Conversing the Kingdom: Love Me Less Lord!

Isaiah 5:1-7

Here in Isaiah 5 we see the common illustration of God's chosen people portrayed as the vineyard and he the husbandman. God has taken time to prepare and plant his choice vines in fertile land. He has dug it over and cleared it of stones. There is a hedge and a wall and even a watchtower set up to protect the vineyard. The Lord brings the rains, he prunes and cultivates his vineyard ensuring that no briars and thorns shall grow up to chock the vines. And once the wine vat is hewed he goes looking for the vines yield of grapes but instead of the grapes of a well tended vineyard the Lord finds only wild grapes.

The vines have resisted the pruning, they have drunk the rain and produced naught but foliage, they have revelled in the safety and security of the vineyard and used it for selfish gain. When the Lord has looked for justice amongst his people he has found bloodshed as the Lord has looked for righteousness he has found only outcry!

In our fallen state our cry is not more of you love Lord but less. We want more of the rain but less of the pruning, we want more of the safety and security for our foliage but less of the fruit. We want to be served by God, enabled by him. We want the safety and security of his love but none of the relationship. We think this world is run by science and philosophy if only we can achieve the correct balance of technology and knowledge if only we can find that correct set of laws and morality then all will be well. We think if we can get just the right amount of take then we will have no need to give.

The trouble is the meaning of life is not a science or a philosophy but a relationship, a relationship of love. This love is not the romantic love of the 20th century where our sights are set on finding our one true love. Where if we can't find that one person who will enable us, support us and love us unconditionally, requiring nothing in return then life is incomplete. True love is emotion in action and requires complete sacrifice and complete submission from both parties. This is the love that God searches for, this is the love he offers. But surely we could never love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength!? That's right we can't and the example of the Israelites and the world around us shows that that will never happen.

But there is someone who has done that on our behalf and his name is Jesus. Jesus is the fulfilment of God's promise to love his people it that while we were still enemies he died for us and on the flip side he stood in our place as the second Adam and fulfilled our side of the relationship too! So that now through Jesus we truly can love God will all our heart, soul, mind and strength and we can receive his full love in return. No longer is our cry "love me less Lord" but empowered by the Holy Spirit we are to rejoice in the pruning of our lives that one day we will be presented perfect and spotless before the Father as the bride of Christ.

Conversing the Kingdom: Fully Laden

Isaiah 1:4

At the beginning of Isaiah we see the vision that addresses a people who although they have been brought up by God, externally directed by him, they have lost a true view of him. In their rebellion they have lost sight of God as their owner, that they are his people, and they have lost sight of their master,he is their Lord. There is a fascinating view of what this means for Israel in the picture Isaiah lays out in the beginning of verse 4."Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity." What an insight into the picture of our rebellion. That without a true understanding of God as our owner and Lord we are weighed down with our sins. Worry for instance is when we believe we know what the future should be and we weigh ourselves down with the effort of obtaining that. Or if we lie about something in an effort to present ourselves in a better light we are in fact weighing ourselves down with a self expectation that without we are of less value. All these sins weigh us down and we end up carrying them all around with us. In the end they will break us and drag us down. But the solution is not one of determination to try harder... oh next time I won't lie because I understand that I only make things worse for myself. Or... next time I won't worry because in worrying I never changed anything. These solutions bring their own burden, the religious burden, the moral burden. They will never work as Isaiah puts it we are offspring of evildoers what hope do we have. Even in a religious attempt to see God as owner and Lord we will fall. But there was one who did succeed and his name was Jesus. Through his victory on the cross he offers us a new burden to carry. His yoke is easy his burden is light. Through the Holy Spirit we can be empowered to understand truly God the Father as owner and Lord and out of that truth and only out of that we can be in a position where there is no need to lie, there is no need to worry. The burden of the future and the burden of our self image is lifted from our shoulders and in its place a knowledge of Gods sovereignty and Gods view of us that while we were still rebels he laid down his life for us.

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