Isaiah 30:18 And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgement: blessed are all they that wait for him.
In the passage before Today’s Bit, Isaiah was chewing out the people of Israel for being rebellious and disobedient. The same can be said about us today. Isn’t it funny how History keeps on repeating itself, because we don’t pay attention to what’s gone on before us? Anyway, right in the middle of bawling out the Israelites, Isaiah suddenly changed gears and proclaimed that the Lord would wait, He would show patience, because He longs to be gracious to His children, even though they may be disobedient and unworthy. That’s the kind of God, He is; patient and long suffering. He wants nothing more than to shower us with His compassion and mercy. But for that to happen, we’ve got to come back to Him: praise Him; exalt His Holy Name; obey His commandments; follow His rules, of which there are only two basic ones; LOVE Him and LOVE our neighbour. If we do those two things, everything else will fall into place. But it seems that we get so wrapped up in all His goodness and mercy and all that generous stuff, that we tend to forget He is also a God of judgement. He will not let us carry on, be rebellious and disobedient forever. At some stage of the game He is going to get tired of our unholy shenanigans and mete out the appropriate justice. Sorry Friends, appropriate might be the wrong choice of word, because if He ever really dished out what we deserved…hn! We would really be in it. A more suitable term might be merciful justice. Like a good judge, he clothes His justice with mercy. And Isaiah ends by saying, blessed are all those who wait for Him. That’s our cue: we need to be patient too; we need to search for Him, seek Him out wherever He or us might be, we need to pay attention to His Holy Spirit that lives and works in us, and bide our time obediently, until whenever He is ready to reward us. Friends, we all know that it is not an easy path to tread, but if we do as He says, then He has promised that we’ll be all right. Much LOVE…Be strong in the faith…Salvation Day will make it all worthwhile!
In the passage before Today’s Bit, Isaiah was chewing out the people of Israel for being rebellious and disobedient. The same can be said about us today. Isn’t it funny how History keeps on repeating itself, because we don’t pay attention to what’s gone on before us? Anyway, right in the middle of bawling out the Israelites, Isaiah suddenly changed gears and proclaimed that the Lord would wait, He would show patience, because He longs to be gracious to His children, even though they may be disobedient and unworthy. That’s the kind of God, He is; patient and long suffering. He wants nothing more than to shower us with His compassion and mercy. But for that to happen, we’ve got to come back to Him: praise Him; exalt His Holy Name; obey His commandments; follow His rules, of which there are only two basic ones; LOVE Him and LOVE our neighbour. If we do those two things, everything else will fall into place. But it seems that we get so wrapped up in all His goodness and mercy and all that generous stuff, that we tend to forget He is also a God of judgement. He will not let us carry on, be rebellious and disobedient forever. At some stage of the game He is going to get tired of our unholy shenanigans and mete out the appropriate justice. Sorry Friends, appropriate might be the wrong choice of word, because if He ever really dished out what we deserved…hn! We would really be in it. A more suitable term might be merciful justice. Like a good judge, he clothes His justice with mercy. And Isaiah ends by saying, blessed are all those who wait for Him. That’s our cue: we need to be patient too; we need to search for Him, seek Him out wherever He or us might be, we need to pay attention to His Holy Spirit that lives and works in us, and bide our time obediently, until whenever He is ready to reward us. Friends, we all know that it is not an easy path to tread, but if we do as He says, then He has promised that we’ll be all right. Much LOVE…Be strong in the faith…Salvation Day will make it all worthwhile!
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