It is of great importance to look forward when driving a vehicle of any kind, right?  We can see what is around us as our eyes are designed to do that.  We can look briefly behind us to see what obstacles to avoid, but to get to our destination we must look ahead to move forward.  This is how God’s prophets operate as they see what lies ahead by looking and seeing what God sees as obstacles that can get in our way of His will.  God’s Words, spoken out loud to God’s People, motivate, warn, comfort, engage and encourage God’s People to look forward to the “day of the Lord.”  

God spoke to me through Isaiah’s message today, as well!  What leaps off the page for me are these words, “He’ll show us the way he works so we can live the way we’re made.”  But first we must “climb the mountain” as Moses did when he met with God to get directions in moving forward with God’s People back in the days of the exodus to a wilderness journey to the Promised Land!  We must rise above worldview, (whiny wilderness), thinking and get a better view of how God thinks.  When we do we “see” how He works and can be “imitators of God”, learning to love like He loves us, while continually developing His character as we get to know Him more and more.

Climb God’s Mountain.  See Him for who God really is.  Listen and learn from Him who saves us and set us free by His Son.  Then move forward with confidence and faith in the One who loved us first and loves us most.  God will indeed show us how he works so we can live the way He made us!

Isaiah—The Poetic Prophet with Purpose

Isaiah 2, The Message

Climb God’s Mountain

^1-5 The Message Isaiah got regarding Judah and Jerusalem:

There’s a day coming
    when the mountain of God’s House
Will be The Mountain—
    solid, towering over all mountains.
All nations will river toward it,
    people from all over set out for it.
They’ll say, “Come,
    let’s climb God’s Mountain,
    go to the House of the God of Jacob.
He’ll show us the way he works
    so we can live the way we’re made.”
Zion’s the source of the revelation.
    God’s Message comes from Jerusalem.
He’ll settle things fairly between nations.
    He’ll make things right between many peoples.
They’ll turn their swords into shovels,
    their spears into hoes.
No more will nation fight nation;
    they won’t play war anymore.
Come, family of Jacob,
    let’s live in the light of God.

^6-9 God, you’ve walked out on your family Jacob
    because their world is full of hokey religion,
Philistine witchcraft, and pagan hocus-pocus,
    a world rolling in wealth,
Stuffed with things,
    no end to its machines and gadgets,
And gods—gods of all sorts and sizes.
    These people make their own gods and worship what they make.
A degenerate race, facedown in the gutter.
    Don’t bother with them! They’re not worth forgiving!

Pretentious Egos Brought Down to Earth

¹⁰ Head for the hills,
    hide in the caves
From the terror of God,
    from his dazzling presence.

^11-17 People with a big head are headed for a fall,
    pretentious egos brought down a peg.
It’s God alone at front-and-center
    on the Day we’re talking about,
The Day that God-of-the-Angel-Armies
    is matched against all big-talking rivals,
    against all swaggering big names;
Against all giant sequoias
    hugely towering,
    and against the expansive chestnut;
Against Kilimanjaro and Annapurna,
    against the ranges of Alps and Andes;
Against every soaring skyscraper,
    against all proud obelisks and statues;
Against ocean-going luxury liners,
    against elegant three-masted schooners.
The swelled big heads will be punctured bladders,
    the pretentious egos brought down to earth,
Leaving God alone at front-and-center
    on the Day we’re talking about.

¹⁸ And all those sticks and stones
    dressed up to look like gods
    will be gone for good.

¹⁹ Clamber into caves in the cliffs,
    duck into any hole you can find.
Hide from the terror of God,
    from his dazzling presence,
When he assumes his full stature on earth,
    towering and terrifying.

^20-21 On that Day men and women will take
    the sticks and stones
They’ve decked out in gold and silver
    to look like gods and then worshiped,
And they will dump them
    in any ditch or gully,
Then run for rock caves
    and cliff hideouts
To hide from the terror of God,
    from his dazzling presence,
When he assumes his full stature on earth,
    towering and terrifying.

²² Quit scraping and fawning over mere humans,
    so full of themselves, so full of hot air!
    Can’t you see there’s nothing to them?

Lord,

Thank you for your warning signs through Isaiah.  We, too, have our gadgets that take over our lives.  We also get caught up in doing church instead of being the church.  We get too involved in imitating the lives of humans we admire, who turn our heads in the wrong direction.  Help us to avoid humans with ego full of hot air.  Help us to avoid being those with egos larger than you.  Teach us your ways so we can be who you created us to be and do what you designed us to accomplish for your purposes.

In Jesus Name, Amen