Isaiah 48:12-50:11, Ephesians 4:17-32, Psalms 69:1-18, Proverbs 24:5-6
Today is the 26th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it is wonderful to be together with you today. Yeah, every day is a wonderful opportunity to come around the Global Campfire and find a place and take a step forward together. So, let’s put one foot in front of the other and take that next step forward, which leads us back into the book of Isaiah. And today we will read chapter 48 verse 12 through 50 verse 11.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the world today there is a premise and it’s a marketing tool and its used and slapped on all kinds of different goods and services with…with a promise. And the promise is, if you have this thing then you can experience like the best iteration of…of who you are, your…your best self. You’ll be your best self if you get this thing. And you begin to realize if you’re paying attention, wow, I need a lot of things to have my best self because everything that’s being marketed to me is promising me a better self, a better life, a better experience if I just have this thing. So, I guess I need everything. So, Paul’s kinda talking about this best version, like what we’re growing into, the best version of ourself in our reading from today. And he starts out by…by clarifying what it’s not. And Paul describes that as “walking in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They’ve lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ.” So, according to Paul, keeping our mind closed and our heart hardened is not the path forward. If we want to become the best version of ourselves Paul says there’s an ingredient that’s absolutely essential and irreplaceable and that is faith. Faith activates your renewal. Faith is the only path that leads us to God. And…and…and to actually live faith beyond just saying the right words, to actually live into your faith requires that we believe with our whole heart. And that can’t be done with a closed mind and a hardened heart. So, that path cannot get us there. It’s not who we…we were made to be. So, how do we move toward this best iteration, this best version. And I quote from Paul. “Put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and diluted by its lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds. Clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness’s. So, if we’re breaking this down Paul’s saying there is a new nature and new self, created after the likeness of God, that becomes ours through faith. The best version of ourselves would be to become a new creation. And that this is even remotely a possibility should be overwhelming to us, that we could be made new again. But through faith Paul is saying that’s what happens. You put on a new nature and it’s not just a reset, a reset where you get to just start over and corrupt your new nature. It’s the nature of God. It’s truly righteous and holy. It makes us new creatures and sets us apart. I mean, I know we…it’s so easy if you’ve been in the faith a long time to get into a theological concept, our doctrine and just glaze over and go yeah, great, I believe it. Great. If we’d stop and understand the implications though.