April 12

Psalm102
I guess because my grandson is visiting me right now, I think about dirty diapers when I read about being changed. Babies are helpless to change themselves. Some of them like being changed. Some of them do not like it. In general they do not like being in their poop, but as they grow older, they don’t like the experience of being changed, especially if they have sat in it long enough to develop a rash. Coupled with the desire to not be controlled, the pain of the rash makes the experience of changing unbearable. What an analogy to us when we are helpless in our sin! The Psalmist says, “He shall regard the prayer of the destitute, And shall not despise their prayer.” As babies are destitute to change themselves, so are we helpless to change ourselves.
Yet we are given this promise that He looks down from heaven, “To hear the groaning of the prisoner, To release those appointed to death.” That sounds a lot like Isaiah 61:1:
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
This is the passage that Jesus quoted and claimed to fulfill when He spoke in the synagogue in Nazareth. Jesus came to do that. To change the metaphor, He came to change our poopy diapers. We cannot change them ourselves. But you know, there must be cooperation on our part. I just heard my daughter-in-law cry out, “Come hear! Let me change your poopy diaper.” Then I heard the footsteps of my granddaughter running away. Is that not just like us? The Lord of the Universe commands us to come to Him to permit us to be changed by him, but we run the other way. He has power to set us free, but we won’t cooperate. Does that diminish His glory? Only in the ability of others to see it. When we cooperate with Him and freely yield to his power to change, it increases the ability of other to see His changing power, and that increases his glory! Lord, let me cooperate with your changing power! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John