His Encouragement #90

Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He and He alone is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!

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Today’s Thursday Encouragement comes from:

Isaiah 59:1-2 (ESV)

Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

Fact #1 — God is NOT deaf and He isn’t incapable.

Fact #2 — if you feel like God isn’t listening to you or He seems to be missing, you’ve done something wrong.

Isaiah 59:1-2 is an interesting couple of verses. It shares intimate details of God’s personality that I believe we all need to understand since knowing this information allows for a more rich relationship with God. First, God is capable of reaching farther than any measurement we can imagine. His hand can hold ALL of His children at one time. This means He’s always got us! Second, God can hear everything. That flippant remark you said under your breath to your mom when you were a tween, yeah, He heard it. That moment you cried out when you learned you lost your loved one to a car accident or illness, yeah, He heard that too. God’s abilities described in Isaiah 59:1 remind me of God’s description in Ephesians 3:20 — He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. In other words, if you can think it or speak it or imagine it or feel it or wish it, God can already do it and do it better.

What’s most important in today’s verses is the information contained in verse 2 — it’s the answer to why you feel like God isn’t there or isn’t listening. Our sin causes a separation between ourselves and God. God is perfect. Everything He does is perfect. Sin is an imperfection. It means we have missed God’s mark. God can’t have anything to do with an imperfection or missed marks. Because of this God has to turn away from that which is imperfect. He cannot hear us or look at us when we sin.

If you’ve read this far and you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, “Man, this is not an encouraging post. I will never be perfect,” please stop stressing. Here is your Thursday dose of encouragement: “Christ Jesus is the One who died — more than that, who was raised — who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34 ESV). Yes, we are all sinners and we can never be perfect. We live in a fallen realm. BUT if you confess your sins — if you’re truly honest about all those moments you missed the mark — and you give your heart to Jesus, He will stand at the right hand of His Father and He will conciliate on your behalf. Think about that! It means that Jesus talks to God the Father about you. Jesus brings your petitions, your worries, your mistakes, your moments where you cry out asking for forgiveness to God. He negotiates with His Father for you.

I don’t know about you, but this makes me even more grateful for Jesus as my Lord and Savior! Thank you, Jesus, for never turning Your back on me, and for giving me a fair chance with the Father. And, thank You, Yahweh, for showing me through Isaiah 59:1-2 how to keep You from turning away from me.

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NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?

Check out more Thursday Encouragement from my fellow blogger friends:

Trisha @ Joy of Reading

Jacquelyn @ A Heavenly Home

Jessica @ A Baker’s Perspective

Becca @ The Becca Files

Gina @ Stories by Gina

Rebecca @ Rev. Rebecca Writes