A Nugget from New Life Network
(by Chris Musgrove of Future Now Ministries)
Scripture for the Day – April 11, 2019
Isaiah 55:8-9: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
I have heard the above verses in Isaiah 55:8-9 quoted many times by people saying, “For God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are our ways His ways; so it’s impossible to know His thoughts or His ways.” But this verse is speaking to wicked, ungodly people. If we’ll look at the verses preceding these verses we’ll see the context of verses 8-9.
Isaiah 55:7 says: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. God’s ways are higher than the wicked man’s ways and God’s thoughts are higher than the unrighteous man’s thoughts. Wicked ways are not God’s ways and wicked thoughts are not God’s thoughts.
In Psalms 25:4 David prayed, “Show me your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.” Moses also prayed in Exodus 33:13, “Show me now your ways.” Why would they pray to God to know His ways if they were impossible to know? We can see from I Kings 3:14 that David did walk in His ways, “And if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.”
In Zechariah 3:7; I Kings 11:38; and Psalms 81:13 God says “If thou will walk in my ways.” God wouldn’t ask you to do something that you couldn’t do unless He desired for you to do it.
In I Corinthians 2:11-16 Paul talks about how to know the thoughts of God when he says, “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him. But we have the mind of Christ.”
The above scripture is saying no one knows the thoughts of God but the Spirit of God, but if you are born again and in right fellowship with God, the Spirit of God lives within you. In fact, that last verse says, “We have the mind of Christ“. That is something we can have according to Philippians 2:5 “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
If the Spirit of God knows the thoughts of God, and we are led by the Holy Spirit, we can know the thoughts of God.
Galatians 5:16 says, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.” In other words, you won’t do what is wrong or evil if you follow the Holy Spirit. Following after the Holy Spirit is right and good and it is according to the thoughts of God.
Jesus said in John 16:33, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” And finally, Ephesians 5:1 says to be “imitators of God”. How can you imitate God if you could never know His thoughts or ways?
Thank God we have his Word which is His will and His way. We also have His Holy Spirit that teaches us His Word and leads us and guides us so we can know His thoughts and His ways!
