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Isaiah 55:3 –
³ Incline your ear, and come to me;
    listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
    my steadfast, sure love for David.

Psalm 145:17 –
¹⁷ The Lord is just in all his ways,
    and kind in all his doings.

Romans 8:38-39 – ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ 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.

Matthew 14:20 – ²⁰ And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.

The Gift of Hope

Dear Adelphos in Christ: May the God of hope fill you with all Joy and Peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in Hope. Last week we said, “One of the most wonderful things about living a Christian life is that it is a life based on Hope.” We recall what The Apostle Paul said in Hebrews 11:1-3 (GNT) [1] – ¹ To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see. ² It was by their faith that people of ancient times won God's approval. ³ It is by faith that we understand that the universe was created by God's word, so that what can be seen was made out of what cannot be seen. Faith comes to us through the Gift of Hope. How, where, when, and by whom is that Gift of Hope given?

As the Church works its way through the Gospel of Matthew, we have heard passages that contain a series of parables used by Jesus to teach the crowds about the coming of The Kingdom of God and its Righteousness (See Matthew 6:33). In Matthew 13, Jesus has just finished with the story of the sower, and the disciples ask him why he talks to the crowds in parables. Jesus quotes Isaiah 6:9-10 (GNT) – ⁹ So he told me to go and give the people this message: “No matter how much you listen, you will not understand. No matter how much you look, you will not know what is happening.” ¹⁰ Then he said to me, “Make the minds of these people dull, their ears deaf, and their eyes blind, so that they cannot see or hear or understand. If they did, they might turn to me and be healed.”  Jesus said he was speaking to them in parables because the crowds were looking but not seeing, hearing but not listening. The parables were simple stories that made people think; those reflections on the meaning of the story became the vehicle for their faith. The parables helped them to listen, to "incline" their ears.

Let's go back to Isaiah 55:3 and work through that verse as an approach to listening to God. We start with "Incline your ear and come to me heedfully." Recall that sometimes when we want to listen most closely to someone, there is a tilt of the head, maybe one ear is turned toward the speaker; sometimes a hand is cupped around the ear to pick up more sound. We're not just hearing – we are concentrating, listening, engaging more than just one sense in the process of gathering information. What is heedfully? It is to be alert, cautious, careful, watchful, attentive, thoughtful, and fully conscious of what is happening and might happen. Here God is saying that when we come to him we must be prepared to see, hear, and obey. "This isn't a company picnic. This is a life and death matter. Listen up!"

Next he says, "listen, that you might have life." The word used here for listen is also used in the Old Testament for the verb hear, but it is a command to hear, not always the act of hearing. The most recognizable instance is in the Shema: Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. This declaration by Moses is so powerful! The connotation is "hear, listen to this, and obey." In this "hearing" one achieves consent, agreement, understanding because what is heard is so undeniably clear it goes straight to our hearts. We know we have heard Truth speaking to us. And when Truth speaks, there is Life. Do you remember what Jesus said about Truth? John 8:32 – And ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free. And Truth? John 14:6b – "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." That is the Life that comes from the listening. It is life that renews us.

God is In Charge

That renewal is what God promises as the compensation for coming to him with our eyes and ears wide open, eagerly waiting for something that is exciting and life-changing – the blessing of God! God always wants to Bless us. He is always the initiator, the one who generates all that is Good. He is the God of Hosts – and Hosts here means the entire Creation – and he is “on his Throne and in charge!” If we place ourselves In His Hands (← Music Link 1 by Laurie London), He says, "I will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David." What are those benefits? Take a look at this list of translations of this verse and see how that last phrase is presented.

He continues … my faithful love promised to David … my steadfast, sure love for David … the promises assured to David … the blessings I promised to David … And what are those promises? That the Messiah would be his descendant, sit on his throne as King of Israel which will be established as a new and everlasting Kingdom, a Kingdom founded on, and perpetually governed by, Everlasting Love (← Music Link 2). David's descendant, the Messiah, would conquer sin and death – by willingly accepting the punishment due in God's Immutable Justice (see our Key Verse at Psalm 145:17) for our sins on that Wondrous Cross (← Music Link 3) – thereby bringing Peace and Joy to the New Israel – the Church – to grow out of the lives of the Apostles. Jesus' message is that God Will Take Care of You (← Music Link 4). That means that the promises to David are the vital promises and foundation of Christian life. That LIFE is our inheritance – when we listen carefully. But where? How? When? What do we hear?

“Me, Myself, and I”

The "where" is everywhere. God has given us so much positive evidence of his presence, his creative power, his Love, his might, his compassion, and his absolutely Endless Mercy. It's everywhere! How do we listen? Carefully, paying attention, as if our very lives depended on it (think about that for a second longer). When do we listen? Well, if God is speaking to us everywhere all the time, that's the best time and place to listen: Everywhere all the time. We earthlings find it difficult to do that for some reason – lots of reasons, actually. The World, and its Prince of the Power of the Air, (See Ephesians 2:1-2) don't want us to listen and there are plenty of distractions to make us plug our ears and cover our eyes.

We are born into the Dominion of Darkness under control of the Ruler of this World (See John 12:31). We are redeemed into Light by the King of the Universe. All of us have discovered from time to time it is so very, very easy to let some idol from the World slip into our hearts. The worst of those idols in many cases is our sense of “ME.” That “Me, Myself, and I” little demon just wreaks havoc with our connection to God. We reiterate – “I do it myself!” (like a 4-year-old) and “God, I know what you want, but I'm gonna go ahead and do what I want.” What if we only do everything except what God asks? That is the primeval form of Original Sin: PRIDE.

That’s when we (hopefully – literally Hopefully) remember that God is in charge, and he can help us get rid of that irksome impish pride. Jesus repeatedly told the Disciples (not just the Apostles, but all who came to listen to him) that they should relinquish everything that tied them to The World. He wanted them to turn away from evil and embrace the Gospel (… repent and believe the Good News – Mark 1:15) We have many expressions that describe what happens when we have so much going on that we can't think straight – plugged up, jammed up, messed up, muddied up, overwhelmed, plunged under, backslid, lost, and hopelessly confused. In the Kingdom of God, all of those get fixed. We can taste and see that the Lord is Good (See Psalm 34:8).

All of this happens when we stop saying, "I've got this" and start saying, "Jesus, can you get that for me?" We often (usually?) fail to recognize, as did the Disciples, that what we can do for, in, and with ourselves in this World is of no avail. We who know Christ and claim him as Savior walk with the Holy Spirit everywhere all the time. He's right there, asking to be included in what we're doing; instead, we choose to carry on with our DIY attitude and leave him out of our day. All we have to do is ask in our hearts, seek in our lives, knock in greeting, and accept the Gift of steadfast Love (which we call Mercy). We’ve gotta Guy for that, and his name is Jesus, the Christ of God. Jesus will cast out those DIY foibles and “create a clean heart in us.” (See Psalm 51:10)

Who ya gonna call?

Jesus described that state of our hearts in Matthew 12:43-45 – ⁴³ “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. ⁴⁴ Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order *. ⁴⁵ Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.”
* Put in order: Greek - kekosmēmenon {keh-kos-MAY-meh-non – derived from Greek for Cosmos – world} ornate; compellingly attractive, very appealing inviting, awesomely gorgeous. That’s a Great Home Improvement Plan! But Jesus tells us that – once that room in our hearts is all fixed up, WE FORGET TO INVITE HIM IN, and so now that impish pride has a swell new place to stay with the rest of its gang! We take personal credit for what Christ has done. Just how dumb is that?!?! It’s like we Otter Be Crazy!! Have we completely missed the obvious fact that God's Steadfast Love (← Music Link 5) is greater than all our sin? Let’s open our hearts and let Jesus in!

IF we call him, he will answer (← Music Link 6)

In our Key Verse from The Apostle Paul, we have the assurance of Hope fulfilled because we read there in Romans 8:38-39 – ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ 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. As we have said before, “God Said it, I believe it, that’s our story and I'm stickin’ to it!” Because why!?

Because we KNOW God will take care of us. We KNOW we can Hope and Trust in Jesus to fill our hearts after he’s cleaned out the mess we’ve made – BUT we still need to open the door and invite him in (See Revelation 3:20). Sometimes I wonder what’s on the menu for that Eternal Heavenly Banquet and I'm kinda thinking that it is the Eternal Lifegranted to us when Jesus said “… my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink … so whoever eats me will live because of me.” (See John 6:55-59) And it is just like today’s Key Verse from the Gospel, Matthew 14:20 – ²⁰ And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. There’s more than enough Eternity in Christ for everyone to share and still have some left over! Guess where that originates! Right again, Camper! The Absolutely Perfect Plan because YOLO-F. It goes back to Mark 1:15 and that is the same thing God told Israel for 42 generations of earthlings (See Matthew 1:1-17). He repeatedly called for repentance, abandonment of all idolatry, and a return to loving and obeying him. As it turned out, God kept his promise when he said in Isaiah 43:11 – ¹¹ I, I am the Lord, // and besides me there is no savior. You see, El Shaddai-Olam knew we would try to DIY Salvation, so he decided he would DIH – Do It Himself, and that is precisely why We Gotta Guy for That!

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Our Guy took care of EVERYthing!