Weekly Challenge -Isaiah 45

Life Group community:

Quick summary of the last few weeks:

Chapter 43 –God says you are my redeemed.  You are my witnesses.  Gave us a message of comfort, protection, hope, steadfastness.  We will be tested, but God will remain faithful.

·         The question to you is, are you a good witness for God?
·         If you were on trial, would you be convicted of being a Christian?

Chapter 44 –Idolatry is a lie.   Recognize that God is the Creator, and that He has not left His creation to determine its own path.  God is continually working within creation. Though the events, powers, and strategies of the world may hide God’s work, God has made promises to His chosen people Israel to remind them that God has not abandoned them.

Chapter 45 starts off with a big intro to Cyrus.  He was mentioned in 41 but now we see more detail.  The surprise to the Israelites is that Cyrus is called the Lords shepherd and his anointed.  For Cyrus himself was a pagan idolater!  God may disapprove of idolatry but use an idolater for some good purpose. The fact that he uses someone in a specific way does not mean that he approves of that person’s total lifestyle.   That is great news for me.  It means that He can still use me even though I have idols in my life!

In Isaiah 45, God is explaining why idols get in the way of allegiance to Him.  So my challenge to you this week is to repeat the challenge from last week.  Spend time identifying what you place more importance than your Creator.  Where is your security?  Where is your control?  What can you not live without?  Where, what, or who do you go to for rest, hope, security, etc.?

Be intentional.

Travis

Weekly Challenge -Isaiah 44 Idols

Life Group Community,

Our discussion was based on the topic of how an idol is a lie.  Isaiah was very descriptive about the deception of the idol maker and detailed on how the created is worshipping the created.

Since idol worshipping seems very old testament and part of other religions, we can often pass over these truths as irrelevant.  So we spent time making a definition of an idol.  This summary from Tim Keller covered all the points from our discussion:
“It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living. An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought. It can be family and children, or career and making money, or achievement and critical acclaim, or saving “face” and social standing. It can be a romantic relationship, peer approval, competence and skill, secure and comfortable circumstances, your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even success in the Christian ministry.

My challenge to you this week is to spent time in solitude and stillness while asking God to help you identify the idols you have placed in your life.  Then discuss your idols with your spouse and with your life group as we go through this together.

Be intentional.
Travis

Weekly Challenge -Isaiah 43

Life Group family:
Those were comforting words from God to the Israelites, and us, in chapter 43.  Words of protection, love, steadfastness, comfort, control, holiness, etc.

Those words were for a group in captivity (Israelites) back then, and are for groups in captivity today such as the 30 million people involved in human trafficking today.  80% of them are female.  50% of them are children.  God can deliver them as he delivered the Israelites. 

I enjoyed the discussion on the trial imagery that God and Isaiah brought in this chapter.  We are His witnesses and must tell others about God.  We can do this by the way we live, but that has to be combined with us telling people how God loves us and how we have been changed by living for Him.

We can also do this by how we live and act while being tested by the water and fire (as Isaiah described in verse 2).  We should have hope, living for the eternal, and still finding ways to love and help others.

My challenge to you this week is to spend some quiet time and ask God to show you the worries (water/fire) which you need to give away to your sovereign Lord.  Then share with your spouse and family.

Be intentional.
Travis

Weekly Challenge -Isaiah 42

Life Group family:
We covered a lot of ground on Saturday with the timeline along with the study of Isaiah 42. 
I enjoyed discussing how Isaiah was writing about God the Son coming as The Servant for Israel and for all believers.  This was written 0ver 700 years before Jesus came as the Messiah.

He was chosen.  He will bring justice and unity.  He will not break, quit, or give up.  He will not throw away the lowly and the weak.  He will heal and free people.

750 years later, Philip was able to discuss this section of Isaiah with the eunuch to show him how Jesus is the Messiah.  Another 2,000  years later, we get to sit in a room and discuss the same!

My challenge to you this week is to study the timeline and read Isaiah 43 to prepare for more great discussion time this Saturday.

Be intentional.
Travis

Timeline:

Dates BC	Event
2000	Abraham
1900	Jacob changes name to Israel	Had a divided house.  Sons of Leah and sons of Rachel
1750 - 1450	Israel nation captivity in Egypt
1450	Israel entered the Promised Land
1440	Land divided into 12 tribes
1050	Saul becomes first King	From tribe of Benjamin (Rachel)
1010	King David	From tribe of Judah (Leah)
970	King Solomon
930	Israel divided	(10 tribes in North -called Israel) and (2 tribes in South -called Judah)
740	Isaiah ministry begins	was called by God ‘in the year that King Uzziah died’ (6:1)
722	Assyrian captivity
586	Babylonian captivity
538	Cyrus allows Jews to return home