I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.

     Isaiah prophecies that Assyria will be consumed by the very fires with which they swallowed up other nations. Those who do not trust in God will be frightened and threatened by this destruction, but those who trust in the Lord and follow His commands will be safe. Isaiah directed this prophecy to the coming Assyrian invasion. He predicts that Assyria will completely destroy the surrounding nations and come up against Jerusalem, but that the kingdom of Judah will be unconquered and Assyria will fall. Jerusalem will stand because its people will turn to the Lord.
     Isaiah goes on to prophecy that God is coming to save His people. When he does, the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk and the mute will sing. This is the passage with which Jesus answered the question from John the Baptist’s disciples as to whether He was the one that was to come or if they should look for another. When we turn to the Lord and put our faith in Jesus, all of these things will happen and we will experience joy.
     After these prophecies, the book gives a historical record of the Assyrian invasion during the reign of Hezekiah. When the king of Assyria’s representative was talking to just Hezekiah’s court officials he claimed that the Lord had brought Assyria to destroy the kingdom of Judah. However, when he turned to speak to the people of Jerusalem standing on the walls, he claimed that God would be unable to protect Jerusalem from his armies. One will often see such behavior on the part of people who reject belief in God. They will initially claim that we should see their success as evidence that God is supporting them, but before long they will start bragging that their success is evidence that God is powerless. This always ends badly for those who so brag.

     Paul has been telling us throughout the letter to the Galatians that we have freedom through our faith in Christ, rather than slavery to the Law. Now he tells us not to use that freedom to satisfy our sinful lusts, but instead use our freedom to serve one another in love. If we are guided by the Holy Spirit, as we should be, we will not be doing the evil that our sinful nature desires. If we live the life of our sinful nature, we will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Paul contrasts the fruit of our sinful nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these; with the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We should strive for the latter and eschew the former. I look at the list of the fruits of the Spirit and I go down the list and think of myself that I am doing OK, until I come to self-control. Then I realize that I fall short. I do not have the self-control that I ought. And once I recognize that, it becomes quite clear to me that I do not exhibit the other fruit to the degree that I should. You cannot truly exhibit one of the fruits of the Spirit without showing them all. Certainly, it is useful to focus on those areas where one struggles the most, but one can only develop the fruit of love to a certain degree if one does not exhibit the fruit of patience. These fruit of the Spirit are not separate things, but rather they are different aspects of a single fruit. We are not like a tree that has “love” growing on one branch and “patience” on another. We are like trees that produce a single type of fruit and if that fruit is the fruit of the Spirit each one that we bear has love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

     If our enemies are evil and the enemies of God, then God will protect us from them and destroy them. We do not need to take action against them, God will act for us. If we believe that we must take action against our enemies, we should consider if perhaps we are the ones being evil. Elsewhere in the Bible, Paul writes that as much as it is within our power we should be at peace with everyone. God Himself will bring ruin on those who plot evil against the godly.

     Today’s proverb fits well with the passage from Galatians about the fruit of the Spirit, because the things mentioned in the proverb go together in much the same way that the fruit of the Spirit form a single whole. Truth, wisdom, discipline and good judgement are all parts of a single whole. You do not truly have one of them if you do not have all of them.