“Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near: 7. Let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon Him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." While reading my Bible I never know when a passage is going to make an impression on me. This morning I was reading in Isaiah 55 and verses 6 and 7 definitely impressed me. For people who spend a lot of time in the Bible these are familiar words, and if I had not been careful I would have passed right by them, but the Lord would not let me do that. I have called this “Good News for Anxious People.” The Jews were about to go into Babylonian Captivity, and God led Isaiah to give them hope for the present moment and for the future. It is a good message for us as well. We are reminded here that no matter what is going on in our lives, good or bad, we can seek the Lord. There are things that we have to deal with that are too big and too complicated for us, so we need to seek the Lord. Beyond this, we need to remember that with even those things we think we can handle on our own, we still need to seek the Lord. You can stop reading right here for a moment and seek the Lord to enter with you into whatever it is you need today. Isn’t that good news? We need to seek the Lord “while He may be found, while He is near.” If we aren’t careful, we will interpret this to mean that God has moved away from us. If we are His people, we have a promise that He will never move, that He will be with us until the end of the ages. What this means is that we need to take the opportunity to seek God now. We do not know what the future holds, so every moment of our lives is the time when God may be found. I think that the message here is that we need to be aware of our need to seek God at all times in our lives. When things are going good for us, we have a tendency to move away from God, and think that we can handle our lives by ourselves. This is a temptation that Satan throws our way to rob us of the victory that God gives us. There is never a time that we do not need the knowledge of the nearness of God. We need to be reminded that we stand in total need of His presence and His help. Israel and Judah moved away from the Lord, and they had to pay a price for it. They did not cease being God’s people, but when they moved away from Him, they moved away from the good life that God had in store for them. Keep in mind that no matter what you are facing today, this is the time that He may be found and this is the time that He is near- reach out to Him. Verse 7 gives us the result of what should take place when we seek God: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” When we seek God and we receive His help, we need to live a life that reflects His nearness. We need to watch what we do and what we think. We are not free to do whatever we want to do or think whatever we want to think. God will have mercy on us and He will “abundantly pardon” us, but we need to reciprocate by living a life that reflects His presence. Jesus said that we need to “let (our) light so shine before men, that they may see (our) good works, and glorify (our) Father which is in heaven.” When we seek God, we are not just seeking Him for ourselves, but for those with whom we come in contact on a daily basis who also need to seek Him. Seek the Lord, for He is near and wants to minister to your life and make you a blessing to the people you encounter. Bro. Joe .
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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