In God alone
Be silent before me, you islands! Let the nations renew their strength! Let them come forward and speak; let us meet together at the place of judgment. “Who has stirred up one from the east, calling him in righteousness to his service? He hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword, to windblown chaff with his bow. He pursues them and moves on unscathed, by a path his feet have not traveled before. Who has done this and carried it through, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord—with the first of them and with the last—I am he. Isaiah 41:1-4 NIV
Do things just happen accidentally or is there someone who is at work behind the events? Is there such thing as providential? Is history cyclical wherein events repeat themselves in seasonal pattern or is history taking place in progressive manner where it is taking us toward a final consummation? Is there a larger story and if so, do we have a part in it? Will the discovery of the meaning of life will be up to us to determine or someone greater than us? Isaiah’s point from the text is that we need to take God seriously into account. The question really boils down to this: who is God to you or to us? Related to this is who Jesus is. Once we allow God to work in us through the Holy Spirit, our lives will be awaken within with a new awareness of Christ. The suffering at the cross is God coming down to us in love. He took upon himself the guilt of our rebellion bent on ignoring God. God is summoning all people for himself. He longs for the multitudes to be drawn to Him so they can experience great joy. By God communicating to us His love through the death of Jesus Christ at the cross, He is glorifying himself through our redemption. Once we experience the redemptive love of God through Jesus Christ, we will offer our lives to Him as expression of our worship. The events we experience are part of God’s redemptive plan. Every event in our lives will be used by God so He could demonstrate who He is to us and for us to realize how significant we are to Him.
Blessings,
