The book of Isaiah is fascinating because of how it seamlessly goes back and forth between prophecies for the current nation of Israel and future prophecies about the coming Messiah.  In Isaiah 9 there is a little bit of both including this famous passage about the coming of Jesus.  Let’s look at it together today.

The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.

You have enlarged the nation
    and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
    as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
    when dividing the plunder

For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
    you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
    the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor.

Every warrior’s boot used in battle
    and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
    will be fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the greatness of his government and peace
    there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
    and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
    will accomplish this.

In the midst of condemning the people of Israel for their sin and warning them of the judgment that is coming to them, Isaiah also offers this glimmer of hope for the coming Messiah.  God is like the parent, who in the midst of punishing their child is also reminding them of just how much He loves them.  That reminds us that God is a God of justice who must punish sin.  He is also a God of love and grace who will go to extreme lengths for His children.  Today and every day remind yourself of the truth of the character and nature of God.  He loves you more than you will ever know.

In His Grip,

Pastor Dave

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Isaiah 6 let’s look at it together today.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

The image described by Isaiah is amazing.  God sitting on a throne surrounded by flying angels.  The Angels are so struck by God’s presence that they are covering their faces and their feet.  They are crying out Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty.  Their voices are such that the temple is shaking at it’s very foundation.  Isaiah assumes at this point that he will die because he has seen God and he is overwhelmed with his sin and the sin of his people.  Isaiah’s sin is covered when he is touched by a burning coal from the altar and he responds to God by offering his life.  It truly is a beautiful scripture and picture that begs the question for us all.  How do we respond when we experience God’s presence?  We will probably never have an experience like Isaiah but all of us have experienced having our sin atoned for and our guilt taken away. God has a job for us all. He asks who shall I send to share my love and my message with the world?  What is our response?  We should all be like Isaiah and say here am I send me God. We have the opportunity, privilege, and responsibility to be His representatives here on earth.  May we all be as willing as Isaiah to carry out His mission for us.

In His Grip,
Pastor Dave

Isaiah 1 sets the tone for much of the book of Isaiah.  Let’s look together at a few verses from Isaiah 1 together today. 

Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
    Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
    I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.

Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
    I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
    I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands in prayer,
    I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
    I am not listening.

Your hands are full of blood!

Wash and make yourselves clean.
    Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
    stop doing wrong.

Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow.

“Come now, let us settle the matter,”
    says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
    they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
    they shall be like wool.

If you are willing and obedient,
    you will eat the good things of the land;

but if you resist and rebel,
    you will be devoured by the sword.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

The people of God have forgotten their Creator and have rebelled.  Isaiah is reminding them that their sacrifices and worship are meaningless when their hearts are far from God.  Certainly God loves our worship, but more than that, He loves when our hearts are for Him.  Jesus reiterates this same message in the sermon on the mount.  It comes down to a matter of the heart.  We can even do the right thing and it can still be displeasing to God.  Isaiah’s reminder is to focus on our hearts toward God.  When our hearts are in the right place the behavior will follow and if it doesn’t we check our hearts again.  Love for God will lead us in the right direction.  The beautiful part of this Scripture is the ending.  Though our sins are like scarlet God will make them white as snow.  His great gift leads us to love Him more and more which helps Him to change us from the inside out.

In His Grip,

Pastor Dave

I’d like to spend the next week or so looking at the book of Isaiah.  Isaiah is one of the longest books in the Bible but I feel like it often gets overlooked.  It is full of a combination of great prophecy and a truly good synopsis of the way the people of Israel acted toward God in the Old Testament.  Let’s look together at one such synopsis in Isaiah 64.

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
    that the mountains would tremble before you!

As when fire sets twigs ablaze
    and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
    and cause the nations to quake before you!

For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
    you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

Since ancient times no one has heard,
    no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
    who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
    who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
    you were angry.
    How then can we be saved?

All of us have become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
    and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

No one calls on your name
    or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
    and have given us over to our sins.

Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
    We are the clay, you are the potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.

Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord;
    do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
    for we are all your people.

The people are struck with the goodness of God then forget and fall into sin.  They feel far from God after a season and pray to Him once again for help and to remember them.  This pattern is broken when many of the prophecies of Isaiah come true through the birth of Jesus and eventually His death and resurrection. That’s the beauty of this book.  Even in the midst of the rebellion and sin of the people of Israel God is at work on a plan to redeem them and us forever.  That is such a great picture of the love and grace of our great God.  It’s again summed up in Romand 5:8 – while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.  Today be reminded of the amazing grace of God and live your life for Him as a means of thanks for His incredible gift.

In His Grip,

Pastor Dave

Do you have a particular morning routine?  I do and I can get thrown off when I don’t quite get it right.  Today was one of those mornings where it was a struggle.  The morning at home went well but then I arrived at church and promptly spilled my coffee.  I walked back home to change my pants and realized I left my keys back at church and couldn’t get in.  I walked back to church and realized my keys were locked in the church office.  Luckily I found another early bird co worker who let me in. I grabbed my keys and walked back home to change.  Did a quick change and came back to church.  Then I realized that indeed my keys were yet again left behind in the pants pocket of the original pants.  Back home had to crawl in a window because once again locked out grabbed the keys and finally made it back sat down to write this devotional and told Alexa to play worship music.  Typically the newest worship mix plays but The first song I heard was an old Third Day tune that was one of my favorites it comes from the words of Psalm 36 so let’s look at that together today.  

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the skies.

Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
    your justice like the great deep.
    You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.

How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
    People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house;
    you give them drink from your river of delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;
    in your light we see light.

When that song played I started smiling.  Not only did the tune bring back some great memories but that’s the way God typically works.  None of my morning hiccups were big deals but often days that start like that can put you in a bad place mentally for the rest of the day.  This song and the reminder of God’s faithfulness was liking hitting a reset button on my day.  So today is off to a good start for me now.  I hope these verses and my story helps you off to a good start as well.  

In His Grip,

Pastor Dave

Hello Advent Family,

How do we show our love for God?  The Bible says that one of the most basic ways is through our obedience and our love for others.  John spells it out very simply in I John 5.  Let’s look at it together today.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

God doesn’t love us any more or any less based on our obedience to Him.  His love for us is perfect an unconditional.  Unfortunately our love is neither of those.  Two things happen when we obey God.  First we remain closer to Him.  While He never changes sin by it’s nature separates.  I remember when I was a child and I did something I wasn’t supposed to do.  I went and hid.  I left my parents presence and hid from them.  Adam and Eve did the very same thing in the Garden.  Sin separates. Not only does it create distance but we also feel differently.  Even though God remains with us and will never leave us we feel far from Him which often leads to even more sin.  It is a vicious cycle that keeps us from true joy in our relationship with God.  John reminds us that the commands of God are not burdensome.  It truly comes down to loving God and loving people.  We all will fall short at times but when we do remember to seek quick reconciliation with your God who has already forgiven you.  This will keep us from getting stuck in the cycle. 

In His Grip,
Pastor Dave

Why do you love who you love?  Shared interests or experiences? Perhaps a mutual friend who brought you together? Maybe they have a trait that you really admire.  John tells us that there is a clear reason to love others. We love others because of God’s great love for us.  Let’s look at His words today in I John 4.

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

John reminds us that loving others is our responsibility because of the fact that we are children of God.  We do not love others because of any redeeming quality that they have but we love them because they also are His.  After all God loves us not because of our own redeeming qualities but simply because He does.  We are told to love our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, and even our enemies.  This can be a challenging thing.  It’s easy to love the people who we are naturally drawn to.  It’s more challenging to love others that we aren’t.  That is the love that is important and life changing though.  Loving those that seem “unlovable” to us.  That type of love can really make a difference in someone’s life.  Today and every day make it a point to show love to someone who it is difficult for you to love and watch and see how God uses that in both their life and yours.

In His Grip,
Pastor Dave

Have you ever known or experienced someone who was all talk?  Maybe they made big promises or claims but never backed them up? We have all probably fallen short of what we said we will or can do before but for some it becomes a regular occurrence.  John warns us against doing this when it comes to loving others.  It’s one thing to say we love our neighbor but it is another thing to live it out.  Let’s look at his words together today.

11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. 16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

There is an older country song called A little less talk and a lot more action.  This is exactly what John is calling us to when it comes to loving others.  It’s amazing the impact small little actions make to a world that has come to expect very little love in their lives.  Letting someone cut you in the grocery line.  Paying for the coffee of the person behind you in line.  Complimenting someone genuinely.  Or bigger actions of serving others that really make a difference.  May we be people of action who follow the example of Jesus and show others our love by how we live.

In His Grip,
Pastor Dave

Have you ever tried to walk around somewhere when there was no light at all?  Maybe you were camping and it was the middle of the night and you didn’t have a flashlight.  Maybe you got up in the middle of the night and the power was out and you had to stumble around.  Or perhaps you have, like me, been caving and your headlamp went out while you were far away from your caving partner.  I can tell you first hand it is quite unsettling and disorienting.  You can try and feel your way around but you really won’t make much progress until you have light.  John compares this idea of stumbling around in the darkness to what is like when we have hate inside of us.  Let’s look at his words together today.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. 9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. 10 Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. 11 But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.

We were created in the image of God.  The Bible tells us that God, in His very nature, is love.  That means that we are designed and created to be against of love.  When we harbor hate toward another person it is like going through life in the darkness.  We are blinded.  I literally was stuck in the cave without my light until I remembered that in my backpack I had a backup hand held light.  I turned that on and then I could move again.  I could make my way through.  When we find we are blind because we have hate we need to use our backup light.  God Is always with us to forgive us.  To remind us of His great love for us and to fill us again with love even for those we don’t particularly like much.  Do not allow hate to blind you in life but seek God’s great love and walk through life in the light of that love for Him and others. 

In His Grip,
Pastor Dave