ISAIAH 1:18 – Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
THEME OF THE DAY: WHAT A GOD WE HAVE! There is much to learn about our God and us in today’s scripture. In reverse order, we see the scarlet nature of our sins. So red, so crimson, so stained are we with sin that nothing of human nature or effort would be able to wash them away.
Then we learn some amazing, heart-warming truths of our God. First, He is not a God reluctant to deal with our sin issue. He actually takes the initiative to come to us saying, “Let’s talk. You have committed numerous crimes against Me. Your sins are many and incurable apart from me. You don’t deserve anything from Me but My just wrath, yet, let’s talk. I am willing to reason with you concerning your sins.”
We also learn that the God who is willing to reason with our sins is quick to forgive us of our sins. So quick in fact, that He is not only ready to forgive us but to make us white as snow. The Apostle John would encourage us with this truth in his first epistle – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
Still yet another wonderful truth we would learn of our God is how far reaching His love is to us. Think about it. The infinite, transcendent and holy God is so willing to “stoop down in humility” to our level and deal with our sin problem before Him. It reminds us what Jesus did and endured for us to be the Savior who makes it possible for God to reason with us concerning our sins – Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8).
Finally, the God who reasons with us, cleanses us, and forgives us is also the God who will forever keep us. If He is willing to reason with us about our sins when we were His enemies, now that we are reconciled as His children, would He leave us? Even when we sin, He still keeps us. The Apostle Paul proclaims, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:31-39).
Indeed, what a God we have!
PRAYER: “Father, I praise You for being a God of great and undeserved mercy.”
QUOTE: “God longs to reason us to Himself and then reconcile us to Himself.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim