{"id":6321,"date":"2015-02-10T00:05:26","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T08:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6321"},"modified":"2015-02-09T16:59:48","modified_gmt":"2015-02-10T00:59:48","slug":"was-that-so-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/02\/10\/was-that-so-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Was That So Hard?"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>\u201cYet you have not called upon me, O Jacob, <br \/>\nyou have not wearied yourselves for me, O Israel. <br \/>\nYou have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings, <br \/>\nnor honored me with your sacrifices. <br \/>\nI have not burdened you with grain offerings <br \/>\nnor wearied you with demands for incense. <br \/>\nYou have not bought any fragrant calamus for me, <br \/>\nor lavished on me the fat of your sacrifices. <br \/>\nBut you have burdened me with your sins <br \/>\nand wearied me with your offenses. <br \/>\n\u201cI, even I, am he who blots out <br \/>\nyour transgressions, for my own sake, <br \/>\nand remembers your sins no more. <br \/>\nReview the past for me, <br \/>\nlet us argue the matter together; <br \/>\nstate the case for your innocence. <br \/>\nYour first father sinned; <br \/>\nyour spokesmen rebelled against me. <br \/>\nSo I will disgrace the dignitaries of your temple, <br \/>\nand I will consign Jacob to destruction<br \/>\nand Israel to scorn.  (Isaiah 43:22-28)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Israel had ignored God.  His people had worshipped other gods instead. There were no sacrifices being offered to Yahweh\u2014or certainly no real sacrifices.  What they claimed as sacrifices were meaningless because their hearts were not in it.  They didn\u2019t genuinely care about God. They did not care to know him or to learn what he wanted.<\/p>\n<p>From the beginning of God\u2019s relationship with them, they had sinned.  It wasn\u2019t even new behavior for them. God pointed out to his people that they had been piling up sins instead of piling up sacrifices.  Nevertheless, he had forgiven them.  He forgave them, not because of what they did\u2014or didn\u2019t do\u2014but because that\u2019s what he wanted to do.  Their behavior, their sacrifices, were not what granted them forgiveness.  They gained forgiveness because that\u2019s just what God liked to do.<\/p>\n<p>The mistake we make is to imagine that our behavior has anything to do with our relationship with God.  It doesn\u2019t.  God has forgiven us and we remain his people regardless.  In fact, it is because we are his people now that he disciplines us, just as he disciplined the ancient Israelites.<\/p>\n<div class='kindleWidget kindleLight' ><img src=\"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/plugins\/send-to-kindle\/media\/white-15.png\" \/><span>Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cYet you have not called upon me, O Jacob, you have not wearied yourselves for me, O Israel. You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings, nor honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with grain &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/02\/10\/was-that-so-hard\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6321"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6323,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6321\/revisions\/6323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}