Day 4: God’s Thoughts and Ways are For You!

FALSE NOTION of God’s thoughts and ways:

Today, there are born again believers who are never sure whether God wants what’s good for them or not and whenever something bad happens in their life, they use verses from Isaiah 55:8-9 to justify bad things happening as if they are submitting to the sovereignty of God.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

You see, what they don’t realize is that for them to understand these verses, they need to read these verses within the context of the entire chapter.

SCRIPTURAL TRUTH within the context of the preceding and succeeding verses and chapters:

• The last four verses of Isaiah 52 and the entire Isaiah 53 speak of the suffering of Jesus bearing our sicknesses and pains along with our sins on His body leading to His vicarious death on the cross.
• Isaiah 54 speaks of the perpetual covenant of peace. This means that everyone who believes in Jesus is eternally in a covenant with God as His children after they have been reconciled to God by the shedding of the blood and vicarious death of Jesus, which leads to Isaiah 55.
• Isaiah 55 speaks of the invitation to abundant life (because of the vicarious death of Jesus and the perpetual covenant with God spoken of from Isaiah 52 to 54).

and checking on the verses surrounding Isaiah 55:8-9:

• Isaiah 55 verses 1-5 opens the invitation to the abundant life which Jesus Himself spoke of in John 10:10
• Isaiah 55 verses 6-7 speaks of the dispensational period of grace we are all in from the time of the death of Jesus until Jesus comes back. These are urging for people to heed the call to turn to God and be reconciled with Him.

Isaiah 55:8-9 then provides the reason why all humanity can turn to the Lord without fear and trepidation and the reason is that while humanity thinks we need to get our act together before turning to the Lord, His thoughts and ways are higher than ours and He is saying we don’t need to do anything to deserve to receive salvation except to believe in Jesus because He has paid it all. His thoughts and ways are not like ours because while humanity tends to think of self-efforts, God thinks of the efforts and what His Son did for us to be able to freely receive the gift of salvation.

This is why the next book in the bible – JEREMIAH – tells us the thoughts of The Lord in Jeremiah 29:11:

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Father, thank You that You gave us Jesus to reconcile us back to You. Thank You that Your thoughts and ways are higher than ours and that we do not have to rely on our own to receive salvation. Thank You that You have made receiving eternal salvation and the abundant life simple through believing in our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!