Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength? “It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.” (Isaiah 63:1, NIV)
From a distance, I do not know. I cannot tell you what will save your game.
You may write to me (or to someone far more qualified than I am) articulating with detail the troubles you are having: “The ball goes to the high and to the right—except when it goes down and to the left. My pitch shots flight too low and run out across the green—except when I balloon them high and short, leaving me to chip again.” You get the picture. In fact, you took the picture! But from here, there’s little I can do. I need to see your swing, recognize your habits, get an idea of your rhythm, and gain an understanding of your mindset. I am, I must admit, a most limited savior.
So pleased we must be then with the Lord of our salvation. Unlimited by time, space, or even the help-resistant seals with which we wrap our hearts and minds, our God is indeed “mighty to save.”
Mighty, though, is a word that walks about in a comic bearing these days. It belongs to those unnaturally strong, hulks and rodents alike. Popeye would be proud.
The danger in seeing so many shirt-tearing muscles and caped characters comes when we lose our grip on the reality of the word mighty when it comes to God. We can recapture that by turning to the Hebrew word used for mighty in Isaiah 63: yasha, which indicates “freeing, delivering, defending, preserving, rescuing, saving, victorious.” In its grandest essence, yasha tells us that our God wins—and what he wins are the very lives of the people he sets out to rescue.
When we remember God in this way, we find our own faith strengthened. We believe that God can save us. And we are thankful in a hundred ways!
But in the midst of such belief, we frequently encounter a more tentative belief in our hearts when we consider the “save-ability” of others. Yes, God has saved me, but my friend over here is so far from the Lord, I’m not sure he can ever be saved. There’s a tragedy in such thinking. For if I do not have faith that God is mighty to save my far-from-him friend, do I really have faith that he is mighty to save me?
Yet I know that my God has set me free. He has delivered me from my bondage to my sin and my trajectory toward eternal death. He is mighty for that! So Lord, let us remember our own salvation. Let us be mighty enough in our faith to believe you can save even the most hardened resister. Let us call on you to save again!
—
Jeff Hopper
January 18, 2012
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday through Friday at www.linksplayers.com.