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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.
“This is what the Lord says to His
anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of. I will raise up Cyrus in My
righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and
set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the Lord Almighty.”
Isaiah 45:1a,
13
This ends this
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
When the Lord needs something done,
He takes action. There’s little doubt about that.
How He goes about it takes one of
two forms.
The first one is obvious. The Lord
acts on His own. After all, He is the Lord, omnipotent, omniscient, and
omnipresent. No one is more powerful, no one is present everywhere, and no one
possesses the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding that He does. No one.
The Lord is without rival and He
has assured us that there is nothing beyond the work of His hands. We would be
well served to remember this as we go through the difficulties and challenges
of life.
Given this, it’s a wonder that
there is any other second option. I mean, if the Lord God Almighty can do all
things and has no equal, why would any other way be needed? But as we see in
our scripture passage for today, the Lord is a master delegator who places
trust In His people to carry out His purposes:
“This is what the Lord says to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand
I take hold of. I will raise up Cyrus in My righteousness: I will make all his
ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a
price or reward, says the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 45:1a, 13
In this case, the Lord wanted to
overthrow the Babylonian empire and replace it with the Persians who, under the
leadership of King Cyrus, would facilitate the return of the people of Israel
to Jerusalem and Judah after a seventy year exile. The Lord could have done
this without the help of the Persians. He has certainly shown before that He
can act on His own against a mighty empire as seen in the early part of Exodus
and His actions against the Egyptians to free His people from their oppression.
But as we look at these verses from
Isaiah, we see the Lord say the following words:
“I will raise up Cyrus in My righteousness: I will make his ways straight.”
The Lord chose Cyrus and the
Persians to carry out His work, raising them up and making their way straight
to accomplish what He purposed them to do. They would indeed come up against
and defeat the Babylonians and Cyrus would then allow the Israelites to return
to Jerusalem to begin the rebuilding process.
In other words, when God raises us
up in His righteousness and purposes us for something, He sees us through until
His will is completed. Period. For the Lord’s plan never fails and it is always
perfectly crafted and carried out, even when He chooses to use imperfect people
like us to do it.
Friends, will you join me in
rejoicing today for the Lord doesn’t choose to simply do His work separate from
us. Rather, He so chooses to partner with flawed sinner like you and me to
achieve His kingdom work here on earth.
Truly, truly, we serve an amazing
Lord!
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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