Skip to main content

Isaiah – week 2 and 3

Captain’s Log, Supplemental

Blog book giveaway:
To enter, go to the blog links below and post a comment there.
My Thursday book giveaway is The Cubicle Next Door by Siri Mitchell.
My Monday book giveaway is Calm, Cool and Adjusted by Kristin Billerbeck
You can still enter both giveaways. On Thursday, I'll draw the winner for the The Cubicle Next Door and post the title for another book I'm giving away.

Win an iPod Nano! Exclusively for my newsletter YahooGroup subscribers, I have a huge contest running until January 31st! Get more info on my contest page!

My Blog Bible Study in Isaiah:

Zion will be restored by justice;
Those who repent will be revived by righteousness.
Isaiah 1:27

I thought this was the theme of chapter one in Isaiah. God wants his people to repent but he also promises judgment.

This spoke to me about his character—He is active. He will move and he has moved.

I can’t take lightly the Word of the Lord, what he’s promised to do, the actions he says he’ll take. It expands my view of him, gives him a more terrible and wonderful cast.

Chapters 2 and 3 can be summed up in this verse:

Human pride will be brought down,
And human arrogance will be humbled.
Only the Lord will be exalted
On that day of judgment.
Isaiah 2:11

(It must be important, it’s repeated in verse 17.) It’s another promise of God’s actions against his disobedient people, and more importantly—why.

I think I don’t remember God’s power and holiness as much as I should. He promises to destroy Jerusalem and Judah in order to purify it (4:4). That’s pretty extreme. God is pretty extreme. That’s why he’s God.

Where is my heart? I think about God as my father and my friend, but I don’t think about him as holy and powerful, and that’s also part of his character. I can’t ignore some aspects of him just because they’re unpleasant in my little world.

Will I be among the holy remnant, purified?

Tell the godly that all will be well for them.
They will enjoy the rich reward they have earned!
But the wicked are doomed,
For they will get exactly what they deserve.
Isaiah 3:10-11

TMI:

Writing: I posted another article on developing your writer’s voice at my Story Sensei blog.

Comments

Mark Goodyear said…
Camy, I'm right there with you on this: "I think about God as my father and my friend, but I don’t think about him as holy and powerful."

And yet in my heart I know this is the great lie that I have to unlearn.

God is not my buddy. He's the Creator of the universe. Moses learned the truth: To look on him is to die. Jesus was the truth: to live like him is to take up a cross.

But somehow I still tend to think of church as this place of group therapy where God helps me negotiate a more comfortable life and better mental health.

I'm not saying God is sadistic. His desires for us are good. But I wonder if my view of him--and goodness in general--isn't horribly skewed. Thank God for the gift of his spirit. Thank God for the example of Jesus.

Boy, am I preaching here or what?

Happy Thanksgiving, friend!
Unknown said…
I've been clinging to some of the promises in Isaiah for the past several months. I, too, sometimes forget the powerfulness and holiness. Thanks for the reminder.
Kelly said…
Wow, just last week I was studying a message on the fear of the Lord and came to the same conclusion that we forget what a great God we serve. This is the same God that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sin. It was a good reminder for me. Thanks for the confirmation.
PatriciaW said…
Father, friend, even powerful. I think I fall short on the holiness of God. A God to be worship, revered, held in awe and amazement. Can we be too comfortable with God?
Anonymous said…
There are some great questions raised here in your comments..."Can we be too comfortable with God?"
Can God be your buddy, and holy and powerful creator of the universe? I mean, we don't stop being friends with someone just because they have this fantastic intangible part to them...
There has to be some balance to this...I'm sure. Maybe that will come next?

Popular Posts

I got my cover!

Captain’s Log, Supplemental Blog book giveaway: To enter, go to the blog links below and post a comment there. Eyes of Elisha by Brandilyn Collins Tangerine by Marilynn Griffith I GOT MY COVER!!!! What do you guys think?

Toilet seat cover

Captain’s Log, Supplemental Update August 2008: I wrote up the pattern for this with "improvements"! Here's the link to my No Cold Bums toilet seat cover ! Okay, remember a few days ago I was complaining about the cold toilet seat in my bathroom? Well, I decided to knit a seat cover. Not a lid cover, but a seat cover. I went online and couldn’t find anything for the seat, just one pattern for the lid by Feminitz.com . However, I took her pattern for the inside edge of the lid cover and modified it to make a seat cover. Here it is! It’s really ugly stitch-wise because originally I made it too small and had to extend it a couple inches on each side. I figured I’d be the one staring at it, so who cared if the extension wasn’t perfectly invisible? I used acrylic yarn since, well, that’s what I had, and also because it’s easy to wash. I’ll probably have to wash this cover every week or so, but it’s easy to take off—I made ties which you can see near the back of the seat. And...

Cover Reveal + New Logo for Year of the Dog, a Mahina Security Novel

A New Look for Year of the Dog (and a Behind-the-Scenes Oops!) What do a dog trainer, a security expert, and a nearly-naked book cover have in common? Let me explain. 😅 Year of the Dog is the first book in my Christian romantic suspense series, Mahina Security, set in beautiful (and sometimes dangerous) Hawaii. It features quirky humor, family tensions, sweet romance, and a mystery involving a missing person—and it’s now available to read in the Christian suspense anthology, Danger in the Shadows , on Kindle Unlimited ! But before that happened, I had a bit of a cover mishap… While creating the ebook cover, I realized that the original stock photo made my heroine look, well, completely nekkid. 😳 She’s actually wearing a tube top in the image, but when I cropped it for the ebook, the top disappeared—leaving her looking very PG-13. To fix it, I did some Canva magic on a strappy top from another image and stuck it onto the model (so she’s decent now). But when I resize...

Excerpt - A HUNDRED YEARS OF HAPPINESS by Nicole Seitz

Captain's Log, Stardate 03.05.2009 Update: Sorry, this giveaway is closed. A Hundred Years of Happiness by Nicole Seitz A beautiful young woman. An American soldier. A war-torn country. Nearly forty years of silence. Now, two daughters search for the truth they hope will set them free and the elusive peace their parents have never found. In the South Carolina Lowcountry, a young mother named Katherine Ann is struggling to help her tempestuous father, by plunging into a world of secrets he never talks about. A fry cook named Lisa is trying desperately to reach her grieving Vietnamese mother, who has never fully adjusted to life in the States. And somewhere far away, a lost soul named Ernest is drifting, treading water, searching for what he lost on a long-ago mountain. They're all longing for connection. For the war that touched them to finally end. For their hundred years of happiness at long last to begin. From the beloved author of The Spirit of Sweetgrass...

Favorite chocolate?

Captain's Log, Stardate 04.22.2008 Lately I’ve been on this chocolate kick. Normally, I’m not a huge chocoholic like Captain Caffeine. I enjoy chocolate, but if given a choice, I’ll usually choose a fruit or custard/creamy dessert over a triple decadence chocolate layer cake or a chocolate-lovers’ downfall brownie. But lately, I’ve been eating dark chocolate squares. I think it started when I went into Joseph Schmidt gourmet chocolate shop in Santana Row. We’d gotten Joseph Schmidt truffles for Christmas, and they’d been fabulous—I can honestly say that they were as good as DeBrand truffles (author Colleen Coble’s favorite). So when I saw the brick and mortar shop in Santana Row, I went in immediately. Inside, this man was buying up stacks—and I kid you not, stacks —of the Joseph Schmidt Belgian Dark Chocolate bars. He raved about them, said they were terrific. A cashier was restocking the display case the man had cleaned out, and I snagged a bar. “I’ve got to try one, after watc...