GIVING GOD NO OTHER CHOICE

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“Listen to this, you descendants of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel and come from the line of Judah, you who take oaths in the name of the Lord and invoke the God of Israel—but not in truth or righteousness—you who call yourselves citizens of the holy city and claim to rely on the God of Israel—the Lord Almighty is His name:”

“I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass. For I knew how stubborn you were; your neck muscles were iron, your forehead was bronze. Therefore I told you these things long ago; before they happened I announced them to you so that you could not say, ‘My images brought them about; my wooden image and metal god ordained them.’ You have heard these things; look at them all. Will you not admit them?”

“From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you. They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today. So you cannot say, ‘Yes, I knew of them.’ You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ears have not been open. Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth. For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath; for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you, so as not to destroy you completely. See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another.”

Isaiah 48:1-11

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

As we study the Book of Isaiah, the writing is on the proverbial wall. Judgment is coming on the southern kingdom of Judah just as it had come on the northern kingdom prior. Jerusalem, the holy city of the Lord where His temple was located, would be laid to waste. The people of Judah and Jerusalem would be taken away, hauled off to a foreign land where they would remain for seventy years under the rule and oppression of the Babylonians. Such was their punishment for the sins they had committed against God, especially the worship of idols and false gods.

The message from God is clear. He said He was a jealous God and would not tolerate any other gods placed before Him and He meant it (Exodus 20:3-4). We would be well served in our lives to not allow anything of this world to draw our worship and adoration away from the Lord who deserves all of it.

The sad part of this is that the Israelites were just aware of God’s commandments and expectations as we are today. And yet, they still chose to disregard and disrespect the God who made them and blessed them so richly.

In other words, they gave the Lord no other choice than to discipline them.

Unfortunately, as we read the opening eleven verses from the 48th chapter of Isaiah, we find that the Lord knew His people all too well. After all, He knows everything about us and is able to peer into our hearts and minds so that nothing is ever concealed from His sight. Nothing is hidden. In the case of the Israelites, the Lord knew their tendency for stubbornly chasing after their own desires, opting for disobedient sinfulness over the righteousness He expected. They took oaths in the name of the Lord but were not committed to fulfilling them. Their lives were built on a foundation of falsehood and abandonment when it came to following the principles of God. They left God with no other choice than to invoke His discipline.

Unfortunately, the Lord had foretold what was to come long before they happened. Don’t think that when He issues His commandments through Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 20) that He didn’t already know His people would break them. Judgment would come and He would be the architect of that judgment, not an idol or wooden image or metal god. He said it but His people had not listened. They had closed their ears to God because they were more interested in hearing the things they wanted to hear, things that dragged them away into the kind of evil that spawned God’s anger and consequences. They had a choice between sin and righteousness. They chose sin and thus gave God no other choice than to respond with punishment.

Are our ears open today? Are we listening to the Lord as He speaks to us through this devotion? Are we going to repeat the mistakes of the people of Israel and give God no other choice than to send His reprimand and retribution upon us? Or are we going to honor Him with everything we do, hungering and thirsting for His righteousness in our lives as we turn away from the sinful temptations of this world?

Friends, we have a choice. We can opt to live in God’s favor, pleasing Him with all that we think, say, and do. Or we can consciously defame and violate Him, His will, and His way, giving Him no other choice than to rebuke and judge us.

God on the other hand, only looks at one option and that is our absolute surrendering to Him. He is not going to compromise nor should He. He is God, the Maker and Master of all. All creation is to submit to Him. Period.

Let’s do what is right always by allowing the Lord to lead us there and give Him no other choice but to rejoice in the beauty of our respect, reverence, and obedience.

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