January 5, 2018 HOW BLESSED ARE THOSE
Isaiah 30:18 “Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord God is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.”
The Old Covenant is a picture, or a type, pointing to the coming new and better covenant. The Old Covenant is portrayed and acted out in the natural, while the New Covenant is spiritual in nature. As Peter Parris often says, when referring to the two covenants, the natural precedes the spiritual. God does not change; He was the same God in the Old Covenant as He is in the New Covenant. Even as we read the Old Covenant, we can see the heart of God and we can learn of His ways and see what pleases Him. This verse in Isaiah is a wonderful verse that portrays the heart of God for His people under the Old Covenant and it is His heart for those living under the New Covenant as well. One of the foundational beliefs and the awareness that we as believers should have is that the Lord longs to be gracious to us! We must get it into our spirit that we are not orphans begging God to be kind or gracious to us or that we must in some way try to earn His love and care for us. This is a mind-set and a belief that goes against human nature which says that we must earn or deserve His kindness to us. No matter what we do, or don’t do, God longs for us! The key for us to experience His grace and compassion is that we long for Him. This truth is also found in the New Covenant when God’s says that those who seek Him shall find Him. God does not force Himself upon us, but waits for us to seek Him above everything else-that is the key to experiencing Him. The fact that God waits on high to have compassion on us is an amazing and wonderful truth that should kindle a desire in us to seek Him with all of our heart and with all our being. Think about it-what is more wonderful than to know that the God who created the universe longs to be gracious to us? God is after our heart. This verse forces us to look at our heart, asking the all-important question-do we long for Him? The single, most important, and the most consequential thing one can do in life on this earth is too long to know God. This being true, what is it then that all too often causes this not to be the case? I think the answer is simple, having two parts. First, for many, the desire to satisfy self is greater than the desire to seek God; they fear that if they seek Him first, their selfish desires will not be realized. Second, there has been a widespread misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the gospel that has clouded the good news of the gospel. Whether as a believer or a non-believer, we need to at least be honest about what is most important to us at the present-preserving and satisfying self, or seeking to know God for who He is according to the Scriptures. Also, as believers, we need to acknowledge that it is very possible that our current view and understanding of the gospel may insufficient or even erroneous. Many believers have interpreted the scriptures through their own preferences and systems of theology, resulting in a misunderstanding of the gospel of God. For many, they ignore or explain away any scriptures that do not fit or that contradict their own theology. Much more could be said on this point, but let us receive the gospel for what it is; let us read the scriptures and believe what we read-without making it fit our personal theology. Time and space is out for this blog-but be reminded that God longs to show us His compassion for us. But also be reminded that we experience His great compassion when we in turn long for Him.
Jeremiah 29:13 “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
John 14:21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.
Blessings,
Buddy
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