“For I will create a new heaven and a new earth;
the past events will not be remembered or come to mind.
Then be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;
for I will create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in My people.
The sound of weeping and crying will no longer be heard in her.†  Isaiah 65:17-19 (HCSB)
This is Holy Week. In the life of Jesus, this week was His last five days. I want to share some of my meditation time with you. I am starting at the beginning.
From the beginning God has wanted to have a loving relationship with His children. The Bible speaks of covenant. That is a sacred agreement. God continued to make covenants with His people. He continued to do everything He could to reach out to His children and forge a new relationship. He wanted to take care of His children. A generation would live for Him and follow His Law. The next generation did not.
God promised a Savior. Throughout the Old Testament God reminded His children that He loved them. And because He loved them, He wanted them to be holy so they could live with Him. He gave them so much. And God gave the promise of a Savior.
Here I am all these thousands of years later, a child of God with a covenant relationship with my LORD because He kept His promises. I am growing in listening to the LORD. I am learning what it means to take the gifts that God has given me and understand His plan for my life. Unlike my Old Testament ancestors, I have an example in Jesus to show me what it means to walk in the power of God and yet, submit to God’s direction.
There is so much to learn from Old Testament men and women who lived in times of brutality and under governments whose laws did not make following God a healthy thing to do. Often laws came about to single out God’s children and identify them as aliens. That sounds familiar!
As time passes, I do feel more and more like an “alien†on this earth. My priorities are more at odds with the priorities that government and popular people lay out as important. Even this week, the preparation for Easter is about having a new dress, buying food for a Sunday feast and coloring eggs and buying egg-shaped candy. These aren’t “bad†in themselves but how much time is spent on these tasks and how much is spent in reading and meditating on the truth of Easter? Am I keeping God close to me and, yet, never forgetting He is my LORD.
Today I am thinking about the many blessings of God. I am spending time in thanksgiving for His great love for me since before I was born.
You are my God, and I will give You thanks.
You are my God; I will exalt You.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
His faithful love endures forever. Â Â Psalm 118:28-29 (HCSB)
Comfort Ye My People and Every Valley written by Handel, sung by Jerry Hadley
