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 WHERE DOES YOUR VINDICATION COME FROM?

Isaiah 54:17 “But in that coming day no weapon turned against you will succeed. You will silence every voice raised up to accuse you. These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the Lord; their vindication, their righteousness will come from Me. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

Wholeness of life, being fully human at last, righteousness and the vindication of one’s life, one’s being are never the product of human effort. The vast chasm between the Holiness of God and the spiritual deadness of humanity, being separated from Him by our own sin and rebellion, cannot be bridges or mended by human effort or efficiency.

When someone is dead, truly void of all life, no one expects anything from them. They cannot change their condition in the slightest. They cannot revivify a single atom let alone a molecule, cell, tissue, structure organ or system that used to be alive and make up who they used to be.

Part of the news contained in the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is that all humanity has sinned and is spiritually dead, fallen massively short of the glory of God we were created to live. Only God can restore and make alive again what is now dead.

Every time Jesus Christ raised someone from the dead, it was a SIGN that the Kingdom of God was dismantling the kingdom of darkness and undoing the effects of sin. Only God, the Creator of human life can rescue, redeem, and restore to life again what is dead. Spiritual deadness is even more devastating than physical deadness, for its end is eternal separation from all goodness, utter isolation with yourself on your worst day with no reference for hope, only the prospect of getting worse, utter, unrelenting agony.

We were created from so much more than we know. We have been blinded by the pursuit of pleasure, power, position, prestige, and possessions in our futile attempts to find meaning and purpose in life. But true meaning and purpose can only be found by being in a living relationship with the God Who created us for that meaning and purpose. The gap between life and Life has been closed by the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Our salvation, the salvaging of our being has been done for us; something we could never accomplish.

The Lord God, through His prophet Isaiah, states that those who belong to God, by His grace through faith, will be kept by Him, now and forever. That does not mean no problems. Weapons will be formed and fashioned to be used against us, but God states that they will not succeed in their intent. They will never be able to separate us from the Love of God. There will be voices raised to try and condemn the follower of Jesus Christ because he or she refuses to validate, condone, or approve of the world and its ways. The truth is, that God will vindicate His own for their righteousness is not the result of their own efforts, but from God alone.

As the Apostle Paul wrote in his Epistle to the church in Rome, “If God is for us, who can stand against us?” Romans 8:33

What are you relying on, self-effort or the work of God on your behalf? The answer you give will make an eternal difference.

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