Bourland Family Blog

“Therefore are justice and right far from us, and righteousness and salvation do not overtake us. We expectantly wait for light, but [only] see darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity and gloom. We grope for the wall like the blind, yes, we grope like those who have no eyes. We stumble at noonday as in the twilight; in dark places and among those who are full of life and vigor, we are as dead men.” Isaiah 59:9-10 ->me: Now the text of Isaiah 59 turns to the people speaking in first person what they realize about themselves in their sinful state. While I was getting ready this morning I listened to a message on Romans 9:23 which talks about us, as believers, being ‘vessels of mercy’. I like the term vessel because it suggests that the function of the vessel is to receive [be filled up] and to pour out. What is described here is the exact opposite; in fact I would call these ‘vessels of wrath’ (also from the message I listened to). When we continue in the sin spoken of here – it drives away righteousness and the deliverance our God can provide. When we have unrepentant sin we strive to see the light but darkness is all we find. We want the world around us to be illuminated but we trudge around in a foggy gloom and with a lack of identity. We grope for those things in this world that bring us temporary relief. It is no matter whether it is light or darkness in reality because the darkness is within us. Verses 12 and 13 go on to talk about how, in our unconfessed and unrepentant sin can become vessels of wrath. When I see believers who have fallen away, these are the attributes I see them possess which inspires me to consistently check that I am right with God so that I can be a vessel of mercy to be poured out on those who have walked away.

“Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths and highways. The way of peace they know not, and there is no justice or right in their goings. They have made them into crooked paths; whoever goes in them does not know peace.” Isaiah 59:7-8 ->me: These verses describe the world we live and operate in. When God talks about us being a light -> it is in this darkness. At the root there is no submission to God’s judgement: what He has authoritatively decided to be right. In the broader sense there is no setting up of what is right and just – for themselves, for other people, for society as an entity. They have turned their own paths into crooked roads; literally, they have twisted their paths for themselves/to their own hurt. There has been a deliberate adoption of crooked/tangled paths, and in them they will meet sin like a boomerang coming home. The task we have, to make more and better disciples, seems daunting if you keep a human mindset…in reality we are fighting a battle we cannot lose…the war has already been won! I must must keep my mind centered on this fact and have hope in the eternity I strive for. This world will only get worse and I should not be surprised when I see the characteristics, mentioned here from verse 4 through 8, happening in the news and in the lives of people around me every day. I must stand not only in preparedness to be used but to stand up for what is right as Isaiah 58:6-7 instructs.

“BEHOLD, THE Lord’s hand is not shortened at all, that it cannot save, nor His ear dull with deafness, that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness.” Isaiah 59:1-3 ->me: God is so good to bring various angles to His word when He is teaching me both new and known concepts of His truth. I started this morning reading the whole next chapter in Isaiah (59) that I am starting for my QT. This whole chapter is dedicated to essentially answering the accusations leveled against God by the Israelites in 58:3-4, which goes…”why have we fasted and you have not seen it?” (see my QTVOTD on ‘It’s all about Motive‘). When we choose a direction, fulfil a desire, or act in any way counter to the Lord’s will and written Truths, WE put a wall between ourselves and the God Who so wants to be with us. The Jews believe the Law can save them but now that Jesus has come and provided the ultimate sacrifice; the Law only serves to make us aware of our sin. We have all met the criteria and description in verse 3…we are doomed…were it not for the saving work of Jesus on the cross. His sacrifice ALONE bore the punishment necessary to clear the sin that sits between the Lord and us. It is because of this that I always try to remember to confess my sin and repent if necessary before praying to my Father in heaven. According to this scripture, before I do this, God cannot hear me and I cannot see His face, His character, or His instruction.

“If you turn away your foot from [traveling unduly on] the Sabbath, from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a [spiritual] delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and honor Him and it, not going your own way or seeking or finding your own pleasure or speaking with your own [idle] words, then will you delight yourself in the Lord, and I will make you to ride on the high places of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage [promised for you] of Jacob your father; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.” Isaiah 58:13-14 ->me: The points being made here by Isaiah are very focused on our minds being entirely directed towards the Lord for just one day of the week. A day where we dwell on God, what He has done for us, His grace, His mercy, and more we can learn about Him. The thing that jumps out the most at me is Isaiah’s divinely insightful thought on when we find Spiritual delight in the Sabbath we will then delight in ourselves in the Lord…we will be encouraged in our own walk. This is revolutionary for me!! Let me say this another way – What Isaiah is saying is…when I look on the Sabbath day as a spiritual delight (not a pain because I miss the Seahawks game or miss the pruning that needs done in the yard) then I myself will be delighted in my own life in the Lord and God will give me the best of what the world has to offer – just read Deuteronomy 32:13-14 where Moses describes what the ‘ride on high places of the earth’ is. The Sabbath is integral to finding a little of heaven here on earth. Look at what my family is missing out on!!

“And the Lord shall guide you continually and satisfy you in drought and in dry places and make strong your bones. And you shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.” Isaiah 58:11 ->me: Fasting passage concluded – Here in verse 10 there are four blessings if we take care of those less fortunate and freeing the oppressed. 1) Clarity in life’s darknesses and perplexities. A light given to you in the darkness to show the way.  Does not mean you are taken out of the darkness, it means that you will have the ability to see the path when in it.  2) Timely supply – when things are bleak and when we are vulnerable, He will strengthen our frame and give us durability in the face of harsh demands. 3) The blessing of fresh incoming resource and vitality; like water brought for the garden, but balancing ministry of the watering can, there is a spring, an unfailing internal fountain. (John 4:14) 4) The blessings of restoration and continuance; recovery from past disaster and a returning to the greatness of those before us. Also in this is provision for a secure future living. Fasting Summary: Once again God shows us His blessing when the focus is taken off of ourselves and put on Him and others…in that order. The act of fasting itself is to withhold from ourselves the very thing that keeps out earthly flesh alive so that we focus on the very thing that keeps our spirit alive -> loving and seeking God with all our heart, mind, and strength. He becomes our focus and the fast helps us keep that focus throughout the fasting time. Then…when you bring in giving to the hungry, shelter for the homeless, justice for the oppressed, and clothing for the naked, you bring in ‘do unto others as you would have done unto yourself’. Again, God’s grace and provision linking the teaching of Jesus back to the old testament. “And He replied to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect).  This is the great (most important, principal) and first commandment and a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself.  These two commandments sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40  God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

“Then shall your light break forth like the morning, and your healing (your restoration and the power of a new life) shall spring forth speedily; your righteousness (your rightness, your justice, and your right relationship with God) shall go before you [conducting you to peace and prosperity], and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, Here I am. If you take away from your midst yokes of oppression [wherever you find them], the finger pointed in scorn [toward the oppressed or the godly], and every form of false, harsh, unjust, and wicked speaking,” Isaiah 58:8-9 ->me: As I promised yesterday, here are the blessings God gives when we get the fast right; when we do, here is what God gives us: 1) A fresh beginning. 2) Personal restoration – the healing of wounds and disabilities of the past. New flesh growing over a wound. 3) Security with righteousness as a protective advance guard and glory as a rear guard. The Lord provides righteousness and the believer wears it as armor. The glory of the Lord is the personal presence of the Lord in all His glory, His presence in every place. 4) He gives free mutuality of relationship with Himself; unfettered prayer -> prompt response. Answered prayers are not like the sending of food parcel; it is like a home visit by the doctor. This is all followed by ‘IF you take away from your midst…’ – which seems to indicate some special credit…’IF’ you do these things…not ‘when’ you do these things.

“[Rather] is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every [enslaving] yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house—when you see the naked, that you cover him, and that you hide not yourself from [the needs of] your own flesh and blood?” Isaiah 58:6-7 ->me: What an amazing revelation of God’s expectation of us when we fast!! Why have I never heard this preached on before?? SUMMARY: Fasting is most productive and glorifying to God when we use that time withholding from ourselves to not only focus our hearts on the Lord and Him alone, but to also share with the less fortunate the things the Lord has given to us -> Food, Clothing, and Shelter. It also means taking a personal interest in intervening in the mistreatment of other souls. What does operating this way do? 1) It shows the Lord that my focus is off my own flesh and I use the pangs of hunger (during my fast) to remind myself to pray. 2) When I take what I am not eating and share it with others, I see the blessing God has given me and I my eyes are opened to the good just sharing, what God has given me, with others can do. 3) I become focused on what I can do for others and that simple act exposes the selfishness of my own flesh when I am self-absorbed with my normal daily activities prompting long term change. (I read ahead a little 🙂 ) Tomorrow I will learn what God says will happen when I fast in the way He has designed.

“Why have we fasted, they say, and You do not see it? Why have we afflicted ourselves, and You take no knowledge [of it]? Behold [O Israel], on the day of your fast [when you should be grieving for your sins], you find profit in your business, and [instead of stopping all work, as the law implies you and your workmen should do] you extort from your hired servants a full amount of labor. [The facts are that] you fast only for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Fasting as you do today will not cause your voice to be heard on high.” Isaiah 58:3-4 ->me: Today was one of those days where sat in front of the Lord’s word and wondered what I was going to get out of it (I had read ahead earlier and was questioning what I was supposed to pull from it). Hear all of my language in that last sentence??? “what I was going to get out of it” and “what I was supposed to pull from it”. I bowed my head (as I always do before reading the Holy Word) and asked the Lord to forgive my unconfessed sin and to help me see what He wanted to show me today. Well, He answered. This passage (Isaiah 58:1-5) is all about God calling attention to the fact that the Israelites have an outward representation of seeking God and worshipping Him but in all reality they were going through the motions (the mechanics) of the Law without a heart focused on Him – they instead had a heart focused on themselves and what God would do for them when they played Simon Says with Him. When I read the passage just to see what ‘I was going to get out it’ nothing jumped out, but when I prayed and asked the Lord to reveal His truth so that I could get to know Him better, He opened my eyes to see the truth behind this passage and the application I should apply in my own life as a dedication to Him alone. HE is my focus…I am not my focus.

“But the wicked are like the troubled sea, for it cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.” Isaiah 57:20-21 ->me: Today I poured over these 2 small verses. I did a study on ‘the wicked’. Here are the characteristics of the wicked – There is nothing steadfast or trustworthy in their talk. They flatten and make smooth their speech. They plot against the righteous, they love to cut people down with their words. They aim venomous words like arrows and they shoot them from ambush at the blameless man. They do this without self-reproach or fear. They love evil more than good; they would rather lie than speak righteousness and justice. They are at ease and prosper in their worldly dealings – they increase their riches. The wicked do not seek or hunger for the statutes of God. They are restless until they have caused trouble, made someone else angry, or caused someone else to fail. They love themselves and their lives are self-centered. They love money and are aroused by an inordinate desire for wealth. They are proud, arrogant, and contemptuous boasters. They are abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, and profane; without natural affection (callous and inhuman), slanderous, intemperate, and loose in morals and conduct; uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. These people cannot rest, for their lives are tumultuous and cause a wake of fog, chaos, and destruction. The scary part is that these characteristics do not need to be complete in order to call someone wicked. Any one of these things on its own is damning- this is why we must heed Paul’s warning to the church at Corinth – “Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and prove yourselves [not Christ]. Do you not yourselves realize and know [thoroughly by an ever-increasing experience] that Jesus Christ is in you—unless you are [counterfeits] disapproved on trial and rejected?” 2 Corinthians 13:5

“If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I [or someone else] am speaking on my[their] own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him[the Father] who sent him[Jesus] is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” John 7:17-18 ->me: When you chose to make your will the same as God’s will, you will know the truth [or lie] when you hear it. You will have the discernment of the Holy Spirit reinforcing the truth within you. When I use my own words formed through my own authority then I am only working to bring glory to myself. When my goal is to be in the will of God (my will and His will aligned) I will have the knowledge of the truth in me. It has to be in this order -> seeking God’s will to be my will unlocks the truth living within me and seeing the truth in His word. Just reading the truth [the word] does not automatically put me into God’s will. I know people who can recite passages and know the bible way better than I do but they are not walking in the will of the Lord -> they are not aligned and therefore seeking to be viewed as if they are in the will of God but not actually surrendering their lives to His work in their lives.