Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Only God Can Really Save Us


Isaiah 46:3-5 - "Listen to me, all you who are left in Israel. I created you and have cared for you since before you were born.  I will be your God throughout your lifetime -- until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you."  "To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal?

 

God placed Isaiah in just the right place to watch some oxen and a cart laden with heavy idols become so off balance that the idols it carried fell to the ground. Then God gave Isaiah these words that he used to help the people realize that it was God that had created them….watched over them…and rescued them.  No other God could do what he did for them. No other God had the power to help them do anything.

 

God’s promise of caring for those that believe in his name started way before we said yes to his soft voice… the one that convicted us of the sin we needed him to save us from.  It started the moment we were conceived in the mother’s womb that carried our tiny form while he completed every part of us. He watched over us as we were literally pushed into a crazy world…and has never left our side.

 

It gets tricky here…for some have yet to accept him. But that just means that God is watching and waiting on them to realize that God wants to be involved in their life. He has a plan for all of us…even those that have not been convicted of the sin in their lives.  He even knows the moment they will begin to love him back…or the moment/s they will turn away from his help.

 

Some of us have accepted him into our lives…but we still cling to that oxen cart of other stuff in the world to sustain us.  We don’t even see the breakdown ahead of us…we are blinded by the money we know we have in the bank that can fix the cart.  Or perhaps the cart has already broken…and we have allowed something else to pick up the pieces and care for us instead…perhaps never even asking God to help us.

 

Some of us are so dazed when that ox cart breaks down that we just sit in the road and cry. That’s what happened to me. And that’s when I realized just how much God loved me.  God picked me up and helped me to crawl right up in his lap….then he whispered to me that it was all going to be okay.  He gave me a whole new support….and helped me walked away from the broken cart….and is still teaching me how to never go back to those pieces…but rather keep building the new life that he intended for me all along.

 

Walking away from the broken pieces of that cart is very hard sometimes.  Maybe it is all we have ever known…and we are scared to try something new.  We have become so attached to the pieces …especially if they helped us in good ways…that we just don’t understand the dangers of making them more important that God.

 

The bottom line is that there is only one God.  He has to be more important than anything else in our life. Any other support we use to do anything …that is not given to us by God…will eventually break down and become useless. We must find a way to give him complete control…let him pick our supports….let him call the shots.

 

Father…thank you for the reminder that you are the one true God…no other created being can do for us what you do.  I praise you and thank you for creating me…and working gently on my heart till I turned my life over to you.  Forgive me for all the carts I have tried to build without you….help me to stop trying to pick up the broken pieces and fix them myself.  Show me how to build a life that only you control…so you can show me your will…and then help me complete it.  Amen.

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