Instrument

"I equip you, though you do not know me," Isaiah 45:4.

So. Five centuries. Before Jesus. Israel deported and destroyed. God, Jehovah God, elected a pagan warrior-king to become his christ. His messiah. His anointed. (How weird is this?!) This guy, Cyrus, does not know God. Never heard of him. But God strengthened him to defeat all the nations around. Why? So that all peoples would know this God. Too, to teach Cyrus. To teach what? That this God alone is God. That this God forms light. Forms darkness. Creates peace. Creates trouble. That this God makes Cyrus wealthy and powerful. And, that Cyrus is merely this God's instrument to accomplish this God's purposes to restore his dead people. This God, Jehovah, who does all this, is the God of Israel. This God, this God alone, is able to deliver.

We meet a brother or sister today to marvel in reverence to our God who works way beyond imagination. And, together, we give deepest thanks for the wonders he performs in love for us through Jesus, his supreme Christ.