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.

An Everlasting Name

Thus says the LORD:
"Keep justice, and do righteousness,
For My salvation is about to come,
And My righteousness to be revealed.
Blessed is the man who does this,
And the son of man who lays hold on it;
Who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And keeps his hand from doing any evil."
Do not let the son of the foreigner
Who has joined himself to the LORD
Speak, saying,
"The LORD has utterly separated me from His people";
Nor let the eunuch say,
"Here I am, a dry tree."
For thus says the LORD:
"To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,
And choose what pleases Me,
And hold fast My covenant,
Even to them I will give in My house
And within My walls a place and a name
Better than that of sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
That shall not be cut off." - Isaiah 56:1—5 NKJV

God addressed people who had believed and obeyed him but who still felt estranged because of circumstances beyond their control, such as where they were born or of what had been done to them.

Non-Israelites who converted to Judaism often felt excluded. After the captivity, many were in fact cut off. The Samaritans and others who could not demonstrate a genealogy, a direct connection to Jewish ancestors, were excluded from participation in most aspects of worship. According to the Mosaic legislation, a descendant of Aaron who had "damaged testicles" (Leviticus 21:20 NLT) could not serve as a priest in the temple. Eunuchs—men who were castrated when they were young—would not even have testicles, of course, and so all eunuchs descended from Aaron would be excluded. Worse for them, of course, was the simple fact that they could never have children—no descendants. When they died, there would be nothing of them left behind. But God reassured them, as he reassured the foreign convert, that they belonged to God as much as anyone else might, and that if they had accepted God's covenant, they were as everlasting as God was. Our great-grandchildren might not remember our names, but God will never forget us. We'll be part of him forever.