"Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.'" – Isaiah 41:10
God is our ever-present help in time of trouble, our God who is always actively involved in our personal lives. I'm pretty sure that when we look back to our lives, we'll see Him doing one thing or another so that we would know Him, know that we're loved by Him, and show us that He has a great plan for all of us. And He does that because that's just who He is.
A Loving God
God is very loving. In spite of our failings, He never stopped to pursue us. Despite our turning our backs from Him, He never relented from fulfilling His promises in His Word.
One of the more prominent promises that He made is written in the verse above, Isaiah 41:10. There God tells His people Israel that He will strengthen them and help them, and that when the nation was in trouble. We find there one very important thing that many Christians want to see:
"... I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."
God's Hand at Work
God's hand is ever so evident in our lives if we would only care to acknowledge Him. His hand works in many ways, all of them special and personal, but all of them are meant towards a few simple things.
Here's how God's hand works in our lives.
He Works to Bring Us to Him
"For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:18)
God sent His Son Jesus not only to die for our forgiveness and healing, but to bring us back to Him and restore us to our true identity in Christ. I don't know about you, but if you would only look back to how you met God, you would certainly say that it was Him who beckoned you to Himself.
He Works to Mold You Into His Likeness
"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." (Romans 8:28-29)
God's hand works in our lives to continually shape us and mould us into having the likeness of Christ, "the Firstborn among many brethren." God wants us to be like Jesus so much that, if we would love Him and follow Him, He would use all things for our good – to be like Christ.
He Works to Let You Know How Much He Loves You
"He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:8-10)
I can't stress this enough: God loved us so much that He sent Jesus Christ to die for us so that we would become God's children, and He our Father. We, the most undesirable, unlovable, and most deserving of eternal punishment for our sin, would be redeemed by the sacrifice of God Himself. Isn't that love?
Friend, before you go around thinking that no one loves you, let me assure you of one truth: God loves you so much that before you were born He already sent the Way for you to know Him and come to Him. Come to God. Come to the Father.
