Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight…Their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD Almighty. Isaiah 5:21, 24.

He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” “O LORD God, You know.” Ezekiel 37:3.

For I Am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. Isaiah 41:13.

And continuing our 351 Old Testament prophecies, promises of God, we come to number 47: A Faithful Priest. 1 Samuel 2:35: But I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who will do according to what is in My heart and in My soul; and I will build him an enduring house, and he will walk before Me anointed always. And, Hebrews 2:17; 3:1-3, 6; 7:24-25: Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house…but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house – whose house we are, if we hold fast to our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end…but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

A small program note going forward. Just as in my NASB translation of the Bible, I will type LORD in all caps. I have capitalized any pronoun reference to Jesus the Son, and Father God and the Holy Spirit to differentiate when speaking of them. It helps me so much to really see the glory of Creator God. We are not Him!

In two of my devotionals, they spoke to what I have been thinking about a lot lately with God’s help. From My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, this: “Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only appropriate answer. “O LORD God, You know” (Ezekiel 37:3)…”Behold, O My people, I will open your graves…” (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself.” And from You Are the Beloved by Henri Nouwen: “Joy is essential to the spiritual life…Joy is not the same as happiness. We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there because it comes from the knowledge of God’s love for us…Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us.”

Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. This morning in the car listening to Public radio, I listened to an interview of a politician in a different state who was being vilified for things he had said and done years before. My sister visited us and we had a lot of time to talk about our favorite topic – God and family. How different God is than we are! We hate people for any number of reasons. Being gay, being transgender, being Republican, being Democratic, being a person of any named religion, being a victim of church wounding and then hating all churches, being an atheist, being a bully, the list can go on and on forever. Meanwhile, we ourselves are doing things that are hateful because we hate. But all of those things in them and in us are all part of the “former things” that will pass away in God’s Kingdom. Therefore He is able to save forever…forever…those who draw near to God through Him…since He always…always…lives to make intercession for them! I can’t help but hear progressive tense being spoken. When I think about any of us being vilified by mistakes we have all made, and the condemnation has reached epic proportions in our world, I can’t help but think about Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit. He doesn’t condemn to destroy as we do. He teaches Truth. Patiently. I think the Creator who created everything we see and all the things we cannot see that are just as real as all that we do see, knows how to bring healing at just the right time and in just the right way in His timing in His love for us. That for me is where joy comes in. The closer we come to God in trust, the closer He is in our lives. No longer an idea or an ideology or belief, but Him actively with us. He helps me see hope for all of us and it is enlightening. In the movie I Can Only Imagine, the dad in the movie asks his son – if God can forgive all those other people, why can’t he forgive me? I would ask, if God can forgive all those other people, why can’t we? So much healing needed in every single one of us. With God’s love actively working in us, we can begin to forgive and reconnect and trust, if we want to. And every part of that healing and love begins as we respect Creator God. Respect! Because He gave us life and one another and His Truth!