Isaiah 5-8

How can you not love chapter 6! Verses 1-7 just shine with God's majesty. In the presence of God the King of Kings we are humiliated. We have nothing to bring to the table. The whole earth is full of his glory! How true is that! This beautiful earth we enjoy is a painting of His mighty power. It glorifies his incredible creativity, goodness, and depth. This is such an enrapturing passage. Park here as long as you want. By all means, come back to it again and again. But eventually we have to keep reading, and honestly in the full context we are given a message we can easily miss because the beginning is so unbelievably incredible.

For a long time I just shut my Bible right after verse 8 and called it a day. "Yes, Lord, send me! I will go I will go!" Don't you just feel like a soldier ready for battle. Bring it on! I'm gutsy, I'm ready to go! Do you feel the deep, guttural, masculine, adrenaline laced zealousness behind this. "Let's do this" Let's roll, like we are ready to take down some terrorists on a high jacked plane.

But there's only one problem. God isn't calling Isaiah into success. At least not success in any human perception. Look at verse 9 and 10. Everything Isaiah does, no matter how much energy he puts forth, no matter how winsome he is, no matter how airtight his arguments... it will all hit a roadblock. The people will be dull. They won't connect with it. They will see and hear with no change. What? Who wants this? Can you see this want add. Valley Community, looking for people to give their free time, give their heart for people who won't respond. Wanted: help in a fruitless ministry.

Ok, so thank God right now Valley is seeing fruit! And we are seeing a ton of it. As a whole our body of Christ is changing lives, disciplining, loving and impacting people with power of the Gospel. But what if you individually feel like Isaiah right now. Maybe you have witnessed to the same neighbor or the same coworkers for months on end and your getting nothing. Maybe you have given resources and time to a friend who doesn't know Christ, but they keep on pushing him away.  Don't be discouraged, God doesn't reward fruit. The fruit is His work. Our God rewards faithfulness. Rest in that, take joy in that, and don't stress over it. God calls you to be faithful, he doesn't ask for anything else.