Spiritual adultery was the first sin God’s people committed. They willfully turned their backs on God and followed after their own devices…leading us to the second sin. Cisterns were pits cut out of limestone rock and lined with plaster to collect rainwater. God tells His people here that their attempt to circumvent His authority and rebel by trusting in their own understanding would only result in cracked and leaky cisterns that wouldn’t hold water. Jesus talked about this to the Samaritan woman drawing water at the well when He compared how its water could only temporarily quench thirst, compared to the spring of water welling up to eternal life – called Living Water – that would quench one’s spiritual thirst forever. “With joy you will draw water from the wells of Salvation.” (Isaiah 12:3)
Author: kezha1
A Christian mother, grandmother, and retired nurse living in Illinois. Called into a ministry of encouraging others to find their ultimate plan and purpose in life through Christ.
Titus 1:1 ” Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness…”
In this short beginning sentence of his letter to Titus, we can see the transforming power of God’s infinite grace and mercy in Paul’s life. This is the same man that was once an enemy of God… doing everything in his power to persecute Christians in the early Church. But now he writes that he freely places himself under the Will of God and the Gospel Ministry of Jesus Christ, having been called and set apart to preach the Good News and plant Churches. Paul’s transformed life now one of unswerving trust, devotion, and confidence in the Lord.
Isaiah 57:15 ” For this is what the high and lofty One says – He Who lives forever, Whose Name is holy: I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in Spirit, to revive the Spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
Our great and magnificent God has existed before eternity…His majestic holiness is without equal and completely perfect in every way. But He chose for His Name to dwell among us. So how can we gain access to His Presence? It tells us right here…humility. Psalm 51:17 speaks clearly to this, “The sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit; a broken and contrite heart.” For when we humble ourselves before the Lord, He will exalt us (Matthew 23:12)…intervening on our behalf to mend and mold (Psalm 147:3) as we gain new life through His Word.
Matthew 27:3-4 ” When Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. ‘I have sinned,’ he said, for I have betrayed innocent blood.’ “
When the guilty sentence was handed down for Jesus to be crucified, Judas wasn’t prepared for that. Maybe he thought Jesus would just get a slap on the wrist or be thrown into prison. Either way, when Judas heard that Jesus’ life was going to be violently and forcibly taken from Him, it says he was seized with remorse. But the Greek word for that phrase is interesting and not what you’d think. The type of remorse written about here has no change of heart or turning back to God connected to it. Sure there’s a wish that what had been done could somehow be undone…but it’s a selfish remorse… and a dread of the consequences to come. For at that terrible moment, Judas knew he also had been condemned through his own selfish actions.
Job 42:12 ” The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.”
If you’re familiar with the story of Job, you could find this verse at the end of the Book almost inconceivable. If anything bad could happen, it happened to Job. He suffered pain, sorrow, total financial ruin, loss of all his children, and finally, great physical affliction. But it says God blessed the final part of his life more that the former. So how come and why? If you read the entire Book of Job you’ll see Job’s faith and trust in God never wavered and he persevered when everyone else around him doubted. And in the end, God changed his outcome. For many of us our past has been riddled with anguish, turmoil, loss, and pain…but be encouraged, our former state is in the past and what’s in the future is entirely in the Lord’s hands.
Acts 22: 6,11 Verse 6, “About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me.” Verse 11 “My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.”
The glorious radiance and luminous Presence of Jesus had left Saul blind…and it tells us that he was that way for three days… neither eating or drinking. Saul had been headed to Damascus to take prisoners of Believers…but the Lord had other plans and blinding Saul certainly got his attention! Suddenly his world became very small, forcing him to reexamine his life…allowing time for retrospection of his beliefs…compelling him to look closely at the significance of his past actions and the current condition of his soul. And not surprisingly, it tells us that when Jesus called Ananias to go lay hands on Saul to heal him, Jesus told him that he’d find Saul praying. The Lord has a way of boxing us in at times, shining the bright light of Truth on our situation, and forcing us to come to terms with hidden sins in our life. And if we listen, there will be honest re-evaluation, repentance, remorse, and restoration.
James 5:16 ” Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
Do you have a Prayer Partner? A trusted friend that you can go to and vent your frustrations, spill your guts, and openly confess your sins? Confession is acknowledging, admitting, and taking personal responsibility for our actions, but many times we gloss over this part when we pray individually. It’s only when we share our personal struggles with someone else can true healing take place…for what was in the dark has been brought into the light. And the prayer of a righteous man has great strength and effect when it is accomplished, that is, when God answers the prayers of His people with incredible feats….for He listens to Godly men who do His Will. (John 9:31)
John 3:19-21 ” Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
The Apostle Paul warns us in Ephesians to, “Have nothing to do with fruitless deeds of darkness.” But we somehow still think that vile works done in secret won’t hurt anyone but ourselves. Except, our evil conduct done under cover of darkness plainly shows who we are as a person and just how wicked our actions are. This spiritual ignorance and foolish rebellion makes us actually think we’re getting one over on God…and that He isn’t aware of our malicious mischievous. But do you really believe that, or are you completely deceiving yourself? It’s only when we allow the light and truth of Spiritual illumination to fully invade our heart, mind, and soul can we clearly see our evil deeds for what they are and make the decision to move from darkness into the light.
Daniel 5:5-6 ” Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.”
King Belshazzar was holding a banquet when he ordered the sacred Temple goblets that king Nebuchadnezzar had looted 70 years prior to be brought out so they could be used by his guests. It was this abominable act where we get the idiom, The writing is on the wall…a rather ominous expression used to predict the inevitability of doom, and failure. The king, along with all his advisors, had no idea what the hand was writing…they only knew it was from Someone vastly more powerful than them, and they were terrified…their knees becoming as weak as water, and their hearts turning to wax and melting away within them. Just remember, God cannot be mocked and all of us will eventually reap what we have sowed. (Galatians 6:7)
Isaiah 43:11-12 ” I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from Me there is no Savior. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed – I, and not some foreign god among you. You are My witnesses, declares the Lord, that I am God.”
From the very beginning, God has been very straightforward – first to the Jewish Nation and now to us. First, to make known by divine revelation the hidden mysteries that we would otherwise not know…in order to reveal Himself intimately to us . Next, to rescue and deliver us from evil, darkness, and ourselves that we may be victorious over our fallen sin nature. Finally, God has proclaimed and declared His message loud and clear so that man is without excuse…for it tells us in Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so men are without excuse.” The Almighty God is declaring to us today, “You can not help but be My witnesses to this all,” in hopes that we will in turn say…”Surely this is our God; we trusted in Him, and He saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in Him; let us rejoice and be glad in His Salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9)
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