Isaiah 59:1-2 - Surely the arm of the LORD is
not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins
have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Isaiah takes a moment in these verses to remind us that God
is not too weak to help us …and he is not deaf. He has the power to save you
and can hear every word you cry out…but he made have turned his back on your
plea because you harbor sin in your life.
Bottom line is that sin offends God. His holiness can’t tolerate it…he can’t even
look upon it. So he turns away and cuts
us off until we see the sin in our life and need to repent of it. Jesus was
even cut off from his father for a short time while he bore the sins of the
world. It was one of the things that bothered Jesus the most while he was
hanging on the cross. His cry to his father is recorded in Matthew 27:46 …. “About
three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema
sabachthani?" (which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?").”
Sin is sin….from the smallest white lie…to the most horrendous
murder. And as long as we let it go unforgiven….it continues to separate us
from God. It creates a huge void …an
empty hole that satan loves to fill up with more sin. And that sin will stay
there….until we see it for what it is and repent….and ask God to forgive us.
It is what God loves to do best. Listen to our cry of guilt…and tell us it is
okay. He loves to tell us that his son
Jesus already paid the price of our sin….to just start over. Then he sends his
spirit to dwell in our newly humbled heart...to teach us how to make permanent
changes…and clean all that sin out of the hole it lived in. And what is really the best part…is that he
fills that hole we dug with sin….with his love for others. He replaces the sin in
our lives completely with a spirit of peace and desire to do what he wants.
What has been really cool for me…is that even if I fail to
keep his love in my life….and allow sin to slip back in…he sends someone like Isaiah
to remind me that I am starting to let sin build a hole in my life again.
Sometimes…I even recognize that God is becoming distant on my own. He has never
failed to keep the promise he allowed Isaiah to voice in the verse 21….to never
let his spirit depart from us if we follow his commandments.
Father…thank you for the reminder that sin separates me from
the one thing that cans save me. Forgive mem for the times that I have allowed
known sin to harbor and grow so that you could not help me. Thank you for sending people to expose my sin…so
that I could tell you I was sorry and ask you to removed it from my life. Thank you for filling the great void that I
created with your love…and showing me how to keep sin from residing in it again….and
thank you for never failing to send your sprit to help me when I try to keep
your commands. Show me how to move
forward this time….more steps than I take backward….and let your love that is
stronger than sin….fill any void that ever is created again. Amen.
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