Do not be afraid–you will not be disgraced again; you will not be humiliated. You will forget your unfaithfulness as a young wife, and your desperate loneliness as a widow. Your Creator will be like a husband to you–the Lord Almighty is his name. The holy God of Israel will save you–he is the ruler of all the world. Isaiah 54:4-5 Good News Translation
If you consider yourself a religious “outsider”, or one who has no background (or an unhappy background) in religion, we would like to give you some good news. What you have heard about God being angry with you and wanting to condemn you forever to some fiery place of unending torture–it’s no longer true, if it ever was true (and we don’t believe it ever was).
Oh yes, you probably have good reason to be afraid, disgraced, humiliated and lonely. But you see, dear reader, it is not up to you, and it never has been. The religious “insiders” are quite adamant about man’s free will (they are right, man does have free will and so do you) and they are also quite adamant about consequences for wrong-doing (what they call “sin”, and they are right, there are consequences). But you probably already know all too well about those consequences–you didn’t become afraid, disgraced, humiliated and lonely because it was in some water that you drank.
But here is what the “insiders” tend to forget–Father has a will also, and it was His will to give all authority in heaven and on earth to Jesus the Messiah. You will never guess how Jesus chose to use that authority–He took all of the punishment for all wrong-doing of all people for all time upon Himself! As a result of that, God is no longer counting the wrong-doing against you (or anyone else either, for that matter)! If that seems incredible, click on the above link, and read it for yourself.
When God concilated the world to Himself through the blood which Jesus gave on the cross, He made possible something even more wonderful (if that is possible) than removing all of your wrong-doing. It is now Jesus’ will to pursue you like a young man pursues a maiden that he wants to marry. Thus we come to the wonderful prophecy from Isaiah which began this post. Do you see, dear reader, that even though you were “unfaithful” once upon a time, Jesus promises that you will “forget” it. And not only that, but your “desperate loneliness” will be forgotten as well. It is exactly the loneliness felt by a widow, which is of course the reason Isaiah said so.
In legal terms, you once belonged to Jesus because He created you. But He gave you the freedom to use your will, which separated you from Him. (Most of us will agree that we left His ways and His paths, not the other way around.) Having now died and raised out from the dead, Jesus is free under God’s law to marry you. That is to say, He wants to enter into a loving relationship and one-ness that is the reason He created the husband/wife relationship in the first place, as a picture of what He intends for you, dear reader! It is a simile, and one that is used often in scripture, to depict the loving one-ness of Jesus and those foolish enough to cast their all upon Him–all your fear, all your disgrace, all your humiliation and all your loneliness. You see, He cares for you.
You may be saying: What is my part? What am I supposed to do? Here is the simple answer, and it is no more difficult or simple than this: Believe it!
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” John 6:28-29 English Standard Version (ESV)
This amazing passage has a number of marvelous truths within it. Do you see that even during Jesus’ time, men wanted to DO SOMETHING to be right with God? But Jesus pointed out it is not DOING but BELIEVING, and even the believing is not of yourselves–it is the work of God. But if you can cooperate with Father in this work, the promise of a new life is for you.
Nevertheless, we can confidently say that if you are even an occasional reader of this blog, Father is working to prepare your heart to be wooed by Jesus. Our advice: Give in! Fall in love with Him and forget your unfaithfulness and say “goodbye” to your desperate loneliness. He will never leave you nor forsake you. You are alone no more.
Blessed are You, O Lord. Our wonderful God, You are the King of Forever! Pour out Your Spirit upon all mankind as You have promised, and end the terrible emptiness of lives being lived as You never intended. May Your kingdom come, and with it the marriage of Messiah, the lover of our souls. For a brief, brief moment did You turn away, but now with great chesed (lovingkindness) will You come and gather us. Baruch ata!