Encore - 1003- How to Watch For God to Act Isaiah 43_18-19

Welcome to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr. and we've been doing these daily devotionals on business days or workdays for now over a year and a half, almost two years. This is our 543rd episode. Thank you so much for listening to these. Today, I want to talk about Isaiah chapter 43 verses 18 and 19.   "Do not call to mind the former things or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now will spring forth. Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert." This is from the New American Standard. Again, I typically use that translation. It's the one I'm most familiar with and I memorized this verse in the New American Standard.   I enjoy this verse. I love to come back to this. "Behold, I will do something new," verse 19 begins. This is Isaiah prophesying to the Jews before the captivity, telling them about how he will punish the people who take them into captivity. And he will bring Israel back. Israel is the only nation that I'm aware of that went into captivity and stayed a nation.   It's amazing to me. I'm sure there were others. I'm confident that's not the only one. But it's amazing to me how Jesus has managed to keep his people together; how he's managed to keep the people of Israel together. The line of Jesus, if you will, the way that God brought about our salvation, he keeps all of this intact, and here he's promising these people in advance, decades in advance of what will happen.   Don't worry about the past. Don't think about the past. "Behold, I will do something new now it will spring forth. Will you not be aware of it?"  I remember being convicted one time because I felt like I was the only Christian in my workplace. And God reminded me that our overnight delivery driver who came to our office twice a day, was also a believer and he, and I would share prayer requests when we saw each other. And it was like, God reminding me, "I can do anything I want, and I will get you what you need. You just do the job that I've given you to do."    Today, you have an opportunity to honor God, by the way, you live your life in the presence of everyone you're around.   Even if you're in a bad job situation, even if you're in a negative work environment or around toxic people, no matter your circumstance; if it's, if it's painful or illegal, get out of it, do what you can to get out of it. But if you're just in a toxic work environment, if you're just in a negative circumstance in your workplace or in your relationship, be the person who trusts Jesus. Do we trust God? He's able at any time to do something new and he will. He promises it here to the Israelites. But he is the God who did it for them.   And he can do it for us. He always gives us the opportunity of something new. Now I will flip this a little bit. It is the definition of insanity to believe that you can do the same thing over and over and over again and expect a different result. God also challenges us to live in such a way that we are growing in him.   And so I don't believe that any of us are to the point to where God would tell us, "No, you're good. You don't have to, you don't have to improve any, you don't have to change." And so there's nothing he's telling us that we need to leave the same. But at the same time, we can trust him in the circumstances we find ourselves.   I want to encourage you today in your work, you are a marketplace minister. You serve others. Serve the people around you so that Jesus might become visible. That's what ministry is. It's helping the people around us have the opportunity to move one notch closer to Jesus. We can do that simply by the way we live.   And if you do that today, I'm grateful for you. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for making a difference. Wherever it is you work or spend your time, turn your heart to God and let Jesus and the Holy Spirit direct you in how you live today and ask him to give you an opportunity to help other people move one notch, closer to him.