9/3 Isaiah 5:20

20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!


New life in Christ results in one's eyes seeing the world as it really is. You begin to notice that as people view the same statistics or situations, they come to opposite conclusions. You will see people accusing others of the things they are guilty of. You notice that many attempt to justify perversion and evil behavior. More effort is made to see that criminals have their rights protected than to see that the victim is restored. Everywhere you look, group-thinking trumps reason.

Illogical and contradictory statements abound. Consider for a moment the ridiculous statement, "There are no absolutes." Is that not an absolute? People will quote a verse from the Bible to defend their position of not believing the Bible. When something happens in your life they can tell you it is the bad result of your faith, while dismissing the fact that the same thing happened to them. While lauding a culture that is based on another religion, they enjoy the benefits of the one that was founded by Christians. And those that recognize their own duplicity then rewrite history to say those founding fathers of the United States were not Christians while ignoring these men's own writings that declare they were.

God summed it up in our verse for today. The world will call good evil and will call evil good. They call darkness light and light darkness. Jesus said they love darkness rather than light because their acts are evil (John 3:19-20). The early Christians were accused of turning the world upside down. What an illustration of today's verse. Actually, they were turning it right side up (Acts 17:6).

Consider: As your mind is renewed by God's Word, the world will increasingly seem to be a foreign land. In the kingdom of God, good is good and light is light!