How does God think about those He redeems? "You are precious in my eyes, and
honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for
your life." Isaiah has the Lord
speaking these things to Israel and reminding them of what He has already done
for them, mentioning Egypt and passing through waters, their creation as Jacob
and Israel, two names for one person. We
know that we are redeemed through the blood of Jesus, who has purchased us for
all eternity, so He feels the same about us.
Again, He reminds His people that there are no other gods besides Him,
He defines the term God and in comparison to Him there is no god. How is it possible that such a God could love
us personally and passionately?
Sometimes it seems Jesus constantly broke Sabbath. In both these scenes we see Him doing things
that were considered unlawful on Sabbath, the disciples breaking open heads of
grain in order to satisfy their hunger and then healing a man. Crushing the heads of grain in order to
extract the edible portion was considered work and should have been done in
advance of Sabbath but the disciples were walking in the fields, not resting in
a house. They were hungry and where did they get the idea this would be
okay? They must have taken their cues
from Jesus, the rabbis clearly defined this as Sabbath breaking. Jesus, however, says that the Son of Man was
lord of Sabbath, He was above the law. Is
it any wonder they hated Him? If untrue,
it is the most arrogant thing anyone ever said.
His answers in both cases, set us above the Law.
Paul prays for the church, first that we might be strengthened
with power in His Spirit in our inner being.
He wants us to have the Lord's power to run the race well, that Christ
may dwell in our hearts by faith, His power working in us to make us the
righteousness of God. Next, he prays we
may be rooted and grounded in love to have strength to comprehend the fullness of
the love of God and that His fullness might fill us. Can anyone want more for another person? What would we look like, what would the church
look like if Paul's prayer requests were fulfilled? We would look like Paul, who wanted to look
like Jesus. We would be a powerful force
for the kingdom. We would have faith to
move mountains. We would see miracles
worked through us. We would see
expansion of the kingdom. We would see
persecution but we would have faith to continue. We would be bold. Do we want that? Pray for it with faith in the one who is able
to do more than we can ask or imagine and then walk in that faith. We are His people, We are redeemed!
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