A BLESSED REWARD

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In Christ, Mark

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

“For I, the Lord love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness I will reward My people and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

Isaiah 61:8-9

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

We serve a God of second chances.

I hope you know that in your life because when we have erred in living the way God wants us to (aka sinned), we find forgiveness, pardon, grace, and mercy when we come before God and confess our wrongs. Out of His infinite fairness and justice, God, even though He may discipline us for our transgressions, will eventually restore us to a place where we can make good on the mistakes of the past.

It really is a blessed reward when you think about it.

Indeed, God does not wish to condemn us forever. We see it in the body of our scripture passage for today in His dealings with His chosen people of Israel and we see it today through the salvation offer He puts before us through His Son, the Savior Jesus Christ. Let me break down both for you.

In the matter of the Israelites, they had grown into a people who no longer respected or obeyed God’s commands. Perhaps this was no more evident than in their choosing to worship foreign gods and idols in direct violation of one of God’s first orders given, orders to not worship anything else other than Him. This blatant display of insolence angered God and brought on His judgment in the way of a seventy year exile to the land of Babylon, seventy years of isolation and oppression away from what was their homeland provided by the very God they slighted.

You see, there are negative consequences for our negative sinful actions. God will not be mocked.

But we also see the other side of God in our passage for today, the side that shows compassion and faithfulness toward His people, even when they have failed to show it to Him, the side that delivers and renews His people back into His favor with the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and begin anew. Look again at these words from Isaiah 61:

“For I, the Lord love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness I will reward My people and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”  Isaiah 61:8-9

Note here two fundamental truths about the character of the Lord we serve and worship: He loves justice and hates wrongdoing. His will for us is that we follow His ways so that we might always live upright and just. When we turn from His will toward our own or the world’s, we then have chosen wickedness over righteousness and that is never going to be acceptable to the Lord. Ever.

This is what got the Israelites in hot water but God, the just Lord that He is, did not wish for them to be punished forever. Instead, He would grant them a blessed reward, an opportunity for them to once again be great among the nations and viewed as a people who were set apart and favored by the Lord.

In other words, they would once again be His people again.

Fast forward to the 21st century. We haven’t learned much from the mistakes of the past, especially those of the Old Testament Israelites. We still willfully ignore God’s commands and choose the way of sin over righteousness. We deliberately decide to worship so many other things in life outside of God, who is relegated to just an afterthought at times if even thought of at all. And because of our propensity for iniquity, God still does not stand by idly while we violate His word and disrespect Him openly. He still sends His judgment upon His people as a penalty for their obstinate irreverence.

Remember, He hates wrongdoing.

But even today, God is a God of justice and goodness and empathy. He does not wish for any of us to perish from our sinful nature but rather wants us all to have a chance to be saved through His Son Jesus. Through Him, we not only find redemption and pardon but justification from the sins we have committed. Through the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world, we are washed clean of our sins so we will stand blameless before God on the coming judgment day. And on the day of His return, Jesus will show the world just how blessed all those are who chose to place their faith, hope, and trust in Him for they will be taken to the new earth and heavens to reside free from sin and pain and sickness and hardship with Jesus and God forever.

It will be the ultimate blessed reward and I pray you will be receiving it along with me and all others who placed their eternal hope in Jesus, the only One through which anyone can be saved.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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