Return To the Flock!

For Wednesday, October 25, 2023:

Psalm 80:3 TLB: “Turn us again to yourself, O God. Look down on us in joy and love; only then shall we be saved.”

I’ve used this analogy before. When day turns into night, we say the sun set. And when morning comes, we say the sun is rising. In fact the sun is stationary; it is the rotation of our planet that causes day and night. If it’s dark, it’s because we turned away from the sun.

Similarly, God doesn’t turn away from his people. But the Bible contains many examples of people turning away from God. It’s not that they stopped believing; but God had lost his priority in their lives. It happened so often that in the Hebrew language there’s a word for it: “teshuvah,” often spelled different ways. A Rabbi once told me, “I could write it in Hebrew, but in English I don’t know!” It means to turn, to turn a different way, or to re-turn, to turn back so that you can once again face the Lord head-on. In a way, it’s an analogy telling us to give God the priority in our pecking order that he deserves.

So we shouldn’t pray, “God come back to us.” Instead we should pray, “God, turn us back to you!”

God is right where he’s always been!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship