The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this: “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts. [Isaiah 57.15]
Not enough can be said for the importance of a repentant heart.
With all that Isaiah prophesied about the Suffering Servant - the explicit prophecy about Jesus - the great anguish He suffered for our benefit - with all that, unless we, by faith, believe on Him, we will realize none of the benefit He died for.
It all starts with a humble and contrite spirit. His suffering was our fault. His suffering was our fault both individually and corporately (as humanity).
But, oh, the blessings of every kind promised to those who believe!
So... then, if the blessings are not there, what does that mean? It means I am not believing, doesn't it? No, of course we don't want to admit it, but it is true.
Our society, and sadly more specifically our Christian society, has so watered down the Word of God and its teaching that we have quite literally made our religion "idol worship." Why do I say this? Because Isaiah (among other OT prophets), chided the people for forming their own gods of wood and stone who were powerless to do anything! And, that sounds amazingly similar to the watered-down version of God we have made Him out to be in teaching that He no longer does miracles. We teach that faith is just more of a feeling rather than something that will move mountains (like Jesus said it would).
Yes, our worship of God looks to the world no different than Israel's ancient worship of idols - NO POWER!
And far too many religious leaders today defend this powerlessness and refuse to declare the message of the Kingdom declared by Jesus, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"
We need, not only to truly repent for our contribution to the demise of the "Suffering Servant", Jesus, Whom Isaiah prophesied about, but we also need to repent for not walking in the blessings of genuine faith in Him!
We just need to REPENT and remain REPENTANT!
I am not preaching condemnation! I am pointing out the condemnation that we ourselves have embraced by not repenting! Our lack of repentance is our embrace of every curse written in Deuteronomy 28!
May God help us to open our eyes and see this!
Father, I further see the need for repentance today. Oh God, please forgive me for calling evil good and good evil by my powerless life of so-called faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment