-Devotion by Tom Siderius (MI)
Isaiah 37:1-7(NLT)When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on burlap and went into the Temple of the LORD. 2 And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and the leading priests, all dressed in burlap, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3 They told him, “This is what King Hezekiah says: Today is a day of trouble, insults, and disgrace. It is like when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver the baby. 4 But perhaps the LORD your God has heard the Assyrian chief of staff, sent by the king to defy the living God, and will punish him for his words. Oh, pray for those of us who are left!”
5 After King Hezekiah’s officials delivered the king’s message to Isaiah, 6 the prophet replied, “Say to your master, ‘This is what the LORD says: Do not be disturbed by this blasphemous speech against me from the Assyrian king’s messengers. 7 Listen! I myself will move against him, and the king will receive a message that he is needed at home. So he will return to his land, where I will have him killed with a sword.’”
Psalms 116:6-8(NLT) The LORD protects those of childlike faith;
I was facing death, and he saved me.
7 Let my soul be at rest again,
for the LORD has been good to me.
8 He has saved me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.
Our subject today is that of our faith. We use the word “faith” very freely here in the United States, in the churches here, but I do not know that we always realize the full measure of what the word means. We tell each other to have faith or greet each other with the word faithful but often it is very shallow in its meaning. We need to examine what Hezekiah does in the face of an overwhelming army and disaster from Sennacherib the king of Assyria.
Where does Hezekiah turn? And what does he petition God for in his message to Isaiah?
The word “faith” in Hebrew in the Old Testament comes from the Hebrew word “emunah” which gives us two other words of “faithfulness” and the word “Amen” which means “full agreement”. The word faith in the Hebrew gives a meaning of action and movement in our lives. We do not only have faith in God, but we should live out our faith in God.
Habakkuk 2:4(NKJV) Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.
We cannot separate our intellectual understanding of the Words of God from action about them in our lives. We may agree with what the Word says in our minds, but this is just a mental assent intellectually that the Word is true. When we truly believe the Words of God then we will live out our lives in accordance with what they say, we will live by our faith.
You do not merely think that you have faith, you should walk it, breathe it, make it your own. This is our relational trust in the truth of what God says to us in all of life. We show what we believe by what we do in our lives. Do you put your full trust in our God? Or do we secretly in our hearts not fully believe His Words?
Look at our father Abraham in Genesis where God tells him to go to a new land where God will bless him and give him land and descendants. Did he live out his life with full agreement of what God told him to do? The central theme of Abraham is that we are saved by our faith, and not our meager works of righteousness.
Galatians 3:6-7(NLT) In the same way, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” 7 The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God.
Our salvation in Christ comes from putting our full trust of our lives in the truth that God saves us because He wanted to do it. God is our Savior in the sense that He is the author of salvation for us. Jesus Christ is the agent of salvation for us because he is how God did the saving of us.
Our faith must stand in this truth, that God so loved us that He sent Jesus to be the payment for you and for me. We have no works of righteousness that we can do to save us. We should be morally good, and strive for virtue in our lives, but this is a response to the saving grace we have received, not a means of gaining eternal life. What a wonderful truth for us to see.
Do we rejoice in our hearts over the love and grace that God has given each of us? Where are our joy and rejoicing?
We should get so excited by God’s love and relationship with us that we will live out the grace that he has called us to. We also are proud to call Jesus Christ our brother and Savior, ready to tell any man or woman about what God has done for all of us.
1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;
The evil kingdom of this world lies to us and tells us that we are helpless, hopeless, broken, and worthless. The kingdom of God within us tells us that we are loved, cared for, restored to life, and valuable children of the God who created the heavens and the earth. All that happens to us in life must be seen through the reality of this conflict between the two kingdoms. Do not be deceived by the Adversary and his lies.
2 Peter 1:2-4(NKJV) Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
We have exceedingly great and precious promises through Christ who brings us to God. We need to give our hearts fully to God who called us and saved us for His own purposes.
What has God called you to do? What are the works of righteousness that God has prepared for you to do?
Ephesians 2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
The good works of our lives that we do for God are the ones that He has prepared for us to do. This is acting out our lives with the full agreement that Jesus is our guide, showing us the way to go and lighting the path for our lives. We need to trust that God has us by the hand guiding our thoughts and our lives towards Him because He loves us.
This trust does not easily grow because we want to be the ones in charge of our own lives and hearts. We want to be the god of our lives and have control of everything. But we need to ask how well does that work out?
Are you a success by your own efforts, or do you need the Father to show the way to walk?
John 20:30-31 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
We have confidence in our God because we have the history of His faithfulness to His own promises to read about and understand. When we see God being faithful, it gives us the confidence to let Him guide our thoughts and lives, and not to take back our hearts from Him.
Romans 15:4-6(NKJV) For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. 5 Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we see that God is able and willing to do all that He has promised in the past, then we will have confidence, meaning, hope and salvation in this world and the promise of life in His kingdom to come.
Reflection Questions above in bold TExt
Prayer:
Father God, we love You and praise You from our hearts. We are so thankful for all You have done to save us and bring us to You, Father. We thank you for the bread of our need this day, and the promise of our future life in Your kingdom. Help us to change our hearts and give us the steadfastness of Your love to keep us firm in our lives. We pray this in the name of our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ.
Seek Grow Love 