Thank God, He never changes

I have a raging bad attitude today.

I am disappointed in the world, in the behavior of those who say they follow the Lord and in myself for not being the person that "I" thinkI should be. Sigh... I'm also disappointed in a co-worker who, well, doesn't seem to work much.

None of that, however, changes who God is. None of that changes my identiy in Him. None of that changes His loving, merciful and gracious provision for my life. None of it changes the fact that He made Himself the propitiation for our sin in order to make us His righteousness with the purpose of His own glorification.

It's hard to feel down when I know this truth! That said, the world and Satan are persistent. I'm just going to have to hold on that much tighter!

What He did was so Good

In a new book I'm reading, "The Search for Significance", I am working through the chapter about God's answer to the blame game: Propitiation. The first few questions have me look at what God's wrath has done in the past (in the Old Testament, for example). The next activity has me go through Isaiah 53:4-10 and replace the appropriate pronouns with my name. I think it's a fitting exercise on this Good Friday (based on the NIV):

Surely he took up Yvonne's infirmities

and carried my sorrows,

yet I considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for Yvonne's transgressions,

he was crushed for my iniquities;

the punishment that brought me peace was upon him,

and by his wounds I am healed.

I all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

And who can speak of his descendants?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

for my transgression he was stricken. 

He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

and with the rich in his death,

though he had done no violence,

nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,

and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,

he will see his offspring and prolong his days,

and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.