Isaiah 11:1-10

¹ And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:

² And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;

³ And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:

⁴ But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.

⁵ And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

⁶ The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

⁷ And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

⁸ And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.

⁹ They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

¹⁰ And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.

Enough said.

Matthew 20:15a Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?

If you had no idea what parable this came from, if these words stood alone, do they not teach you a truth about our Lord? We are always looking for context and that is right and good in the sight of the Lord, but can we just as easily overlook a vital truth because we want the context to control the vision?

We know the Lord to be kind, merciful and loving. We go through this life and often wonder why are we going thru these troubling times. We never seem to make sense of some things. We do not see a lesson. We do not grow. We see no blessing come to anyone in a circumstance and suddenly it is why, why, why.

We hear it from the secular world all the time. Why would a god do such a thing? Nothing we say will ever satisfy them. We turn things back on them and exclaim, it is because you do not have faith. If this be true, then what does that same faith do for us when we fail to understand? Can we accept we are His and He has the right to do with us as He pleases without explaining Himself?

Do you know the second half of Matthew 20:15? The context you seek!

Matthew 20:15b Is thine eye evil, because I am good?

If we truly are in Christ, we are members in one body, and He is good, how is it our vision isn’t good?

Because we see things with secular eyes?

1 Corinthians 12:16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

If you are neither ear nor eye you still receive instruction from the Head, your Lord Jesus Christ. Truth runs thru your very being, is that not enough or do you have to understand every little detail before you will believe?