Isaiah 13-17, Accepting Acceptance

July 31st, Isaiah 13-17

       For the most part this is another of those passages that is a shopping list of wrong committed against the Lord. Israel is in this bad place for a reason, innocence is long gone...but...
       The great witness comes from the start of chapter 14. "For the lord will have compassion on Jacob and again will choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob."
       In four days(counting today) I am going to be speaking about committed love at my sons wedding! Love promised is different than love promised "IF." In dating relationships the "if" can be unsettling, sometimes downright manipulative. God invites us into a promised love. Despite Israel efforts to be rejected, God chooses them again. It sometimes makes you ask why?
       This verse has a very "building" quality about it. God has built up this nation over the generations and is adding sojourners alongside this house of Jacob. Some of the promises we live in are from long ago..."Through you, all the nations will be blessed."
       I pray for all of us that someday we would learn to accept acceptance. The rejection of ourselves would cease to be self-fulfilling prophecies spoken over us and that we would learn what is meant by God's banner, hung over our heads. Living into what is, rather than what was. We've been redeemed, adopted, sanctified, grafted in. Given a new heart and the Holy Spirit is given a home inside of us. So let us spruce the place up a bit and when faced with the list, know that chapter 14 is on the horizon. Attached to the Great House of God.