Read: Chapter 48: 17-20

Reflect:
When Jacob blessed Joseph’s sons he crossed his arms to place his right hand on Ephraim’s head and his left hand on Manasseh’s head.  Joseph tried to correct him since Manasseh was the elder but his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know.”  Sometimes what we expect is not what happens.  Isaiah 55:8-9 says “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  John Piper says, “Unless we relate the thoughts and ways of God in verse 8 of Isaiah 55 with the thoughts and ways of evil men in verse 7, we will miss the sense of the passage and what God wants us to hear. Verse 7 says: “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord for mercy . . .” Why? Because (verse 8) God’s thoughts and God’s ways are not wicked and not unrighteous. In fact they are as far above our evil thoughts and our evil ways as the heaven is above the earth.  The point of verses 8 and 9 is to stress the tremendous need that we have of seeking God. Only when we seek God can we overcome this Grand Canyon of separation between God’s ways and our ways and God’s thoughts and our thoughts. Only when we seek the Lord can we begin to have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) and the mind of the Spirit (Romans 8:6).  Just before these verses it says in verse 6 “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.”

Pray:
Everybody needs to call upon the Lord—to seek the Lord right now while he may be found. Some need to call on him for salvation (Romans 10:13). Some need to call on him for help in overcoming an evil way or an unrighteous thought. And some need to call on him for counsel and guidance.  Seek the Lord and call upon him now.

SEEK THE LORD

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