Skip to main content

Special Deliverer


And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.  (Romans 11:26) 

          How often do you long for a "knight in shining armor" to come and rescue you from whatever it is you wish to escape? Some people might call this immature romanticism, but I suspect there is part of each one of us that recognizes a deep-seated need for deliverance. That's why people react so strongly in politics. Candidates promise to deliver us from _________. If the wrong person is elected, those hopes and dreams are dashed. If the right person is elected, chances are those hopes and dreams are dashed because the delivery delivered doesn't turn out to be the delivery we thought we were getting. Our "happily ever after" dissolves into disillusionment. 
      In my own case, I can tell you that in my last job, there were many days when I felt incapable of doing more than standing with my arms folded and saying "Please, God. Please, God." His delivery of me from that job has done wonders, but it has also put me in a much smaller space. Much of the torture is gone, but so is the money. Minimal as my income was, it was many times more than I am getting now. I am still praying for deliverance in the form of a best-selling book. (Uh-huh.) 
         Today's verse is part of a passage dealing with God's apparent rejection of Israel. They had the same problem. They wanted God to deliver them from godlessness by freeing them from their oppressors. God's idea was to deliver them from their own godlessness, often through their oppression. That is the reality of much of our deliverance. It isn't deliverance from, it's deliverance through. "Beam me up, Scotty," is often our cry, but God is looking for and making heroes, not victims and not escape artists.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shepherd!

                 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep . (John 10:14) God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Genesis 3:14) The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths     for his name’s sake. Even though I walk     through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,     for you are with me; your rod and your staff,     they comfort me. (Psalm 23:1-4) For the Jews, it was politically incorrect to make claims about yourself as a teacher (or possibly as anything else.) Teachers were expected to take pride in the...
Post a Comment
Read more