{"id":7200,"date":"2020-11-19T20:58:20","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T02:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=5331"},"modified":"2020-11-19T20:58:20","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T02:58:20","slug":"devotional-on-isaiah-103","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-isaiah-103\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Isaiah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-nxE7WiaODPY\/X7WT4_AXl1I\/AAAAAAABHpU\/HKG3QEkvQZkb9YjdbXnb76dpg-JQwFmCgCPcBGAsYHg\/s400\/06denver.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2003 &#8211; Denver, Colorado<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nThat stinks!<br \/>\nIsaiah 3: Those women are going to smell like rotting cabbages.<br \/>\nThe books of the prophets are often hard to read, not because we don&#8217;t understand what\u2019s being said, but because of the harshness of the message.  Still, reading these words from a distance of centuries enables us to see some of the grim humor here too.  In chapter 3 Isaiah talks about how the socialites of his day who pride themselves in their appearance and expensive perfumes will look revolting and smell like rotten cabbage.  The common people of that day who see those in the upper class getting away with (literal) murder probably recognize the ironic humor in Isaiah\u2019s words.  Of course, this isn&#8217;t a comedy routine.  These are real warnings that need to be taken very seriously.  After all, the next lines of the prophecy describe death and mourning.  Why is all of this going to happen?  The answer is that Isaiah\u2019s intended audience has fallen so in love with themselves that they\u2019ve forgotten who they really are: a people who exist only by the grace of God.  With that in view, I see that this isn&#8217;t punishment so much as it\u2019s abandonment.  That is, God isn&#8217;t going to ruin their lives.  Instead, he\u2019s going to let them continue down the path away from him to where that path leads.  Modern Christians need to take a hard look at passages like this.  We\u2019re sometimes in danger of falling in love with our own spirituality.  In time, we tend to claim responsibility for what good Christians we are and when we do that, this passage no longer contains ancient words directed to people who lived long ago.  In the context of the passage I\u2019m reading today, I can say that no matter how spiritual I might think I am I\u2019m what I am by the grace of God.  To cut myself off from that truth is to travel a road to an unwanted destination.  Pardon the tenuous connection here but such a life &#8220;stinks.&#8221;<br \/>\nTake Away: Any good is my is because of the grace of God in my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That stinks! Isaiah 3: Those women are going to smell like rotting cabbages. The books of the prophets are often hard to read, not because we don&#8217;t understand what\u2019s being said, but because of the harshness of the message. Still, reading these words from a distance of centuries enables us to see some of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1502,7],"tags":[131,413],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7200"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14908,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200\/revisions\/14908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}