“For this is what the high and lofty One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to relieve the heart of the contrite.”
~ Isaiah 57:15
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you hope that there will be peace one day soon on planet Earth? Do you have peace in your hearts as to what the future holds for you? There are two different kinds of peace – external peace and internal peace. External peace has to do with how calm or how frenetic everything is that is taking place around you. External peace has to do with the rapport that a country has with another country, the rapport that an ethnic group of guys and gals has with another ethnic group of guys and gals and the rapport that a guy and gal has with other guys and gals. Internal peace has to do with the intimacy that a guy or gal has with the universe’s Divine Creator – Who is God. Internal peace has to do with a guy or gal acknowledging the blackness and evil that has existed in his or her life and then being contrite or sorry about being the guy or gal who has violated his or her Father God’s expectations for him or for her to always worship only Him. Isaiah wrote about the difference between external and internal peace in his Isaiah Book – in Isaiah 57. Verse 15 says, “For this is what the high and lofty One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to relieve the heart of the contrite.” God relayed through Isaiah that He is with each guy and gal who feels unequivocally bad for his or her inexcusable wickedness by helping these guys and gals through reviving these guys and gals with doses of hope and mercy. The bad guys – guys who will never feel bad for their abhorrent evil, will never know what either external peace or internal peace is. God the Spirit breathed on Isaiah to scribe the final words in this chapter that unremorseful guys will never know any kind of peace.
Isaiah for over sixty years was a very faithful prophet spokesman for God to God’s specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group’s guys and gals, who lived in the land area of Judah and in the city of Jerusalem. Isaiah witnessed God’s specially chosen guys and gals disobeying God. Isaiah witnessed God’s specially chosen guys and gals choosing to worship inanimate idol gods that were handmade from wood, stone and metal. Isaiah witnessed God’s specially chosen guys and gals going to sorceresses for help instead of going to their Father God for help. Isaiah witnessed God’s specially chosen guys and gals going under spreading oak trees to practice doing things that did not honor God. Isaiah witnessed God’s specially chosen guys and gals going down into ravines and under overhanging crags to sacrifice their own kids to inanimate gods that were handmade from wood, stone and metal. Isaiah witnessed God’s specially chosen guys and gals figuratively sticking their tongues out at the universe’s Divine Creator – Who was God, by what they were doing as they dedicated their lives to worshipping inanimate gods – such as Molech, that were handmade from wood, stone and metal. Isaiah witnessed God’s specially chosen guys and gals worshipping pagan symbols. Isaiah witnessed his Father God becoming angrier and angrier with His specially chosen guys and gals. Isaiah intimately knew His Father God. Isaiah knew how His Father God felt about His specially chosen guys and gals. Isaiah knew that His Father God would never allow His specially chosen guys and gals to completely turn their backs on Him. Isaiah knew that his Father God was letting His specially chosen guys and gals taste a lifestyle that did not have Him in it. Isaiah knew that his Father God was letting His specially chosen guys and gals learn what life would be like without Him in their lives. Isaiah knew that the only way for a guy or gal to really appreciate what having internal peace is like is for the guy or gal to first experience how empty life is like not having in his or her life God’s internal peace gift.
Your grandpaa does not understand why a perfect being – which is Who God is, would resort to using sin to fulfill His perfect, continually unfolding plan which will culminate in a universe being totally peaceful again. Your grandpaa knows that if a guy or gal had absolutely everything that he or she needed to live in peace on planet Earth that there would be no reason for that guy or gal to feel unsettled about anything – and that this guy or gal would have no reason to look to a Divine Being – Who is God, for God’s help to fill an emptiness that is in his or her life. There are on planet Earth arenas where good is being pitted against evil. There would be no fighting today in Iraq if there had not been a despotic dictator who was there in that country who thought that he was a god. There would be no terrorism on planet Earth today if there were no egomaniac guys who think that they know more than the guys who were elected to be the leaders over them. There would be no ethnic purging of guys and gals today if there was no jealousy in another ethnic group of guys and gals. There would be no genocide today if guys and gals saw life as beginning at the moment of the conception of a boy or girl fetus and ending naturally at the last breath of a guy or gal. God is allowing all this to happen on planet Earth. God’s perfect, unfolding plan is for all the guys and gals who are not His specially chosen guys and gals and who are not His specially elected guys, gals and kids to continue to model the unsettledness of living a life that has no hope in it. God is constantly leading His specially elected guys, gals and kids today on different tracks that will ultimately lead them to a grace/faith door that each guy, gal and kid will find themselves – as God opens the door, going through into God’s haven of internal peace. One reason behind God’s specially elected guys, gals and kids needing to transverse evil life tracks is a way that God chose to show that hope can never be found in external peace. Do you have the peace in your hearts that can only come from God?
Isaiah 57 (473)