God Will Save His Children

For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Ezekiel 36:24-28

God's Wrath is what we get when we reject God's Law and defy God's Will.

God's Wrath is what we get when we sin.

God's Mercy is what we get when we repent of our sin and seek to be reconciled once more to Him.

God's Grace is the promise we have been given that forgiveness will come, that mercy will come, that reconciliation will happen.

God Himself described the Israelites as a “stiff-necked people”, an image of stubbornness and obstinacy which I suspect describes most people. We cling to our wants and desires even when we know what we want is not what God wants for us.

We have our “thorns in the flesh” coming between us and right behavior—between us and righteous behavior.

We know right from wrong. We know God’s Law, for we have been given His Law.

For each of us, knowing is never enough. We know, and we still sin, we still fall short of the Glory of God.

God knows this, and yet God has never not promised forgiveness and reconciliation.

He promised this in the first chapter of Isaiah, even as Isaiah was detailing the many sins and failings of God’s people Israel. If they would repent and return to Him, He promised to blot out their sins.

Despite the many sins of the Israelite people, God gave Isaiah a vision of Israel’s future greatness, of the bounty that was to come for Judah and Jerusalem. Even as God was pouring out His Wrath upon the Israelites, He still was promising them a great and prosperous future.

It was in a time of great tribulation for Israel, when King Ahaz was beset on all sides by the forces of Syria and Samaria, that God gave Isaiah the prophecy that Immanuel would come, a child who would deliver the people from all torment.

When Jeremiah denounced the many evils and degenerate sins into which Israel had fallen, he called simply for Israel to repent. With but simple repentance, God would forgive all sins and hold them against Israel no more.

Jeremiah was not shy about denouncing Israel’s evil, and calling the people out for their disobedience. Jeremiah was not hesitant to point out that Israel had earned a great punishment for its stubborn sinfulness.

Yet even as Israel wallowed in the depths of great sin and misery, God still held out the promise of future greatness. He pledged specifically to restore Israel to the land promised them.

Throughout all of Israel’s long history of sin and wickedness, God never forgot His people. God never abandoned His children.

That all might be redeemed and reconciled back to God, He sent His only begotten Son into the world, taking on human form that He might both die in perpetual atonement for all the world’s sins and then return from the dead, that He might overcome death itself, giving eternal life to all those who will only believe.

Israel is not alone in its history of sin and wickedness. Even a casual reading of human history tells us that sin and wickedness is the history of all mankind.

Sin and wickedness is my history. Sin and wickedness is your history. Sin and wickedness is all our history.

Yet God has never forgotten any of us. God has not forgotten you. God has not forgotten me.

God’s Grace, the promise that there will be mercy, there will be forgiveness, there will be reconciliation, endures.

God’s Mercy we already have, given when Jesus shed His blood on the Cross at Calvary, Redeeming us all with His perfect sacrifice.

Even as we from time to time endure God’s Wrath, the just consequence for everything we have done wrong—and for everything we continue to do wrong—His Mercy endures. Even when His Wrath has faded, His Mercy endures. After consequences have come and gone, God remains, waiting for us to be reconciled to Him once more.

Despite all the ways mankind manages to screw things up, no matter all the ways mankind manages to veer off into sin and wickedness, God’s promise of deliverance remains undiminished.

God will deliver His people—all His people—to the lands they were promised.

God will restore His people—all His people—to the inheritance they have been gifted.

God will save His children—all His children—reconciling them back to Himself.

This is the promise we have from God, and it is one He fulfills daily.

My prayer this day is that I will never lose sight of God’s promise. My prayer this day is that I will strive every day to be reconciled back to Him, embracing the forgiveness and redemption that are already offered, and already given. My prayer this day is that I will daily learn true repentance, and learn to stop doing the things I know God does not want me to do.

My prayer for you this day is that you also will never lose sight of God’s promise. My prayer for you this day is that you also will strive every day to be reconciled back to Him, embracing the forgiveness and redemption that are already offered, and already given. My prayer for you this day is that you also will daily learn true repentance, and learn to stop doing the things you know God does not want you to do.

Despite all the ways mankind manages to screw things up, no matter all the ways mankind manages to veer off into sin and wickedness, God’s promise of deliverance remains undiminished.

God will save His children—all His children—reconciling them back to Himself.

This is the promise we have from God, and it is one He fulfills daily.