As we are reaching the end of this year, we thank God. He had brought us this far, safely.

Isaiah 51:1, ‘“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, Who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were hewn And to the quarry from which you were dug’.

Deuteronomy 8:2, ‘2You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years’,

Look to the rock and quarry, from which you were hewn and dug, means for us to ‘look back from the pit you came from’. When we are pursuing righteousness and seeking the Lord, we need to remember from the pit we came from. Let us look back in a healthy way but not to get discouraged by ourselves, remembering all the ways that God had led us in the past, as a family and as a Church, with a thankful heart. Let us not boast or be prideful of anything, let us be humble. Did He ever forsake us? He never left us nor forsaken us. When we were in a condemned state, discouraged in our sins, God had strengthened us, encouraged us and blessed us through the encouragement of our Church and brethren. Let us be thankful to the Church and the brethren, for the blessings we are receiving. Let us not forget our origin, the pit from which we were taken. We are alive only by His mercies and grace and by the Church’s prayers. He had blessed us with material and spiritual blessings. Let us be grateful to Him.

Apostle Paul says, ‘I will not boast about anything except for the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ’

Ezekiel 16:4, ‘4As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths. 5No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born’.

This was our pit, our condition. God had compassion on us, loved us when we were still sinners.

V9, ‘9“Then I bathed you with water, washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. 10I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. 11I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck’.

God had blessed us in many ways. This God’s mercy and love for us. now, our position, status has changed. Let us never forget where we came from. Let us not boast about ourselves!

v14Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,” declares the Lord God.

15“But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame,

God had blessed us with beauty. But we see here, that the pride and the boasting of herself began and she became famous now, also got a position among others and she started to trust in her beauty!

V22, ‘Besides all your abominations and harlotries you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare and squirming in your blood’

Why did she trust herself? she became prideful, because she did not remember the past – ‘how she was naked and bare and squirming in her blood!’ God is judging her.

Never be proud and boast in ourselves! Always remember God’s mercy and love and grace!

We see the humility of Saul here,

1 Samuel 9:21, ‘Saul replied, “Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then do you speak to me in this way?”

Later we see his tragic end. Same with Solomon. He loved the Lord with all his heart, in the beginning!

1 Kings 3:3, ‘3Now Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David’

V7, ‘7Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.’ 

Saul and Solomon, had good beginnings but ended up in a tragedy! We all started with good beginnings in our lives, we need to remain always in humility, never become proud! This is a warning for us. There is also a warning from Israelites to us, in the New testament,

1 Corinthians 10:12, ‘12Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall’.

The possibility of falling is there, but the Holy Spirit is reminding us, ‘be humble and be thankful to God’. Look back and be humble and be thankful always, remember, where we came from!

2 Peter 1:9, ‘9For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins’.

Those who don’t look back, for their purification from their former sins, are ‘blind’ and ‘short-sighted’. They forget about their past sins; they were cleansed from and what God had done in their lives and forget all God’s blessings! Let us have a humble and thankful hearts always! From there, the Jerusalem will be built, the Church is built through that humbleness in each of us!

Ephesians 2:12, ‘remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 

This was our former life in the world, having no hope and without God in the world but now,

13But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 

Now, God had brought us by the blood of Christ. Praise God.

V19, ‘So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, 20having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, 22in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit’.

God had brought us in the Church as a stone – ‘A rock, from which we were hewn’, as we saw in Isaiah, are built into ‘Jerusalem’, which is His Church, in whom, the whole building is fitted together, in which, ‘I am one of the stone, you are one of the stone’. We are all each stones of the building of a ‘Church’. Let us not forget from where we were taken! We are growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom, we are being fitted together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit!

This is what, God is doing in our local Church. Let us have a humble, thankful hearts towards our God, Church and the brethren. Never be proud and boastful. Let us look back, how our Lord God had led us in these last days! All of us need to learn to keep our faces in dust at all times! This is the place where, there is our safety! That is the place the ‘Jerusalem’, our local Church is being built.

1 Peter 5:6, ‘⁶ So put away all pride from yourselves. You are standing under the powerful hand of God. At the right time He will lift you up’ (NLV).

May God bless us.