3-8-2023

Good Morning All,

        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 has to 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 has to 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 pretty 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 has to 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.  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