Today Our Daily Bread Isaiah 7 & John 1:14

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

Isaiah 7
A Message for Ahaz
1During the reign of Ahaz son of Jotham and grandson of Uzziah, Jerusalem was attacked by King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah of Israel, the son of Remaliah. The city withstood the attack, however, and was not taken.
2The news had come to the royal court: "Aram is allied with Israel F14 against us!" So the hearts of the king and his people trembled with fear, just as trees shake in a storm.
3Then the LORD said to Isaiah, "Go out to meet King Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub. F15 You will find the king at the end of the aqueduct that feeds water into the upper pool, near the road leading to the field where cloth is bleached. 4Tell him to stop worrying. Tell him he doesn't need to fear the fierce anger of those two burned-out embers, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah.
5"Yes, the kings of Aram and Israel are coming against you. They are saying, 6'We will invade Judah and throw its people into panic. Then we will fight our way into Jerusalem and install the son of Tabeel as Judah's king.'
7"But this is what the Sovereign LORD says: This invasion will never happen, 8because Aram is no stronger than its capital, Damascus. And Damascus is no stronger than its king, Rezin. As for Israel, within sixty-five years it will be crushed and completely destroyed. 9Israel is no stronger than its capital, Samaria. And Samaria is no stronger than its king, Pekah son of Remaliah. You do not believe me? If you want me to protect you, learn to believe what I say."
The Sign of Immanuel
10Not long after this, the LORD sent this message to King Ahaz: 11"Ask me for a sign, Ahaz, to prove that I will crush your enemies as I have promised. Ask for anything you like, and make it as difficult as you want."
12But the king refused. "No," he said, "I wouldn't test the LORD like that."
13Then Isaiah said, "Listen well, you royal family of David! You aren't satisfied to exhaust my patience. You exhaust the patience of God as well! 14All right then, the Lord himself will choose the sign. Look! The virgin F16 will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel—'God is with us.' 15By the time this child is old enough to eat curds and honey, he will know enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong. 16But before he knows right from wrong, the two kings you fear so much—the kings of Israel and Aram—will both be dead.

17"The LORD will bring a terrible curse on you, your nation, and your family. You will soon experience greater terror than has been known in all the years since Solomon's empire was divided into Israel and Judah. The mighty king of Assyria will come with his great army!"
18In that day the LORD will whistle for the army of Upper Egypt and for the army of Assyria. They will swarm around you like flies. Like bees, they will sting and kill. 19They will come in vast hordes, spreading across the whole land. They will settle in the fertile areas and also in the desolate valleys, caves, and thorny places. 20In that day the Lord will take this "razor"—these Assyrians you have hired to protect you—and use it to shave off everything: your land, your crops, and your people. F17
21When they finally stop plundering, a farmer will be fortunate to have a cow and two sheep left. 22The few people still left in the land will live on curds and wild honey because that is all the land will produce. 23In that day the lush vineyards, now worth as much as a thousand pieces of silver, F18 will become patches of briers and thorns. 24The entire land will be one vast brier patch, a hunting ground overrun by wildlife. 25No one will go to the fertile hillsides where the gardens once grew, for briers and thorns will cover them. Cattle, sheep, and goats will graze there.
FOOTNOTES:F14: Hebrew Ephraim, referring to the northern kingdom of Israel; also in 7:5, 8, 9, 17. F15: Shear-jashub means "A remnant will return." F16: Or young woman. F17: Hebrew shave off the head, the hair of the legs, and the beard. F18: Hebrew 1,000 shekels of silver, about 25 pounds or 11.4 kilograms in weigh
~ Lena’s Journalin~
An attack comes against God’s place of peace inside of me, it comes from someone who should be my friend or ally, but they turn against me and attack my person, or my comfort zone. The attack is real, but do I have to surrender my peace, or rather God’s place of peace, where His peace sits on the throne inside of me? Can an enemy or friend remove Him from His throne inside of me? Bad news and threats try to remove Him, rumors of threats try to remove Him, worry of threats try to remove Him, Kings of many kinds and places come against His place on the throne of my heart and my mind. They tell me they want His throne and in fact they insist that they will take it, force Him to leave and will set up a kingdom inside of me!
In the midst of all of that, the Lord says-THIS INVASION WILL NEVER HAPPEN! He’s like – look at the so called enemy, and then look at ME! Who is stronger? Who reigns? Who lives here and has their rightful place? Who’s words do we believe? An enemy’s threats? Or God’s Soveriegn words, which do not and will not change? He asks, do you believe these words? If you really want My rescue and My protection against these threats you have to believe Me! As soon as we do not believe His words to us, we are defeated.
He described the enemy and told why they are weak. He said their center was Samaria, Samaria was a wishy- washy place, a place of hot and cold, on and off, doubt and faith, wish and wash! In that place no true strength can stand, in the long run (and God is a long run thinker) those kinds of thoughts, that kind of life will crumble and fall!
I find it foolishly funny that this king of doubt and worry did not want to ‘test” God. Oh my goodness, what had it been doing? Testing God! What do you think we are doing whenever we worry and doubt His words? Testing Him. God was saying, ‘WHAT Do YOU WANT?” An eternal kingdom that has no end? People over all of the earth turned from sin? Salvation to come to a dying world? Redemption from the doom of hell? Is that the basis of your worries? Your concerns? Hopefully so, because that is what I “care” about, that is My plan. Come up higher and see how you might be able to help Me, says the Lord!
If we do not believe the Lord, if we keep making decisions to believe every other threatening voice other than His, we will walk straight into a life of doom and destruction. Worry and concern turn into killers such as sickness and disease. The Lord sent Jesus, and even before He came, He said, By Jesus’ stripes you are healed!” He’s got all we need to be released from the torment of doubt and unbelief, from the sicknesses that come with believing lies. We absolutely have the power of God inside of us to choose life or death, absolutely.
Our pastor had a vision or a dream where there was a great scuffle, he found himself inside of the scuffle it was animated like a round ball of dust and action, with sparks flying etc. Then suddenly he saw his head the only visible head, rising up from the scuffle. His body was inside of the scuffle, but his head was rising above it. After His head rose above it, he became separated from it and was now standing outside of it looking at it, separated from it. He had to decide to not be “involved”, to look up and rise above in order to get out of it.
I’m gonna tell you something very hard but very true, something that could set you free, if you believe and receive.
People want to be inside of the scuffle. God makes a way for them to get out and shows them and then tells them the way, helps them find the way, reminds them of the way (all of this is grace), and if they go the way He leads them their lives will change. They may not be comfortable and it may not be easy that they now have to depend on Him rather than themselves, they may become uncomfortable because nothing will ever look the same again and they’ve learned how to “deal” or cope here in this place, like this, this worry, etc has become like their family, an abusive one mind you, but family.
Another thing and a great big one is attention on the person would then be directed elsewhere if they weren’t always in a scuffle or a war or a tragedy or a trauma or an upset or whatever. People like when it is all about them, their needs, their desires being met or attention given their misery. I told you that would be hard, please take and think about it. It is human nature and none of us are exempt from its offers and temptations, but we can overcome and come out of the place or torment and turmoil.
If we do not decide life and separation from the turmoil and the scuffle we are choosing death for our children and grandchildren unless the grace of God intervenes for them, and He is faithful to intervene, but then they will have to be strong enough to chose, given no example of one who has chosen the better part. It’s very hard for some to live for God with no generational example, and for others it is well, let’s make choices that make it well for our generations after us!
(Daily Repetative verse)
John 1:14 So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. F1 And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.
Has the Word of God become flesh enough to live among us personally, right now in our day, at our houses? That’s what he came for to become manifest in me at my house, in my neighborhood, on my job, at my church.