Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:19
I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in My people;
(The Speaker is God Himself.
He chooses to rejoice in His city and in His people.
Even when we fail and fall short, even when we don't walk out His truths,
like a loving and devoted parent, even then,
He doesn't just barely tolerate us.
He doesn't just barely put up with us.
He takes great delight in us. He rejoices over us.
We are the apple of His Eye which means
He has us constantly in His focus and is acutely attentive to us.
This is not a God Who remains aloof
and demands undying devotion from us,
but a God Who elicits our love
simply because of His deep and abiding love for us.
What other response can we make to this One
Who loves us so unconditionally and passionately
than to bask and revel in such love!)
the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.
(In this place that the Lord has designed for us,
He will so fill that place that nothing can intrude or invade it.
No sadness or pain will be able to penetrate
this place of peace and comfort and joy that is in Him.
While the Lord is certainly giving us this promise
for His new creation in the end days,
He is also establishing a truth for us today,
that we can live life in Him and in His truth
so that He turns our hearts from weeping to joy
and our failures into victory in and through Him.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:18
"But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create,
(The Lord has just declared that, in His new creation for and in us,
He will cause us His people to forget all the former things
that separated us from Him, the former hardships
and heartaches and hurts and failures.
Rather, He reminds us here to rejoice,
no matter what our present circumstances,
from a deep place of peace and satisfaction
because of His assurance about the life and the world He creates for us,
because of the truth of His Word,
and because of His victory that has overcome the world.
He reminds us that His peace and joy are not momentary or fleeting,
but that, because of Him, they abide forever
and are forever available to us.)
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy."
(Our joy and peace are represented by the city that God gave His people
as the place where He would dwell, as the place where He could be found.
The Hebrew words used here for Jerusalem refer to a foundation of peace,
a firm foundation of the peace that passes all human understanding.
That's what the Lord is gifting to us.
And the people He calls into that special place of His presence,
into that foundation of peace in Him,
are a delight both to Him and to us
as we stand in relationship with Father God
and as we form for each other a community of relationship.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:17
"See, I will create new heavens and a new earth.
(The Lord reminds us today that He continues to unfold His plan,
first as a covenant with Adam
that He would provide deliverance for him and his offspring,
then progressing down through the covenants He made
with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David,
and culminating in the crowing glory
of His covenant of salvation through His Son Jesus.
He says the future of this planet earth and universe surrounding it
will be something completely new, something we have not seen before,
a reality that has already unfolded through the salvation of Christ.
For right now, the point of this truth
is that, as His covenant continues to unfold today,
He creates newness in the expanse of our lives,
that whatever has been will become new,
that the old will become new,
that He Who is God will create a new dwelling for us,
a new life, a new hope, a new plan, a new direction,
and we can rejoice in the fact that He has that plan for us even today.)
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
(The Lord's change is so dramatic, so complete, so total,
that the past, the present dynamics, what seemed impossible,
what seemed unattainable, will be so far from our reality in Him
that we won't even recall the desperation and aimlessness
we once might have felt.
Now, as our focus centers on Him,
as He fills our vision with His presence, His strength, His provision,
all else fades from our eyes and from our thoughts.
We are filled with Him as we look to Him today.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:16
Whoever invokes a blessing in the land will do so by the one true God;
(When we ask for blessing, we do so knowing
that the Lord rules the land, the life we live,
that His blessing is sure to come because we reside
in the land of our lives that the one true God, the God of truth, rules.
He is the Giver of all blessing and He is the God of Truth, the God of Amen.
In Him is Truth. He is Truth, so when we receive blessing
we can be sure of His faithfulness to pour out
the very blessing He has promised us.)
whoever takes an oath in the land will swear by the one true God.
(When we set out to fulfill prospects and purposes,
again, we do so in the land, the life, that the God of Amen draws for us,
the land that He lays out for us.
Our determinations and efforts all lie under the rule of this Very God.
We are not led by idols or false hopes or misplaced ideologies,
but by the One True God Who never sleeps and never fails us.)
For the past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes.
(As we continue walking out the life the Lord has granted us,
as we continue to submit ourselves to the One Who is Ruler and God,
we can rest in the blessed forgetfulness of all our past failures,
our frailties, our inadequacies, our lost way,
because He blesses us with His design for us and strengthens us
to fulfill what we could never accomplish on our own.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:13-15
Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
(In the earlier verses the Lord has just described
those people who refuse to acknowledge Him and His salvation.
He has called them repeatedly, and they refused to come to Him.
Now He declares He will cause vastly different outcomes for them
than His people will experience.)
"My servants will eat, but you will go hungry;
My servants will drink, but you will go thirsty;
My servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame.
My servants will sing out of the joy of their hearts,
but you will cry out from anguish of heart
and wail in brokenness of spirit.
(In stark and uncompromising contrast, the Lord describes
the differences in the future for His servants, His people,
and those who continue to refuse to turn to Him.
Across the spectrum of physical want to spiritual need,
the people who follow His path of deliverance from Babylon
will experience a life of freedom and provision,
as opposed to those who choose to remain in their bondage there.
Though the Lord has promised deliverance to His people,
He also assured those who disobey Him severe consequences.
The differences are dramatic and drastic.)
You will leave your name for My chosen ones to use in their curses;
the Sovereign Lord will put you to death,
but to His servants He will give another name."
(Even the name of the rebellious will become repulsive
and God's people will refer to them in their solemn declarations
when they say if we disobey God we will become like those defiant ones.
But for His servants, the Lord will give a new name that He gives them,
perhaps even referring to the expansion of the name of God's people
from only Jews to one that includes Gentiles.
For us today, the Lord reminds us here that disobedience to Him
is deeply serious and carries grave consequences.
Today, He gives us the promise of supply and provision,
of joy and gladness, of victory instead of defeat, of life instead of death,
and a new name by which He Himself names us.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:11-12
"But as for you who forsake the Lord and forget My holy mountain,
(In His outreach to His people and His requirements for all peoples,
the Lord reminds them that He has established a way and a place,
the place being Mount Zion where the Temple stood,
which they must adhere to in order to maintain true worship.
He had made a covenant with them that He would be their God
and that they would be His people.
As a part of that covenant of love, the people had certain responsibilities.
Still today, we often forsake our obligations to the Lord's covenant with us
as we fail to walk in His ways, refusing to accept His standards and conditions.)
who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny,
(The word fortune in Hebrew is an allusion to idol worship,
probably referring to the planet Jupiter
which supposedly brought good luck and good fortune.
What is translated as destiny here is probably Venus or perhaps the Moon,
again a reference to idol worship.
And before we are too quick to look down on those people of that day
and their ignorance in engaging in such foolishness as idol worship,
we need to remember how we also continue in that path,
but have simply become more sophisticated and subtle in our idol worship
as we still bow before the powers of this world,
such as getting, spending, and our own performance,
or as we still bow before the internal forces within us,
such as jealousy, resentment, refusing to forgive, and arrogance.)
I will destine you for the sword, and all of you will fall in the slaughter;
for I called but you did not answer, I spoke but you did not listen.
You did evil in My sight and chose what displeases Me."
(His call to us to be obedient to Him is not to force us into servitude and judgment,
but to set us free to enjoy the fullness of life in Him.
When we refuse to submit to the Lord's provision of salvation,
when we choose to follow our own self-will,
the grave consequences bring death.
But today the consequences of heeding His call, of choosing His way,
bring life and hope and freedom and deliverance and provision.
Though He knows without Him we reap death and destruction,
He yearns for us to turn to Him today and to receive His deliverance
in all the places of need in our lives.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

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Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:10
Sharon will become a pasture for flocks,
(The Lord  promises His deliverance to His people
from their place of exile and oppression
and that He will return them to the Promised Land He has given them
and which they have been denied by their enemies.
The Sharon Valley is a picture of the lush and fertile Land of Promise
originally given to Israel when they first left Egypt.
Lying alongside the western side of the country along the Mediterranean,
it is a picture of the land flowing with milk and honey.
Here is where the Lord intends us to live, where He will take us,
as He delivers us from our places of exile.)
and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds,
(The Lord also promises to His people
that He will plant them in the Valley of Achor
along the eastern side of the Promised Land.
This valley is a picture of the places of disobedience and hardship,
but also of His redemption from those people and places.
When the Lord had led the Israelites
out of the wilderness to the Promised Land,
their first city to conquer was Jericho,
and He gave them explicit instructions
to completely destroy everyone and everything in the city.
Unknown to the other Israelites, one of their own, Achan,
took some of the treasure as spoil and hid it away.
Because sin lay in the Israelite camp,
when Joshua sent his troops to conquer
the next city in the Promised Land, they were routed.
Only when Achan had been called to account for his sin
was Israel released from the sin that they had taken on as a collective sin.
For us today, the Lord is promising us when we repent
that He takes the places of our disobedience and sin
and causes us to live victoriously in His promised resting place
and makes that place a place of prosperity for us.
He uses all things to work together for our good,
and He works for the good of the called.)
for My people who seek Me.
(Over and over again, the Lord reminds us that we belong to Him,
that we are His, that He makes Himself found by us,
and that He provides victory out of the defeat of the daunting situations in life,
whether those are the consequences of our own choices
or are deposited on us by life events.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

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Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:9
I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
and from Judah those who will possess My mountains;
My chosen people will inherit them, and there will My servants live.
(The Lord promises His people who have been exiled from their homeland
and are now living under Babylonian rule
that He has not forgotten them, that He has not forsaken them,
but that, in fact, He is very much aware
of where they are and what their needs are.
He declares He will make sure His beloved Jacob and Judah and their offspring
are not left behind, left in exile, left in oppression,
but that He will deliver them and return them to the land
He has promised them from long before this time.
The Lord's promise to us today is the same,
that He has not forgotten nor forsaken us,
but that we are His chosen people
and that He calls us into renewed relationship with Him.
He delivers us as servants of His, as descendants from Jacob and Judah,
from the places of hardship and exile,
and brings us back into the fullness of His homeland of promise to us.
He gifts to us today the mountains of His inheritance, of His presence, to us
mountains where we live with Him,
mountains where we experience His deliverance, His victory,
and an abundant life in Him.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

 

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:8
This is what the Lord says:
"As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes
and people say, 'Don't destroy it, there is still a blessing in it,'
so will I do in behalf of My servants; I will not destroy them all."
(Though God's people, though we, continue to walk in our own willful ways,
though we persist in unfaithfulness and disobedience,
though we fail Him time and again,
just as the Lord has promised the early fathers of our faith,
He remains faithful and true no matter how damaged we may be,
declaring His unfailing love and commitment to us
and that He will always save His people
so that His promises continue through the ages,
promises that still remain with us today.
Even when we have not produced the wine
of fellowship with and devotion to Him that we should,
He has planted within us the seeds of His purposes for us
and will not cast us aside because He sees the worth in us
and determines to give us time to produce
the cluster of works and faithfulness and wisdom and joy
He knows He can create in and through us.
As the vineyard that He tends, today we know that He as the Gardener
has a master design for His plantings and we are safe in His care.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:6-7
"See, it stands written before Me:
(The Lord says the people's sin looms before Him,
and a holy and righteous God cannot and will not accept sin in His people.
Though we often think God will overlook our disobedience and rebellion,
He cannot, and, until His people repent and ask forgiveness,
these acts of unrighteousness stand in stark reality
before the Holy God Who loves us.)
I will not keep silent but will pay back in full;
I will pay it back into their laps—
both your sins and the sins of your ancestors," says the Lord.
(Rather than accepting our sinful behaviors and attitudes,
He declares He will intervene on our behalf,
that He will allow us to receive the payment and consequences
for our willful ways, as well as what we pass on
and what we teach our children and children's children.)
"Because they burned sacrifices on the mountains
and defied Me on the hills, I will measure into their laps
the full payment for their former deeds."
(The Lord refuses to allow His people to continue their idol worship,
refuses to allow them to bow before other gods.
And to help them turn away from their destructive and false worship,
He allows His people to experience the consequences of their choices.
Today, the Lord erases and removes our sin far from us
as we yield to His redemption, as we ask and receive forgiveness.
He mercifully refuses to keep silent about our sin
and even allows us to experience the pain of our choices
so that we finally reach a place where we turn to Him
in desperation and humility and repentance.
There we do not receive the "full payment" for our sin,
but, instead, receive the full measure of His amazing grace and mercy.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:2-5
All day long I have held out My Hands to an obstinate people,
(The Lord continues His answer to Isaiah's prayer
and reveals the true picture of the people He loves
and to whom He has given Himself.
He has pleaded with them and done everything possible
to turn them away from their willful ways.
When we choose to walk in our own obstinate, disobedient self-will,
we turn away from the Lord's outstretched Hand of life to us.)
who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—
a people who continually provoke Me to My very Face,
(Unthinking and oblivious, only absorbed in our own indulgences,
sure that we can walk in our own paths and still keep the Lord on our side,
we actually mock the very God Who lovingly calls us into relationship with Him,
blatantly and shamelessly provoking Him.)
offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick;
who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil;
(God's people were worshiping at the altars of the world and of sin,
on altars of brick, a phrase that denotes
their own efforts at making themselves right with God,
and among the graves, denoting the worship of ancestors and spirits.
Today we still often choose to bow before the altars
of our own performance and other gods of the world.
We also worship at the altars of anger or unforgiveness
or materialism or name recognition and titles, or a host of other places
instead of the true worship of giving our lives completely and totally
to the One Who created us and loves us beyond measure
and Whose great delight in us and an abundant life are His gifts to us.)
who eat the flesh of pigs, and whose pots hold broth of impure meat
(We flagrantly partake of the impure things of the world,
disobeying the Lord's commandments,
charges He has pronounced over us to help us live
the kind of life of freedom and victory He has ordained for us.)
who say, 'Keep away; don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you!'
(And then we justify and rationalize our actions,
make our judgments about holiness based on outward measures,
become Pharisaical in our attitudes,
compare our own righteousness with what we can observe in others,
and declare that our righteousness far surpasses theirs.
By so doing, we elevate ourselves and release ourselves
from the Lord's invitation to walk in humility with Him.)
Such people are smoke in My Nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.
(Our attempts at righteousness not only are ineffective,
but also cause the Lord to look on us with holy anger and great displeasure.
Today we can thank God that He will not tolerate our disobedience,
that His holiness cannot dwell alongside our sinful ways,
and that He has provided the needed escape
from ourselves and into Him that only He can provide.
When we accept His salvation and forgiveness,
we are no longer separated from Him,
but embraced and made righteous by Him and in Him,
and He only sees the righteousness of His Own Son when He looks on us!)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:1b
To a nation that did not call on My Name,
I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'"
(To those of us Gentiles today, the Lord repeats His resounding reassurance,
that though we were not originally among God's chosen nation of Israel
through whom He unveiled Himself to the world,
that He is giving open access to Him to us, too.
His persistent, determined, enduring, relentless plea to us still today
is for us to turn our focus to Him.
He yearns to make Himself known to us.
He yearns to reveal Himself in new ways to us.
His clarion call to us today is that He is here,
that He makes Himself available to us,
that I AM is here and here with us.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 65:1a
"I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me;
I was found by those who did not seek Me.
(The Lord tells Isaiah that part of His response
to Isaiah's heartfelt prayer of repentance
is to broaden His outreach to other peoples.
Though God's chosen people have turned their backs on Him,
He continues to choose to reveal Himself, to be found,
by other peoples who have not even sought Him.
The Lord has determined that He will allow Himself to be revealed
and to be found by a nation that did not ask for nor seek Him.
He uses even His Own people's rejection of Him
to bring about His purposes for mankind
and to broaden and continue His redemption plan.
In a personal application for us today, the message to us
is that He also reveals Himself to us and causes Himself to be found by us
before we even knew we needed Him, before we ever sought Him.
This amazing God and Father set out to make Himself known
long before we cried out to Him in our need,
long before our father Adam fell from grace,
long before the Lord had even created man.
From before the beginning of time, the Lord knew we would need Him
and so had put a plan in place to meet that need
which is ours for the asking today.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 64:12
After all this, Lord, will You hold Yourself back?
Will You keep silent and punish us beyond measure?
(The deep and fervent prayer of the repentant Isaiah continues
as he mourns the devastation which Israel has experienced.
He looks at what he and his people have been subject to,
the destruction of Jerusalem, the very city of God,
as well as the Holy Temple, the actual earthly dwelling place of God,
and realizes their disobedience and lukewarm attitudes have brought about
not only great loss in their personal lives through the Babylonian invasion
and their subsequent exile from their homeland,
but it has caused their relationship with the Lord to be broken
and the very center of their worship experience to be taken from them.
Like the Israelites, we often want to indulge our own self-will,
but rarely do we welcome the consequences of those choices.
Today, we may have ourselves experienced
the invasion of Babylonian "sin" consequences into our lives
and our own subsequent exile from our homeland
of an unbroken relationship with the Lord.
The answer to Isaiah's and our question today
about the extent of our deserved punishment
is the Lord's unswerving, unfaltering faithfulness and mercy to us His people.
He Who calls us to account also provides the means
of restoration and forgiveness that we so desperately need even yet today.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

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Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 64:11
Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised You,
has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins.
(Part of the devastating results of Israel's sin
was the invasion by the Babylonians
and the destruction of the Holy Temple.
The Lord allowed His people to reap what they had sown.
Now, the place the Lord had provided,
where He had invited His people to meet with Him,
has been desecrated and destroyed.
Thinking they could stray into their own paths and make their own way,
the people had thought they could keep one foot in the world
while keeping the other in God's Kingdom.
Their terrible shock was that the Lord in His great love for them,
in His holy jealousy for them to experience
the fullness of all He wanted to provide for them,
would not allow them to continue playing at serving Him.
Now the place where they could call on the Lord,
the place where He had chosen to dwell
and to make Himself known to them, was gone.
Now their once treasured place of connection with their God
was broken and destroyed.
Now, instead of depending on exterior settings
as the place to meet their God,
in the beauty of His redeeming seemingly impossible situations,
they would be forced to experience communion with Him
within their hearts and minds.
Now, only through God's mercy and grace,
would He reestablish His relationship with them.
We, too, may experience the loss of what we treasure,
but the Lord will use even that space in our lives
to help force us to focus our treasure and relationship in Him
and to reestablish our communion with Him.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 64:10
Your sacred cities have become a wasteland;
even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation.
(As God's people realize the extent of their own devastation
arising from consequences they have invited into their lives
through their disobedience,
they see that not only have they themselves been punished
with exile from the safety and beauty and freedom of their homeland,
but that the place that God declared
was His dwelling place on the earth has actually been razed.
Our actions and choices have cosmic consequences,
not only for ourselves, but for others
and even for the world to which the Lord has called us.
He so deeply includes us in partnership with Him
that our union with Him, or the  lack thereof, deeply impacts Him.
What had once been a place of beauty and community
and communion with the Lord was now completely destroyed.
When we walk away from our devotion to Him, we suffer grave consequences.
But, when we turn back to Him, even the wasteland and desolation
become places where the Lord reaches out to us in love
to renew our walk with Him today, to restore our communion with Him,
and to heal us from the blindness and disobedience we once embraced.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 64:9
Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord;
(Now in complete truth, Isaiah confesses on behalf of the people
his and the people's sin against their God.
He knows how far their self-will has taken them
from their walk with the Lord.
He realizes the deep separation from God that sin causes.
And his plea is for forgiveness, for mercy.
The people now recognize their desperate need of God
and His righteous anger at their rebellion against Him and His ways.
When we finally come to the knowledge and recognition
of the Lord's refusal to accept sin in our lives,
we have taken the first step
toward bowing before His authority and sovereignty.
The anger of the Lord at sin, rather than something to be feared,
is our hope and reassurance in Him.)
do not remember our sins forever.
(When we finally come to the knowledge and recognition of sin in our lives,
we have taken another step toward freedom and reconciliation with Him.
He not only does not hold our sin against us,
not only extends His forgiveness,
but He says that He actually removes our sin from us
as far as the east is from the west,
an infinite, immeasurable distance from us.)
Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all Your people.
(As an example of a fervent prayer that the Lord has included in His Word,
He shows us here that we need to remember
that He does, indeed, look on us,
that He does see our plight, our repentance,
and that He hears us when we pray,
and that we need to stand on the truth
that even in our disobedience and the foolish, left turns we so often take in life,
even in the suffering that life may impose on us,
we belong to the Lord, that we are His people,
that He has called us by name and separated us to Himself.
And nothing can change that!)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 64:8
Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
(In this prayer of repentance, Isaiah declares
that even in the people's sin,
even as they suffer from their disobedience to Him,
the Lord, their Creator God, their Mighty King, their Covenant God,
is also still their Father God, the One Who loves them
as a father loves and cares for his rebellious children.
Today, the Lord still calls us to that same truth,
that no matter what we have done,
no matter what life has placed in our path,
the Lord is still Father to us, loving us and caring for us.
We still carry His Name. We still belong to Him.
He still calls us His Own. His DNA flows through us.
Just as our own children carry our DNA,
we carry His mark in us, a mark that connects us to Him to such a degree
that we are not our own, but belong to Him.)
We are the clay, You are the Potter;
(Because we are His very Own, He molds us and shapes us and grows us
to make us look more and more like Him.
As a potter takes the raw clay material and shapes it into his design,
so the Lord takes the raw material of our lives to shape us into His design
so that even our impurities and imperfections are smoothed out
and incorporated into and made a part of the beauty of His creation in us.)
we are all the work of Your Hand.
(When we face difficult challenges, when we feel overwhelmed,
when we grow discouraged, or fearful, or frustrated, or rebellious,
when we feel the Lord has turned away from us,
here is the truth that strengthens and encourages us.
We are God's work of art, His masterpiece.
We are never in any safer place, no matter what lies before us today,
than resting in His Hand, than knowing that He is at work in us,
than knowing that we are the work of His Own Hand.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 64:7
No one calls on Your Name or strives to lay hold of You;
(In the time of the Israelites' exile, they had so far strayed from the Lord
that it was as if they were in a deep sleep and unable to arouse themselves
to call on the Name of their God for deliverance and help.
The idea of laying hold of the Lord has to do with drawing strength from Him,
and Israel was in such a stupor, had felt they had so deeply forsaken God,
that they were not even calling out to the Lord.
The farther we stray away from the Lord and His purposes for us,
the less we call on Him, the less we seek Him, the less we focus on Him,
and ultimately the weaker we become,
simply because we are not aligning ourselves with Him
Who is the very Source of our strength.
When we are blinded into disobedience and sin,
when we step into a path that leads us away from Father God,
our relationship grows cold which only separates us more from Him
and which is the very most critical time we need to turn to Him in repentance.)
for You have hidden Your Face from us
and have given us over to our sins.
(Because of the sin that separated the people from God,
they felt He had forsaken them,
that their rejection of the Lord was insurmountable.
They felt His anger at their sin was causing them to melt away in fear.
We often try to put the blame on God for where we are
when, in fact, He doesn't shift, He doesn't change,
and there isn't even a shadow of turning in Him.
When we call on Him, when we lay hold of Him,
when we draw our strength from Him,
His forgiveness and mercies are new every morning
and nothing can separate us from Him and His love for us.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,

Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 64:6
All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
(In stark realization of the consequences of her rebellious ways,
suffering Babylonian exile and the Lord's displeasure at her sin,
Israel understands she has become both morally and ceremonially unclean,
reprehensible as she stands before the Lord in her disobedience.
The Israelite people realize that any goodness of theirs is a sham,
as unclean as the soiled and putrid menstrual cloths
after having been used by women during their period.
The real and holy righteousness of God
is so far beyond any so-called righteousness of ours
that His holiness dwells in another and completely separate realm,
completely different and beyond any comparison to our attempts at goodness.)
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
(Like Israel in Isaiah's day, we, too, may be experiencing
the awful consequences of choices we have made,
choices that have led us into disobedience,
choices that seemed harmless and irreproachable at the beginning,
choices that we had no idea at the outset would lead us
to the depths of separation from the ways of the Lord,
choices that eventually led us into our own exile
from the "home-land" of intimate relationship with our God.
Unchecked and unconfessed sin
always sweeps us away into terrible consequences.
It always takes us farther than we ever intended to go.
The Good News today is that, even in the midst of our devastation and need,
the Lord extends His Hand of mercy and love to us,
to reclaim us, to restore us, to lift us out of the paths which we had chosen,
and to place us again in His ways of righteousness.)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]

Good Word for Today!

The Lord Be With You Today!

Isaiah 64:5
You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
who remember Your ways.
(In the Lord's covenant with us, He has declared
that He is our God and that He chooses us to be His people.
His part in that divine union is to be our Savior, Lord, and Redeemer,
to make Himself known and available to us.
Our part in this holy invitation is to honor and reverence Him,
to accept Him as Lord and Savior, and to obey Him as we follow Him.)
But when we continued to sin against them, You were angry.
How then can we be saved?
(As flawed and often rebellious people of God,
we often choose sin and disobedience
over obedient submission to Him and His truths and His ways.
Though we too often choose sin and fail to walk uprightly before the Lord,
He still chooses time and again to save us, forgive us, and reclaim us.
How can the Lord choose over and over again to receive us back to Himself?
How then can we be saved? The answer lies in Him!
In His unfailing love and great mercy!
While the Lord is angry at sin that overtakes us and to which we yield,
He is always ready to forgive and redeem us.
His forgiveness, His love, His grace
never wears out, never grows old, never diminishes,
and is ours for the mere asking today!)

May the Lord richly bless you this day!

In Christ's love,
Blessings!

Sally
513 254 3874

 

[category word for today]