General

The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Isaiah 58:11 NIV

In the middle of a chapter which is all about cause and consequence, “if” leading to “then”, this verse stands out as a promise. A gracious promise, a ‘given’ without any requirement on our part.

And it is true — there are countless stories told about how, looking back, God’s providential guidance was working in someone’s life. They didn’t have any real and personal faith (it often comes later) and they don’t remember praying. Yet the signposts appeared for them.

There is much more guidance going on, than we ever give thanks for.

But it starts with the Lord. The whole premise of what is promised is that the Lord does the guiding and the refreshing. This is His hand in our lives, not fate or fortune, not chaos or chance. And as we recognise that He is both ‘for us’, and ‘there for us’, we pause our busy lives and turn to Him. And find Him.

The good news is that the Bible here is saying that God is constantly guiding us and enabling us to grow. And the even more good news that it implies, is that in the moment we praise Him for who He is and thank Him for being there for us, we can ask for more. We can be guided more certainly — because we are now seeking, and listening, and expecting, and discovering that there is a partnership.

It will not be long into this journey of discovery that we encounter Jesus. Who is He? God’s unique Son who took on the flesh and blood form of living like one of us but doing it perfectly and lovingly. We may explore the Bible and read that Jesus is the perfect representation of God — as He taught Himself, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father”.

Jesus holds out an offer to us, not just guidance in this confusing life with all its burdens and difficulties. He offers to take that weight away, saying that His burden — what He requires from us — is not a heavy religious framework but a relationship that is light and comfortable by comparison.

By believing and trusting Him, our sense of divine guidance becomes a new start into life with a spiritual dimension — a life that goes on and on and grows in depth of experience.

It starts by receiving the simple truth the Bible gives us: “The Lord will guide you always…”

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For reference:
Isaiah 58
John 14:9 and context
Matthew 11:27-29
Hebrews 1:3
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It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand firm for Christ. He has commissioned us, and He has identified us as His own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first instalment that guarantees everything He has promised us.

2 Corinthians 1:21-22 NLT

Becoming a Christian is a transition, to a new identity and a new life stretching on into eternity — and a new belonging, a new sense of ownership.

Paul described it as being Christ’s slave. That doesn’t sound appealing to our ears, but some bond servants were well treated and looked after.

A previous generation knew about being “in service” as a career option. To be such a servant in the grand residence of one of the aristocracy was as close as we get to that sense of ownership. This was the age of duty, and personal freedoms came second to serving the needs of the household. But to “belong” had its own security, together with the honour by association of being identified with a high-ranking family.

It was the age of duty in another way. Many people did a spell in one of the armed forces. This kind of service was respected. There was a discipline and the needs of the service came first — as is still the case for a posting in the Royal Navy, assigned to a ship for three years and at sea for nine months at a time. However, the uniform spoke of both the duty of belonging and the honour of belonging.

On making the decision to make Christ our Lord, we are given a uniform that identifies us as belonging to Him. That is part of our spiritual authority — the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the helmet of salvation. Paul used the picture of a Roman legionary that was familiar to people of that time. The uniform cannot be seen with human eyes, but it is plain as a pikestaff in the connected spiritual realm. We have no rank and no title on earth, but we are championed by every angel in heaven and feared by every demon belonging to the devil’s dark realm.

Christians also recognise fellow Christians. There is a spiritual bond, a one-ness in Christ, that celebrates our belonging to Christ, never mind what stream or denomination or worship preference we hold at the time. Christian unity and fellowship flows across man-made party lines.

He anointed us, set His seal of ownership on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit.

That seal of ownership cannot be described or pictured, but it is real in another way that every born-again Christian can recognise. This is the fellowship, the koinonia so valued in the early church and also the communion we celebrate in sharing bread and wine — belonging to each other because we belong to Christ.

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Psalm 118:1-2
Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good — His love endures for ever. Let Israel [those who know Him] say: “His love endures for ever.”

What’s the message here?

We have clear ideas about whether people are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, usually based on their behaviour and treatment of others. We say that so-and-so who is generous and forbearing is ‘good-hearted’ or if we don’t always agree with them, ‘not a bad person’. If they are ‘bad’ we are more reluctant to say why — there is a natural desire not to judge — but it comes down to a perception of unfairness, not being trustworthy, and harsh. Therefore ‘not a good person to be around’.

Our Father is off any human scale for being good-hearted and generous. This is what He is like:
Exodus 34:6-7 NIV
And [the LORD] passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

The Bible words in His own description (unlike our own self-descriptions, entirely accurate!) are: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, merciful love, faithfulness, slow to anger, forgiving.

But what about judgment? Judging actions are in there, too.

To us, a ‘bad’ person is one who quickly forms a judgment about us, probably I’ll-founded and unfair. Whereas a ‘good’ person, in our terms, accepts us as we are.

God clearly does judge — His holiness demands a separation with no blurring of the lines between what is in accord with His values, and what would seek to overturn them. But it is not a snap judgment, not even a timely judgment of a situation; the LORD is “slow to anger”, which means He is reluctant to come to that judgment because the person may yet turn and change — which is where the vitally important “forgiving” of our wickedness, rebellion and sin comes in.

God’s presumption, or preferred view, is the forgiving one. There must be judgment because without it, there is no distinction, no separation and therefore no holiness. But it is a slo judgment, with many breaks and deferrals built in. It is set in a context of His unconditional love, which always looks for reasons to forgive, to be compassionate and to graciously treat us better than we deserve.

Most religions are about finding actions which will appease deities who are fickle and hard to please, not one who want to forgive and find ways to show unconditional love. Religions are about finding ways to satisfy conditions.
The alternative is not a different religion, but a relationship with a God who is disposed to see what we can be, even when we fail, and whose whole disposition is forgiving — because He wants a cause relationship with us, for His own pleasure. God is not hard to please — we are not good at living for Him, and relating to Him, but the reality is, He is “slow” and hard to anger

• What’s the good news?

God has made a way for any one of us to know Him through His Son Jesus, who showed what God looked like in human form. We come to God and know His abounding love, through accepting Jesus and what Jesus has done out of His love for us, to make us right with God.

• What’s the take-away here?

1. Is Jesus for us the hold-up and the barrier — or the way and the gate as He said? That’s probably about our pride, which resents having to rely on what someone else has done. So confront that pride and say ‘yes’ to Jesus!
2. Do we need God’s love or are we self-sufficient? We tend to find what we are looking for!