REVIEW YOUR ACCOUNT
Would it not be odd if a person who has several millions stored in his bank, lives like a pauper? Not knowing you have riches stored in your name, not knowing how to withdraw or not being willing to withdraw are all possible reasons for poverty. But it all starts with reviewing your account. Isaiah challenges his listeners to review the riches one has in a relationship with God.
But now, this is what the Lord says— he who created you,……“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine………When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze….. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life. (Isaiah 43:1-4)
He created you: Knowing your origin is intrinsic to the nature of life one chooses to live. If you are the product of random chance and a dance of atoms, your life will be one of chance and disorder, with a destiny that is uncertain. It is impossible to derive meaning to such a life and chaos envelops. But knowing that the loving, almighty God created you, and all of you with your imperfections and weaknesses stabilizes the boat of life and gives you direction in the vast sea of life, where the waves would otherwise instantly swallow a rudderless soul.
He redeemed you: Being redeemed is to be saved despite your shortcomings by an act of sacrifice. God has always been a redeeming God, but the full extent of this is seen on the cross where we are redeemed from our sinfulness and hopelessness by the sacrificial death on the cross of God himself, in the deity of Christ. To one who cannot redeem himself (and that is everybody), to know that God is willing and able to is beyond reassuring.
He summoned you: Having been created and redeemed, God now sets out to inject meaning and purpose for your life by summoning you to be an architect in this world. He assigns you a family, a workplace, a society and a nation, where you called to make a difference and impact others for good. The greatest task one can do is to participate in God’s calling as he summons you to do his bidding through all of your life. Nothing else will be preserved when it’s time to call it a day in this journey of life.
He protects you: Life is hardly a flowerbed, and everybody goes through the raging rivers and the flames of adversity that life throws at you. It is only God that can guarantee that you won’t be swept away and burnt, rather emerge unscathed to be still standing and moving forward to the goal he has in mind for you.
He prefers you: Isaiah ends with a lofty promise- one of being treasured by God so much that God’s treatment of you would be preferential. Does that compromise the justice of God? It does not because one who chooses to stand in the sun (as opposed to one who stands in the shade) feels the warmth and enjoys the brilliance of the sun. He aligns himself with God and places himself to receive the best from God, while his counterpart fails to do so.
- DO YOU NOT KNOW? HAVE YOU NOT HEARD?
- BABYLONIAN PRIDE