Isaiah 26:1-21

God is at work in this world to accomplish His will.  His purpose in the world is for the nations and all inhabitants of the world to worship Him.  No matter how far we may seem from that purpose, we can be assured that God is at work to bring about that reality and He will not be thwarted.  One day we experience the joy of living within that eternal purpose of God.  In fact we can experience a taste of that on a personal basis in our lives right now.  God’s future purpose of perfection may not be our present reality in a complete sense of the word, but we can certainly live with assurance of that hope and taste of that joy on this very day.  Our future must have an impact on our present.  These are the promises of God in which we should hope and by which we should live our lives.

THE PROMISE OF PEACE FOR ALL WHO TRUST GOD: We all long to experience peace in our lives.  The world is constantly at war with nations rising up against other nations and a constant flow of crime within every nation that robs us of peace.  Besides these external conflicts we all experience fear and anxiety as we go through life that robs us of sleep at night and fills or days with worry.  We long to experience peace in the world as well as peace in our personal lives.  The key to attaining this peace is trusting God.  One day God will bring an everlasting peace to this planet and wars will be a thing of the past.  One day our trust in God will be perfect and we will experience perfect peace in a life that is completely free of fear and anxiety.  This world that will be free of war and worry is a promise of God that should impact our lives every single day.  If we truly believe that God is moving us towards that reality for all of eternity, our hearts will be filled with confidence as well as praises to the Lord.  The only way that we can experience the perfect peace of God in our lives right now is to trust the Lord completely and praise the Lord constantly no matter what our present circumstances may be.


THE REALITY OF RESURRECTION FOR ALL WHO WAIT ON GOD: Life is our most precious commodity on this earth and we do all that we can to preserve it.  Perhaps our greatest fear on earth is the fear of death.  God has promised that He will eliminate death on this earth and grant us eternal life.  Death is not the end of life; it is the beginning of our eternal life.  God’s plan of redemption is to assure us that we will one day be able to live eternally in the presence of God and glorify Him perfectly.  Part of being created in the image of God is that we share in His eternality.  We are not eternal beings in the same sense that God is because God is from eternity past, but we share in God’s eternal future.  None of us feel eternal right now and we see the reality of death and destruction all around us every day.  We are all acutely aware of the fact that we are getting older and the day of our death is approaching so we do not feel like eternal beings.  That is why we must learn to wait on the Lord.  We are not yet in our eternal state; but that state is on its way and we must wait for it in assurance.  One day we will rise from the dead in our eternal bodies in which we will praise God perfectly forever and ever. 

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