#DailyDevotion God Just Doesn’t Think Like Us
Isaiah 556Search for the LORD while He can be found; call on Him while He is near. 7Every wicked man should give up his way, and every evil man what he’s thinking. If he comes back to the LORD, He will be merciful to him, and to our God, He will forgive him ever so much. 8“My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways,” says the LORD. 9“As high as heaven is above the earth, so far are My ways above your ways and My thoughts above your thoughts.
Indeed search for the LORD while he may be found and call on Him while he is near. But where should we search for him? Should we go to the mountain tops? Maybe the golf course or fishing hole? Maybe we should search inward into the depths of our heart and soul? Yet while the LORD is everywhere, he has not promised to be everywhere for you. So where should we search for the LORD where he may be found and how shall we call upon him?
In Exodus 20:24 the LORD says, “Every place where I have you confess My name I will come to you and bless you.” It is written, “I’ve built the temple for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel”(1 Kings 8:20) and ““My name will be there. Listen to Your servant as he prays toward this place.”(1 Kings 8:29) In the Mosaic Covenant, the people of Israel were to go to the temple where the LORD had placed his name. They were to look towards that place when they prayed. But we are no longer under the Mosaic covenant but the New Testament of Jesus Christ.
In Matthew 18 Jesus says, 20“Where two or three have been brought together in My name, there I am among them.” Where his church gathers in his name there Jesus promises to be found. There he promises to be with us and for us with his word and sacraments. In John 13:14 Jesus also says, “I will do anything you ask in My name in order that the Son may glorify the Father.” It is with the name of Jesus that we told to call upon the LORD our God.
Now in the previous chapters of Isaiah we see the work of Jesus Christ, the suffering servant, on our behalf. We see in the previous verses how the LORD offers to us freely eternal life. Now he even entreats us wicked people to turn to him, give up our wicked ways and thinking. If we come to the LORD he will do what is most unexpected, he will be merciful to us and forgive us whatever we have done, said and thought, however horrible it may seem to us. The LORD has provided us with Jesus to be our atoning sacrifice, our peace offering, our whole burnt offering. The LORD, our Father has provided Jesus for us. It is through faith in Jesus’ work the LORD offers us this free gift of salvation.
It may seem strange to us that He would work this way. We generally think in terms that we must provide the sacrifice. We think our good works must outweigh our bad. Yet this is not how God our Father things. As he said above, 8“My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways,” says the LORD. 9“As high as heaven is above the earth, so far are My ways above your ways and My thoughts above your thoughts.” Let us then conform our thoughts and ways to the thoughts and ways of our heavenly Father and be saved by His thoughts and ways.
Heavenly Father, your thoughts and ways are far above our own. You have provided the sacrifice for our salvation, your only begotten Son Jesus Christ. Grant us faith that we may turn from our wicked ways and thoughts and turn to you and your ways and thoughts, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen.