If Only …
Isaiah 48:17,18 The LORD, the Saviour, the Holy One of Israel, says, “I am the LORD your God. I teach you for your own good. I lead you in the way you should go. If you had obeyed me, then peace would have come to you like a full flowing river. Good things would have come to you again and again, like the waves of the sea.
Each of us has to decide many times each day whether to do good or to compromise on what we know to be right – to honour God, or turn our back on Him.
It’s kind of sobering when you think it like that, because all too often we don’t think about things much at all. We just react the way we’ve always done. Someone annoys us and we follow the well-worn path either of snapping at them or detesting them in silence (whatever our poison happens to be). But whether we choose to honour or to dishonour God in that moment, either way there are consequences.
The whole of the Old Testament is the story of Israel’s struggle to honour God and failing miserably time and again. After a very long period of turning their backs on Him by worshipping idols and forsaking justice and mercy, God allowed them to be invaded by the Babylonians and exiled into slavery for seventy years. But that was never what He wanted for them.
Isaiah 48:17,18 The LORD, the Saviour, the Holy One of Israel, says, “I am the LORD your God. I teach you for your own good. I lead you in the way you should go. If you had obeyed me, then peace would have come to you like a full flowing river. Good things would have come to you again and again, like the waves of the sea.
If only they’d honoured and obeyed Him, God’s blessings would have kept coming at them like the endless waves of the sea crashing on the shoreline. But they hadn’t, so they had to live out the consequences of their sin.
Our choices have consequences.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.