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WORD AMONG US WAU.ORG Reflections
Daily Meditation: Isaiah 45:1, 4-6
I am the Lord and there is no other. (Isaiah 45:5)
In today’s first reading, the Lord—speaking through his prophet—tells the Gentile King Cyrus of Persia that he has been chosen to help the people of Israel. He calls Cyrus his “anointed” and says that he has called him “by name” to free the Jewish people from their exile in Babylon (Isaiah 45:1, 4). Finally, he announces, “I am the Lord and there is no other, there is no God besides me” (45:5).
I am the Lord. God makes this proclamation throughout the Bible because he knows how easy it can be for us to forget this foundational truth. When he gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, he started by saying, “I am the Lord your God. . . . You shall not have other gods beside me” (Exodus 20:2, 3). Later, Jesus will quote this again when he says, “The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart” (Mark 12:29-30). There is no other god; there is no other “Lord.” All the other gods are false and unable to save.
We may not worship idols as Cyrus did, but we can still turn many of the good things our Father has given us into our own false gods and forget the One who gave them to us. We can also forget that only God can save us.
Our job or our studies, our money, our leisure time, social media, and even our service in our community or parish—all these can become idols for us. If we focus only on making more money or if we invest all our time searching for “likes,” if we focus on serving day and night for the sake of recognition but never turn to the Lord for his wisdom—if we do anything like this, we can forget where our true good comes from. We can end up giving these things the first place in our hearts and remove God from the throne of our lives. And we cut ourselves off from the grace he wants to give us.
God wants us to remember that he alone is our Savior, he alone is our comfort, he alone is our Lord, the sovereign of our lives. So let’s surrender ourselves to him and let him reign in our hearts.
“Lord, you are my God and my Savior!”
Psalm 96:1, 3-5, 7-10
1 Thessalonians 1:1-5
Matthew 22:15-21
