His Delight

DEVOTION

ISAIAH

HIS DELIGHT

Isa 5:7-10

7 The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. 8 Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.

9 The LORD Almighty has declared in my hearing: "Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants. 10 A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine, a homer of seed only an ephah of grain."

NIV

Well, we were thinking we were that vineyard, and so it is, although here Israel is, at the time of the saying, but it still bears true of the church, the body of Christ, the community of faith. We are his delight and the question that is before us is whether the Lord God sees justice or bloodshed when he looks upon us. Does he see righteousness, or does he here cries of distress? What is the difference between justice and bloodshed? In the Hebrew, justice carries the meaning of living in the divine law, acting in accordance with love, while bloodshed means to oppress. Have we turned this living in love to oppression by making up our lists of do’s and don’ts? Do we oppress new believers with all the things they are not supposed to do now that they have joined our little band of law followers? Is this the righteousness God is looking for and only hears the cries of distress from those trying to live by their laws? Doubtful, as he is looking for those who simply trust in Jesus, for he is our righteousness and our only righteousness, for we have none of our own, no matter how sinless we try to be, because we always are going to fail. That is just the facts. If we think we will not fail and we have achieved our own righteousness, then we deceive ourselves and call God a liar. We will always be in distress trying to live up to the standard we set for ourselves with our laws, our rules, and our set of lists. We think we have taken all that from the word of God, but we might be more like the Pharisees then we want to admit, adding our own brand of righteousness.  It is not like we should go about looking for ways to sin, by no means, but the fact is no matter how hard we try to not sin, we still sin. So no oppressing anyone or ourselves for that matter, with all our man-made rules and regulations and let us live in the righteousness of Christ. God did all the bloodshed that was needed when the blood of Jesus was spilled out for us. Then we have to turn our attention to this building house to house and all our fine mansions, leaving no room to live in the kingdom of God. When we spend our time gaining the whole world we will lose our souls. This chasing after financial security, this storing up for our golden years, this retirement scheme devised by man to put the older, wiser, productive people out to pasture to make room for the younger ones, is just a scheme of man. God never intended for us to retire from life and sit back and enjoy, drink and be merry, watching all our bigger barns. Here the prophet tells Israel their mansions will become desolate, their vineyard unproductive, their fields will yield very little. Is that what we want to happen to us? Not a chance, but if we put our trust in the things of this world, that might just be the case. So we trust in the Lord. We look to him for everything, first our salvation, and our righteousness. Then we look to him as our provider, our rock, our fortress, our tower of strength, our redeemer, our all in all. Let us be his delight.