Wake Up to the Future
Isaiah 51:17,22 Wake up! Wake up! Jerusalem, get up! The LORD was very angry with you. So, you were punished. It was like a cup of poison you had to drink, and you drank it all … Your God will fight for his people. The LORD says to you, "Look, I am taking this 'cup of poison' away from you. I am taking my anger away from you. You will not be punished by my anger again.
Some days it’s kind of hard to hope for a better future. Maybe its drudgery. Maybe it’s adversity. But a brighter future?? Nah.
You know when you do the same thing over and over again, some repetitive task? You end up doing it mechanically, almost without thinking. It’s as though you’re off in some trance. That’s how many people live their lives. We stop thinking about it. We just do it. We do life – numb to what’s going on, asleep to the reality, until something jolts us out of that stupor.
My intention, today … is to do just that.
Israel had been in captivity as slaves in Babylon for seventy years. It was a punishment from God, because they’d gone astray so many times, that He finally had to deal with them.
Seventy years in slavery is a long time. Almost three generations. But God was about to do something new. God was about to restore Israel, to return them to Jerusalem for them to start over, afresh, in the Promised Land.
Problem is, they’re not listening. They can’t listen. They’re slaves in Babylon, doing the same thing over and over again, numb to what God is up to, asleep to the reality of blessing about to fall on them.
So, He sends the Prophet Isaiah to them, with … a wakeup call:
Wake up! Wake up! Jerusalem, get up! The LORD was very angry with you. So, you were punished. It was like a cup of poison you had to drink, and you drank it all … Your God will fight for his people. The LORD says to you, “Look, I am taking this ‘cup of poison’ away from you. I am taking my anger away from you. You will not be punished by my anger again. (Isaiah 51:17,22)
What’s God saying to you today? Well, I think, the very same thing.
Wake up!! What are you thinking? Life isn’t just some monotonous, boring drudgery. God put you on this earth with an amazing plan in mind. Something … something stupendous. Perhaps you feel a bit like an Israelite in Babylon, a slave with no hope.
But today God is sending you a wakeup call. Today God wants you to open your eyes to the good things He’s about to do.
Wake up, will you? Just wake up.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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