“My
concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on
God’s side, for God is always right.” Abraham Lincoln
In
President Lincoln’s second inaugural address, he speculated that as the North
and South prayed to the same God and read the same Scriptures, each would also
dare to suggest the Lord is on “their” side in the War between the
States. Mr. Lincoln opined that the war was more likely the judgment
itself rather than a means to judgment against one side or the other.
We
often do this in response to Romans 8:31: “If the Lord is for us, who can
be against us?” We often use such passages to justify our own
chosen paths and our own desires that have little to do with the pursuit of righteousness
and holiness, and more to do with our own lives and our own pursuits. We
expect the Lord to follow us and favor us because we are “saved”, forgetting
that disciples follow the Lord. “I have stretched out My hands all
day long to a rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, according
to their own thoughts” (Isaiah 65:2); the implication being that
the people who call themselves “chosen” are running away rather than toward.
When
we finally come to our senses, however, and realize that life has beaten us
down pretty badly because our choices have been our choices and not His, we
will turn and find the Lord with His “stretched out hands” waiting for us to
come back, like the Prodigal. This is the enduring nature of the Eternal
Covenant our Lord has offered to all, Jew and Gentile alike. It is the
Promise that will endure after our own silly ideas have been long forgotten.
Blessings,
Michael
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