Sunday, January 26, 2025

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 184, The Lord Must Be First In Our Hearts

We are beginning the final chapter of the book of Isaiah today. We have been looking at the future eras of time known as the millennium and the eternal kingdom. In those times, worship will be turned back to the One who deserves it. The focus will be on Him.

In Christianity we often talk about how we have a "relationship, not a religion".  A religion can contain all sorts of things, such as legalism (trying to obtain salvation by works), or even idolatry, for a person whose hopes are based on a religious organization or practice can often be swayed into some other organization or practice since living by rules instead of a relationship is not satisfying to the soul. As our chapter opens we find the Lord pointing people back to the relationship rather than a religion.

"This is what the Lord says: 'Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where is the house you will build for Me? Where will My resting place be? Has not My hand made all these things, and so they came into being?' says the Lord." (Isaiah 66:1-2) Everything that has been created was created by Him. There is no temple or altar we could make for Him without using things that He created.

This doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong to honor the Lord in these ways. In fact, He commended King David for desiring to build a temple to honor Him. This is because David's heart was in the right place. But sometimes we can get our hearts in the wrong place by placing our focus on what we are doing rather than on what God has done and will do. An example of this would be if we get so caught up in doing church work that we are leaving the Lord out. We can actually burn out our energies and get into negative thinking by being so busy that we don't have time to sit in the stillness with God and enjoy our relationship with Him. 

Good works have their place but they cannot take the place of God. He must be first in our lives. If we take the time to commune with Him first thing in the morning, everything we do for Him that day will be a joy. We will feel energized instead of burned out. We will have the sweet fellowship of His presence with us all day long instead of crowding Him out of our minds by concentrating on our to-do list.

The eternal kingdom will be about relationship, not religion. We will be focused on the Lord, who will be first in our minds and hearts at all times. There will be no danger of ever drifting into just going through the motions. We will behold Christ face to face, which is why the eternal kingdom will have no temple (or church). This was revealed to the Apostle John who said, when he beheld Jerusalem where Christ's throne will be: "I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple." (Revelation 21:11)

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