Isaiah 59.21 21 “As
for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord. “My Spirit, who is on
you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will
always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their
descendants—from this time on and forever,” says the Lord.
Isaiah was speaking of something that had not happened:
the giving of the Holy Spirit. All the great prophet could do was speak as he
saw, and he saw dimly. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what he was talking about;
it’s he’d never seen what he was talking about. He spoke of a day off in the
future.
God chose Israel to be His holy people. They were to be other, they were to be separate by their relationship with Him.
That didn’t mean they were exclusive,
it just meant that they were to live according to what God had taught them, and
anyone who wanted to live with them
needed to live like them: other, separate; in the world but no of the world.
At Pentecost (a word, meaning: fifty) after Jesus resurrection, the Holy Spirit came with power
and presence, and God’s people, the Church, were filled with the Holy Spirit in
a way never seen before, but prophesied by Old Testament prophets like Isaiah.
The Holy Spirit came and stayed. What Isaiah said: “My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you…” came true. And
the Spirit’s presence is still here today in the lives and works of those of the
modern Church.
God’s desire for His people has always been to gift them
with Himself and to indwell their beings by Himself. God wants to live in the
hearts of His people and rule and reign in them from there. God desires to do
mighty works through the lives of ordinary, but obedient people by the presence
of His Spirit within them. It’s very important that we remember that. The
greatest God of God to man is Himself. And God desires that we stay connected
to Him – forever.
I don’t understand how, I really don’t understand why,
but I know that it is. God wants to use your personality and mine, in concert
with His, to bring about life in a way that is not experienced in our natural
beings. Normal man cannot comprehend the presence of God because he is not
filled with God’s never-ending, never-absent Spirit.
“My Spirit, who is
on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth
will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of
their descendants—from this time on and forever…” That is God’s desire. He
seeks eager willingness from us to live and cooperate with Him – forever. I
want that too. I want that not on my standards, or the world’s, but on God’s,
forever.
Father, I do not
know why, I just know that it is. I haven’t an access to Your thoughts but I
know they exist and I am glad they do. You told Isaiah what You were going to
do and You did it, and I am glad. Life is more than just my interpretation, it
is Your participation, in me and through me, and I would have life no other
way. Use me this day to speak the words You have for me for the people You
intend to hear them – I am Yours and You are mine – amen.
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