This is the beginning of a new year, and the most powerful yet tumultuous decade of our lives.
Isaiah 5:12-13
Their banquets are accompanied by lyre and harp, by tambourine and flute, and by wine; but they do not pay attention to the deeds of the LORD, nor do they consider the work of His hands. Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude is parched with thirst.
Do we know the deeds of the Lord, or consider the works of His hands?
It is when we do not know the foreordained purpose and appointed times of God that we wine, dine, marry, and be given in marriage.
It is when we are so satisfied with the epicurean blessings of the flesh that we fail to discern that we are famished and parched in the spirit.
It is when we fail to pay attention to our calling in His kingdom that we live unrestrained in human ambitions in the world.
It is when we are indifferent to the work of the ark that we devote our time and energy to build our own “paneled houses” rather than the house of the Lord.
It is when we are ignorant of the true God that we worship the golden calf, even the beast and the harlot, in the last days.
Indeed, the lack of true knowledge of God, or knowledge of the true God, is like a Babylon siege – it starves us from the Word that sustains us; it deprives us of the living waters of the Spirit that revive us; it robs us of repentance in the sanctification of truth that saves us.
Truly, it is when we have no true knowledge of all that God is, all that God has, and all that God wills that we are laid siege, taken captive, or fallen away into exile in the world, even though we are living within the walls of our houses and churches.
Do we really know the works of the Lord, and pay close attention to the workmanship of His hands, in and through us as sons, churches, and nations?
It is time for us to be set free from our contemporary Babylonian captivity, and be released into the true freedom and salvation of being set apart from the perverse generation. Let us shake ourselves free from our past, strain forward to what lies ahead, and press on to the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let this be our resolution for 2020 and beyond. Let this year be the beginning of a 20/20 vision of God, His Word, and His works in us and in the nations.
Will you do it?
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