Walking By A Blessing

[Walter and Deborah]

Thursday 5-12-22 5th. Day Of The Weekly Cycle, Iyar 10, 5782 54th. Spring Day

Day 25- Netzach of Netzach: Endurance in Endurance

Everyone has willpower and determination. We have the capacity to endure much more than we can imagine, and to prevail under the most trying of circumstances.

Ask yourself: Is my behavior erratic? Am I inconsistent and unreliable? Since I have will and determination, why am I so mercurial? Am I afraid of accessing my endurance and committing? Do I fear being trapped by my commitment? If yes, why?

Is it a reaction to some past trauma? Instead of cultivating endurance in healthy areas, have I developed a capacity for endurance of unhealthy experiences? Do I endure more pain than pleasure? Do I underestimate my capacity to endure?

Exercise for the day: Commit yourself to developing a new good habit.

Walking by a Blessing

Read: Isaiah 48:12–20 | Bible in a Year: 2 Kings 15–16; John 3:1–18
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If only you had paid attention to my commands. Isaiah 48:18

In 1799, twelve-year-old Conrad Reed found a large, glittering rock in the stream that ran through his family’s small farm in North Carolina. He carried it home to show his father, a poor immigrant farmer. His father didn’t understand the rock’s potential value and used it as a doorstop. The family walked by it for years.

Eventually Conrad’s rock—actually a seventeen-pound gold nugget—caught the eye of a local jeweler. Soon the Reed family became wealthy, and their property became the site of the first major gold strike in the United States.

Sometimes we walk past a blessing, intent on our own plans and ways. After Israel was exiled to Babylon for disobeying God, He proclaimed freedom for them once again. But He also reminded them of what they’d missed. “I am the Lord your God,” He told them, “who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.

If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea.” God then encouraged them to follow Him away from old ways into a new life: “Leave Babylon . . . ! Announce this with shouts of joy” (Isaiah 48:17–18, 20).

Leaving Babylon, perhaps now as much as then, means leaving sinful ways and “coming home” to a God who longs to do us good—if only we’ll obey and follow Him!

What aspect of God do you look forward to as you walk with Him today? What can you do to gently lead others to His love?

Loving God, there’s no one like You! Help me embrace the opportunity to walk with You and discover the blessings You alone provide.

INSIGHT
The people’s return from Babylon (Isaiah 48:12–20) was significant because Israel needed to be in the promised land for Messiah Jesus to come and be born in Bethlehem as prophesied (Micah 5:2).

But perhaps the greatest importance of deliverance for Israel was that in this rescue, God had once again fulfilled His promises to His chosen people. The promises found in Jeremiah 25:11–12 motivated Daniel to pray for his displaced people (Daniel 9:2–3) that they’d be ready for rescue when the time came.

By James Banks|May 12th, 2022

God's Love and Care Isaiah 48:12-20
 

1. 12 Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.
    
2. 13 Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.
    
3. 14 All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them hath declared these things? The LORD hath loved him: he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans.
    
4. 15 I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous.
    
5. 16 Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me.
    
6. 17 Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.
    
7. 18 O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:
    
8. 19 Thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.
    
9. 20 Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The LORD hath redeemed his servant Jacob.

Read Isaiah 48

Love, Walter and Debbie

Edited May 12, 2022 by Walter and Deborah
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[Mama Etna]

I like this verse in the devotional:

Isaiah 48:17–18

17 This is what the Lord says—

your Redeemer,w the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you what is best for you,

who directs you in the way you should go.

18 If only you had paid attention to my commands,

your peace would have been like a river,

your well-being like the waves of the sea.

All too often Christian mess out on blessings because they are seeking the wrong things.