Isaiah 55:8, 9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, said the LORD.… We are made in his image. We are called to be "perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect." The hope of the future is that we "shall be like him." And yet we must keep up the conviction that we are but faint copies of him, and be is altogether better than we, the Infinite that is ever high above us, at once our inspiration and our despair. Apply God's unlikeness to us especially in the matter of redemption. I. GOD CAN FORGIVE. This man finds it hard to do. II. GOD CAN RESTORE. This man cannot do. III. GOD CAN BLESS, HOPING FOR NOTHING IN RETURN. Man never very certainly succeeds in doing anything save for pay (see Acts 8:20). IV. GOD CAN ABSOLUTELY KEEP HIS WORD OF PROMISE. Man is ever swift to promise, slow to perform. "The point of the comparison, in ver. 11, is that the predominance of fertility in the natural world, in spite of partial or apparent failures, is the pledge of a like triumph, in the long run, of the purposes of God for man's good over resistance. It does not exclude the partial, or even total, failure of many; it asserts that the saved are more than the lost." The betterness of God is the ground of our admiration, trust, and love; it is the incitement of a perpetual imitation. Perfection, for those who know God, is to be like God. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.WEB: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," says Yahweh. |
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