The Esteem of God

UV 677/10,000 The Esteem of God “Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being? declares the Lord. “ This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my Word.” Isaiah 66 v 2 The Lord has made the entire universe in its awesome array, diversity and magnificent spread. He placed man on one humble planet, the Earth –beautiful but as small as a dot in comparison to the whole universe. Out of all the rhythms He set in motion in the universe, He desires that the heart of every man beats in sync with His own. He made all other things after His own imagination but when it came to man, He made us in His own image. He desires to speak with us, feel with us, relate to us, enjoy with us in our good times, empathise with us in our suffering, protect us, provide for us, comfort us and uplift us. But, He can relate to us not on our terms but on His. His terms are humility or reverence, contrition or repentance and diligence or obedience to His every word. As we meditate on the splendour of all that God has created, it will fill us with reverence, awe and humility. As we reflect on the character of God, we will be filled with contrition or repentance. As we feed on the Word of God, we will be endowed with the spirit of obedience. The Lord declares that He holds in esteem or respect the individual human who is humble before Him, acknowledging Him first as Creator of the universe and Father of all mankind. That is the first connection with God. Next we realize His holiness and love and we are filled with a spirit of reverence, repentance and gratitude. This recognition and realization leads us to seek salvation. Salvation is a loving and honest relationship with God. We stop playing hide and seek with God as Adam and Eve did after they sinned. The words, “ trembles at my Word” implies that we need to believe and obey the Word of God that reveals the character, purpose and plan of God for each of us. The Word of God is the blueprint that shows us how to live from day to day, fulfilling the eternal purpose of God even as we live on a practical, temporal and mundane plane. The use of the word ‘ tremble’ implies the attention we pay to every word that God has spoken in our lives, the care we take to carry the Word in our hearts and carry it out in our lives. Some fifteen years ago, a person with a gift of prophecy. whom I had never met before, was praying for a group of people individually, one by one. When my turn came, the word of prophecy came, saying, “ You are esteemed by God.” At that time I wondered what I had done to win the esteem of God. Most of our lives we spend our time vying for the esteem of men. But, it is mind-boggling that we can even think of winning the esteem of God. His glory is so great and we have fallen so short of it. We cannot win or earn the esteem of God by any thing we say, do or don’t do. We receive the esteem of God by consistently following three steps described in the uni-verse above: humility, repentance and obedience. The first two are attitudes of heart and mind while the third is about action. It is a combination of thoughts, emotions and actions that enable us to enter the esteem of God. Yes, the Lord declares to every one without partiality, “ If you humble yourself, repent , believe my Word and accept my provision for your salvation, I esteem you.” Prateep V Philip