Devotional: Forget Business As Usual

…new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.
Isaiah 42:9

We know that our calling is derived from the calling of Jesus: how we should walk out this calling with an internal humility, and how our calling has no context without the unstoppable I AM being at the center of it all. 

6 "I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; 

8 "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. 

 9 See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you."

There are four more things about the “how to” of this calling:

• It involves a new thing, not religion as usual (v9)
• The Father will reveal them to us (v9)
• It will mean being led “by ways they have not known” (v16)
• If we trust in the same old way, we will fail. (v17)

First, if you want business as usual then you don’t want your business to be in God’s business. If you want to “same old, same old” then don’t follow God because he takes the old and gives it an incredibly new twist: “the former things have taken place, and new things I declare.”

Second, new comes from revelation, and revelation often comes from intimacy or hunger. God speaks, this produces faith, we speak what we hear, and that proclamation is part of what creates the new thing.

Third, being led “by ways you have not known” is not just about a destination or a road map. It includes a revamping of the way we have done things. With God the ‘how to’ can be totally new. He announces, we believe, we praise him, we act, and he does the big work.

Finally, if we trust in the old way—if we lean on some foreign god of intellect or bank account or stock portfolio or innate intelligence—we will fail. “But those who trust in idols, who say to images, 'You are our gods,' will be turned back in utter shame.”

Can we follow God and do business as usual? Not the dynamic, moving, creative, wild, unsafe, daring, purposeful, determined, passionate God that we know.

Reflections

• How much of your life is “business as usual”?
  
  
• Where is your trust? Ask God to take you in paths you have not yet known.