Delusion or Delight in a Relational God?

There’s an abundance of examples displayed through others who seem to experience God relationally. But in practice, His relationability can often feel like a mystery.

What does having a relationship with Him really look like? How is it supposed to change our day-to-day life? It seems as many who claim a relationship with Him, not all reflect a life any different than anyone else.

So, why should we even care? When we think about a relationship with God, it starts with what we get out of the deal. We all have an innate desire to be loved and to love, we want to know and be known. Finding these desires fulfilled in a God who claims to answer all our needs and fulfill our longings is attractive to us.

God’s holiness and goodness existed before He created us. He didn’t need us to be those things. He doesn’t get holier because we worship Him. Or become more pure, good or loving because of the attention we give Him. God receives nothing from us but enjoyment of our enjoyment of Him.

He is endlessly explorable. Since we are the only one receiving anything, His goodness is endlessly available to us.

Things in this world bring us joy, but only shadow the primary source of it. The world can’t give more than the One who created it. While lesser joys of the world bring us additional joy, only He will give us what we need.

Because God didn’t create us for anything other than enjoyment of Him, it only makes sense that we would be innately needy of Him. We were created to need God.

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We don’t usually enjoy the word “needy.” It reveals our own weakness. Our continual search for meaning and purpose in our lives can only be found in Him. It’s on one hand relieving to hear there’s a reason why we were created but on the other hand frustratingly too simplistic. And it doesn’t seem to align with our day-to-day experience with God and in this world.

Sin disrupted how God intended us to fully experience Him, we live in a cruel and unfair world. Our daily lives are filled with betrayal, corruption and hurt. A relationship with God feels conceptual rather than tangible.

What if we’ve been searching for a relationship with Him, but our experience of Him is very different from the glamorized spiritual picture which is thrown in our faces? Where is this God who supposedly wants a relationship with us? We’re calling, but He’s not answering. Is He even there?

How can He be good if He created us to be needy only to leave us waiting endlessly for His reply? How can He be good if He’s silent when we need Him the most?

There’s many more “how can God be good if..” statements. But what if our comprehension of His goodness isn’t the evidence of it? What if His goodness stands outside of our existence?

And yet, our experience of Him remains the same. We’re still left wondering why He seems to be offering the world but isn’t there when we search for Him. It seems as if He’s dangling a treat in front of our faces while maliciously moving it further back as we grasp for it.

This feels malicious because if He’s the Creator of this universe, shouldn’t He be responsible with how He created us? It’s as if He created the problem and not the solution. If He created us so needy in a world so cruel and unfair, isn’t this unquestionably unjust?

I’ve agonized over these same seemingly incongruous ideologies about God.

In a very dark time in my life, I was desperate for God. Having spent the majority of my life in faithful service to Him, I’d slowly slipped away from my once close-knit relationship with Him. Alone, afraid and hopeless, I turned to Him in what felt like my darkest hour and was met with a deafening silence.

I wrote Him off that night. Not His existence, or even surprisingly His goodness. Instead, I deeply questioned and distrusted His goodness and love towards me specifically. He was fully God and fully good, but only certain people seemed to experience Him in this way. It felt like God was playing favorites and I couldn’t understand how to be one of them.

The next few years I spent in search of filling the void from my felt abandonment of God. Seeking life apart from Him, I found what Hell feels like. When I’d exhausted my own resources, I took my chance on Him again. Truthfully, God was my final resort.

My return came out of a need I hoped He’d fill, not out of a love for Him.

Instead of expectations for what I thought I was owed, I brought my hurt, sin and shame. I had nothing to offer. Slowly, I grew the desire to know Him, and not what He could do for me. A genuine desire to lean in and discover Him. The deeper I leaned in, the more I grew to actually enjoy Him.

Maybe some of us have been following God for many years, but have been struggling with what “delighting in Him” really looks like. We feel stuck in a habitual relationship with Him, wondering how we got here in the first place. After years of faithfulness, tensions are high as we begin questioning what God has been giving us in return.

Or perhaps, some of us are doubting God’s character. We’ve been searching for Him and are done waiting in the still silence. Who is He really? And why did He bother making us? We’ll have to make sense of the world without Him, we conclude. If we choose God, we may miss out on the freedom and joys of this world.

Either way, God feels like a gatekeeper to true fulfillment or a bystander to our pain. We all search for this belonging and purpose, but what if we’re spinning our wheels in the mud to find freedom, but when we’re only digging ourselves into what will hold us back from it?

More thoughts to follow.

Isaiah 55 Study: God Makes All Things New

“Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up,

And instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up,

And it will be a memorial to the Lord,

For an everlasting sign which will not be cut off.”

(Isaiah 55:13)

No matter what we’ve done, God can make all things beautiful. 

This final verse in Isaiah 55 paints a vivid picture: instead of thorns and thistles of sin in our life, God transforms us into thriving cypress and myrtles trees. When we choose to follow Christ over our sin, not only do we find peace and joy (vs. 12) – He makes us completely new (vs. 13).

Where We Came From

We can’t produce fruits on our own. Only God transforms our wasteland of thorns into a flourishing tree. When we allow sin to reign in our life it destroys good things and makes them harmful to us.

But what does it mean to let “sin reign in our life”?

Anything we choose to love more than God is sin. It’s not always obviously wrong. In fact, it’s often a very good thing. But every time we give into the desires of that sin, we feed it. As it grows in our life, it will eventually overwhelm our thoughts and desires until it owns us completely. 

If we desire to love people, but we choose to love them more than God - that good desire will turn sour in our lives. That desire will grow deeper and deeper within us. Suddenly, we’ll do anything at all in order to get what we want out of people. What began as a pure desire is now distorted.

What We Offer

This is what we have to offer God - our sin and our shame. Yet, He gladly takes us in and gives us a new life. He doesn’t make our thorns less prickly – He removes them by the root. He takes it out by the root and kills its power over us. 

While God removed the power of sin over our life, sin still has the opportunity to keep us from a close relationship with God. Sin wiggles its way back in, doing as much damage as it has power to do: to take our joy and peace.

But what happens when we let God be our object of worship and we fight against the desires that compete for our love and affection? He brings life to the death of sin in our lives. 

Where God Brings Us

We thrive. We grow. We become more like Him. We delight in Him and He delights in us. Slowly, we’ll find the joy and peace which comes in knowing Him closely. Even though the temptation of sin won’t be completely removed from us until we’re fully renewed in Heaven one day.

God brings beauty out of darkness, and He sets us apart as His. His children who He loves. The closer we become to Him, the more joy we’ll give Him and find for ourselves. 

When we choose God, the promise He’s made to us is fulfilled in us as His covenant. For all eternity, we’re His. We’re a testament to His redemption, a picture of His grace.

This verse has a lot of personal meaning for me. A few years back, I tattooed a tree on my forearm to symbolize this verse.

I chose death and sin over God time and time again. When I finally chose Him - He offered me life when all I could give was my debt of sin. But He brought me out of what was enslaving and destroying me and into a life with Him. 

Are you choosing death or life? What have you allowed in your life that is maybe overtaking you? You can either let death (sin) or life (God) produce in your life.

Which seed will you allow to grow in your life?

Isaiah 55 Study: What Lasting Joy Feels Like

“For you will go out with joy

And be led forth with peace;

The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you,

And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”

(Isaiah 55:12)

What does it really mean to thrive in a life with Christ? We hear it all the time in church. But it often feels like a mystical, pie-in-the-sky idea with no real substance.

Continuing our Isaiah 55 study, we see that all the previous verses lead up to this moment:

• An invitation to choose life abundantly with Him (vs. 1-2) 

• An extended invitation towards those previously unchosen (vs. 3-5)

• A call to choose God over lesser things because He’s ready to forgive (vs. 6-7)

• A reminder He’s infinitely better than we could imagine and worthy of our trust (vs. 8-11)

Verse 12 says, “for you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace.” Everything God is calling us to accumulate in this promise of fullest joy and deepest peace. This is what it means to accept the offer to live a “life abundantly" with Him. God reveals our need and how He alone can satisfy it beyond anything we could dream up. 

But remember - this is an invitation, not a given. The joy and peace God offers come to those who choose Him instead of settling for lesser things.

Sure, we can find joy and peace apart from Him, but it will never last or truly satisfy. We’ll be left wanting more and often feel more distraught than before. Our sorrow deepens when we see a taste of the joy and peace within reach but unable to fully grasp onto. 

Imagine having worked all day long without water or food. At the end of the day you’re presented with a feast - all the delicious foods you could want are right before you, free for the taking. You take one bit in, the juicy fruits and soft crunch of the bread make you sit back in your chair – finally. But as you reach for your drink, you blink – and it’s all gone. That first bite was your last, and you’re more hungry than before.

Life without God can give us moments of enjoyment, but never the full feast. We might grow used to it and even feel content with what we have - but Isaiah 55 invites us to experience more.  

Why is God different from other things we might enjoy in life? And how can He claim joy and peace in a world which operates in sin and injustice? 

Every good thing we enjoy in life is created by God - for our delight. He cared very deeply that we wouldn’t just live in freedom but to enjoy life. He gives us gifts purely for our joy.

But since we can see them and usually touch them, it’s easy to misuse them. We begin to expect those gifts to do what they weren’t made for - and they begin to break. 

People, animals, food, nature and possessions can bring joy - but they will never give us our identity. When we place our meaning and purpose in anything other than God, we start worshipping those things instead of Him. And when this happens, sin disrupts our lives.

Because sin is anything which keeps us from being with God - and what will give us what we want and need. 

God designed us to worship Him and enjoy His gifts - not the other way around. Asking a telephone to wash your face or a rock to feed you makes no sense. Until we recognize what we’re worshipping besides God, we’ll only find fragments of joy and peace.

We’re not alone. All creation joins in to worship God and find joy in Him: 

“The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you,

And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”

When we find our purpose in God, we get to join all creation in worship of Him. Like the lilies of the field, the horses on the hills, and the fish in the sea - we move in joy and find our rest in Him. 

What if we’ve been satisfied with very little? What if God has much more for us than what we’re currently accepted?

Isaiah 55 Study: God Hasn’t Forgotten About You

“So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;

It will not return to Me empty,

Without accomplishing what I desire,

And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”

(Isaiah 55:11)

Have you ever exaggerated while telling a story? Or said things that don’t really matter or have much use?

I’m sure we can all admit to either of those tendencies. It’s easy to talk, but not everything we say is productive. But that’s not the case with God.

In today’s verse, we’re learning about the power of God’s words. 

Every single word He’s spoken in Spirit and Word is productive: it produces something. Not only that, it produces precisely what He planned from the beginning.

That should make us all do a double-take at our Bibles. God has told us plainly what He will do - and it will happen. Imagine that was true for you and me, everything we said would happen.

That might be a terrifying thought. We don’t always have good intentions. We’re angry and say things we regret or speak when we should be listening. These aren’t our greatest moments and we like to forget that side of us exists.

But that isn’t true of God: what He says will happen. And His intentions are always pure, loving and good.

Some of His promises He’s already fulfilled in our life and we don’t always see it, while others are yet to come.

What does this make you feel? Excited? Maybe, scared? 

Our response to this truth reveals what we feel about God. If we don’t believe He’s fully good, we won’t trust Him. So, when we hear all His promises - they fall flat on us. If we believe Him to be true that His words will come to pass, that may terrify us because we don’t believe Him to be really good or loving. Or maybe we don’t believe Him at all, and His promises sound as empty as the answers to our prayers we used to throw at Him.

If He can’t be for us what we need now, how can we expect Him to come through for future things? I get this line of thinking, I’ve been there myself. Many years of crying out to Him, seemingly with no response. 

I believed that if He was good, it was only to those “other people” – not for me. While resisting Him, I pushed Him away. Since He didn’t answer my prayers in the way and timing that I wanted, I didn’t trust Him.

Years later, I realized all the ways He was protecting and loving me from afar. I thought He left me, but He there all along. 

Truthfully, I still struggle with what He’s doing now. I still have moments when I want to scream at Him asking Him “why?” I don’t understand a lot of what He does and the timing in which He does it. 

What changed for me was my realization of His character. He is patient when I demand Him to answer my prayers in my ways. He’s gracious when I leave Him and come crawling back. He waits for me, even when it hurts Him, while I look for other things to satisfy me.

But He’s always there. He never changes. He is the same today as He was yesterday. 

When we know God to be true to His character, Him accomplishing what He set out to do should be very good news to us. It assures us that no matter how long, difficult and unjust this world can be - He remains the same. 

He’s promised many good things to those who choose to follow Him. Here’s just a few examples:

He will never leave you – “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

He will give you peace – “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast.” (Isaiah 26:3)

He will guide you – “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.” (Psalm 32:8)

He will strengthen you – “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” (Isaiah 40:31)

He will provide for you – “My God will meet all your needs according to His riches.” (Philippians 4:19)

He will return for His people – “I will come back and take you to be with Me.” (John 14:3)

He will forgive you – “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us.” (1 John 1:9)

He will make all things new – “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5)

When we feel He’s too preoccupied or has forgotten about us, these truths remind us that He will do what He’s promised to do. He cannot lie, it’s against His character. 

Maybe, He hasn’t left us afterall. Perhaps, we’ve stopped looking for Him.

How can we learn about His character if we never take the time to discover Him?

Isaiah 55 Study: God Cares About Your Growth

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

and do not return there without watering the earth

and making it bear and sprout,

and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;”

(Isaiah 55:10)

Have you ever felt like God is more concerned about pointing out your sin than anything else? This verse gets into the reason behind His interest in our sin. 

We’re back at it in our Isaiah 55 study series. We’ve just covered how the “Heavens are higher than the earth” (vs 9), displaying the magnitude of God's grace He extends toward us. It far surpasses our comprehension of it. But verse 10 digs a little further when it mentions the Heavens again - but this time in reference to how He sustains us.

God cares about our growth. He doesn’t just want us to live obedient lives, but to be thriving. He doesn’t just want us to stop doing things that are sin against Him because He needs our obedience. Repentance shouldn’t just pull us back to where we were before - it should move us towards growth in Him.

In fact, God doesn’t need anything from us at all. Not even our worship, He already has all of creation giving Him praise. He needs nothing to make Him more glorious, good or loving. He’s all those things without us. He doesn’t need us to be God - He just is.

What He gives us is purely for our own benefit. He gets enjoyment out of our enjoyment of Him. And we can't enjoy Him if we’re still enjoying sin.

We can’t grow if we’re resisting repentance. Because we’re holding onto something which can never give us life - only a reflection of it. We’ll always be grasping for more if we choose God’s things over God Himself for fulfillment or meaning. We’ll only find that meaning when we’re able to grow.  

How We Grow

Let’s unpack this verse a little more, because it’s loaded with meaning.

It gives us an analogy of a garden being replenished by rain and snow. Humanity is in the garden, and our completed growth in the garden symbolizes the end of life on earth as we know it. The rain and snow help to soften our hearts in order to grow, which is done through the Bible. 

Deuteronomy 32:2 is among many comparisons in the Bible between rain and God’s Word. It says, “Let my teaching drop as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, as the droplets on the fresh grass and as the showers on the herb.”

God’s Word gives us growth. We’re given both God’s Word and His Spirit to learn more about Him. The more we know who created us, the more purpose we find in our own lives. If we don’t know the fabric we’re made out of, how can we realize our identity? 

Snow is different from rain -  in gardening,  its purpose is to preserve the roots during wintertime. During extreme cold weather, snow compacts on vegetation in order to protect it. When Spring arrives, it releases a spring of fresh water. Snow helps preserve God’s word into our lives until the right season for growth. 

I love how incredibly relatable the Bible is. Just as in a garden, our own lives go through seasons of bitter cold we need protection from. God has provided us with a way to be protected so we’re not destroyed,  even when we're frozen in our trials.

But we can’t expect this to happen if we never open up our Bibles. Life will have beautiful days and horrible ones. If we’re constantly caught by surprise by what’s happening around us, our sorrow will only increase. God doesn’t want that for you and me. He wants us to grow and thrive in Him. 

As He’s reminded us in earlier verses, He’s higher than the earth. He’s bigger than anything we might face here on earth. 

He knows you’ll face loss, so He wants to be your comfort. 
He knows you’ll face betrayal, so He wants to be your constant friend.

He knows you’ll face shame, so He wants to show you compassion. 

He knows you’ll face the unknown, so He wants to sit with you through it and remind you who is in control.

He knows and He cares. And He’s worth trusting. 

Do you feel like you’re doing a lot of things but not really growing in your love towards God? He wants more of you. He doesn’t want your actions, He wants your heart. 

What might we be missing from life that can be found in Him? 

Isaiah 55 Study: When God’s Plan Feels Unreachable

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. - Isaiah 55:9

Have you ever read verses like that and walked away wondering if God was just trying to rub in our faces how much better He was than us? 

But notice where it’s placed. It follows directly after verse 7c-8a: 

“For He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts.” 

This isn’t coming out of nowhere. It reminds us of how far exceeding His goodness and grace is to us in respect to how we’ve sinned against Him. 

We’re now in verse 9 in our Isaiah study, continuing the thought from last week’s comparison on our thoughts and ways to God’s. 

God pardons our sin far beyond what we could possibly comprehend. Yet, even when we say we believe this, we often live as though we still need to earn His forgiveness. Or as if we’re somehow owed it based on something we did. 

But in reality, it’s not what we do to deserve His grace. When He forgives our insurmountable debt, it’s because of who He is and the purity of His character.

Psalm 103:11 draws another similar parallel:

“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.”

This verse isn’t meant to intimidate us into obedience because of the grandeur of Heaven or God’s majesty - though it certainly could. It’s meant to remind us of a love so vast we can only begin to imagine it. And that kind of love demands a response: we can lean into the love or ignore it all together.

We see glimpses of God’s love everyday. Through the beauty of the mountains and seas. Through the waves of lilies across a field. Through the breath in our lungs All of it reflects His life-giving presence. This passage invites us to draw near - to receive more.

What God offers is more than we could ever give. And He's offering it for free. 

What hesitates us from accepting this? Usually, it’s us. 

We either think we don’t need Him because: 

1. We’re self-sufficient. We do well enough on our own. We follow the rules, so we feel we’re entitled to good gifts God offers. But we don’t need all of Him, just enough of Him to make us feel spiritually sufficient. We do things to get things from Him - our relationship is contractional rather than relational. 

2. We’re beyond His grace. We believe we’ve done enough in life to where we won’t ever reach that impossible moral standard we see modeled in our first group. It’s too high and we know that. God must not realize how bad we are, His grace is insufficient. We’ll live this out by succumbing to our morally low standard for ourselves and eventually find ourselves looking for another source of comfort and identity which makes us feel better. 

Either way, we’re believing lies about God’s character - deciding He’s not good enough. Shame consumes us and covers the truth about who God is. But verses like Isaiah 55:9 remind us that it’s got nothing to do with us. It’s all in the character of God which allows us to come freely into His loving grace and choose Him. 

He knew exactly what He was getting into when He made us. He knew we’d resist Him, pretend He wasn’t there, reject Him, and mock Him. And yet, He’s too good to be affected by anything we could possibly attempt to mess up. 

His ways far outreach ours. Even if we tangle the threads, He weaves all eternity into His pure goodness. 

Think for a moment: what if we stopped spinning our wheels trying to be “good enough”? What if He’s been good enough all along?

The more we explore His goodness, the more we’ll see His strength within us and the less we’ll be overwhelmed by our own shortcomings. 

Isaiah 55 Study: Trusting God’s Higher Ways

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. - Isaiah 55:8

I don’t think any human on earth enjoys feeling limited. And yet, this is exactly what Isaiah 55:8 speaks to.  

We’re making our way through Isaiah 55, this week we’re on verse 8. It carries forward the thought from verse 7, where the prophet Isaiah is pleading on behalf to forsake our ways and thoughts and return to the Lord.

Let’s pause and see how our ways and thoughts differ from God’s. It’s common to believe ourselves to be good while peering down our noses on God’s supposed goodness. If we don’t understand it, we immediately distrust Him. 

There’s nothing wrong with trusting something we don’t understand, right? It’s funny, we do this and yet we don’t even fully understand ourselves and yet we are predisposed to trust in our own thoughts. 

We’re all out here just trying to live our best lives, be generally good people and make a difference in our corner of the world. So, why does the Bible and Christianity keep pressing in on our flawed existence? 

Let’s look at who God is and then we can see how it compares to us. When God created the world, He knew what He was doing. He knew His perfectly crafted creations would - once given autonomy - attempt to destroy themselves. Sin entered the world when humans chose beautiful, good things that God created over their Creator. And we can’t even blame Adam and Eve for starting this sin train, because we continue to do the same every day.

He is the source of all life and He’s created lovely things around us to point toward His beauty. And while He created these beautiful things for our enjoyment, He knew they would only give us a taste of life whereas He could offer life itself. 

Since all humanity is made in God’s image, we’re reflections of Him. We have knowledge, but only a reflection of His. We have a finite glimpse into the present, past, and future whereas God has the fully expanded view. He knew every one of us before He even started crafting the world into existence.

This is what is meant when Isaiah 55:8 says, “my thoughts are not yours…” We simply don’t have the capacity within our limited selves. If we don’t come to this conclusion on our own, we’ll keep living like we do in fact know more than Him. We may do outwardly Christianly things, but inwardly we trust our gut more than God. 

It’s easy to swing to the other extreme and live in such self-loathing that it appears humble and hyper-spiritual. Notice this passage doesn’t focus on the death of our ways but rather the life in His.

Being made in the image of God means we will always have the choice to choose a limitless God in a limited world. And that’s meant to empower us to go out, confident in the world knowing we’ve chosen the source of life instead of mists of temporal pleasures. 

It is impossible to understand our need for God if we think we know more than Him. But this is exactly what makes the Isaiah 55 invitation so beautiful. It’s an invitation which was extended towards us, despite what we have done (verse 7). 

But He gives each of us a choice - we can choose Him or not. 

When we choose to find our identity and satisfaction in people or in the beautiful things God created, we’ve limited ourselves. I wonder what life we could find when we look to Him who knows all things?

Isaiah 55 Study: Leaving Sin Behind, Finding God’s Compassion

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. - Isaiah 55:7

Today, sin is talked about commonly in two ways: it’s either glorified or used as a tool for spiritual abuse. Neither is Biblical.

So, what are we missing?

We’re continuing our verse-by-verse study of Isaiah 55. Picking up from verse 6, we now reach the second part of what it means to seek or call upon God: leave your sin behind — because God is worth it.

Forsake: What Does it Really Mean? 

First, let’s zoom in on the Hebrew word for forsake: ʿăzab – to turn away from, abandon or leave behind. This doesn’t just mean that we stop something. It means we leave it behind to begin something different. 

But it’s even stronger than that: we turn in a new direction. We aren’t just drifting from sin; we’re deliberately facing another way. We are abandoning it. Forsaking is not glancing over our shoulders — it’s choosing to turn our heads and walk forward without looking back. 

This verse calls us to forsake two things: our ways and our thoughts. 

Why Forsake Our Way?

Forsaking our way means turning away from what we’re naturally drawn towards: sin. We can’t abandon something while still holding onto it. True forsaking means we can’t hold onto our idols while claiming to seek God. We leave our sin in the dust when we turn to Him. 

→ Side bar on “wicked” and “unrighteous”: these aren’t terms reserved for “really bad people.” They refer to anyone who hasn’t received God’s righteousness. That includes all of us, apart from Christ. We are all in need of God. Christians don’t live in our own goodness, we’re covered in His. 

It’s precisely in recognizing our lack of righteousness that leads us to return to God. We won’t come to Him if we think we’re fine without Him. 

This verse doesn’t just ask us to admit we’ve sinned, but it calls us to leave it. C.H. Spurgen puts it like this, “It does not say, ‘Let him own that his way is bad.’ … The wicked may know that their way is sinful—but they must give it up.”

Another translation for “way” is journey. Everyone is on a path – either toward life with Christ or toward death in our sins. God asks us to turn around and walk toward Him. We aren’t able to walk in opposing directions. 

Which means it isn’t just what we’re doing, but what we’re thinking that we have to change. 

Why Forsake Our Thoughts?

Let’s not get this confused — God isn’t asking us not to think. He very much wants us to use our brains. Afterall, He created us with them so that we could use them. 

But our thoughts often become our actions. What we dream of can show us what we ultimately worship. It only makes sense that God would want our thoughts to turn away from sin too. Our view of God impacts how we see the world, ourselves and others. In the following two verses, we’ll tease this out more. 

God is asking us to forsake our ways and our thoughts, doesn’t that seem controlling of Him? But He won’t ask us to abandon something that is good for us. He wants the very best for us.

When we empty our lives of our idols, He’ll carefully refill us with His presence. Timothy Keller shares the hope in this way, “Repentance becomes the pathway to life, not a burdensome duty.”

God’s Compassion on Us

If you’ve followed along for a while, you know I often quote Isaiah 30:18. It’s worth repeating again here: 

Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him. - Isaiah 30:18

He is waiting for us to accept our need for Him, so that like a doting Father He can shower His love on us. Despite our sin-bent selves, He delights in us.

God doesn’t need us to fulfill Him. As a Triune God, He lacks nothing. His goodness and Deity doesn’t change based on our acceptance of Him. He invites us into His love so we can share and delight in Him. 

Sin is Difficult to Leave

Our sin often doesn’t feel bad. If we don’t see the beauty in who God is, He will appear a needy, greedy god who demands us to give up all our toys and freedom. 

But the truth is, sin it steals from us — our peace, independence, joy, and fulfillment. Sin entangles itself as a gnarly thornbush, climbing up the walls of our hearts. It blinds us with short-cuts to joy, which will never satisfy. 

But what if God is offering us more – so much more? Could we let go of what sin is holding us back from and break free towards the person God created us to be?

I wonder what potential God sees in us. I know for a fact it’s far greater than any life we’ve dreamed up on our own.

Will you drop your sin and reach for more with God? 

Isaiah 55 Study: Call Upon Him While He Is Near

Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. - Isaiah 55:6

We’re continuing our verse-by-verse study of Isaiah 55. In verses 1-5, God invites not just Israel but all nations, all who thirst, to come and eat what is good. That is, anyone who is continual emptiness, seeking what only He can truly satisfy. 

Verse 6 marks a shift – a personal appeal from God to Israel, filled with urgency: seek Him now. His covenant promise is extended, but it requires a response. We must move toward Him. 

When the Bible repeats something, it’s never random – it’s intentional. Here in verse 6, God says the same thing two ways: “Seek the Lord” and “call upon Him.” This repetition emphasizes our role in the covenant – we must respond.

It’s impossible to know God if we don't interact with Him, or be close if we never take the time to learn about Him. So, how do we seek Him? 

How Do We Seek the Lord?

The word “seek” (darash in Hebrew) specifically references searching in prayer and worship. This isn’t a prayer tossed in the wind out of frustration –  “where are You, God?” This kind of seeking is joined in prayer. And the truth is, we can’t worship two things at once.

What we worship is what we seek for our satisfaction. When we’re thirsty, spiritually, emotionally or physically, we run to whatever or whoever we worship the most to satisfy our needs. 

How Do We Call Upon God?

The second half of the verse uses another Hebrew word: qara – meaning to summon a person. Here, we’re not just generally reaching; we’re summoning God personally. He is the object of our call.

We get to summon God – and He hears us. That’s not insignificant. In fact, it’s life changing if we let it be.

It’s not as though we have to summon Him because otherwise He wouldn’t be there. Psalm 145:18 describes God as being near to us, “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.” But notice the words added here — repeated as well — the emphasis to call upon Him in truth. He’s not a god we’ve imagined in our minds – one we can control or manipulate. He is the Truth. We must seek Him as He is, not as we imagine Him to be. We must search for Him in His truth, not ours. 

In prayer and worship, we personally summon God. But we see repeated phrases, “while He may be found” and “while He is near”, implying an urgency to this plea. Our time is limited and one day won’t have the option to call upon Him. 

When Can God Be Found?

It’s unsettling to see the words “while” here. It points to our limitation. Time is not endless. And while we push Him away time and again, He is patient. He gives us more grace than we could imagine, but our opportunity to respond is finite. We have one life to live — and each day, we choose who we will live it for.

There’s urgency in His call to us because He understands our hearts more than we do. He knows that over time, they harden. We’ll grow more comfortable in our lesser joys, losing sight of the greater One. 

Will we live for ourselves? Or call upon Him? Will we seek our own satisfaction? Or find it in Him?

We can call upon Him because He’s first called upon us. He loved us first. He saved us so we could run to Him. 

God can be found — right now. He’s waiting, patiently and lovingly. But the question remains, will you respond?

Isaiah 55 Study: God’s Invitation to All Nations

Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, and a nation which knows you not will run to you, because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified you. - Isaiah 55:5

We’re continuing our Isaiah 55 study, and now we’re to verse 5. Up until this point, God’s covenant with David was only between him and his lineage. This verse changes that when God extends His invitation, “you will call a nation you do not know, and a nation which knows you not will run to you.” 

Here’s what He’s saying: My covenant with you will be shared with all nations, not just Israel. He didn’t raise Israel to be His golden child while leaving everyone else cast away. Rather, He raised Israel to be an example of His love.    

God’s Character Revealed

This extended invitation reminds us of God’s heart, which is ever-overflowing with love. He’s always wanting to give outwardly to others.

Despite the sin that all nations held onto – including Israel – God loves them still. He still chooses to glorify them. Why? Because His love is bigger than our sins. His grace overreaches anything we could do. We can never outrun His love. 

Israel’s Resistance to God’s Extended Invitation

Time and again, Israel failed God and abandoned His ways. Yet, God chooses to raise them up as an example of His love towards all nations. Not because of something they did or their own glory, but simply because “He has glorified [Israel].” 

Wouldn’t Israel be excited about this? Not really. They routinely despised God’s heart to extend His love to others. We see this as early as Jonah, who would rather sit and die than see a heathen city come to repentance.

In contrast, Jesus couldn’t have made it more clear that He loved both the Jews and the Gentiles – that is anyone outside of Jewish descent. He intentionally spent time with and healed those who were considered outsiders. Tax collectors gained their wealth through their corruption of the poor. Gentiles were never associated with the Jews. Prostitutes, the poorest of the poor, women and children – who were culturally considered second-class – were all welcomed by Jesus. The Gospels are full of Jesus breaking the barriers that were once in place. 

That’s the heart of God – but Israel struggled with this. The Jews and Pharisees were threatened by Jesus' openness to all. They hated what He was doing and feared He would disrupt their position in society. 

Like Israel, we may struggle with seeing others around us as God’s creations.

How Do You See Other People?

How often do we think of everyone in the world as being loved by God? In our individualistic society, we get caught up in our own view of Him and stop seeing strangers we pass by as included in that love. God extends this invitation to all – why should we not do the same? 

Jesus gave us the best example of what it means to love other people. What if we saw others through the lens of how God sees them? We’re all given an opportunity to be an extension of His love.

Or, we can choose to see people like the Jews did in Jesus’ day – as pawns and threats to our own glory. When we do this, we lose sight of whose glory we hold, because it’s not our own.

When we stop desperately trying to hold onto our own goodness, we begin to see how we’re not so different from our neighbor. Their sin is no bigger than ours. And as fellow sinners, we can see them as fellow heirs of grace. 

As we learned in Isaiah 55:4, Jesus leads us by example. How might we live out the love of God to our neighbor today?

Isaiah 55 Study: Christ Our Covenant Fulfilled

Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. - Isaiah 55:4

We’re continuing our Isaiah 55 study, and now we’re to verse 4. The covenant God made with David wasn’t fulfilled through words alone, but was realized through a person – the Messiah, the Servant, Jesus Christ.

Throughout Isaiah, the recurring story of Christ’s invitation for reconciliation to Himself and away from what will ultimately destroy us. That invitation stems from a covenant that began with David – and is now extended to all people through Jesus. 

King David’s Backstory 

Before we dive in, let’s sit with David’s backstory for a minute. Here’s a short synopsis:

• He was the youngest of 8 sons and dubbed ‘least likely to succeed’ (1 Samuel 16:10-11).

• Despite his position, the prophet Samuel anoints David as the next king of Israel (1 Samuel 16:12-13).

• He had more courage than all of Israel when he stepped out in obedience to God and faced Goliath – killing him with just one, small stone (1 Samuel 17:45-50).

• His fame placed a target on his back with the current King Saul and David spent years of his life running away from him (1 Samuel 18-24).

• Throughout betrayal and being in constant danger, David leaned into the Lord closely, pouring his soul into words which were later used in over half of the Psalms (2 Samuel 22; Psalm 3-41).

• He becomes obsessed with power and greed, he commits adultery with Bathsheba, and ensures her husband Uriah’s death once she becomes pregnant with David’s child (2 Samuel 11).

• He’s confronted by the prophet Nathan and repents of his sin (2 Samuel 12:1-13).

• Despite all this, God makes a covenant with Him that He will raise up one of David’s descendants to reign forever and bring salvation to all nations (2 Samuel 7:12-16).

David’s life was full of high highs and low lows. He was selfish, greedy, power-hungry, a rapist, and a murderer, to name a few. And yet, God used Him powerfully. 

We so often believe that it’s our goodness which enables us to earn God’s love or approval. But He uses us despite our weaknesses. He emboldens us when we’re our weakest. We are loved no differently when we walk closely with Him than when we’re running away entrenched in our sin. 

Through King David, God grew up a leader who would come save us. He made a covenant with us embodied through His Son Jesus Christ, who was a “witness…leader and commander.” 

Christ as Our Witness

Jesus is the living testimony of God’s heart. He says in John 14:9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” He didn’t just bring the truth – He embodied it. 

Christ bears witness that God is who He says He is. He came down to earth, “born of a woman, born under the Law” (Galatians 4:4) so that we might see “His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

He wasn’t just an example of moral goodness – He was the fulfillment of God’s covenant to us. 

Christ as Our Leader

Peppered all throughout the Bible and themed in Isaiah, God speaks of raising up a Servant to lead the people to Himself. We see this Servant leader perfected in Jesus. 

He doesn’t force Himself on us, rather He gently and humbly leads us to rest (Matthew 11:29). Although He endured every human emotion and weakness, He extended patience and compassion towards those around Him over and over again.

Christ leads us by example, walking before us. He doesn’t ask us to do anything He’s not done Himself. He walked further than we ever could, bearing the weight of the consequences of our sin so that we might never know abandonment from God. 

Christ as Our Commander

The Hebrew word for ‘commander’ here is tsavah, which means to charge or command. Yes, He’s our gentle leader. But He’s also our mighty warrior. He’s not a weak leader who’s easily overcome, He has ultimate authority. He demonstrates some of that through His many miracles on earth. 

Through His covenant to us, God promises a renewed and everlasting kingdom. God will one day have the final say over all the evil that seems to prevail today. He will make all things right. 

How Should We Respond?

Despite who we are or what we’ve done, God can redeem our story and weave us into His much larger redemption of the world. He’s already set motion to His plan to reconcile the world back to Himself through His Son Jesus. 

God not only loved us enough to allow His Son Jesus to be collateral damage for our rescue. He’s demonstrated through Him the unconditional love God has for us. He gently leads us to Himself while holding the ultimate authority over all things.

No matter what mankind does, God’s plans won’t change or be less good. And He allows us to be a part of that plan, if we’re willing to choose Him over our sin.

Isaiah 55 Study: Are You Listening to God?

Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David. - Isaiah 55:3

Have you ever been in a crowded room and someone was talking to you, but you didn’t hear them? Maybe you’re within earshot, but didn’t hear them because you were engaged in another conversation.

This is what God alludes to when He tells us to “incline your ear”. He’s already said this in verse 2, “Listen carefully to Me.” We know that this repetition isn’t by accident, but rather highlights the significance of what He’s saying.

Isaiah 55 study continues, we’re onto verse 3 where God concludes His invitation with one final plea to come and listen. 

Attention: Are You Listening?

We give the most attention where we’re directing our eyes. It’s why we feel more present when we make eye-contact when speaking with someone. It helps direct our focus –  literally – to that very moment. We hear the person in front of us clearer since our attention is on them. It’s no different with God. We’re in a crowded room, with lots of people and shiny objects around us — begging for our attention.

Sure, we can multitask, but even moms would say they don’t have their full focus on each task at hand. We can’t give each one 100%. 

We’re constantly multitasking with God. But no matter how we spread our attention, our identity remains in Him. Think of it this way, suppose I tell my husband that I’m only partly his wife. That would be outrageous – I’m either his wife or not. There’s no halfway commitment. 

But, we can live half-way committed to God. We see it in marriages, relationships and certainly with our relationship with God. More often than not, we’re the wayward spouse in this marriage-commitment. But if we’re Christians, the reality of our commitment doesn’t change based on how seriously we take it. What we get out of that commitment depends on what we do within it. 

If we’re a Christian, the degree to which we invest in our relationship with God will be the degree to which we find enjoyment of life. The more beautiful He becomes to us, the more beautiful the world and those in it will be. As we know Him, we become more like Him. The more we’re like our Creator, the more we’ll see the world through His lens. As we get to know Him, everything expands within us. The closer we walk towards a magical kingdom, the more grand it appears to us. 

The further we walk from it, the smaller it becomes. Not that the kingdom shrinks, but our view of it does.

If we’re not a Christian, our identity is found elsewhere. Whomever we give our attention to, that's who we’ll be. Maybe our identity is found in how good of a person we are, or our career or family. As they change, so do we. Life is a sum of little moments we give our allegiance to. Whatever loves we choose to be our hope, will define our life. It will define who we are and how we’ll see the world. 

Will we find life with God or continue choosing things that will steal from our life? 

God’s Covenantal Love

Not only life, but life to the fullest. Life with an “everlasting covenant.” God mentions His initial covenant that He made with David (2 Samuel 7:12-16). God promised David that through his lineage, He would establish His kingdom. He fulfills His promise through His Son Jesus, who came from David’s bloodline. And now, we’re invited into this covenant. 

David writes in the Psalms a few of these promises that now include us:

• Lovingkindness forever and established faithfulness (Psalm 89:2)

• Everlasting kingdom (Psalm 89:29)

• Protection from death and hell (Psalm 16:10)

• Peace and happiness (Psalm 132:15-18)

God keeps His promises, even though Israel abandoned the covenant many times. God never did. We don’t see the finished work of His promises, but we get to be a part of it. David didn’t get to see this covenant come to pass, and neither did his children or grandchildren. But he played a beautifully important role. Thank God He’s woven together each story and every creation to fulfill His plans. Our lives are important to Him, and He chooses to put us in His redemption story.

He chose to include you. He asks, “Will you listen to Me?”

Isaiah 55 Study: Your Choice — God vs. Our Idols

Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. - Isaiah 55:2

What makes us choose other things over God?

We’re continuing our verse-by-verse study of Isaiah 55. Verse 2 continues God’s invitation to us, but shifts the focus on comparing what He offers versus what our other loves offer us. 

Two Offers

God offers us hope and life abundantly. We’ve just learned in the previous verse that God is inviting us to come and buy milk, wine and bread without any cost to us. There is a price, but He’s already covered the bill. Taking it out of the analogy, food refers to fulfillment.

Meaning, He will satisfy our souls with our every need. He doesn’t just give us the bare bones of what will keep us alive. He offers us pleasures and goodness in abundance. He promises every good thing. He elaborates on this later on in the verse by inviting us to “delight ourselves in abundance.”

His offer is clear: the price has been paid for us already. We only need to come to the table and dine at the feast before us. 

Our loves offer us hope, too. But what kind? We see verse two describes their offer as what “does not satisfy.” This statement reveals the deception in our false loves’ promises. Although they offer what appears like nourishing food, it turns to ash in our mouths. Never satisfying, yet only increasing our appetite. Not only that, we are dropped with the weight of a costly bill at the end of the meal. 

It’s not always so clearly black and white like this. Many times, the feast looks like an out-of-reach sampling and the ash like a mouth-drooling chocolate cake.

The beauty of God’s gift won’t wane based on our perception of it, but our idols can obstruct the view. In order to see that God is better, we must see that our idols will never satisfy us. When we accept their offer, we must understand what payment is required of us and what we’ll receive in return. 

What are we giving?

The invitation from our idols comes at a cost. When we chase our own fulfillment apart from God we have to work for it. We are bound by the standards we set for ourselves or we assign ourselves from others. 

Our fulfillment is dependent on our performance. Every aspect of our lives — our identity, happiness, security, sense of belonging – will facilitate as we follow the rules to our standards.

What are we getting? 

Our idols may give us a whisper of fulfillment, but it always has an expiration date. It won’t fully satisfy us. In fact, it will only make us grow more discontent because we don’t have the real thing. It’s merely a shadow of the real thing.

God gives us many wonderful things to enjoy life. He is the source of joy, and as His creations they point to that joy. Glimmers of sunlight reflected on the waves wouldn’t give off heat if not for the sun beaming overhead. Similarly, without God’s love, we wouldn’t receive any enjoyment. As soon as we look at those things to give us full satisfaction, we’ll be continually disappointed.

We may get temporary blips of happiness or contentment — but it will only be a reflection of what could be found in the fullness of knowing Him. 

Accepting God's offer means that no matter how many times we’ve failed or will fail, God’s love for us won’t diminish. When we choose Him, we get life to the fullest. Despite what happens in life, our core truth will never change: we’re safe in Him.

He sees the ultimate good in our lives and gives us just that  — even if it challenges us. But through difficulties, the unknown and even grief, He’s not going anywhere.

Unlike our loves, He never changes. His love isn’t dependent on our performance. His grace never runs out no matter how many times we fall. 

Carefully listen

We’re given two offers, which one will we listen and respond to? God knows that our other loves offer a tempting choice, which is why He pleads with us to “listen carefully.” He knows the joys they provide us are real and feel good, but understands their temperance. He knows it will ultimately leave us empty and more needy than before. He knows it will cost us our identity and peace of mind. We’re desperate to feel, and He’s desperate to show us how much, much more He has to offer us. 

What hope can our loves offer us that can’t be found in the One who created them? 

We’re tired. We’re starving. We’re aching. He will give us what we need. Come, taste and see that He is good (Psalm 34:8). 

Either path we choose, we’re listening to someone. Will we lean into the Christ calling us or answer the cries of our idols? 

Isaiah 55 Study: Come All Who Are Thirsty

Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk, without money and without cost. - Isaiah 55:1

Is God silent in our quest for meaning and fulfillment? Didn’t He create us this way? 

We’ll get to that and more. But first, let’s see how Isaiah 55 opens.

In preceding chapters, we learn of Israel’s continued rebellion against God. But in verse 1 He starts with an invitation from God spoken through His prophet Isaiah. 

Time after time, God reveals how He will be faithful despite Israel’s disobedience. He was using Israel to be His mouthpiece to reconcile the world to Himself.

And eventually bring in the new kingdom: a world rid of worries and injustice — a world in perfect peace and harmony.

Despite how God provided for His people, they continued to abandon His will. Instead of reconciling the nations to God, Israel would align with them and take on their idol-worship. God’s will does not hinge on human contribution.

His promise remained: He would raise up a Servant to accomplish His plans. Though Israel abandoned God, He would never abandon them. 

Our Situation

Israel represents all humanity. We’ve all found ourselves in the same rebellion as Israel. God’s promise remains the same to us: He will never abandon us although we turn our faces from Him. We’ve collectively entangled ourselves in a thicket of thorns when we choose our other loves – or idols – above Him in our lives. 

While our idols promise to bring us fulfillment, they only wrap tightly around us, obscuring our view of God. These false loves serenade us with tales of happiness, a sense of belonging and identity. Lulled by their stories, we don’t see the thorns hooking into our bodies. Suddenly, they control our every move. Their hollow assurances shatter like glass in our hands. Our desires are increasing as our famished bodies grope for anything to satisfy us. We’re more hungry than before. Our cravings are unsatiated. The aches in our soul scream louder now. We can’t seem to hush their cries. Maybe just a small amount of happiness will soothe the endless noise in our soul?

Didn’t He create us this way? Although He may sometimes be silent, He’s ever present. He calls for us to turn our gaze and see Him. He eagerly waits for us to run to Him for help, longing to gently pull off each nettle away from us. He sees the tears in our eyes, He hears our sobs at night. Although we scream and spit in His face, mocking Him and hurling insults at Him — He waits. He keeps calling: come, all who thirst. 

Will we answer His call and let Him help us? Carefully, gently He’ll pull each vine off our skin. It hurts. The thorns are hooked in our skin, pulling and tearing at our skin. 

Bloody, dirty, tired, hungry, tired – we approach Him. 

Reluctantly, we turn to Him because we’ve come to the end of ourselves. We’ve exhausted all our resources. He isn’t our first love, He’s our last resort. And how does He respond? 

God is not petty. He doesn’t wag His finger in our face, mocking our sleepy return to Him. He doesn’t say, “I told you so” while leaving us in the dust of our own consequences.

God is not pushy. He’s steady, His invitation doesn’t waver. He doesn’t get up in our face, screaming for attention. He waits patiently by our side. 

God is not naive. He keeps extending grace to us knowing full well that we will keep failing and falling away from Him. 

No, He’s ready to give of Himself. He’s a good Father. He’s patient with our fickle hearts. He’s ready to forgive. He’s ready to invite us to the table to dine with Him freely. He knows we have no money, He understands our dire situation. He doesn’t love us less because of it, He loves us all the more. 

The Price

God’s invitation is free to us but it doesn’t come at no cost to Him. Notice He uses the word “buy” alongside “without cost.” In previous chapters, Isaiah prophesies the new Servant who will come to redeem His people. Our judgement price was paid through Jesus’ sacrifice. 

God knows we don’t come to His table through our own hard-earned money. We come to His table weary and empty-handed. We have nothing to offer but our thirst. And yet, that is all He asks of us.

Come Thirsty

This invitation is to all who are thirsty. The thirst here is figurative for our need and longing. He will give us what we need and then some. Wine, milk and bread are all symbolic of a rich, vibrant life. He doesn’t promise to satisfy our materialistic hopes and dreams here, but rather satisfy the longing inside the depths of our souls. 

We all search for belonging — to be known, secure and loved. 

The Invitation 

“Come to the waters.” Notice what we don’t do: anything other than taking our needs to Him.

He asks us to come, needy. 

That means, we don’t drop our needs and come to Him in our perceived perfection and wholeness. It also means we don’t sit stagnant in our neediness. He’s asking us to get up and come to Him, with our baggage, with our doubts, with our scars, with our sorrows.

Just come.

Maybe we come to Him as our first choice, or 3rd or 19th or last resort. Either way, we come to Him. He sent His Son to take our shame and guilt away — now, all we need to do is step forward and bring our needs to Him. We crawl to Him, exhausted,  in our dirty, thorn-torn clothes. He graciously awaits us on the other side, waiting to give us what we need.

Will we come forward? Will we answer His invitation? 

Isaiah 55 Study: Introduction & Historical Background of the Prophet Isaiah

Isaiah 55 is often quoted — and for good reason. It’s filled with beautiful promises from God to His people. Over the next several weeks, I’ll walk through one verse at a time, slowly savoring this rich and meaty chapter. Before diving right into the chapter, we’ll unpack the preceding and receding ones to provide context. This week, we’ll simply set the scene for the chapters prior. It’s hard to grasp the beauty of this passage without understanding who’s talking, who they’re talking to and why. 

The book of Isaiah follows the prophet Isaiah as he describes both judgement and hope to be found despite Israel’s continual rebellion. Though this prophetic book speaks directly to Israel’s history and future, its message extends far beyond one nation. The book reads a prophetic message of one nation for all nations, from the beginning to the end of time.

God raised up Israel as a holy nation — His servant — to represent Him to all creation. Yet throughout this book, we see them not only abandoning this calling, but also turning their trust other nations, kings, and idols.  

The book is divided into sections: 

Chapters 1-12: Isaiah warns Israel of the judgement to come. Their rebellion has consequences, and powerful empires Assyria and Babylon will be God’s instruments of discipline. 

Chapters 13-27: Israel isn’t alone in facing judgement. Assyria’s reign will be overpowered by Babylon. The surrounding nations are just as corrupt and will face their own destruction. God remains sovereign over all nations, despite their refusal to depend on Him.

Chapters 28-39: Isaiah prophecies the rise and fall of Jerusalem under King Hezekiah. He foolishly aligns politically with Egypt for protection. Though he later repents and is spared immediate judgement, he ultimately makes an alliance with Babylon. 100 years later, this alliance will be the downfall of Israel and their eventual exile. 

Chapters 40-48: The tone shifts to one of comfort and redemption. Isaiah speaks prophetically 200 years into Israel’s future, when they will be rescued from exile and brought home. God will have mercy on them and will use King Cyrus of Persia to save them. 

Chapters 49-55: God will keep His promise of redemption — and if not through the original servant (Israel), then through a new one. This Servant, whom we now know as Jesus, will:

1) restore Israel back to God and

2) become a light to the nations
Isaiah foretells of the suffering the Servant will endure for the sake of a people who will reject Him. And yet through Him, God will bring redemption to the world. 

Chapters 56-66: This Servant will usher in a New Kingdom. Those who follow Him in humility and repentance will inherit the New Jerusalem and become part of the new creation.

Isaiah carries both judgement and hope — often side by side. Woven throughout every section is a call to return to the Lord. Instead of trusting in idols or alliances, God urges His people to trust in Him. He knows that their false hopes will bring them more suffering and will never help them. As Ray Ortlund writes in his commentary on Isaiah, “The most heart-breaking story in the universe is how much our Father loves his children, compared with how little they love and obey him.”

Even though Israel had seen God’s deliverance time and again, they continually looked elsewhere for their security. Their hearts grew dull and distant (Isaiah 1:3-4).

And yet, as Israel continually ran away from God, His love only deepened. Their rebellion didn’t deter the promises He made to them. Not even the wickedness of kings could interrupt His plan. God used both the wise and foolish to fulfill His purposes. Despite the mistakes and sin from humanity, God continually works it out for His ultimate good. And for ours, if we let Him. 

Let’s step inside Israel’s shoes for a moment. Their perspective is often shoved aside and chalked up to, “Typical Israel — always doubting God, ignoring all the good things He’s done for them.” But Israel reflects our own hearts. As much as we may not like to admit it, they’re more relatable than we think. We can see the redemption God wove through their suffering. We see how Christ delivers them and fulfills God’s ultimate promise. But they lived in the middle of it. All they saw was another day of waiting. Another day of suffering. 

They waited 400 years for deliverance from their oppressors in Egypt.

They waited 40 years to enter the Promised Land.

They waited 500 years through the rise and fall of kings, longing for the promised King.

They waited 70 years in exile before being brought home.

They waited centuries for the Messiah Isaiah promised.

They didn’t see the vantage point we do. They couldn’t see how God had been saving them — even from themselves. They couldn’t see how their alliances with Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon would only lead them to their own destruction. Their view of God blurred as they wandered from Him. They blamed Him for their suffering, unaware that He was protecting them from the destruction their choices would bring. 

As Israel, how often do we forget what God has done for us? How quickly we run to other things to give us comfort, whether it is people, food, entertainment. We reach for things that can never save us for our security — our own identity, our career, our family. We choose things that can never save us or give us what we really want. 

God chose us — and we continue to choose everything else. But that doesn’t stop Him from pursuing us. God doesn’t leave us in our rebellion of Him. Isaiah 30:18 captures His heart:

Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.

He’s waiting to be gracious to us.

And so, God sent His Son to do what Israel could not do — to be the true Servant of all. To redeem the world, bring justice, and fulfill the promise of hope for every generation. 

Isaiah 55 is God’s final invitation in this section of the book. He pleads with us to choose Him over what will never satisfy. Our idols — the things we look to instead of God — will always fail us. Israel kept trusting kings and idols to save them, while their true King was already in control. 

How long will we keep waiting for our idols to give us what only God can? 

Will we see the comfort He offers us in this very moment? 

We’ll wait for next week to begin our walk — starting with verse 1 of Isaiah 55.

20 Lessons I Learned Before 30

September is staring me down as I near the closure of my twenties. It’s easy for me to find nostalgia in simple things, so the end of a decade carries weight for me. What a beautiful decade full of learning, growth, struggle, redemption, and so much joy. Reflecting on what these years have taught me, I jot down 20 things that stood out to me.

1. No one will do it for you. The life change you want to make, the book you want to write, the impact you want to make - it won’t happen on its own. 

2. If you want to know God, you have to prioritize Him. You can’t expect to grow in your knowledge of God or deepen in your love for Him by skimming the Bible every morning alongside a hurried prayer. You have to dig in, ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes and see for yourself why He is good. 

3. There are seasonal friendships. Expectations in a relationship will kill it. Sometimes friendships are meant for a period of time. You’ll find more joy when you’re grateful for the time you’ve had with those people rather than focusing on what it could have been. 

4. It’s okay to be a cliche. I’ve been trying to be different for as long as I can remember. But sometimes, I would go against the grain even when it wasn’t something I really wanted. That’s just silly. It’s okay to embrace the cliche sometimes. We’re all different, whether we look like it or not.

5. Food and naps are important. In 1 Kings 19, Elijah felt in despair and God knew He didn’t need a Bible verse, or worship music. He just needed food and rest. I’ve found that to be true for myself, it isn’t always a hyper spiritual answer to our problems. God gives to us in our sleep (Psalm 127:2). 

6. What you put in your life will come out of you. What you choose to consume, what you think about and the words you speak will make up what you’re made of. Be careful what that content is. It will change how you view the world, yourself, and ultimately God. 

7. God is the only one you can truly depend on. Chances are, every single person will fail you at one point or another. You can’t wholly depend on any person or friendship to give you what you want and need. The longing we feel for an unconditional friendship can only be met with a God who never changes. If you try to receive that from anyone else, it will bring you both down. 

8. Expect the world to be broken. Sorrows are inevitable. Justice isn’t usually served. But we’re usually mourning the loss of our expectation of how life should be in addition to the loss itself which will compound our suffering. Sin is rampant in the world. God’s New Kingdom hasn’t come yet, so all of this is to be expected. But death won’t win. Justice is coming. And there’s so much hope to be found in that. 

9. Patience is a very under-appreciated skill. I know this because I’m extremely impatient. But I’m slowly learning how crucial this virtue is. Patience affects yourself and those around you. Things take time. Enjoy the ride.

10. Speaking of which, slow down. Time will fly by. Life is made up of little moments and while we’re anxiously anticipating one big milestone, we miss enjoying the millions of small ones. 

11. Say ‘no’ more. Not every outside life demand is worth giving energy towards or something you can fit into your life. Social media exposes us to every different way of living. You can’t do it all or  be everything to everyone. There are a lot of things we think are essential that really aren’t. Do less and you’ll experience more out of your day and life. You weren’t meant to be so stimulated. 

12. There will always be something to complain about. Joy is available if you look for it. You have to be active about noticing things around you, because it won’t come naturally to you. And it usually starts with gratitude. That’s why God asks us to praise His name and thank Him for all that He does. He knows it will give us joy as well as Him.

13. There will always be someone disappointed with you. No matter what you do, someone will have a bone to pick with you. As a healing people-pleaser, I’m finding a lot of freedom and joy in letting go of the urge to make someone feel comfortable with my opinion/presence. 

14. Your habits make you who you are. Time matters more than you know. 5 minutes is a long time. And mindless scrolling means you’re probably anxious or bored. Maybe you just need to go outside or take a nap instead. Remember, you’re training your brain with the habits you build whether you’re aware of it or not. It’s far easier to make them than to break them. 

15. Not everyone needs to understand you. (Just me?) This one is a big one for me, because I love to be understood. It’s exhausting and most of the time it’s just not necessary. When my goal is to be understood, I often lose sight of the point of the conversation. 

16. Words are so powerful. Death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21). One careless word could echo into someone’s brain forever. And you may never learn the effects of what you say. Listen more, talk less. This applies to words which you speak to yourself. They deeply impact the psychology of your brain. It’s no wonder Proverbs has so much to say about this – God knows and cares about what you say and think about. 

17. Good posture will save you so many aches and pains. It may sound minor, but bad posture could wreck your body. Is there such a thing as a posture doctor? 

18. It’s okay to not always know. Many times, anxiety is born out of confusion and not understanding what to do / make of something. You can’t process all the complex emotions and life scenarios on our own. Or erase your emotions. True peace only comes through trusting God with the unknown and facing your difficult emotions alongside Him. The more you resist this, the more anxious you will become.

19. Discipline and moderation stretches through all areas of your life - what you do, what you think about, and who you become. I’ve noticed that the more disciplined I am with exercise and diet, the more disciplined I am in spending time with God. We’re constantly training our brain to either choose comfort or growth. The more you resist what you feel like doing and choose what you should be doing, the more integrity you’ll build. 

20. Don’t be passive about small decisions, they accumulate into larger ones. The small choices you make will turn into repeated, learned habits. Passiveness is contagious and if left unchecked will slowly overtake all areas of your life. 

None of these I’ve come close to mastering, rather I’ve realized their importance. Did any of these resonate with you? Cheers to the next 30 years of learning, loving and growing!

Study of Peter: joy in the Lord

We’ve come to the final Christian attribute that Peter demonstrated for us in Lukewarm Church series. 

While this study hasn’t been an extensive list, it highlights a few important qualities that Peter learned and demonstrated. We’ll end with the joy in the Lord. 

Peter shares how joy is a response to God’s gift of salvation in 1 Peter 1. He describes it in verse 6, “in this you greatly rejoice” and 8, “you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible”. 

The reality of our world

Why in the world would we be able to find “joy inexpressible” in a world so broken and full of hurt? Of course not everyone has the same burdens, but we all live in the same reality that sin reigns freely, rippling chaos and destruction in its path.

Justice isn’t served. Disease spreads. Poverty prevails. The world is decaying. Death seems to be winning. 

The world is broken, and every living being feels it. 

Peter felt this deeper than most - if not all - Western Christians. Persecution was rampant, and living a consistent, comfortable life was not in the cards for his life-long ministry of spreading the Gospel.

There is no tit for tat for who has ‘suffered the most in their life’ award. The world’s aches impact each of us in different ways. The point is, it’s a universal fact. Suffering is not only expected but the norm.

Dane C. Ortlund put it like this in his book Deeper, “Pain is not the islands of our lives but the ocean; disappointment or letdown is the stage on which all of life unfolds, not an occasional blip on an otherwise comfortable and smooth life.”

“Why,” some may protest, “this sounds like an awful little world created by a cruel God then.” Except, this isn’t how He created it at all. We can go back to Genesis for that.

When we read through Genesis, we watch as the blueprints of the world are first laid out - all Creation is designed to find purpose and joy in their Creator. It’s only when we look to created things to give us what we can only find in God that we will always be left wanting. 

This truth is quite unsexy. It’s not nice, or convenient for living like we are generally good people. This is what makes the gospel so offensive to many. Let’s face it, we’re used to being our own little gods over our reality of the universe. 

And this is what keeps us from true, lasting joy. We only find temporary blips of happiness or moments of euphoria when we live rejecting the truth of who God is. Certainly, God created the world with lots of happiness - the beauty in music, the embrace of a loved one, sun-kissed daisies floating softly in the wind. So it comes as no surprise that these nuggets of joy embedded into the world would provide us slivers of happiness. 

But is there more? Yes, this is precisely my point. The reason I use the words “slivers of happiness” is because that’s just what it is. The joys we experience here on earth are fingerprints of His glory. And we can only dig deeper into those glorious joys when we dig deeper into the One who made them. 

Knowing God

So let’s dig deeper, shall we? The 'joy of the Lord’ we speak so often in church comes from knowing and enjoying Him. We can do this only in part here on earth simply because we’re still in this imperfect world. God made a way for us to partake in His holiness through His Son Jesus’ sacrifice. And as Christians, there are several things we can ‘partake in’ here and now. We don’t have to wait until Heaven for this. 

See, I grew hearing the phrase “I’m just praying for Jesus to come back”. While there’s nothing wrong with waiting eagerly for the day that all is made right on earth and we are back in perfect communion with God - it often stops there. There’s such an emphasis on Heaven and the idea that “Earth is just a rest stop, it’s not home” that we dismiss our time living here. 

God didn’t create us so that we could sit in our homes dutifully reading our Bibles, waiting for the day they go to Heaven. This ideology misses His mission for us completely. 

God didn’t have to create this world, but He did. He created us so that we might be able to enjoy Him. He didn’t force Himself on us, we have the option to choose Him or not. Instead, He sent His perfect Son to be a “man of sorrows” on our behalf. 

“He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” - Isaiah 53:3

Jesus lived a perfect life so that we never had to rely on our own efforts to be “good enough” for God’s love. He was despised so we never have to live in shame. He was abandoned by God so we never have to be. He was acquainted with grief so we might find joy.

The more you reflect on these truths, the deeper you’ll discover the freedom of this joy. 

The beauty of joy

This is difficult to grasp because the joy we know of today is temperamental, circumstantial and temporary. It’s unrecognizable to the gift of joy that comes from God. Earthly joy comes and goes as our dopamines spike. Which means it depends on something that is most certainly not guaranteed.

This tends to result in frustration and anxiety when we don’t have it. As soon as something doesn’t go how we want it to, our joy evaporates. Its fragile, glass-cased existence is always a whisper away from completely collapsing.

And yet with Biblical joy, it grows stronger under stress and pressure. As life throws the worst pains and unfairness, joy only increases. The beauty of who God is and the love He has for you only shines brighter when the world looks dim.

It is only this joy which outweighs our sorrows that has the potential to allow us to live differently. To overlook offenses, to praise God in the midst of suffering, to have patience and grace with our enemies.

The problem is that we’ve become so accustomed to this version of the fickle, consistent highs and lows of earthly joy that we simply don’t know what to do with Biblical joy. And we only deprive ourselves from the source of joy when we look everywhere but God to find it.

Perhaps there’s joy untapped, awaiting our discovery if we would just look for it.

God’s love is designed to be replicated. It’s contagious. It’s not meant to stop in a dead still pond but rather shared with others. It’s a gushing waterfall cascading down a never-ending mountain. 

And we all seek out love, joy and fulfillment from the world. We crave it. We all feel the desire to be fully known and fully loved. 

As our Creator, He has designed us for His love and so no other love will fit properly within us. There will always be something missing. It will always spoil, disappoint us and never fully satiate us.

We were created to be partakers of His love, therefore nothing less will do. He’s created so much more for ourselves than we could ever imagine. And yet, we seem to be quite content with our temporary joys that never suffice.

But what if there’s more, so much more waiting for us. Will you go out and find it yourself?

Study of Peter: hope rested in God

While Judas missed the hope of Jesus entirely, Peter grasped onto it. The hope he held onto allowed him to see the beauty in the midst of pain and immense persecution. This same hope Peter cherished is freely given to those who love God.

This week in our Lukewarm Church series, we’re investigating the hope that Peter held onto.

Peter knew very well his own natural tendency to hope in other things. While with Jesus in His ministry, He hoped in the fighter, warrior and deliverer version of Jesus in his heart. He hoped for things that seemed to align with God’s mission and promises.

But thank God we didn’t get what Peter hoped for, the judgment of God that would have left us no way of salvation. God knew much better. And Peter had learned to put His trust in who Jesus said He was, loving, servant-hearted and yet all powerful and wholly good.

Like Peter, we tend to make Jesus out to be the version we feel most comfortable with. And we hope in that made up version of Jesus. So when life contradicts that version, we’re gutted. 

Suddenly, we don’t know if we can fully trust in who God is, because He’s failed to be who we believed Him to be. It’s not until we see what He says about Himself, regardless if it fits in our worldview that we are relinquishing our hold and control over who He is.

Although Peter was bewildered many times at what Jesus might be doing, he knew God was faithful every time. And slowly, he began to trust Jesus' words above his own understanding. When he didn’t know what God was doing, Peter clung to Him as his refuge. 

As a Christian, God promises to be our refuge (Psalm 46:1). 

God as our refuge

We all have a refuge of sorts. Somewhere where we run to as a baseline. A refuge is the place we feel the most unequivocally ourselves, we are our most comfortable and genuine self. When God is our refuge, we are actively putting our trust and hope in Him. But in order for Him to be our refuge we must first be comfortable with Him.

To get to the point of comfortability and vulnerability which enables us to experience God as a refuge, it takes time to build a natural pattern of running to Him and allowing Him to prove that He is who He says He is. But if we never run to Him and give Him the space to be our comfort and refuge, we’ll never experience this hope.

Ephesians 1:18 says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints”.

When we are able to trust that God is good and who He says He is, we get a beautiful taste of His ultimate glory and He becomes a foundational truth upon which we see the lens of the world. But if we don’t grasp onto this hope, it’s merely a concept for us. Like Judas, we’ll see it but hold tightly to what we hope in more than God and miss the promised hope found in God. 

Expecting goodness from God

But what is this promised hope? He promises eternal hope meant for our present as well as future. Almost everything on this side of Heaven is slowly decaying and fading away, making it difficult to grasp the concept of an inheritance that never, ever tarnishes. 

He promises to be good, always. 

This statement may immediately bring up doubts in your heart like,  “What is so good about God allowing this pain in my life?” The truth we don’t want to hear is that sometimes, we never know why God is doing something. We may never get to see the reason for pain or the justice dealt. But His goodness isn’t dependent on our understanding of it but on who He is.

In Acts 2, Peter is reminding the following around him that though Jesus died He was now more alive than ever. And that in His death, He was fulfilling His promise of salvation to us. He describes the hope we have access to now in verse 4, “wait for what the Father had promised.”

The word “promised” in Greek is Epangelia, which translates to “a promised good”. That same Hebrew word for hope is used again in Romans 5:4-5:

“and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Hope isn’t something one simply has but rather something one gets to.

Hope directs our path

What we hope for is what we move towards. It informs everything else you do. As a compass, it directs your focus and direction on your life path. The hand can’t be facing nowhere, it’s focused in one direction one way or another. If we don’t put our trust in God, we’re putting our trust in something or someone else. And not in the non-trivial ways, but in the life-foundational way.

We all hope that certain things are true. A core, fundamental truth. We may fundamentally hope in ourselves and in our own goodness. Or we hope that humanity is overall generally good.

But if we hope that God is good and making His goodness our fundamental truth, it cannot help but change us. We hope that God is true and who He says He is and that hope will never disappoint us (Romans 5:5). 

And like the compass analogy, we can’t be facing north and south. We can’t put our ultimate hope in God, plus money, status or morality. It can be one or the other. 

God assures that we can completely depend on Him. So will you reach out and grasp onto this hope that is available to you right now?

Study of Peter: rooted in God’s love

Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard a Christian use the phrase to be “rooted in God’s love”? My hand is raised, even if you can’t see it. 

That sounds nice. But this truth often rushes over us in a haze, dissipating as quickly as it came. What is God’s love and how can we be rooted in it?

We’ll continue our Lukewarm Church series evaluating Peter’s Christian attributes with what it means to know God’s love. Peter knew and experienced God’s love first-hand. But how did He get about loving us in the first place? Why did God create this world and everything and everyone in it?

We have to understand a bit more of God’s heart to understand why He created us. And since He is Trinitarian, we must start there. 

Understanding the Trinity 

God exists in three persons, the Father, His Son and Holy Spirit. God is and always has been. The nature of His love is to give outwardly.

Hebrews 1:3 says “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”

Because Their trinitarian love is reciprocal, it’s never ending. It depends on nothing. It simply exists. The Father, Son and the Holy Spirits’ love goes back and forth growing and bubbling over. For all eternity. 

So where does creation come in all of this? Since God’s love cannot be contained, He wanted to share that love through creation, so that we may join in and partake in God’s eternal, perfect love.

Michael Reeves in Delighting in the Trinity describes it beautifully, “And so, just as the Father decided to include us in His love for the Son, to share it with us, so the Son chose to include us in His love for the Father.”

Notice our role in this exchange: we do nothing. Our love for the Father and Son isn’t included in this loving exchange.

Meaning Their love for us isn’t dependent on our love for Them. And yet, as Reeves puts it, both the Father and Son include us in their reciprocal love. Joining in as a mere breath in their eternal loving exchange. 

How do we love

We have to know God’s love in order to give it. You can’t pour something out of you that isn’t inside of you. Thinking about how Peter radically spent his entire life dedicated to spreading the Gospel is incredible. But it’s only possible because Jesus sought Him first. Jesus loved Him first. And then Peter followed, and lived a life completely devoted to spreading that love to others.

One of the last recorded conversations between Jesus and Peter is found in John 21. Jesus shows through the use of repetition – which He uses frequently – the correlation between loving God and loving His people. Jesus repeatedly asks Peter, “Do you love Me?”.

The third time He asks him the same question, Peter takes it as a personal offense. There’s a poetic symbolism of Peter’s three-time denial and Jesus’ three-time question of whether or not he loved Him.

In verse 17, Peter answers again sadly, “you know that I do” to which Jesus says, “feed my sheep.” Jesus is saying, “if you love Me, you’ll love My sheep.” If you have the love of His Father, you’ll love others. As Jesus does. Jesus has His love from His Father and that’s how He’s able to love us. So He’s asking Peter to do the same. 

Shortly after Christs’ ascension, in Acts 2 we see Peter give a famous sermon the day they were given the Holy Spirit. He explains to the crowds surrounding them that the scriptures foretold what was to happen to Jesus. But, by their own choice they put the Son of God to death.

The crowds responded in verse 37, “what shall we do?” And just as Peter realized how quickly he could deny Jesus and yet be so graciously forgiven, he knows that same grace is extended to the crowds.

He explains in verse 38-39, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

I like to imagine Jesus smiling from Heaven seeing the beautiful redemption in this interaction. Peter’s sin was covered by God’s grace. And Peter obeys Jesus’ command to then shepherd His people (John 21) in a beautiful response to His love and grace. 

In Peter’s shoes, there must have been frustration and hurt by the crowds. The same people who came and were healed by Jesus, screamed for His crucifixion. Jesus was one of Peter’s closest friends, maybe even the closest. And he probably didn’t realize Jesus’ ministry on earth was going to be cut so short. And he missed Him greatly.

But Peter knew that Jesus called him to shepherd the very people who were responsible for his death. While understanding that Jesus’ death was all according to God’s plan, it still must have been very difficult for him and the other disciples to accept.

Peter easily could have given into his frustration and impatience for the crowds around them. Instead of giving into bitterness and resentfulness, he understood his own betrayal of Jesus - the weight of his own sin. This allowed him to turn around and extend that same love towards others and show them their great need for God’s grace.

A love like Jesus

God designed us to love like Him. But when we walk outside of His love, our roots are cut off from the life source only found in God. It begins to taint how we love others and we become spiteful, self-centered and greedy. And in doing so, it breeds discontentment, doubt, anxiety and opens ourselves to allow more sin to continue to grow. 

Peter is only able to extend his love because of the great love of God who loved him first. The roots of his love were firmly planted in the rich soil of God’s love. The greater Peter’s love for Jesus, the stronger he carried on His traits. The more we love Him, the more we become like Him. 

So what would it look like if we were those little sponges, where we would be walking and talking with God so much that we just absorb His words and become more like him?

Study of Peter: response to grace

When Peter betrayed Jesus, while he was overwhelmed with grief over his sin - it never crushed him. His love for God was greater than shame for himself. Through his repentance, it drew him closer to God and expanded his love for Him. 

Continuing our Lukewarm Church series with our study of Peter’s emulation of a Christian. We’ll talk this week about the response to grace.

In the Christian church, we talk about confessing sin a lot. But I wonder how often we take the time to reflect on who we are offending before we jump into conviction and confession.  

Know who you’re offending

Peter emphatically denied being associated with Jesus, declaring that he didn’t even know him. 

He was asked three times and each time he persisted more emphatically. In Matthew 26:74 reads:

“Then he began to curse and swear, ‘I do not know the man!’ and immediately a cock crowed.” 

Peter’s purview was unique - he saw first-hand Jesus receive punishment for the sin he just committed. His eyes met Jesus’ the moment he realized what he had done. He knew it grieved Jesus and so it grieved him too.

When Jesus was being tried and beaten, He never denied who He was. All the while Peter denied him at the first sight of danger. The very sin Peter is committing, Jesus later perfectly models how to withstand the temptation of denying God.

Jesus then goes on to get punished by not only an earthly perspective but from God. And at the pinnacle of pain, He gets abandoned by His own, loving Father. Peter gets a front-row seat, of grace played out in front of him. He sinned and watched as Jesus bore that sin on Himself, freeing Peter of his guilt.

We don’t get to see first-hand how our sin grieves Jesus like Peter did. It’s far easier to slide by and minimize or excuse our sin. No matter how much we minimize our sin, it will never reach perfection on its own. 

And, the longer we sit with our sin, the more comfortable we get with it. The more excuses we make for why we don’t obey Him. Many times, sin starts out as a good thing.

Perhaps we are only looking out for the best for our family, or trying to help a friend. And slowly it can shift further away from loving God and more on loving ourselves for our own good deeds. And we start to think we may just be good without God’s help after all. 

Grieving your sin is a crucial step to repentance. If you don’t recognize the hurt you cause someone, how can you authentically apologize and reconcile with them?

It must have been significant to Peter’s repentance knowing that Jesus knew he was going to deny Him and yet He loved him no differently while He was still with him. The realization of Jesus’ immovable and unconditional love is what pulled Peter out of his grief. And it was that love which gave Peter the confidence to not remain there.

The reason Peter was able to live in the freedom of grace was because he knew the heart of Jesus deeply. He understood His unconditional love. Which drove his heart closer to God and not further away as we see in Judas’ case. 

What makes the acceptance of grace so difficult is that it starts with the humility to see an accurate view of God.

View of God

Repentance of sin is absolutely critical in our relationship with God. When we understand the gift of our undeserved salvation, it makes our sin more personal. With a view of God as all powerful but not all loving, sin isn’t personal. You’re able to separate or dissociate it as a personal offense.

If we don’t have an accurately central view of God, our version of grace will be skewed and ultimately lead us astray. 

View of ourselves

And while our love is conditional, His love is not.

We believe that we’re worth being loved if we can measure up to the standards we’ve created. This puts a primary focus on ourselves, whether we’re consumed with our inadequacies or own morality. Not only do we miss God’s forgiveness but we miss His love. His gifts towards us suddenly don't feel like gifts, but rather they seem like our rights. 

The way you believe God feels about you, will project onto how you treat and feel about others. If you are free in His grace, you’ll freely extend grace to others. If you feel ashamed and disgusted by your sin, that will eventually be projected onto others. 

God waits to be gracious to us

The depth of God’s love isn’t to be compared to the weight of our sin. He is waiting for us to receive His forgiveness. 

Isaiah 30:18 says, “Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him.”

Isn’t that the most incredibly sobering and wonderful thing you’ve heard? We sin against Him, willingly, repeatedly and often. And yet, He is waiting for us to receive His forgiveness. Because His love isn’t dependent on our love, it’s just continuing to bubble over. 

Sin separates us from God. And He’s desperate to close that gap. What did we do to deserve this perseverant pursuit of our love?