A home is not built with wood, brick and nails alone, but by wisdom, understanding and knowledge. Its furnishings may be fashionable, but your home won’t be filled with beautiful riches without the Author of Wisdom at its center. You may think that a refi of your mortgage or redoing your kitchen will bring happiness to your house, but what you really need is the Lord as your home’s architect.
The apostle Paul believed that God had not only saved him by the gospel, but He had called him to be its servant, declaring it to all. This is not a call unique to Paul, or even to “ministers,” but to all who believe and are saved by the gospel’s power. We are all “made ministers” of the gospel when we receive it!
We cannot earn or work for salvation, but having received it as a gift of God’s grace, we are called to walk out that which God is working in us. In doing this we become God’s masterpiece (“workmanship” – Greek: poiema). We become God’s poem.
Isaiah reminds us of the temporal nature of this world compared to the eternal constant of God’s Word. Starting every day with reading and meditating on Scripture lifts our eyes from the fleeting to the fulfillment. For the beauty of creation is just a foreshadowing of God’s coming kingdom.
Do not dig up in doubt what you planted in faith! As the Apostle Paul said, “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” (1 Cor. 3:6). Or as the Lord told Haggai, “Be strong, do the work, and do not fear,” and leave the results up to God!
Our liberty in Christ is not license to sin. Receiving His righteousness we have been set free from the external law written on stone tablets and received the Spirit of the law written internally on our hearts. We are not called to legalism but to love. We are not under law, but under grace. Yet, this freedom is not to dabble in sin, but it is freedom to serve God and one another. As Victor Frankl once wrote of America, “Our statue of LIBERTY on the East Coast should be supplemented by a statue of RESPONSIBILITY on the West Coast.”
After the Assyrians had conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel, they sought to overthrow Judah as well. In response, Judah asked for help from Egypt. God spoke through Isaiah rebuking Judah for trusting Egypt rather than God for their deliverance. In His mercy, He offered salvation to those who would return and find rest in Him. He offered strength to those who would trust Him with quiet faith. Who or what are you trusting for your deliverance?
David was a king and a warrior, he waited on no one, but God alone. What are you waiting on today? Find a quiet place where you can get alone with God and wait on Him to speak to you through His Word.
013 – May 20th through September 17, 2013 – Justin Norden managed our OYB site during my summer sabbatical.
After numbering the ways the Lord had blessed him, the psalmist considered how he might respond. What would be appropriate? How do you repay the One who gives us all? The apostle Paul’s response seems best: Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice (Rom.12.1). In other words, we render all that we have, all that we are, all that we think, all that we say, all that we sing, all that we own, all that we love… to God!