The Love of God

Isaiah's prayer for Jerusalem in Isaiah 62 ...

Because I love Zion, because my heart yearns for Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent. I will not stop praying for her until her righteousness shines like the dawn, and her salvation blazes like a burning torch.

The nations will see your righteousness. Kings will be blinded by your glory. And the Lord will give you a new name. The Lord will hold you in his hands for all to see - a splendid crown in the hands of God. Never again will you be called the Godforsaken City or the Desolate Land. Your new name will be the City of God's Delight and the Bride of God, for the Lord delights in you and will claim you as his own. Your children will care for you with joy, O Jerusalem, just as a young man cares for his bride. Then God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride.

These beautiful and poignant verses clearly declare the love of God. I am struck, once again, that God loves His people, persevering through their unfaithfulness and disobedience. His fatherly love remains unchanged. He awaits with open arms for them to return to Him in faith, repentance, and obedience.

How is it that I walk away time and time again from such love? I don't understand my own ways, let alone Jerusalem's. Sometimes it may be that I subconsciously divert because in and of myself, I cannot be holy as He has called me to be. When I pursue holiness on my own strength, I fail miserably. As I read a passage in 2 Peter this morning, I was trying to grapple with the reality that the Spirit of God needs to be ever-present doing these things in me.

Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control, perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are your and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

I cannot do these things on my own - that is clear and evident as I have countlessly attempted. However, the mystery to me is how the Holy Spirit does these things. I still have some role - I do have to, in the least, step out of the way and allow Him to work. But how do I do this? When do I do this?

Just a few thoughts this morning as I opened the Word of God. I think these things are life-long struggles. But as Hebrews 12:14 reminds me, I must pursue holiness in all things. May God be gracious to teach me these things which are unknown to me.