antonate

Jerusalem did not have a loving relationship with thier God. They sin against God and chose to worship other gods and were stubborn and rebellion and thus separted from the love of God. In this way Jerusalem was barren and did not enjoy God's favour. God was the Lord and Master of Israel. He loved them and chose them to be his own. God is a loving and merciful God , slow to anger and rich in love. He loves and forgives Israel and chooses to protect and show mercy. Christ is the husband and the believers who have accepted Jesus as Lord and saviour are the bride of christ. the wife is expected to build an intimate love relationship with her husband. Also the wife is expected to love, honor and seek the good of the husband.

Messenger or carrier of good news is so beautiful because he carries the message of the Lord. This message can bless us , edify us , encourage us and give us a new spiritual and physical vigour. It is beautiful because it produces hope against hope and peace and joy in our hearts. It was a message of hope to the exiled Isarelites that God would redeem them out of captivity and give them a new life. Paul applies this to the preaching of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. How beautiful it is to proclaim the world about Jesus Christ who came to redeem the whole mankind from sin and find salvation and gain eternal life in Him!

The Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is my strength and my song. Even though i cannot see where i go i have made Jesus my all in all. He is my guide and the rock of my salvation. His love for me is steadfast. i make Jesus my Lord and i abide in him and he gives me new strength each day and guides me into green pastures. with this confidence i keep going each day although i do not see things happen. Yes i hav faced fear and anxiety in these situations. But then he has given me the grace to come back to his presence and hold on to his precious promises which has given me the strength to over come the fearful situation i continue to praise and worship him and make a choice to obey his voice in the given situation and take guidance from him spending time in his presence. creating my own light can separte me from my God. This can lead to destruction.

Isaiah is speaking about the Messiah our Lord Jesus Christ. He is open to carry on the mission his Father has entrusted to him. He is obidient to the commands given by his Father and he bears the insults and accusations of his enemies for the sake of salvation of the whole mankind. He is suffering physically because his enemies have wounded his body. Also he is suffering mentally because of the insults and accusations that are thrown at him. The messiah was vindicated when we rose from the dead making a public spectacle of his enemies that opposed him and having disarmed their powers and seated at the right hand of God the Father. At the end age all nations will bow down and worship the King of Kings and Lord of lords and he shall reign with majesty, power and authority over all the earth. we must put our trust and hope in Jesus. we should praise and worship him and keep our focus on him. we need to wait upon him and his strength will cause to triumph over every situation we may face.

In the last days the scattered jews will return to Jerusalem the promised land to seek God and his ways and be blessed. Yes. God loves them and one day they will put their trust in Messiah. we show our love to Jews by praying for them.

The pride in one's heart can cause not to love aliens and disregard them. The attitude that our culture and our way of living is better than others tends to create a prejudiced mind against the aliens and this can cause disregard and even discrimination towards the aliens. we can increase our love for other nationalities by praying for them. while we pray for them God will put his love and compassion in our hearts for them and then we will be also able to reach out to them with love of christ. we should earnestly seek to be witnesses to Jesus by our character and example by which we will be able to radiate the love and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God brings prosperity for those obey his word and choose to live a life pleasing to him. He can bring disaster to make a person to turn away from sin and bring to the Knowledge of Him. God is not the source of evil, poverty or trouble. The word of God says in Romans 6: 23--the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. The consequence of sin is trouble and evil and accepting Jesus as Lord and abiding in Jesus results in abundant life. we should fear the Lord and choose to trust in him alone. we should not lean on our own understanding but acknowldege him in all our ways. we should surrender our will and our plans to God and allow him to establish his ways and thoughts over our lives. we should allow him to take complete control of our lives and love him and live according to his word. we should be his instruments to establish His kingdom on earth.

God had a purpose from all eternity that had to fulfiled through cyrus and it was revealed by the prophet. God had taken hold of cyrus to fuflil his purpose and because God was with cyrus his anointing rested upon him. a unbeliever can carry God's purposes if he has sensed God's touch on his life. if he has experienced God's love and mercy that will enable him to do fufil God's purposes. God is no respecter of man and He is not partial. We need to make ourselves aware that God can use whom he wants to fulfil his purposes. He has a plan for all of us and we need to humble oursleves and know that God can use each of us according to his plan and no one is greater or smaller but all are created by him and he will use each one according to what he has in mind!

God has created me and he loves me and he has a purpose for me. His thoughts and his ways are above my thoughts and my ways. each day i am aware God loves me and he has purpose for creating me. i fufil his purpose for me by prasing him and worshipping him. i surrender my will to his will, my purposes to his and try and allow God to fulfil his ways and thoughts in me. i try to be his wtiness to others by loving others with his love. i show his compassion and mercy to others the way God has been merciful to me and speak about him to others. i speak about his goodness and share with them my experiences of how i love him and follow his ways. i have made a habit to praise him in every thing. i praise him for his faithfulness to me and my family everyday and give him the highest praise through praise and worship because i know he is worthy of all praise! The obstacle i face in fulfiling his purposes is to wait on him!!!! The desire to fulfil his plan can be so great that i run ahead of God's direction and time. But i have learnt through hard ways it so much wonderful to wait on the Lord in his presence and just do things his way and at his time!! that makes all things beautiful. the benefit of fulfiling his purpose is i derive a great peace joy and feel satisfied that my life has been of worth for which he has created me. i also receive spiritual and material blessings from the Lord as i fuflil his purposes.

God's servant is blind because they have made thier hearts dull to voice , their ears deaf to his voice and they are not able to see God's ways because of thier sin and disobidience. The servant referred in this passage is people of Israel the Lord's chosen once. i can assess my spiritual blindness where i have not read God's word that teaches me to break the old self in me and live as a new creation imitiating the character of Jesus. Love for God and giving him the first place above all things has been shaky at times. But now by his immense grace i am able to love him above all things and follow his word. There are times when the old self in me distracts my attention towards him but i earnestly pray to the Lord for his overflowing grace to keep my heart and mind open to hear his voice and allow his light to shine on me and in turn let my light shine to all those around me. i seek him so that i am not blinded by the world's ways but be able see all things in the light of his presence and lead the blind to Jesus so that he can heal them of their blindness too, A blind servant cannot be effective for carrying on the master's work. my effectiveness each day depends on what is my priority. i have learnt to make the Lord Jesus my priority above everything. when i give my time, my love , my will , my desires , my plans and ambitions to him and make his plan my plan, his will mine i see that he can use me effectively to do what he commands me to do. His love and his mercy for me helps me remain in him and only by his grace i am effective for him.

Messiah is God's chosen servant in whom God delights. God's spirit is on him and messiah will bring justice to the nations. He is faithful and in faithfulness he will give justice to the earth. He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth and in his law all the nations will put their hope. we should make messiah the Lord of our lives. In everything we should learn to focus on Jesus and ask him the grace to make us more and more like him. with his grace alone we will be able to change our values to the values of Jesus Christ and we will be able bring others into the knowledge of him and teach them his character and his ways.

God's people first of need to submit and accpet the Lordship of Jesus Christ over their lives. when we confess with our mouth and beleive in our heart that Jesus is Lord we are saved. with His saving grace we need to daily spend time at the Lord's feet and allow his light of his presence to shine on our soul, spirit and body. Jesus is the light of the world. when we follow Jesus and obey his commands his light shines in us and we become a light to the nations. i try to focus on jesus each day and get my strength from him to obey his word in my day to day situations. As i praise and thank him, align my life to his teachings he gives me the grace to let his light that is in me to shine. without him i am nothing but with him i can do all things! i rely on God's love and mercy for me each day to live a life pleasing to him. There are times where i falter but the Holy Spirit of God shows me where i have faltered. i humble myself before my God again ask his pardon and represent him to others through my words and deeds.

we should repent of our sins and turn to the ways of the Lord. As a preparation for the Lord's coming we should align our lives to God's holy word and live a life that is holy and pleasing to the Lord. Our God is a loving, compassionate and merciful God. He loves us dearly and cares for his own. The nations of the earth are nothing compared to the God of glory. God is all powerful and all sufficient and all the nations have to bow down before him. the nations are nothing compared to our mighty God. The ways of the world are easy and comfortable to follow. All the world gives us looks bright and nice and we get attracted to its glitter and glory. The pleasures of this world seem to be so attractive giving us all type of comfort that we need. we feel that God's ways are hard and narrow to follow and we get attracted to the glitter of the world. The missing pieces are that God is the ruler of the earth. He is above everything and he has authority over everything he has created and the creation should bow down to him and him alone! we need to love the lord and trust him. As we spend time in his presence we draw strength from him. when we are in his presence he calms our soul with his love. we are able to surrender to him completely when we are filled with his love and we are able to put our hope in him and him alone. we are able to draw strength from him as we seek him and he renews our strength.with this renewed strength we can soar on wings like eagles!

Hezekiah reminds yahweh about how he has walked faithfully and with him. he also reminds yahweh of his whole hearted devotion and how he has done what is pleasing in Yahweh's sight. God in his holy word commands us to live in his ways that are right and holy. The word of God also commands us to live a holy and sanctified life for it is the will of God. when we live according to his ways and also live in holiness God promises his blessings to us and also he answers us when we call upon his Name. God is a merciful God- slow to anger and rich in love. His loves his children and in his mercy may deliver the unrighteous when they cry to him in trouble. His loving grace works and then God will teach the unrighteous his ways through the very trouble through which they have turned to him. This is his grace working for us. however when there is sin God will first deal with the sin in the person and give ear to their cry.

Hezekiah's healing was important for the nation so that the nation would not suffer without a righteous man leading the nation. Also his healing was important to make the people known that the Lord Almighty saves the righteous and hears their prayer. God had promised david that David's throne would be esatblished forever .

The first two sentences of Hezekiah's prayer and the Lord's prayer acknowledge God is our father who is almighty and He is God od heaven and earth. yahweh is God above all kingdoms of the earth. These verses helps us put our complete faith in God because he is a mighty God above everything and he is an awesome and powerful God who is with us and can give us victory in every battle that we face. when we acknowledge God as our all in all , we declare that there is no one like him we make it known to him that our trust is in him and no other. He is pleased with our total dependance on him as our everything and he hears and responds to our cry as a Father shows compassion to his children.

The significance of Hezekiah spreading the enemy's message before the Lord was to seek the Lord's help and strength in a situation where he couldnt solve himself. Hezekiah understood this battle was not his to fight but the Lord's. He put his trust in the Lord and he realised only God could conquer the enemy who insulted the living God. The principle we find here is we cannot fight any given situation in our strength or rely on our human wisdom to solve the problem. In humility we need to turn to our loving God and surrender to his ways and acknowledge that God is our strength and our deliverer and only with his strength the impossible becomes possible! when we face adverse circumstances we need to come into his presence and praise and worship the living God. As we worship him we are filled with his peace and strength and then we can hear his voice that comforts us and guides us to conquer the situation with him as our strength. when we dont seek God and his help we are not able to win the battles that we face.

The first readers were filled with hope because they given a promise of new life and restoration. Joy, peace gladness, restoration is promised in these verses. A promise that God will rescue his people from evil is seen here. Isaiah speaks figuratively because the minds of the people had become dull and hard. They could not understand the ways of Yahweh God because they walked in rebellion and sin. He describes highway to Holiness as the Way to Holiness. figuratively he speaks about a walking in the holy ways of a Holy God. Those who live a holy life- that is those who walk in the ways of Yahweh will walk on this highway. People who disobey God ,those who are wicked and evil will not walk on this Way to Holiness. Ransomed means a total price is paid for total redemption of a person or an object thus make the person free from slavery. Jesus our Lord died on the Cross and paid the total price by his shed blood and redeemed us from the clutches of the enemy and freed us and gave us new life.

when we walk in the right ways, speak right, refrain ourselves from illegal gain and wealth through bribes , shun from evil ways it shows our love for God and our eagerness to please him . it indicates a honest and pure living before God and man. we display the love of God and people are touched by the love of God when we live righteously. when we do good and shun from evil it displays love to the people whom we are connected with. our right living can by itself display the love and mercy of God to all around us The word of God commands not to take bribes. if a righteous government does this they are disobeying the word of God and end up in total destruction.

when we fail to seek him we are sure that we seek help from every other source than him. when we fail to make God as our source of everything and we choose not to inquire of him we look for a source other than God himself as our help. when God is not given the first place and we dont make him the source of our everything that place is surely taken by some other ! it can be my strength and knowledge, the wisdom of human beings or the voice of the world. These can take God's place and become idols . Idols of help and strength and it is a form of idolatory. Jesus taught his disciples to be God centered. Inother words he pointed to them to source of all happiness in found in seeking God's kingdom. God reigning in us and we following his ways is end of all worry. when we seek God's kingdom all that we need we will be added into our lives by our loving Father in heaven.

Our God wants to shows us his grace because he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love! He wants us to be his children , bless us and establish his ways and thoughts in us and through us make his glory known. He is a God full of love and mercy and compassion. Man's disobidience towards God prevents his grace. yes all the time i expereince his loving guidance which shows me the way-- This is the way , walk in it. when i choose to take those ways which seems to be narrow and difficult at times the end result is joy and peace and full of his goodness and blessings. we should have a deep love for God and deep desire to please him. when we desire to give him the first place above everything and acknowledge him as Lord and God in everything and humble ourselves in his presence. we need to put our trust in him completely and then we are able to hear his loving voice that helps us walk in his ways that are profitable.

Yes we often find religious people who follow the law and traditions of the religion but in their hearts they do not love God niether exhibit his true nature, The way we love God and our neighbor can detect whether we are following a rellgion or we are living under the grace of God. we need to come into the loving presence of God and allow God to search our hearts and minds! when we yearn to come into his presence and worship him we are able to see all the flaws in us and the grace of God will help us to build a intimate relationship with Jesus. we need to open ourselves and yield to the Holy Spirit of God who will guide our lives according to the word of God. The way i behave, the ways i take and the life i lead shows whether i follow the rules of men rather than the ways of God guided by his Holy Spirit. Rule based living leads to self righteousness and pride. Also the danger would that the person will not be Christ centered but self centered. Intimiate relationship with Jesus is not possible if people follow rules and laws and they fall way from the grace of God. Love based living is possible when we love Jesus and because we love him we will also love him. when the love of Jesus fills us we are able to renounce sin and filled with his Holy Spirit. the mighty love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit makes our life meaningful and purposeful . we are filled with love and peace of God and we are able to love others with the love of Christ and bring them to the knowlegde and love of God.

Human beings who do not want to acknowledge Yahweh as their God and follow his ways justify and deceive themselves beleiving that they can live with their good moral values and in their ability. Since they do not want to live according to ways of God they justify their own actions. It is narrow path to walk in the ways of yahweh and it is comfortable and easy to take the ways of the world. so human beings deceive themselves and fall prey to the ways of the world. Lies or in other words the wisdom and ways of the world are easy to follow. Moreover whatever is needed as comfort or pleasure for a person is easily available by following the ways of the world. so people use lies as guide to their lives because there is no pain of getting their human wants satisfied. people who do not follow the Lord think its difficult to get their desires met through following God's ways hence they take the guidance of the world which is full of lies and deception. Jesus is the way , the truth and the life. People due to stubborness, hard heartedness, pride and arrogance find it difficult to accept Jesus as Lord and come under total submission to him. people who love to follow they lifestyle of the world cannot make Jesus their Lord and master and obey his teachings. Thus they stumble over Christ the righteous One. we ourselves need to daily walk in the ways of the Lord and truly live a life imitating the nature of Jesus Christ. our behaviour, our way of living can by itself be a witness to an unbeliever. with love and compassion of Jesus and by his strength we can share his peace with those who are groping in darkness. our strong prayer for them can pull out of darkness into the marvellous light of the Kingdom of Jesus. The Lord will destroy the ungodly.

It corresponds with signs of the end age in Matther 24:31-- And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds,from one end of the heavens to the other. It represents the coming of Christ to take along with him his chosen ones to be with him which is called The rapture.

The key to perfect peace is our complete trust in God and keeping our minds focused on Jesus all the time! when we get distracted from trusting the Lord we end up trusting in our own strength and trusting in mortal men. This can make room for the enemy to steal kill and destroy and be robbed of abundant life that Jesus has promised us. The Lord is strong and mighty and he is with us forever. He says to us -- I am with you always. To those who put their trust in God and stand firm in his presence he becomes a strong deliverer and he surrounds them with his protection and might! As the word of God says in Psalm 125- those who trust in the Lord are like mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem , so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore.