DAY SEVENTEEN
It is a great privilege to be invited by God to understand the mysteries of His kingdom, a privilege that is left unexercised by most followers of Jesus. It is a travesty to have this invitation to comprehend the spiritual secrets hidden from every generation before Jesus and not take advantage of it as those who have a heart to hear from God. Jesus came and announced that the kingdom of God is here, that the mystery was being revealed from heaven, that the secrets were being shouted from the mountain tops.
Today we have a special invitation to sit at Jesus feet and learn from Him. We have an invitation into the holy of holies to bask in the presence of God and hear His voice. Today, when we accept God’s invitation and come to Him, He freely speaks the words that guide us to the experience of all the fulness of the kingdom of God. What a great privilege it is to listen, to hear, and to experience all of the authority and abundance of the King.
When we understand what a privilege it is to hear from the Creator of the universe, it changes our whole perspective on spending time with Him. Instead of pride, we come with humility, ready to learn about the highways of heaven. Instead of wishful thinking, we come with confidence that what God says, He is able to perform. Instead of drudgery, we come with excitement to hear from God. And when we have heard from Him, we go away with celebration and peace, eager for the next opportunity we will have to be with the King.
In Isaiah 55:8-12, God speaks three truths that change the way we approach abiding.
1. God’s spoken word teaches us the ways of heaven, the ways of the kingdom.
The realization of how little we know drives us into the presence of the Almighty. We can remember very little of our past and we know nothing of the future. We dabble at understanding the way things ought to be, but we fall short of any real understanding. Even the greatest of human philosophers struggled to find meaning in life. Most modern philosophers, when they had exhausted the coffers of human thinking, ended up in despair.
Therefore, God says, in Isaiah 55:8-9…
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares YEHOVAH. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
We come to the Almighty because He has always existed and always will be. We come to the all-knowing God because there is nothing that has ever escaped His mind. We come to the all-wise God because He knows the end from the beginning. He knows everything about us that can be known. He formed us in the womb, and He has walked with us throughout our entire life, through every single moment of our existence. Beyond our meager comprehension, God also knows every aspect of every second of our lives for the remainder of our time here on earth and throughout all eternity.
His thoughts are nothing like our thoughts because He knows infinitely more than we do. His ways are nothing like our ways because He is the God who created us and designed us to live and thrive. He wrote the guidebook for abundant life. No matter where we are in life, He knows a path forward that will guide us into the fullness of the kingdom.
All the wisdom of man, from the start of time, can be combined and it would amount to nothing in comparison to God’s wisdom. Why? Because His ways and His thoughts are higher than man’s. God’s thoughts are the thoughts of heaven, the thoughts of the kingdom. The thoughts of man are limited to the earthly realm and inferior to the ways of heaven known and spoken by God alone.
Therefore, we come to the Father to hear what He has to say. We recognize the limitations of our thinking and our wisdom. He has the words of life, words that bring us overflowing abundance, words that no one else possesses. This realization of God’s greatness is what drives us daily to sit at His feet, to enter His presence, and to ask Him to breathe life into the words on the pages of His written word, the Bible. We seek His rhema.
2. God’s spoken word accomplishes what it sets out to do.
Second, the realization of the power of God’s spoken word draws us to Him day and night. What God speaks, He is able to perform. When we experience, the certainty of what God speaks, it creates a longing in our hearts for more. When we finally have it settled that God does what He says, we will never want to miss another opportunity to hear from Him.
YEHOVAH, the Almighty God, says this, in Isaiah 55:10-11…
“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, sothat it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
God uses the analogy of nature to describe his power because He wanted everyone to understand what He was about to say. The illustration is simple. The snow comes down from heaven, it melts on the mountains and flows down into the valleys. In the valleys, it waters the earth, so that every spring beautiful buds flourish on trees. The same water grows seeds into grains and creative men and women bake bread to feed the mouths of men.
The Spring season displays a cycle that everyone would have known and observed, year after year. When it snows, the snow melts, the water travels down to feed the plants that feed mankind. And so it is with the rhema words that God speaks. The moment God gives us a promise or points us to place in Scripture, it is done. In the kingdom, in the realm of heaven, it has already been performed. God’s promise is that His word will accomplish what He desires. It will achieve the purpose for which God sent it.
There is only one thing that will prevent God’s promise to us from accomplishing what it set out to do. When we abandon the process of abiding, we stop the course that God sets in motion. When we get too busy to press into what God has spoken to us, we halt the process. This was the exact teaching Jesus taught in Luke 8, in the parable of the soils, where the first three soils never grow seeds to maturity.
God, by nature of who He is, does what He speaks. Our job is to keep abiding, to keep going back day after day, until we believe what God has spoken. Our role is keep processing what God has said, tearing it apart, until we fully understand it. Our task is to plead with the Spirit of God to guide us into the truth God has given us, to help us understand the things of heaven. And when we do this, God’s rhema words produce beautiful fruit in us, the fruit of the kingdom.
3. God’s spoken word results in jubilant celebration and perfect peace.
God never meant for us to be satisfied with learning what the Bible means. He meant for us to be transformed and healed by His words as He breathes life into them. When we follow His process through to the end and when we experience the freedom truth brings, the result is always jubilant celebration and perfect peace.
YEHOVAH goes on to give us this promise, in Isaiah 55:12…
“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of thefield will clap their hands.”
This is a description of the kingdom of heaven coming to earth in our lives. Every time God speaks rhema and we see it through to the end, we win a major victory in the kingdom. Two things happen. One, we are transformed, healed, or we receive what God has promised. Two, we are motivated to give it away. We are obligated to give it away as servants of the Almighty, and we are compelled to give it away, because it is so exciting to experience the kingdom in this way.
The picture here is one of multiplication. We get up from our abiding and immediately go out with joy. We rejoice in what God has done. We cannot contain it. Then, God leads us out with peace. God leads us out to experience new life and to share what we have learned with others. We carry peace within us and we offer the same peace to those around us.
This is why Isaiah 55 begins with this invitation…
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.”
What a beautiful invitation to enter into an abiding relationship with Jesus where we get to listen, hear the words of the Almighty, and live life to the fullest. When He speaks rhema, it is already done. All we have to do is keep processing it through to the end.
WORSHIP: Spend some time worshipping the God whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts and whose ways are higher than our ways. As you recognize your own inadequacies, remember He is more than adequate. Worship Him as the God who possesses all wisdom and knowledge far beyond anything you could ever need.
PRACTICE: Write down some of the areas in your life where you need God’s wisdom. Think through relationships, decisions you need to make, areas where you are struggling, concerns about the future, or anything else that happens to come to mind. Keep these in your journal, so you can see when God leads you to places in Scripture that speak specifically to each of these.
MEDITATION: Stretch your mind today. Imagine this: the moment God speaks something it is done in the kingdom. God lives outside of time. He sees the end from the beginning. So, He is not bound by time. You may not see the answer in that moment, in fact, most of the time you will not see it for some time. But, for God it is already done. How might that change the way you approach abiding and rhema?
ABIDING: Go back and read through this teaching one more time. Ask the Father if there is anything in these passages specifically for you. Write down anything you hear from Him. Spend some extra time listening to see if He has anything more to say to you or if there is a deeper teaching for you today. Write down whatever you hear. Ask the Father if there is someone, He wants you to share this with and follow through with His assignment.