”Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth, who carry out what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be concealed on the day of the Lord’s anger.“
Zephaniah 2:3 CSB
Zephaniah continues to lay out for Gods people what will happen if they don’t repent, don’t turn from choosing their own way. Destruction is headed their way and even all their neighbors will be destroyed. Then in the middle of this rant of devastation Zephaniah gives the antidote in this verse: obey, seek humility and righteousness and then maybe the Lord will protect them…
This was a hopeful message to the people facing Gods wrath (well deserved wrath), but to be honest , it is weak in comparison to the hope that we have in Jesus. They had to fully change their actions, they had to trust that God was going to give them an exception. I know that I can try to be humble, try to do right things and work really hard to obey God, but when it is all on me, it doesn’t last very long…I eventually get tired of all that hard work and effort!
What Jesus’s has done for us is live the perfect life, for us. He has acted in perfect humility and righteousness. He obeyed every command and was even driven by pure motivation every moment of His life. He did it all because He knows that we cannot do those things.
Then He walked up to me and said, “I have a trade for you! I will take your broken life, bumps, bruises, infection and devastation and all…and you can have my perfect life. When God sees you, he will only see my record, everything perfect! I will take your punishment, your deserved exile so that you never have to endure that suffering…”
That is WAY BETTER than, “if you do it all right, maybe I won’t destroy you”…We are so blessed!
God help me to live my life in light of this unimaginably truth. I pray that the joy of knowing what you have done for me would penetrate my heart and purify my motives so that I can worship you with every thought and action!
No comments:
Post a Comment