4 November 2013 - irrevocable

4 November 2013 - irrevocable

For who has known the mind of the Lord
or who has been his counselor?
We often try to give God advice.  We think we have a unique perspective which he hasn't considered. After all, why does God allow all this disobedience?  We are told that there is some kind of greater good that he brings out of it.  We imagine that if we were in charge we could run a world with no disobedience and therefore with no suffering or pain.  But he prefers this world as we find it to the stale and static world where we have no choice but to obey.  He doesn't just want us to fall toward him like inanimate things pulled by gravity (even if we would sometimes prefer that).  God zealously protects every degree of freedom he gives to his creatures that we may respond with the full love that he desires of us.  Only in this response can we find the meaning of our existence.  All else is empty vanity. 

God can even bring mercy from the disobedience of large numbers of people. 

For God delivered all to disobedience,
that he might have mercy upon all.
We all need his mercy but we don't all realize it.  Indeed, we seldom realize it fully.  He sometimes pours out his mercy extravagantly on others so that we can more fully desire it for ourselves.  This is one reason that he allows the disobedience of the vast majority of the Jews (except for a "remnant") in response to his self-revelation in Jesus Christ.  They have gifts and a call which are "irrevocable" and yet they don't have all that God intends for them.  They have just enough to become complacent.  But God does not settle for less than the full blessings he intends for them.  The blessings he pours out on us will ultimately bring mercy to them as well.  As he often does, God's particular blessing of one group is designed to bring blessing to all.

Let's just admit that his plan is better than our plans:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!

Jesus is inviting us all to the banquet for which we will never be able to repay him.  After all, "from him and through him and for him are all things."  No one has ever "given him anything that he may be repaid".  He wants us to be transformed by this unmerited mercy he pours on us.  We are not meant to keep his blessings for ourselves, but rather to give them to those are are unable to repay.  In doing so our hearts become more and more like his own.

For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”

The LORD hears us and so we must hear others when they cry.  All who "love his name shall inhabit" the "cities of Judah" which he rebuilds.  Zion is saved, not because of our resources, but because of the protection of his saving help.  Let us proclaim loudly and prophetically:

“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!