This morning, I was reading the Verse of the Day from the YouVersion Bible app which was taken from Isaiah, and it said “…learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” (Isaiah 1:17). This is the desire of God for the world He created, He wants to see His kingdom come and His will be done (Matthew 6:10); He wants to see the oppressed, the vulnerable, the fatherless and the widow being taken care of. I could not help but see how loving He is and to think that He wants to partner with us to enact His purposes on this earth is mind-blowing. This verse reminded me of the character of God and of the reason I exist and was redeemed as a child of God. As followers of Jesus, we often forget the reason we obey or follow God’s commands and that often leads to legalism. However, we need to remember that “we love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19) and that goes for anything we do as Christians. It is because Christ has done it first that we are able to do it as well. We are simply emulating Jesus and carrying the fragrance of God on this earth. This week, I would like to remind us of the heart of God, His love for the world and His people.
When we become regenerated (2 Corinthians 5:17), that is a new creature in Christ (a person who has confessed his or her sins, turned away from them and believed on Jesus as their Lord and saviour), we get to encounter the highest expression of the love of God that there is. At salvation, we see a just God who loved sinners to the point of punishing His perfect, innocent One and only son for the sake of those sinners. At the cross, the righteousness of Christ was exchanged with the filth of all sinners carried by Jesus and that is why for the first time in history, the Father turned His back on His own son. In turn, the son endured separation for the sake of undeserving sinners like you and me. We did not merit the love of God because all we did was rebelling against Him, indeed even our righteous deeds were like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), but thanks be to God who loved us so much. Because He is love, He sent His son so that no one would perish but would have life (John 3:16). I don’t know that we ponder enough on the attributes of God such as His love. That is why when we face trials, our first instinct is to return to our vomit (Proverbs 26:11), it is to default to fear, sin or insert any old habits that you were rescued from in Christ. When we sing about the characters of God, or when we read about them, we do it in passing, in a hurry and we do not do so repeatedly enough for the truth of the words to dwell in us richly, hence we do not know our God as much. I fear that we have become too accustomed to the instantaneity of our world, too accustomed to ease and the constant availability of resources to the point that we take for granted knowing God. We think that we will always have the word of God at our fingertips, we think we will always be able to search for a scripture or ask AI about what we want to know and so we don’t think it necessary to ponder about the One we claim to love and who He is.
Unfortunately, we have become so lazy as a generation it is scary. In addition to our laziness, there is the selfishness and love of self we exhibit and make the norm. Is it any wonder that we do not take the time to meditate upon who God is? Is it any wonder that we follow the commands of God by sheer duty instead of out of love? Sometimes I wonder if we understand what Jesus’s sacrifice cost and what he truly did for us. Obviously, there is a sense in which we will never fully grasp what he did for us, but do we even ponder upon these things? I think about the establishment of the Lord Supper Jesus told us to do in remembrance of him, how often do we truly do it in remembrance of him? My point in raising these questions is not to point fingers at you as I am in the same boat, however, my goal is to get you to know the LORD or at least seek to know the LORD, the lover of your soul. He created you in advance before the world existed for good works (Ephesians 2:10). He saved you so that your life would be a blessing to many; He saved you so that you would glorify Him in all that you do; He saved you so that you would know freedom and freedom from above; He saved you so that you would know what love is. It is for this reason that I love the Psalms, because they were written to grow our affections for Christ. The Psalms always bring us to a point of pondering upon what the LORD has done. They allow us to sing of the character of God: His love, His justice, His goodness, His omnipotence, His faithfulness and more. The Psalms also stir our hearts to pray and give us words to use as prayers prompts when we do not have words of our own. The Psalms teach us about repetition and the idea that it is good to proclaim the LORD’s attributes over and over and over again. Our generation is afraid of pausing, afraid of silence, afraid of breaks but the LORD is calling for our attention amid the plethora of distractions we have today. Do you know your God? Are you learning about this great God we serve? God promised us that if we seek Him, we shall find Him when we seek Him with all of our heart (Jeremiah 29:13). The key word there is seeking with our heart, not partially but fully. Just as He has revealed His heart to us in His words, and in the sacrifice of Jesus, He expects nothing less that our hearts, wholesome and willing. We have a great promise so let us draw near Him.
When I read the verse from Isaiah 1:17 in the morning, I immediately thought of the heart of God and of His goodness for us. This reminded me that I serve an awesome God who is worthy to be praised because there is none like Him. I was amazed at the care of God, at the fact that He thinks about those we overlook. This realisation reminded me of whose I am and of the reason why my life is no longer my own. It gave me joy and a deeper appreciation for the One who loved me and gave himself up for me (Galatians 2:20). I pray the LORD continues to grow our affections for Him as we seek to know Him and obey Him in everything we do, not as a duty but as an outpouring of our gratitude. Amen!
A Word Aptly Spoken 