Blessing comes with a purpose

I was looking back through my journal this morning, reflecting that sometimes my scrawling is at least as impacting to me now as it was when I wrote it - sometimes more so. This was one that stood out particularly. It was from Isaiah 5


My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines...Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit...What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? 

Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.”

The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land... 

Two things stood out for me in this. The first is a picture of God's love for His people - that He removes the 'stones', prepares the ground, plants good things. Also, He protects us with walls and hedges and provides us with nurture (rain).

The second is the problem is that it is up to us to bear good fruit. The indictment on these people was that they enjoyed all these blessings as though it was all about them. Verse 8 says that they added house to house, field to field until there was no space left and they lived alone in the land. They failed to give justice or live righteously (verse 7) and therefore there would be no justice for them. (The chapter continues with a long list of woes and warnings about the bad fruit that God is unimpressed with, much of which is surprisingly relevant to today!) It comes as a warning that God will tolerate His people's lack of care about justice for only so long before He will call them to account or remove their blessing.

As God's people today, we who are given so much are called not only to 'live righteously' (not do bad/wrong stuff), but also to be advocates/ambassadors against injustice, to live loudly against the injustice of the world both in word and deed.