Isaiah 59:1;
“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear
dull, that it cannot hear;”
If you watch any type of movie or TV show
which is an action show, there is usually a time when someone is hanging precariously,
and the hero or heroine must reach down and grab onto them before they
fall. The good guys are always saved;
the bad guys are about fifty-fifty.
Indiana Jones dropped Elsa in “The Last Crusade.” James Bond drops a lot
of bad guys in his movies. Arnold
Schwarzenegger always saved the girl (ironic).
It might be on a mountain or a tall building, usually burning, out of an
airplane; but someone must be snatched from death while holding on by their
fingertips.
The hero reaches down and pulls us to
safety. That is a good way to read this
verse. You and I can find ourselves in a
real fine mess and we do it fairly regularly.
It starts when we are very young, usually just starting to talk. One of the first phrases we utter is,” I do
it myself!!” and from then on, our rebellion is verbally expressed along with
our actions. We want to be
autonomous. Now we may think that this
is a good thing, where we are self-reliant and stand on our own two feet; but
the word autonomous is the combination of two Greek words; “auto” meaning self
and “nomos” meaning law. So, the word
autonomous means self- law or self-policing or that we set our own law. We know how well that works out. It never does.
When we set our own law, we soon have no law,
and we are a lawless people. We look out
only for ourselves and do not care about others. We think we have all the answers to life’s troubles
and soon we are hanging from the ledge of that tall building and our fingers
are slipping. We can see this often in
the struggle of a crumbling relationship.
We create laws but only those which the other guy must obey. We set standards for other people’s
actions. We call it love but it is
really lust. Lust looks inward to our
own personal satisfaction and enjoyment.
It does not care about the other person.
It only looks at, “what is in it for me?” It doesn’t take long for a relationship to
begin to crumble in this circumstance.
Even our relationship with God can succumb to this.
Fortunately, God is by nature a loving
God. He is always reaching down to
us. He never lets us drop even though
that is exactly what we deserve. He grabs
our hand and pulls us to safety. Even in
the din of utter destruction, he hears our cries, our pleas for help. God rescues us. No matter how many times we are wounded and
beaten up because of our own choices, our autonomous behavior; God chooses to
rescue us because He loves us. He
allowed his only Son to die a gruesome death just to show you that this is how
much he loves you. God rescues us so
that we can learn from his grace. That
through his grace we may see that living according to God’s will is what keeps
us safe and keeps us secure and gives us a life worth living. When we live according to God’s will, we
never end up hanging from a ledge. We
are always safe in his gentle arms.
Dear Father, far too often we head off in
our own direction and we soon find ourselves in a very precarious
situation. Forgive and pull us to safety
in your loving arms. Guard us and
protect us from all that would tempt us.
In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen
God’s
Peace,
Pastor
Bret
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