Is. 39-40
Hezekiah grew complacent in his pride. God had blessed him richly; he was comfortable and secure. When Isaiah told him of the coming destruction of Judah, destruction that would happen even to his own sons, Hezekiah did not care. As long as things were peaceful and secure for him, all was good. What happened to the sackcloth and ashes; to the humble supplication of the LORD? Did he not even care what happened to his own sons? I fear this attitude is not unique to Hezekiah. We humans are far too often hard pressed to care about something until it affects us directly, and I don’t believe this is how God wants us to be. I know life is busy and full of cares and concerns, but I pray that God would replace my complacency with true compassion for others.
I was watching something last night that was talking about how we have a tendency to put our own thoughts, feelings, and experiences above God’s truth. As a result, we work hard to make His word fit with what we want to believe. We should instead be working hard to fit our life to what God’s word says, because God – and His word – is truth. Isaiah speaks to that a lot, and he does so again here. “Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Is 40:7b-8). Our opinions do not matter. Only God’s word will stand in the end.
Rom. 6
Paul talks a lot about being free from the law. As Christians, we are no longer bound by it. But in Romans 6, he makes it very clear that being free from the law does not give us the ‘freedom’ or the right to go about doing whatever we want because we know we are covered by grace. He points out that the reason we are free from the law is because we have been baptized into Christ’s death, meaning that we have died to sin, as He did. And since we died with Him, we also now live with Him. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom 6:11). If we live with Christ, it stands to reason that we should live like Christ and not continue in the sin that is now dead in us.
Paul also points out the relational nature of ‘freedom’. Freedom is not a stand-alone word. We need to use and understand it in relation to something else. So being free from one thing means that you are enslaved to another. In this case, it is sin verses obedience; death verses righteousness. If we wish to exercise our ‘freedom’ to do whatever we wish, we are not free at all, but are slaves to our own desires.
We cannot serve two masters. We must choose to whom or what we will be enslaved. And for those of us who choose to serve God, who is a gracious and merciful master, we no longer need the law as we will be inclined to live a life of obedience to the one whom we choose to serve. And, “sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Rom 6:14). Amazing.