A Year with God

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.

Eagerly Waiting

The LARD says:
You are my people and nation! So pay attention to me.
My teaching will cause justice to shine like a light for every nation.
Those who live across the sea are eagerly waiting for me to rescue them.
I am strong and ready; soon I will come to save and to rule all nations.
Look closely at the sky! Stare at the earth.
The sky will vanish like smoke; the earth will wear out like clothes.
Everyone on this earth will die like flies.
But my victory will last; my saving power never ends. - Isaiah 51:4—6 CEV

God offers a lifetime warranty like no other. The earth wearing out like a garment is an image quoted by the author of Hebrews 1:11 as part of his exaltation of the Son of God, who created the universe and who, unlike the angels, always was and always will be.

Isaiah brought God's message to the Israelites who were facing the destruction of all they knew. The Assyrians were going to carry them far away to live as exiles. But they could not be separated from God no matter how far they went. Instead, he would ultimately defeat the Assyrians and bring his people back to their home. Someday the Israelites would accept God's truth and everything he had tried to teach them.

But God's salvation—his justice, his teaching—were not just for the people of Israel. Instead, God was for all people everywhere. He told the Israelites that soon he would reach out to everyone everywhere and rule over all the nations, not just over Israel. Israel had picked up the disease of their neighbors, the delusion that their God was small and ruled over only the lands that Israel called home. To be exiled from one's homeland was not just to be removed from what you had known, it was also to be removed from the care—and reach—of your god.

But God told them that he was more than just for the nations. Look at the sky, he told them, look at the earth. In Hebrew thinking, to refer to heaven and earth in the same passage meant "everything that there is." It was equivalent to our modern conception of the universe. God wanted them to see he ruled everywhere and through all time. The universe will end, but neither God nor his salvation will. We have a future with God.