Thursday, November 16, 2018
Joel 2:12 "Now, therefore," says the Lord, "Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning."
TURN TO ME WITH ALL YOUR HEART
A short message from a short book-- the prophet Joel.
Natural Disasters are frequently in the news. We've heard much about the wildfires which wiped out the small town of Paradise in California. Have you ever experienced a natural disaster?
When the prophet Joel was called by the LORD to speak in Judah, it had just suffered devastation at the hands of locusts. In many cases the prophets of the LORD were sent to warn of a coming judgment of God, but Joel was sent during or just after a devastating natural disaster.
The prophet Joel doesn't say that the locusts were a specific punishment of God for sins, but He did call upon the people to return to the LORD and to sorrow over their sins: "Now, therefore," says the Lord, "Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning."
Tragedy and death have a way of shaking us to our core. They also serve to help us refocus and consider what is truly important. Tragedy can lead us to turn to family and friends.
Tragedy and death should also lead us to turn to the LORD, to seek His comforting assurance, His Word of promise. When tragedy came upon Judah, the LORD sent the prophet Joel with this powerful invitation: "Return to me, come back to me . . . with all your heart."
When we come to the LORD-- whether to ask of Him, to praise Him or to thank Him-- we are to do so with all our heart. In other words, when we come before the LORD in prayer and praise, we should not be thinking about someone or something else. When we give thanks, it is to be more than mere words but the honest expression of our whole heart.
He wants us to be REAL-- especially when it comes to confessing our sins. He delights in a broken and contrite heart (cf. Psalm 51) and He earnestly desires to lavish the salve of the forgiveness of sins in Christ on just such a heart. God has, in Christ, overcome the greatest natural disaster of all, our sin and provided the only perfect solution for sins.
