Compassion

 After a few days of completely ignoring my household duties, I figured I should get a handle on those.  So, today's post will be a little bit shorter.

Key verses

Hebrews 2:14-15 - "Since the children have flesh and blood, he [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death."

The passage in Isaiah was still on the theme of destruction.  I was surprised to see how badly everyone was getting destroyed and beaten down, and still God's anger was not turned away.  Isaiah really has me confused and I am itching to get my hands on a hard copy commentary.  On top of the Isaiah reading, we read about more destruction in Luke, coming as signs of the end of the age.  I think one of the age-old questions when reading the Old Testament in light of the new is, where is the compassionate God who is slow to anger and rich in love?  I don't have an answer at the moment, but perhaps you do.  Let me know!

Also in Isaiah - only a small remnant returned to Jerusalem.  At first I thought, wow, these guys don't get it!  They had to experience such discipline until only a small group of them remained, and then they finally relied on God.  They had the law with them the whole time, why was it so tough to follow it?

After thinking those thoughts, I quickly came to the conclusion that, guess what?  I have God's word right in front of me, too, and I still don't get it sometimes!  I have God's law with me, and I make it tough to follow it.  It doesn't have to be so hard, but as we'll read later on in a letter from Paul the Apostle, the good I want to do, I don't do, but the evil I don't want to do, that I do.  So I guess the Israelites were in the same boat as me, more or less.

What's the key take-away for today?  I would focus on Hebrews.  I realize I need to spend far more time than I do now thanking God for sending his Son to die for us.  Jesus became like us in every way in order to save us from our own sin.  Here is ultimately where God's abounding compassion and love come into play.  He freed us from death and from enslavement to fear and temptation.  Let's walk in that amazing truth, knowing that we have to do nothing but rely on God.