RETURN! COME BACK!
Today’s Reading: Isaiah 20-22
Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion).
In Nazareth Village, a recreation of what 1st century life may have resembled, a 21st century actor playing a watchman stands guard, watching over his livestock and property from a watchtower. Five times in today’s reading we read the word “watchman.”
GOOGLE MAPS – To see where the photo was taken, click HERE.
Key Verses: Isaiah 21:11b-12
…”Watchman, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?”
The watchman said,
“The morning comes, and also the night.
If you will inquire, inquire;
Return! Come back!”
In Chapter 20, Isaiah, naked while he preaches his message, will surely guarantee that he gets attention! (wearing a small loin cloth was also considered being naked). It’s often not enough to merely speak our message. Our words are useless unless people stop and listen. The upcoming New Year is not on Isaiah’s WATCH! It’s on our “WATCH!”
In Chapter 21 our key verses sum up the message to which Isaiah wants people to pay attention: “INQUIRE”…”RETURN”…”COME BACK!” Let us diligently watch for the moment of a turn-around decision in people’s lives. Let us keep a sharp eye out for that time when our family members and others with whom we come into contact are ready to inquire, return, and come back to God! We must not miss those opportunities; they may come only once!
In Chapter 22 Jerusalem is the focus. The Tyropean Valley is in the very heart of the city between Mount Zion and Mount Moriah. Today, it is filled with the rubble from the destructions caused by numerous invading armies. This filled-up valley is paved over now and forms the area in front of the famous Wailing Wall, where Jews pray fervently for the restoration of the Temple of God and for His coming Kingdom. It may have been in this valley that Isaiah received his visions of the future.
PRAYER FOR TODAY:
Lord God, I pray that I may be wide awake, watching carefully so as not to miss the moment of decision in precious lives. At that precise instant, may I get attention not for myself but to call for a decision for Christ! I pray for wisdom, because You said, “He [or she] who wins souls is wise” (Proverbs 11:30). I pray this in the Name of the One Who never missed an opportunity to call people to “inquire, return, and come back” to God, the Lord Jesus, Himself! Amen!!!
100 PERSONAL WORDS:
It was in Pembroke that I first gave the message of Jesus on TV (1962). There was only one TV signal people could receive and Crossroads was there at 11:30 pm Saturday nights. People paid attention and some inquired, turned to Jesus and were saved. Just prior to this, Syd Healey, a Pembroke businessman, had pushed a cheque for $300.00 across his desk to pay for the start-up of the Crossroads TV ministry. He surely got my attention! I knew for sure that God wanted to use television for His message to all people. I’m very thankful that God did not ask me to do what He asked Isaiah to do in order to draw attention to the message!!!
Yours for making sure we have people’s attention and then for driving home the message of Jesus!!!
David
P.S. Billions of precious people are watching television, their computer screens, laptops, iPads, smart phones, etc. Crossroads is all over the world in effective attention-getting ways. It’s our “WATCH!” Please pray fervently for God’s direction for the leadership team of Crossroads.
“And Every Virtue We Possess”
By Oswald Chambers
…All my springs are in you. —Psalm 87:7
“Our Lord never “patches up” our natural virtues, that is, our natural traits, qualities, or characteristics. He completely remakes a person on the inside— …’put on the new man…’ (Ephesians 4:24). In other words, see that your natural human life is putting on all that is in keeping with the new life. The life God places within us develops its own new virtues, not the virtues of the seed of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away. He will continue until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through this drying-up experience!
“The sign that God is at work in us is that He is destroying our confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but only a wasted reminder of what God created man to be. We want to cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in contact with the life of Jesus Christ— a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people who are trying to serve God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them. They are depending solely on what they have by virtue of heredity. God does not take our natural virtues and transform them, because our natural virtues could never even come close to what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every part of our natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.”
“And every virtue we possess
Is His alone.”
In Him Alone (with lyrics)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8MLgU_gE6g
Stay safe in the freezing rain in Southern Ontario, fellow saints in the Lord. And everyone keep warm. Amen.
Thank you,Beverlee.I have always assumed that to be true.We are created in His image/likeness.
Pastor J Fortier always strengthened me with this scripture when I had self doubt.(He and his wife are now like family):
“6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;” Philippians 1 New King James Version (NKJV)
Amen
Lord God, your judgment is coming on all this world. Please help people – help us – to turn to You. Please bring conviction of sin on people everywhere, and show them – us, too – that You are there, calling us to repent and turn from our wicked ways. Help us not to be complacent, but to be, like Jesus, about our Father’s business. Deeply bless all your workers, Lord, and help them not to trust in others or even in their own strength, but in You. Be magnified in and through all your people, Lord God, we ask in Jesus’s great name, amen
Amen!
Deer fellow bloggers I have an extremely extremely urgent prayer request I have two nieces and one nephew that were brought up in the face they were taught the ways of the Lord and they have walked away from the faith and my heart is extremely extremely broken my eldest niece and nephew are in a homosexual lifestyle and my heart is just crushed my eldest niece is getting married in June 2020 a gay marriage and my heart as I’ve repeated my heart is simply crushed and I am struggling with this I know when the game movement came out I even struggled with it then but now it hits home and I don’t know what to do except pray got they will come back to the god of their childhood and so I’m just asking earnestly sincerely for your prayers thank you for hearing me out and God bless my middle niece is married to a man but she too is away from the Lord so I’m just pleading and asking for your help and your prayers to help that God will will help me get through this because this is a very very difficult situation for me and I am just I am just struggling thank you for hearing me out and God bless again
Praying for you, Marilyn. I can feel your heart. I know as Christians, we don’t believe in the gay lifestyle. When our relatives are gay, our prayers are not going to change them. All we can do is still love them. Maybe that is not what you want to hear. Here is a website that might help. Praying for the Holy Spirit to comfort you, dear one.
https://www.freedhearts.org/single-post/2017/10/23/To-Christian-Parents-of-Gay-Children-1
Praying.. your siruation reminded me of a beautiful testimony of a woman who fell into real trouble, but who had the blessing of a praying grandmother. Your family has a praying you…
https://youtu.be/Gwz8gPgaiq8
Dear Marilyn
The Lord hears our prayers; He knows every thought in our hearts; the Holy Spirit can change people; I have found that all I can do is to love the people; listen to them; I have also found that by not doing anything but listening has an effect on people. listening is a skill;
I have a sleep disorder and God knows and I am certain he wants me down at the convenience at odd hours just to listen to people; and people need to talk and sometimes I am so humbled by the talking that I cry and it is hard to drive home sometimes; I want to hug these people and sometimes I do but just to listen means alot to many of them; so; I thank the Lord; He knows what is going on and He know your life Marilyn and your family and He loves all of you unconditionally; so thankful you post; gives an opportunity to pray for others; God bless Marilyn; just keep putting one foot in front of the other and remember OUR LORD GOD IS WITH YOU AND ALL OF US ALL THE TIME…..
remember Marilyn just keep loving your family; and God sees all….