Rescue Plan

 The Spirit of the Lord [a]God is upon me,

Because the Lord anointed me

To bring good news to the humble;

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim [b]release to captives

And [c]freedom to prisoners;

2 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord

And the day of vengeance of our God;

To comfort all who mourn, Isaiah 61:1-2......"Sometimes His rescue plan is something we would never sign up for....Sometimes He takes us to prison so that He can set us free." Sheila Walsh

When Jesus made it "official" as to why He had come to earth, He used Isaiah 61:1-2 as the means of doing so. It was a Messianic prophecy that all who heard it would recognize as being so. When Jesus read it in the synagogue that morning, He was telling his hearers that the prophecy was fulfilled in Him. He was the Messiah. It was to be the best of news for those who heard Him, but most did not receive it as such. The majority of the listeners wanted to stone Him.

The Gospel is rightly called "The Good News." The human race, held in captivity by sin, and with no means at all of freeing themselves from it, now had the One, perfect man and perfect God who could do so. He would do so through His death and resurrection, so that all who believed in Him would enter into what Isaiah 61 promises. Wondrous and beautiful news indeed, except, as Walsh says, oftentimes the means He takes to fully rescue us would not be something we would willingly "sign up" for. Sometimes He does take us to a "prison" in order to set us free. Why? We're a stubborn and stiff necked people. We always have been. It's in our fallen nature and Jesus Christ is determined to cleanse that nature, but we can find a myriad of ways to resist. Sometimes, we, like those first hearers, want to "stone" Him when He seeks to effect His rescue plan for us.

After 40 plus years of walking with Him, He has brought so much freedom into my previous life of bondage. Yet the pathways He has chosen to do so were never the ones I would have chosen, and I too have at times been taken to "prison" in order to be made free. He never chooses this way because He desires to take us through so much pain and heartache, but because we can be so resistant to what He seeks to work into our lives that there simply is no other way. We're like the cat sitting by the door, waiting for just a slight opening in order to escape. We're sure we know the real way and means to be free, to be victorious. More often than not, like that cat, trouble is the result, and He sees that there is no other way to bring the healing, wholeness, victory, and freedom that He came to bring us. Like the Prodigal Son of the Bible, we believe we know the true way to abundant life, but it isn't until we find ourselves in the pig pen, eating the pods, that we realize we've only increased our darkness and captivity. Yet, if we will see Him, we'll find that even in that place, He's there, and not only that He's there, but He's using that place to work His life, His abundant life into us. He means to bring us home.

The other aspect of His rescue plan is that we can make such a mess of our lives. We can get ourselves into places from which no one is able to save us. No one but Him. We also can suffer wounding that no earthly means can heal....but that He can. The depth of the lostness and woundedness we can be in can be seemingly beyond measure. He often must employ radical means to deliver us, to save us. The process can be painful. Almost certainly it will be. We tend to cling to those things that are destroying us, and His bringing our grip upon them, and they upon us, will involve pain. Sometime it will involve our going to some sort of "prison" in order that He can make us fully free. Yet, as the old hymn goes, "It will be worth it all."

Wherever we may find ourselves today, in the midst of great trials or small, He will rescue us. We only need, as someone said, utter the simple but powerful invitation, "Jesus, come get me." He will. He will effect the rescue. It almost certainly will be a way that our flesh would not choose, but trust Him. Believe Him. He will get you out. He will make you free.

Blessings

Pastor O