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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“Present your case,” says the Lord. “Set forth
your arguments,” says Jacob’s King.
“Tell us, you idols, what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come, tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.”
“But you are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless; whoever chooses you is detestable.”
“I have stirred up one from the north, and he
comes—one from the rising sun who calls on My name. He treads on rulers as if
they were mortar, as if he were a potter treading the clay.”
“Who told of this from the beginning, so we
could know, or beforehand, so we could say, ‘He was right’?”
“No one told of this, no one foretold it, no one heard any words from you.”
“I was the first to tell Zion, ‘Look, here they are!’ I gave to Jerusalem a messenger of good news. I look but there is no one—no one among the gods to give counsel, no one to give answer when I ask them.”
“See, they are all false! Their deeds amount to nothing; their images are but wind and confusion.”
Isaiah 41:21-29
This ends this
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
What do you place your faith in?
With whom does your hope lie?
There’s any number of answers to
the question and if you did a poll, I am sure you would see a variety of
responses.
Some people would place their faith
and hope in their work. Others might put it in a person close to them like a
partner or a parent or a mentor or close friend. Still others may trust
themselves more than anything else in life. You may find people believing more
in their wealth and possessions than anything else, investing their time and
energy in things that are fleeting and unenduring. And then there are some
people who place their belief in the predictions of others who claim to know
the future like fortune tellers and those who pen horoscopes.
Yes, our world gives us no shortage
of things to place our confidence in and reliance on. The problem is that none
of them are true things to believe in. They only lead us to a worthless faith.
Such was the problem of the Old
Testament Israelites, many of who chose to place their faith and hope in the
false gods of other peoples who dwelled in the land with them. In other words,
they chose to turn their backs on the One who had chosen them to be His people,
the Lord God Almighty.
Sadly, we’re more and more doing
likewise today.
As we look back into the closing
verses of Isaiah, Chapter 41, we see God mockingly call out to gods He knew
would never answer because those gods never existed in the first place except
in the minds of the people who believed in them. He demands them to present
their case and predict what was going to occur, bringing the people to dismay
and fear, so all could trust that they were true gods.
But nothing came because, as God knew before He
asked, the false gods were “less than nothing”, their works “utterly worthless”,
and their deeds leading to nothing because they never existed to be able to
accomplish anything to include giving God counsel or answers to the questions
He asked.
This is what people chose to turn from God to
believe in, things that were less than nothing, utterly useless, and
non-existent. It’s little wonder that He was less than happy about that. Think
about it. He was God, the only God, the Creator and Master of all things, the
God who had displayed His infinite power over and over and over again to His
people, the God through which all things were possible.
And yet, His people decided to follow something
else and they are repeating the mistakes of the past this very moment, more
than 2,000 years later.
It’s little wonder that God would call anyone
who placed their hope in worthless objects of faith detestable. I mean, is
there anything we could do that is more insulting than turning from the God who
made us, our priceless and precious Maker and Redeemer and Protector?
I can’t think of anything.
Friends, why do we place our faith,
trust, and hope in anything or anyone outside of the Lord God Almighty? Why
would we even consider it for a single moment?
Today is the day we need to make a
stand against anything that would draw our faith and trust away from the Lord.
Today is the day we need to turn from worthless faith toward a hope that is
perfect and never ending. For when we place our faith, hope, and trust in God,
He leads us to His Son Jesus, and when we see Him as the Savior that God
provided to give us hope not just today but forever, we will never want to
place our belief in anything or anyone else because we would have already found
all that we need in Him to be satisfied and edified now and forever.
Amen.
In
Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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