Have you ever heard the phrase that God loves us the way we are but He loves us too much leave us the way we are.  Our relationship with our Lord is a growing experience.   The selfish and self centered focus that we had is something that He is growing us out of.  Through His Spirit working in us, this growth requires our participation and our involvement.  This is seen throughout both the Old and New Testament and it is seen in Isaiah 52 as well.

In the first two verses of Isaiah 52 we see four commands given to His people.  They are "awake," "clothe," shake yourself," and "loose yourself."  All of these instructions were based on what God had told them what He was going to do.  God was going to work in such a way that He was going to redeem them out of captivity.  But in this redemption He was requiring them to act.  This action required them to get up and get out of Babylon and return to Jerusalem.  In these first two verses God was saying, I have freed you, act like a free people and return home.  

We must remember that God is a personal God and it is a relationship with Him that is the context of what is taking place.  His people were called to interact with Him and this requires active involvement.  God was working through these commands such that His people would engage Him.  In other words, they would walk with Him in where they were leading them.  

What does this mean for us in the 21st century.  Romans 6 tells us that God has freed us from our old self or sin nature.  Because we have His Spirit living with us we should not worship ourselves, but seek and worshipping Him.  We should noot live as slaves to sin because He has freed us.  This requires our obedience.  We are no long to play the victim against our sin but we are to exercise the fruit of the Spirit, which includes discipline to say no to the desires of the flesh and say yes to desires of the Spirit.  

God Bless,

Pastor Steve