Our Righteousness Shines Like the Dawn
Reading Chapter 58 of Isaiah today, I was reminded just how much of a challenging chapter it is; full of instructions on how to live Righteously before the Lord and the Blessings that follow us when we do. I’ve heard this preached many a time in the context of the Father’s expectation of Fasting. He would rather a heart which genuinely cares for others and worships Him honestly than Religious Fasting and dishonouring ‘lip service’ in His name.
Love:
I’ve always felt I wasn’t doing enough to qualify for the Blessings mentioned here. But as my revelation of the Cross grows, I see things differently! Father God knows that we need His Love and Righteousness to overflow into our lives so that we can then begin to Love others with His Heart of Love and Compassion. So, He has turned this chapter of Isaiah around in the New Covenant in Christ. We now possess GOD! If we are Born Again Believers, we literally have God on the ‘inside’ of us! If you’ve made a decision for Jesus, then God is on the ‘inside’ of YOU!! He is there with you right now, even as you sit in that space we discussed in the last blog; the place of your Silence and Darkness. God is present within your Spirit! We don’t need to Fast now in order to get God to act for us, or see us, or hear us, or come to us….He is inside of us! Yes, there is an experience of outpouring when we gather with God’s people but, again, we still dont need to feel like we need to DO anything to draw God near to us, because, in reality, Jesus has done it all and Holy Spirit is now WITH US!
Father God’s Love for us put Jesus, His Son, on the cross and rose Him from the dead so that you and I could…..have our sins forgiven, YES, but ALSO to have God on the inside of us and to recreate our Spirits! We become a whole new creation! Jesus died so that He could invade the darkness we experience within our souls and we can participate in this by believing that the presence of the Living God is within us…AS A REWARD FOR OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (which we know is actually Christ’s Righteousness but WE ARE THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS NOW) Wow! Let’s look at that in Isaiah 58:8. The verses leading up to verse 8 discuss all the noble things God describes as ‘Righteous’ such as fasting, helping the poor, setting people free from bondage and look after your kin. Then comes verse 8.
“Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thine health shall spring forth speedily and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.”
God’s gift to us through Jesus is His Righteousness! Father God is ready to shine His Glory within the confines of the dark places of our soul so that we can actually walk in the Righteous acts described in Isaiah 58. God is now living IN our hearts and is waiting for us to acknowledge this and trust Him to help us transform into the image of Christ. Holy Spirit is the person living inside of us and is assigned to the tasks of directing us, leading us and helping us renew our minds and begin our soul journey. All of this is something to sit with and meditate on! We don’t have to ‘do the things to be Righteous’ anymore, so that we can enjoy the Glory of the Lord and his ‘rereward’, we just have to come to the Revelation that Jesus has done this for us! It doesn’t mean we are off the hook completely with how we act….it just means that we have the Grace and Mercy to transform into Jesus likeness. Understanding this makes it easier to open ourselves up to God, to trust Him with our inner world and to know that He really is the Finisher of our Faith. The word used in Isaiah 58:8 ‘rereward’ is used to describe God taking up the rear guard of our lives, it also conveys a sense of God gathering us to Himself and also gathering us into our true selves ‘in Him’.
In the spirit of ‘gathering us to God and to our true Identity in Jesus"‘, I’ve included a painting for you to sit with and meditate upon. It is a picture of the beautiful Australian bird called the Spotted Pardalote, commonly known as the Diamond Bird. I like this analogy. One looks at this little bird and it’s just a Spotted Pardalote but look closer and you see the markings look like Diamonds sparkling amongst the dark feathers. This is like us in Christ! To the natural eye, it’s just plain, boring US but if one looks within our regenerated Spirit they find the stamp of Royalty of the King Of Kings all over our lives, including Jesus’s Righteousness shining forth!
Added to this you will notice the Rising Sun is depicted as a ‘gathering together’ of shards, cemented together with Gold. This speaks to me about the ‘gathering together’ of our shattered souls as God gathers us to Himself and also pieces together who we really ARE in Him. The Gold is again the signature of Heaven all over our lives. It also speaks of God’s Richness and Glory and reminds us that God uses all we go through to shape our lives into His character, to bring Him Glory and He uses everything for a Good Result for us. In our spiritual reality we aren’t actually broken, but our Jesus is so kind to us…..He still bears the scars of the sin He endured and our lives still bear the scars of the sin we’ve endured too! But how Beautiful that He does give us Beauty for Ashes and Gold for our Pain.
Dear Friend, it also reminds us that God can use us to bring Light and Love to others! We become the Rising Sun for all who come across our path. You are the Rising Sun!
I haven’t named this painting yet! You let Holy Spirit name it for You as you spend time with it today. Put some instrumental music on and wait on Him to show you great and marvellous things.
Blessings in Him, Merita xxx
