At my church, everyone is supposed to read the Bible in 2015, using a schedule whereby we read the Bible in chronological order. We are now up to Isaiah, which has encouraged me to post one of my favorite of all Bible passages:
Comfort ye,
comfort ye my people,
saith your God.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her,
that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned:
for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,
"Prepare ye the way of the LORD,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
"Every valley shall be exalted,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low:
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough places plain:
and the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together:
for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it."
The voice said, "Cry."
And he said, "What shall I cry?"
"All flesh is grass,
and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
the grass withereth,
the flower fadeth:
because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it:
surely the people is grass.
"The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth:
but the word of our God shall stand for ever."
It's very great that your church is doing this together. Not sure that anything in this world feels better than getting to participate in and offer an act of worship together with a group of people of whatever size.
ReplyDeleteI heard someone preach on this last weekend. I'm probably doing a poor job of paraphrasing here, but this person focused on making the pivot from having received God's comfort to then delivering/speaking God's comfort. I would say that I am the comfortable being afflicted by these words right now--the sermon the other night and your posting these verses here this morning.
ReplyDeleteWe were at a conference all this past week, and, whenever I was losing interest in a workshop or whatever or found myself waiting for something or another for 10 minutes, I kept adding to this list of the various ways that I've known God's comfort from as far back as I remember. I tried to be as detailed as I could genuinely be.
ReplyDeleteWell, as you can imagine, it's a pretty stunning exercise.
ReplyDeleteNo, let me say that again: It is a stunning exercise. It's humbling to the point of being stopped in my tracks. Just making the list ... I mean, I swear I believe I can remember moments before I could even make words when I was genuinely aware of and grateful for the loving family into which I was born, for example ... just making that list of as all of the big and little notes of God's comfort throughout my life (and that's just counting the ones I have been cognizant of), and I'm sort of turned to a pillar of salt, thrown to the ground by a bright light, etc.
ReplyDeleteBut then what? Having known/knowing all of this comfort, am I pivoting and giving over my life to letting God comfort others through my own life? Does my own daughter know God's comfort through my parenting, for example, as I certainly know God's comfort through my parents' parenting? Or am I just sort of lavishing in the comfort of watching 50-year-old movies about Vince Lombardi and sorting my baseball cards into the 1969 MLB rosters?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, good preaching Saturday. Good posting here. Thanks for both.
ReplyDelete