"I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”
Isaiah 42:6-7
There is no greater healing than that which comes through the hand of the Lord our God in the mercy and the love that He has for His children.
There is no greater deliverance than that which comes through the hand of the Lord our God in the compassion and the grace that He shows forth in the life of His people.
So often this world, it rises up against the weak and the innocent, the hurt and the broken-hearted, it tries so desperately to break them as it looks deep into the spirit and the soul to see who we are and what it is that we fear, and then uses it against us to shatter our hopes and our dreams as it wages trial after trial on us. It can be so overwhelming that we feel ourselves being bombarded by the temptations and the struggles of this temporal existence, as it seems as if one trouble fades just as another one is given rise amidst our lives.
Yet no matter how this world may emerge and awaken amidst our days there is a promise that is extended to all people regardless of who they are and what they may face. There is a God of hope, a God of deliverance who stands ready to stand with us, lifting us when we have fallen, and drawing us close to Him when it feels as if the world has just become too much for us.
It is through that hope that mercy and compassion extends to the further reaches of this world and the deepest places of the human soul, showing that there is no bondage, there is no captivity, whether it is of the spirit or the mind, the heart or the soul, that cannot be shattered when He raises His hand to it to set it all to flight. That is the glory of His transcending, encompassing love for us, that is the love He has made manifest through His Son, Christ Jesus, who came to ransom us all amidst the greater promises of God’s blessed assurances.
Whatever challenges lay before you, whatever challenges weigh you down, whatever trials or tribulations exist amidst this world, remember always that God is there through it all and in it all, and though they happen in spite of Him, they are only set to flight through Him by Him as He hears the cries of the people and raises His hand to them to lift them from the pits of darkness and carry them to the places where hope and healing shall forever and always dwell in the lives of His people.
Lord, grant this unto us all.
Let us pray:
O Lord, how You have contended with the cause and the plight of Your people since even the earliest of days…
O Lord, how You have shown forth Your mercy and Your compassion in the lives of Your people through the generations…
With Your hand You have set to flight all wickedness and iniquity, all unrighteousness and evil as You have brought Your deliverance into the lives of Your people. By Your love hope has been restored in the lives of Your creation as You have moved through the course of time and history to show forth Your grace amidst this temporal existence.
Be then now the fount of every blessing in the lives of Your people, showing forth Your mercy, pouring forth Your grace through Your unchanging love as You offer hope unto this lost and fallen world. Set to flight all captivity and bondage, all slavery and oppression, all poverty and destitution so that tyranny and persecution, hopelessness and despair shall no longer have a grim hold on Your people.
Let Your freedom ring, let Your liberty extend so that Your love shall be the guiding, encompassing presence of this existence as Your children find shelter under Your wings, and refuge amidst the blessed pastures of Your holy fields. Sanctify Your people, showing unto them Your mercy, and let compassion give unto them the justice that they so long for that through all that they are and all that they face, grace shall encompass their lives and they shall be restored to life even as death seems so near at hand.
Rise up and help Your people O Lord: redeem them and ransom them, setting to flight all captivity and bondage because of Your unfailing love.
In the name of Your Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You in the Kingdom, one God, world without end, Amen.
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