Steve and I are starting a new year in Bible Study Fellowship, studying one of my favorite books ever, Isaiah. The closer it gets the more excited I am. We have not done a structured Bible study together since the one where we met!
I was thinking this morning on why I've loved Isaiah so much ever since I first read it. Its main themes match the over-arching themes of the Bible: the rebellion of Gods people and His anger, judgement and mercy towards them. Being a thoroughly stubborn person myself, I really identify with Isreal when God calls them "an obstinate people" and says that their neck is made of iron and their forehead of brass. This is an accurate picture of how I am naturally, without God's grace.
Knowing the awful kind of person that I am without Jesus makes me so passionate and excited about these parts of Scripture--the parts about God's mercy on a stubborn people. It's just too awesome that God allows me to see the other side--the part that He plays when His people rebel. Part of it is awful judgement, but the other is the mercy.
Psalm 107 is a little like a condensed version of Isaiah. I ran across that it when I was 15 or so, and it struck me then, and still does now, because it lays out four awful people and their situations and shows what God does to change them. It makes me so happy because each one of the rebellious people described is me. They are what I look like without God, confused and in sad circumstances, brought on by rebellion. And each one is rescued in a different way by God's mercy. They have ashes and He makes beauty out of them!
And knowing that He is my God, too, and does for me what He did for them, and gives me beauty for my ashes, is the most amazing thing in my life and it is what I try to live under. It is easy for me to forget, by being caught up in the moments of living and stress, but the ultimate fact of my life is Gods mercy. I can never stop being so touched and so excited by it.
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