:45-52
We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as God's purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end.
What is my dream of God's purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process - that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God.
God's training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we get wrong when we think of the afterwards. What men call training and preparation, God calls the end.
God's end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present: if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious.
Blessings today friends as we embrace the "today" in our journey to healing and wholeness with LOVE(Our King of Kings) being our SOLUTION...
Donna Hazelwood
Bev, what insight your friend has been given within her most difficult news-she waits knowing even in the direst places, God has some joys and peace awaiting. Much of what spoke to you also gives me a lot to process today.
ReplyDeleteI'm a mess this morning, feeling very hypocritical reading His Word and even saying a single word here. My love is such a flimsy dependent type, my whole sin lies in my lack of love.
"You've worn me out! I'm sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning ...Clean up your act!" I'm kind of sick of myself, too, right now. Going through the motions and yet my heart is not right. And this sweet morning, God meets me right where I am: my blood-red sins will be washed clean like snow, if I will obey, make the walk match the talk, drop the prideful liviing, and run to God.
Here is my amazing Rescuer, the God of the Angel Armies ready to set it all right again. Whether it's the whole country of Israel or a single wayward heart: "I'll give you the back of my hand,purge the junk from your life, clean you up. I'll set honest judges and wise counselors among you just like it was back in the beginning. Then you'll be renamed
City-That-Treats-People-Right, the True-Blue City." God's right ways will put Zion right again." How I need to purge the junk from my life right now.
"Come, family of Jacob, let's live in the light of God."
I'm praying that with you, Bev. I am here in the book of Isaiah.
ReplyDeleteWill I listen to God's plea?
I want to, Lord. It is my heart's cry right now, to just look over the madness of this world and stand tall enough to catch Your Eye. I want to be Your Handmaiden. I want to simply watch for every movement You make so that I can attend to You.
Loving God, You plead. I respond. What do You want from me today, Lord? I am clay in Your Hands.
Humbly seeking relationship...through Christ...by the Spirit. That is my prayer today.
If I could spend time with anyone, it would be these prophets. I would rather KNOW God than be blessed. These prophets were GIANTS in a world of depravity.
I still don't understand Isaiah 4:1. Speak understanding to my heart, Spirit of God. I would rather be a sober-minded prophet than a rock star any day.
"I had children and raised them well, and they turned on me."
Don't let me turn on You, God.
Will you please read my blog and pray for me? Thank you, my precious pearls!
ReplyDeleteInteresting post! thank you for sharing this information. covertocoverchronologically.blogspot.com really got under my
ReplyDelete[url=http://nuscin-online.info]skin,[/url] bookmarked... Keep up the great site...