To Whom are you Trusting

Isaiah 26: 1-5

“In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. Open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.  For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust.”        

God has shown Isaiah a special day, some may refer to it as the last day, the Day of Judgment, but if you revisit Isaiah 25 it is the day God will swallow up death forever.  It’s the one the enemy of mankind could not defeat!  It is so important for us to understand this is a future time when Israel will be in its glory, in Isaiah 60:18, the prophet sees this time: “Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise.”  When Isaiah states, “Open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.”  My first thought was the words of Jesus; “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.”  (John 10:9)  But let us not stop reading the words of Jesus, for these are not words of the future, but very much for the now.  “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away.”  (John 10:10-12)

My hope for each of us is that we awake to our need for looking and listening to our Shepherd, Jesus, not to someone who is a hired hand, someone who will run away at the first time of real need.  For in Jesus Christ I have found the door to life, to peace, and to a joy that many have no understanding of, and the reason is many have tuned into Channel One, the deceptive channel, it’s full of junk about what you deserve, or it is attacking your worth, and if you are in Christ it is keeping you from victory in this present darkness.  If you have not considered Christ, the door or gate to life in the full is closed, and you are under the delusion that all is well, but when the noise stops and your lying on your bed in the darkness of night, and you hear a voice calling you to look to this man Jesus, it’s not Channel One, it’s Channel Two, and the Holy Spirit of God is calling you to bow down and agree with God that He is Lord and you’re not.  That’s a great start!  Then open the gospel of John, and read about Jesus, who has power over death, the grave, and has come to give you a victorious life in this present darkness!

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice