Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: July 26

“Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom. Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the LORD, which have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills: therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom” ~ Isaiah 65:6-7

This is strange and puzzling “purple stone” verse until we see that God is a consistent God. If your present suffering is because of your own selfishness, if my [Eugenia Price, the author’s] present suffering is a consequence of my own willful action against God, then it is no great mystery that we suffer! God is absolutely consistent.

When your heart aches, it is a natural thing to feel sorry for yourself. To pity your poor aching heart. It is just as natural to feel sorry for ourselves when it is our own doing. Self pity I natural and it is deadly.

Face the facts in the light of the Cross. God cannot dismiss His own consistency. He cannot suddenly become quixotic and keep you from suffering the consequences of disobedience. You and I will reap the consequences of our actions and God will not hold back those Consequences. God does not “measure their former work into their bosom” from spite. He simply permits the consequences to fall according to the moral laws which He has built right into life. God is in all our afflictions with us. He “became sin” on the Cross for us. He has gone the entire distance. When we refuse to obey Him, He can do nothing but let things remain as He created them. We brake ourselves over His laws. He does not break us. He wants to mend us when we come to Him with contrite hearts. But He is consistent:

“There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked”