Isaiah 41:8-10

1. Isaiah is speaking in God’s behalf to Jacob, one who had been called as a servant from the ends of the earth. It was Jacob’s and his ancestor’s good fortune to have been chosen instead of rejected. I think of a verse from Psalms, “What is man that God would consider him?” In light of who God is and where Jacob comes from, it seems that we have much in common with him regarding obscure origins and fortuitous circumstances.

Where as Jacob was a servant, He has called us sons and daughters. Servants, in the strictest sense, exist to carry out their master’s will often from a fear-based motivation to avoid punishment. Servants win favor by production and performance. Offspring on the other hand exist and delight their father simply by being born into the family and by presuming upon their favor. True offspring ultimately inherit their father’s attributes and carry out his will with a love-driven motivation born out of the essence of who they are by nature – inheritors, in Christ, of their Father’s DNA and resources.

Sadly, and I speak from experience (and observation), it is possible for the enemy to confuse the identities of even offspring by way of religion. If he can leverage our pasts, that are often filled with rejection, and get us to working to earn approval, he can deceptively condition a son or a daughter to function as a servant or even a slave. As the deceived offspring works he receives the approval of man. Over time, the believer can come to see his or herself as a disciple in good standing when it is not on the merit of God’s grace and selection any more that they stand; it is on the merits of the contribution they perceive they are making and by a moral standing they believe they have achieved. This is a subtle and powerful deception. How much of the Church’s activity is driven by this energy?

“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”

Perhaps the litmus test for us in knowing if we are truly living in the fulness of God’s grace is whether or not we are anxiously looking about. We might ask if anxiety isn’t just a natural reaction to threatening circumstances? Can we really alter our level of anxiety as a matter of choice? If this were not so, God would have not commanded us to cease being anxious. So, following this line of reasoning, God must only think of the threat of our circumstances as an issue of perception on our part. He is saying when we see the threatening circumstance, we must not be tempted to fear them because He is our God; He will strengthen us and He will uphold us in the strength of His strong and capable hands.

Would your time alone with God today allow you to pause and list the things that are currently producing anxiety for you? It is not likely that our deceptions will be overthrown unless we can specifically name them. Unless we humble ourselves by owning these places in our hearts where we have not heeded the command, we cannot adequately repent of it. Let’s try and find the time to identify the place we are currently allowing anxiety to shape our thoughts and emotions. Let’s then offer them up to God and invite Him in to freshly occupy those spaces in our hearts. And let’s persevere until our identities, as offspring, are fully restored and we are staring down our circumstances, those within and those without, with bold confidence that we are by nature over-comers.

Father, you have forgiven us of our sin; forgive us for trafficking in performance-based religion where we have traded the joy and freedom of offspring for the approval and applause of men. Pour Your Spirit out upon Your children and deliver us from our deception. Show us each where we are anxiously looking about. Lay the axe to the works-oriented roots that defile our fruit. Rather than the noisy gong we have made with our busy, anxious- fear-driven religious lives, let the world soon hear the laughter of revival and song flowing from bold and celebrant hearts living in stunned awe at Your overwhelming love and Your undeserved mercy and kindness. Amen.