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A word of hope for everyone

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Image credit: Ian Greig

What assurance can we find that things will turn out OK?

People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears, He will answer you.

Isaiah 30:19 NIV

The good news is that we can do this… and we can also do it on behalf of those of us who are not yet confident.

THIS IS a clear promise of hope. It is about us having confidence in God’s goodness. His willingness to treat us better than we deserve — to be gracious — is spelt out.

But who does this promise apply to?

We may not be of Jewish extraction, and almost certainly not living in Jerusalem.

But if we have believed and trusted Jesus, we ARE the people of God. Isaiah’s words were spoken first to his own people, long before Jesus was born, but they span the centuries. We, as believers, have become part of that promise.

This word of promise does come with a couple of conditions.

One is to belong to God. We do this through trusting Jesus and receiving Him into our hearts as our Saviour and Lord. It is a choice we make, not a dedication others make in church which we do not participate in. It’s a decision that costs us our independence, but it gives us new life which is the start of eternal life. And that new life gives us a relationship with God! That relationship gives us confidence to talk to Him.

That’s hope. Confidence in Him, confidence in being heard, confidence in His goodness.

The ‘asking’ condition is also in there.

“How gracious He will be when you cry for help!”

v.19 NIV

The “when” of “cry for help” means that faith in God, believing in His goodness and generosity, is needed. If we know Him we have confidence in Him. Add to confidence, believing Him, and taking Him at His word — and things begin to look a lot better.

There are two things there, and not everyone finds them easy. Belonging to God may only take an instant, but it is a big decision that might take a bit of working through!

Similarly, the asking is second nature to those who know Him, but others finding their way into that relationship might need a steer. We can all remember needing someone to start us off, to stand in the gap for us.

And that’s the role of a priest — acting as an intermediary: representing us to God, and representing God to us. Now, the interesting question is, who these days are the priests?

The faith of being a disciple of Jesus doesn’t have priests. All that stopped when the Temple was destroyed, in fact it became obsolete when Jesus was crucified. There was an earthquake and a darkness like an eclipse, and the thick curtain in the temple that divided off the Holy of Holies was ripped apart from top to bottom.

God was showing that in Jesus, that separation has ended. All believers in Jesus can know God personally.

So the faith that follows Jesus either doesn’t have priests — or, in another view, it has literally billions of them. Every true believer, in fact. The Bible describes believers as living stones of a new kind of temple, and as royal priests of a new kind of priesthood where Jesus is the Great High Priest. We all have that duty to represent God to those who don’t know Him, and bring them and their needs before God until they can do it themselves.

Our verse said: “He will be gracious if you ask for help… He will respond to the sound of your cries.”

So, as those who know Jesus we exercise our priesthood by giving a lead, praying the kingdom of God over all our neighbours, family and friends until we can get them doing it for themselves.

This is for us, ordinary believers, with no titles, no robes and no special distinction. We are just those who love the Lord because we know His love, and who call to Him every day and know His answer. This is what Jeremiah foretold:

“Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

Jeremiah 33:3 NIV

And as Jesus said:

“In that day you will no longer ask Me anything. Very truly I tell you, My Father will give you whatever you ask in My name.”

John 16:23 NIV

We go through Jesus to talk to Father God. We can ask Him to help us. And we ask for that help, for others we are helping to find their way into the kingdom.

LINK

For a suggested prayer based on this verse, go over to this page on http://glowweobley.com

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Pleasing people or facing unpopularity? 1 of 3

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Image credit: Ian Greig

Jeremiah’s dilemma

Jeremiah 20:8 and 10-11, 13

“..The word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long… All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, ‘Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will… take our revenge on him’. But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior, so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail… Give praise to the Lord! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked!”

THOUGHT

Politicians live in the tension of opinion polls and election results, trying to represent everyone and also attempting to keep the voters on-side…

Someone of my acquaintance who has a somewhat prophetic dimension to his ministry wrote recently under the heading “Is the Lord telling us we don’t need church buildings any more?”

His point was about the good lessons and new focus on being Christians in the community that has come  through the present restrictions. To go back to the former routine with no lessons learned, no new practices gained, would be a tragedy, he suggests. Not a popular message!

I heard today on the radio a minister  – or ‘priest’ – of one of the more formal traditions explaining that the church building was consecrated with ‘a golden thread’ and was where the reserved sacrament and so the presence of  the Lord was to be found. A special place, essential, and so permission to return was vital.

I am more of a marketplace person. My experience has been that a ‘holy person’ performing ‘holy actions’ in a ‘holy building’ can present quite a barrier  — well, three barriers in fact — to people who don’t feel for all sorts of reasons, that they belong there!

Added to which I have been hearing the Lord say, for a couple of years now, “I am doing a new thing…”. So to go back to buildings and formality and exclusivity and access through another person doesn’t seem to me to be “a new thing” at all.

This will be an unwelcome line of argument for many who find peace and solace in a historic place of worship (as I have on many occasions). And it may appear threatening to those whose identity is bound up in the role and the building. So this is inviting the insult and reproach that came to Jeremiah.

Most of us are not politicians or even public figures, but we still want to be people-pleasers. We want people to like us, and agree with us. We are shy of conflict.

But sometimes the Lord puts a word on our heart ((1 Corinthians 14:1, 29-30)) which is not the popular view. It may not be ‘politically correct’ or within the current ‘woke’ way of looking at the world. It might not be right… but if it is, if it is a word from the Lord, what do we do with it?

You may not see yourself as a preacher or a writer but you are still a person of influence within your own circle. Possibly even more so at times of tension and risk and lockdown. And what the Lord has impressed on you, in your quiet times and reading the Word, may not be  the obvious ways to ‘win friends and influence people’, even if you have the wisdom to share it humbly and in a loving way.

Like Jeremiah, we are responsible for being faithful to what  we know to be true, or what we understand to be our hearing of God’s truth of the moment.

Jeremiah said (v.9) “His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones – I am weary of holding it in. Indeed, I cannot!” And  then we will find ourselves, as Jesus said in the same context but much later on, “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me [but]… whoever loses their life for My sake will find it.” ((Matthew 10:38-39))

To be born again ((John 3:7-8)) is losing one’s life – the old life. And there are facets of that old life, like being popular with everyone, that might need to die some more. When we lay down what matters to us, we pick up the kingdom life ((John 3:3, 5)) of what matters to God. That kingdom life, we find, is a pearl of great price ((Matthew 13:45-46)), worth paying for in other ways..