Monday Reflection – June 15, 2020 Alive and Living

Monday Reflection – June 15, 2020
Alive and Living

Your dead shall live. Isaiah 26:19  

Isaiah 26 begins with a song, a prophetic one too, that will be sung in the land of Judah. It’s a song about God’s work among his people and what he has accomplished. So they will sing, ‘We have a strong city; he sets up victory like walls and bulwarks.’ It is also a song about the benefits of the people’s covenant relationship with God. What are these? The righteous nation that keeps faith in God will enter the city; those of steadfast mind will experience peace because they trust in God; in God they have an everlasting rock; God brings down the high and lofty city and casts it to the dust, and the poor and needy will trample it.

The rest of this chapter is about God’s faithful action on behalf of his people on the one hand, and the negative consequences of not following God on the other. Those whose souls yearn after God and whose spirit earnestly seeks him will experience smooth paths, peace, increase and enlargement of borders. But those who reject God will experience punishment and chastening. Yet the prophet remembers when he and his people were in distress, full of tears and feeling pain. What did they do? Seek God and pour out prayers to him. In response, God gives the promise of today’s Watchword: ‘Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.’

God offers new life to those who seek him. But isn’t this the essence of the gospel and of God’s word? As humans we are inherently sinful and want to do our own thing and follow our own paths. Yet, God offers direction and guidance. Those who desire to be led by God, seek after him and are guaranteed the hope of abundant life in the here and now, and eternal life in the world to come. Perhaps, today’s Watchword is a prelude of the life to come. The secrets of the life to come have now been revealed by the appearing of Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Here is a confident expectation of the resurrection and glory for the Lord’s righteous ones. We have been slaves of sin and Satan, but by God’s divine grace we have been set free from all former masters. The power of God’s grace, like the dew or rain, which causes the herbs that seem dead to revive, would raise up those united with Christ.

I remind us that those who live outside of Christ are living deads. They are alive but not living, because real living is experienced only in Christ. Such dead persons need to live, and this is experienced when we confess our sins and surrender our lives to the sovereignty of God. I remind us too about the church at Sardis that had a reputation of being alive but was dead (Revelation 3:1).  It looked spiritually vibrant on the outside but was spiritually lifeless. Let’s not forget Christ’s scathing rebuke of the Pharisees who “look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean” (Matthew 23:27). We have to give full attention to our lives daily and ensure that we are engaged in continued surrender and commitment to Christ and passionately pursuing God and his ways. We must also endeavor to strive daily to become more like Christ. Only then will we remain alive and living.

Jermaine Gibson