How easily impressed we are by the newest version of IPhone that is introduced for the “first time” each year!  How easily we are distracted by the newer and better appliance that “will change our lives.”  How tempted we are by the newest vehicle on the market that will make our lives better.  In the world of politics, we are told that this new, impressive candidate is “different” than all the rest so we must turn to him or her so life will go better for us.  We are barraged with information about an even “better diet” with  new forms of exercise so our bodies will be stronger, more beautiful, and of course, healthier.  We are harassed by fear through ads that tell us how important it is to choose the best health care plan that will save us money.  And last, but not least, we must at all costs plan for our death with the best burial plan on the market to date! 

I’m in Isaiah camp of thinking!  He reminds the people impressed by military mathematics that their minds are dwelling with dependence on merely the world and its thinking.  “And to The Holy of Israel, not even a glance, not so much as a prayer to God.” 

God knows what He is doing.  God does what He says He will do.  God protects us and intervenes in the work of the wrongdoers.  God provides for all our needs.  He is God and no one else is God.  God is God and we are not.  We then should be more than impressed and dependent on the One who created us in His own image and who truly has our best interests at heart for each one of us than anyone else on the planet!

Want to be even more impressed?  Here are 18 reasons to be impressed by the One and Only who created us! 

“You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.  Psalm 139:1-18

We are on his mind continually…how impressive is that? 

Is God on our minds continually?

Isaiah 31, The Message

Impressed by Military Mathematics

^1-3 Doom to those who go off to Egypt
    thinking that horses can help them,
Impressed by military mathematics,
    awed by sheer numbers of chariots and riders—
And to The Holy of Israel, not even a glance,
    not so much as a prayer to God.
Still, he must be reckoned with,
    a most wise God who knows what he’s doing.
He can call down catastrophe.
    He’s a God who does what he says.
He intervenes in the work of those who do wrong,
    stands up against interfering evildoers.
Egyptians are mortal, not God,
    and their horses are flesh, not Spirit.
When God gives the signal, helpers and helped alike
    will fall in a heap and share the same dirt grave.

* * *

^4-5 This is what God told me:

“Like a lion, king of the beasts,
    that gnaws and chews and worries its prey,
Not fazed in the least by a bunch of shepherds
    who arrive to chase it off,
So God-of-the-Angel-Armies comes down
    to fight on Mount Zion, to make war from its heights.
And like a huge eagle hovering in the sky,
    God-of-the-Angel-Armies protects Jerusalem.
I’ll protect and rescue it.
    Yes, I’ll hover and deliver.”

^6-7 Repent, return, dear Israel, to the One you so cruelly abandoned. On the day you return, you’ll throw away—every last one of you—the no-gods your sinful hands made from metal and wood.

^8-9 “Assyrians will fall dead,
    killed by a sword-thrust but not by a soldier,
    laid low by a sword not swung by a mortal.
Assyrians will run from that sword, run for their lives,
    and their prize young men made slaves.
Terrorized, that rock-solid people will fall to pieces,
    their leaders scatter hysterically.”
God’s Decree on Assyria.
    His fire blazes in Zion,
    his furnace burns hot in Jerusalem.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Many in this world, especially at Christmas and Easter, will be impressed by the story of Jesus in the seasons that come and go.  What remains is being merely impressed without forming a relationship with the One and Only who loves us most and loves us best, who forgives all that we have done that was offensive to Him, and then transforms us to all that we were created to be and do.  Jesus wants us to talk and walk with Him in the “light of His glory and grace.”  Jesus is the Way to God.  Jesus speaks the Truth about God because Jesus is God in the flesh come to earth to die for our sins.  Jesus is Life from God the Father who is the Giver of Life now and forever.

Be more than impressed.  Believe and be saved and forever be under the wing of His loving protection.  Be a child of the King who thinks of you and me daily and longs to be with us always.  Got problems?  Ask Him for wisdom to solve them.  He loves doing that!  In fact, the answer was there before we asked.  Now, that’s impressive!

Lord,

Help us in this world of everyone telling us what is best for us.  Give us wisdom to choose you and your best life.  Life is for living without fear.  Love drives out fear and You are Love.  So, I choose you.  I choose what you want for me over what I want.  You are God.  I am not.  Thank you for saving my soul and making me whole.  Thank you for intervening in my life when I needed you most.  Thank you for your protection and all  that you have provided. Thank you for helping realize the depth of your love for me and teaching me to love others like you love.

In Jesus Name, Amen