Friday 21 September 2012

Isaiah 64:7 « 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. »

Isaiah sees a time in the future when the people of God will be so induced into a moral comatose that God would just give up on them and turn them over to their ego-centric lifestyles.  When Isaiah said, “No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you,” the real sense is that no one “awakens” themselves to take hold of You.  When we allow ourselves to fall asleep, and we no longer actively and passionately pursue God, then He will stop striving with us.

God must contiually strive with man, giving him grace, putting His desires inside his heart, drawing him closer to His holy presence.  Left completely alone man will only sink deeper into a moral and spiritual abiss.  Hell is a the place where God has withdrawn all grace, all mercy, all love, and all hope.

We must pray for ourselves, for our churches, for our nations, that God will never hide His face from us, and give us over to our sins.  God did this to Israel and the ten northern tribes were taken into Assyrian captivity and lost forever!  We must shake the slumber from our souls, and then shake our brothers and sisters out of their sleep as well.

As I have traveled around the world I see and hear of so many exciting things happening.  But they are usually happening outside of western nations and out of the view of western media.  There is an absolutely astounding move of God in China, India, Brazil, in parts of Africa, and in many Muslim nations.  The worship is passionate, the obedience is entire, the faith is pure.

They lay hold of God for in many cases there is nothing else to lay hold of.  It would seem that the pressures of persecution and economic and political hardship keep God’s people awake spiritually.

I am not suggesting that we in the West should pray for hardship to come our way.  I am, however, suggesting that our lack of laying hold of God is because we have fallen asleep spiritually.  Frankly, we enjoy our comforts and we believe personal happiness is our right.  My friend we are only fooling ourselves if we think that if we keep our head down, forsake our courage, and don’t make any waves that we will enjoy peace and safety in our day.  All we are doing is ensuring spiritual and moral bondage for our future generations.

The apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians saying that he pressed on in order to apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of by Christ Jesus. (3:12, KJV)  Today we must decide to awaken our heart, press ahead in order to apprehend that for which we were apprehended by God.  So we awaken our soul, we awaken our courage, we awaken our passion for the holy presence of God.  We refuse to be moved by that which brings us discomfort; we refuse to be intimidated by the impossible.  We declare boldly that we have been apprehended by Jesus; and we will spend ourselves today gladly in the pursuit His destiny for our life!