Starting with Isaiah

So, as part of my New Year's Resolution, I am going to read a chapter of the Bible every day and blog about it on here to process through it starting with Isaiah. The reason I'm doing this is because I've never been good at comprehending what I'm reading. Thus, even after being in church my whole life, attending small groups weekly, and leading Bible studies, I have very little knowledge of the Bible. I've learned how to not comprehend, but pick out a verse or two that I like and apply it to my life to sound really good in small groups or Sunday School. I don't want to be this way any more, I want to know the Word, not just act like I do.

Isaiah 1:
Summary: It's a lot about how sinful people have become and how terrible that is, and then towards the end, it talks about how the Lord can wash all of this terrible-ness.

My take:
Fight against evil. Let the Lord wash you of sin. Don't hold onto it. Let the Lord forgive you.

"Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor, Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow." v. 17
This directly relates to a HUGE area of growth in my walk with the Lord in the past year through my summer with CSM. I finally see that doing the Lord's work is not always peaceful, and we really do need to seek justice even when you must fight for what is just. We need to stand up for people that can't stand up for themselves. Seeking justice is perhaps the thing I'm still learning most about. Being a math person, I like things right and wrong and if you tell me how something is, I take that and run. Thus, I have always just believed what I've heard about the way we treat certain groups of people as justice. In particular, I never challenged the fact that homeless people are not all just bums who don't want to work. Boy was I wrong! The Lord in fact calls us to fight for them! Seek justice for them! Yes, there are plenty of homeless people who are bums, but that's not all of them!

"Come now, and let us reason together," says the Lord, "Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow;" v. 18a
I didn't realize until I read the commentary in my Bible that that is the Lord personally inviting us to come reason things out with him. Basically, he's inviting us to talk over our life with Him. How sweet is that?!? Even more so, he's inviting us to share our sin with Him, so he can free us from it and make it "white as snow." Lately, my prayer life has been down the drain. My prayers have consisted of rushed meal time prayers or asking for safety for people. Those aren't bad, but He wants to share my life, not just 10 minutes a day! I vow now to pray way more often than that. How much better will life be? I can't wait to see what the Lord does when I'm in constant communication with Him about my life.

O, Happy Day that I get to go talk with Jesus now!
In His Arms, C