For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord.
Isaiah 55:8 My community is protected by a volunteer fire department. If a member of that department went around setting houses on fire so that people would see the value of the department, or so that they could look good by putting them out, I doubt that anyone would be very happy with him. That makes sense, doesn’t it? But that seems to be the attitude many Christians have toward horrible things that happen in the world. They say that God did it because He is teaching us something, or that He wants to bring Him the problem and then be praised for solving it. When you point out that this idea does not make any sense the answer is often the verse from Isaiah. There are at least two important lessons to be gained from this. Context The first is that it is absolutely critical to know and understand the context of a verse. Chapter 55 starts with God telling us to come to Him and buy food and water when we have no money! Can this have any meaning other than grace? The chapter continues with this theme and concludes 13 verses later with a description of God’s provision as evidence of His unbreakable promise of eternal salvation. In this context verse 8 is about how God’s generosity completely surpasses anything we experience in this world! For example, when God forgives He forgives completely and does not even remember that He did it! Verse 8 is a powerful confirmation of God’s love, forgiveness and acceptance. Keep in mind that chapter 55 opens with God telling us to come to Him and that the entire chapter is telling us to trust Him. Distorting verse 8 to mean that we cannot understand God or what He is doing is the exact opposite message from what God is actually saying because this wrong interpretation puts up a barrier between us and God. Barriers Relationships are built on a foundation of trust. Learning to trust that God loves us is one of the first steps we take in building our relationship with Him. If God were to express His love for us by doing something we consider horrible, like giving us cancer or killing our loved ones, it would be very difficult to learn to trust Him. Shrugging our shoulders and saying “His ways are not my ways” does nothing to encourage a deeper relationship. And make no mistake about the depth of the relationship God wants with us. It is described in Jesus’ prayer recorded in John 17: 1-26. It is an incredible relationship with God that no one would believe is possible if Jesus had not prayed for it. The same idea that we are in Christ and Christ is in us runs through Paul’s epistles. Comprehending this truth and identifying ourselves in this way can be considered the definition of Christian growth. Bridges Growth in a relationship means building on the foundation of trust by learning lots of new things about the other person. Peter encourages us in 2 Peter 3:18 to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”. Remember that verse 8 from Isaiah tells us that God’s love is like nothing else we have experienced, which means that we have plenty of room to grow. A correct understanding of verse 8 lines up perfectly with what Paul writes in Ephesians 1:19 where he says that he wants us to know the “immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe”. This is the same idea of God’s great love and provision for us expressed by Isaiah some 700 years earlier. Both writers give many remarkable affirmations of God’s love for us and repeatedly encourage us to turn to Him for all of our needs in every situation! Comfort He is, after all, the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)! We just need to turn to Him to receive this comfort, but that’s hard to do if we think He has afflicted us in the first place. This barrier has to be broken down, and for some of us this begins by putting Isaiah 55:8 into context and gaining a correct understanding. Let’s go back to the opening idea. What if everyone in the community knew one of the members of the volunteer fire department was setting houses on fire? People might still call them, but I’ll bet they would keep a close eye on them to make sure they don’t steal anything while putting the fire out. There would be no trust in the relationship between the community and the department. If this simple human example makes sense, why can’t we apply it to God?
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November 2019
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