Rev. Ray and Pat Amos

“For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.’ But you would not…” Isaiah 30:15

Today’s text is about people who wanted things to be better. Their life was pretty much in shambles, and they wanted God to fix it. He made a way for them, but it required something that they either didn’t think that they could do, or just didn’t want to do. They were to return to the Lord, and trust Him. God’s hand was reaching down with the answer to their prayer, BUT THEY WOULD NOT.

A man sat across from me asking for help. His wife had all the drinking and abuse that she was going to take. “I don’t want any of that religious stuff, I just want her back,” he said to me. “That’s fine,” I answered, “You don’t need religion, you need Jesus.” BUT HE WOULD NOT. He wanted good results while staying on a bad road.

Many people want to go to Heaven while staying on the road to hell. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

Will a person (or a people) foolishly continue on a wrong path just because they can? “This is what the LORD says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’ But you said, ‘WE WILL NOT WALK IN IT.” Jeremiah 6:16

It is not that a road is new or old that is important. It is where it is taking you that matters most. Jesus said, “I am the way…” He also cried when He said, “How often I would have gathered you (led you) BUT YOU WOULD NOT.” Every morning, you and I stand at the crossroads of a new day: WILL WE, OR, WILL WE NOT? Robert Frost wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

Grace and Peace, Rev Ray