Isaiah 50:4-7 Devotional Scripture - Messiah's Love For You

The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary.  Isaiah 50:4a

 

I want to know the word.  I want to be able to preach the gospel to my own heart.  I need that word to sustain my own soul when I am weary but I want a word to give to others when they are weary.

He awakens Me morning by morning; He awakens My ear to hear

as the learned. The Lord God has opened My ear; and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away.  Isaiah 50:4b-5

 

This is Jesus prophetically speaking of His daily, deep fellowship with God the Father. Jesus could speak with the tongue of the learned because, in daily time with God, He learned to hear as the learned. Jesus delighted to do the will of God, even if it meant going to the cross. He did not turn back but willingly gave Himself over to suffering and shame.  

 

I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.

Isaiah 50:6

 

Jesus was not a pretty picture when He redeemed you from your sin. His face was distorted beyond recognition. You couldn't even recognize that He was a man. And yet He did it. He endured it. He did not turn away. He did it because He loved you.

And who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross.

Hebrews 12:2

 

He endured the cross because His love for you was stronger than anything else. And the joy of being able to wash you and redeem you and to cleanse you from all of your sins was the thing that kept Him going in that moment of disgrace and humiliation.

For the Lord God will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed.

 Isaiah 50:7

 

He set His face like a flint to go to Jerusalem.  Jesus had a steadfast determination to obey God and that is what I desire. I want to set my face life flint to obey God’s word and not waver from His truth.

John 15:7 Devotional Scripture - Vitally Connected

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you,

you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.  

John 15:7  

 

In John 15, Jesus is talking with His disciples for the last time knowing that in the next few hours He is going to be betrayed, arrested, condemned and crucified.  At this point, the disciples have been through a lot of puzzling situations.  In the last few hours Jesus, their rabbi, had just gotten on the floor and washed their feet.  Peter, their fearless leader was just told that he was going to deny Jesus by morning and Jesus had just told them, “I’m leaving and where I’m going you can’t go with me now but you will follow me later.”  By now, the disciples are very confused and you can bet they are listening to Jesus intently trying to figure all this out.

 Jesus says 4 times in John 15:1-6, “Abide in Me and I will abide in you.”  The disciples have to be thinking, “Okay, I hear what you are saying, but how do we do that?”  In verse 7 Jesus starts unpacking this truth for them. He starts off the same way, “Abide in Me,” but then He pulls a switcheroo on the word and He says. “Abide in Me and My words abide in you.”  He is telling them “Just like the vine and the branch are connected at some point, My word is going to be that place of connection for you.” 

 In the same way that a vine sustains a branch and a vine strengthens a branch and a vine stabilizes a branch so the word of God does those three things for us.  Jesus is saying to us, “Do you want to be alive spiritually?  Do you want to be vitally connected to Me? Than in the same way that you have to eat physically to be sustained, strengthened and stabilized so too do you have to eat spiritually. You’ve got to be connected to My word.”

 The word of God does nourish us and it strengthens us and causes us to grow but it takes work.  God fills us slowly and daily as we work to read study and apply His word to our lives.  It is through His word that we are going to be vitally connected to the source of life. When we allow the word of God  to sustains us, strengthens us and stabilizes us then the winds and waves of life will not toss us around no matter which way the winds blow or how strong the force because we will be vitally connect to God. 

 

Hebrews 10:22 Devotional Scripture -Draw Near to God

 

This is the believer's blood-bought privilege. We are invited to have an audience, not with this world's celebrities, but with the Sovereign God of the universe.  With this perfect cleansing available to us, we can draw near to God in a way never available to someone under the Old Covenant.

 The pure water refers the Holy Spirit using the word of God to cleanse our lives from daily defilement. We are cleansed once and for all from the guilt of sin by the death of Christ, but we are cleansed repeatedly from the defilement of sin by the Spirit through the word of God.

The writer of Hebrews is writing this because the believers were discouraged and they had allowed their discouragement to put distance between them and God. They were not drawing near to God. They had lost their intimate relationship with Jesus and nothing was going right in their lives. So God told them, “Draw near to Me.”

 “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering,

for he who promised is faithful.”

Hebrews 10:23

Our only hope is in Christ. We must not allow discouragement to tempt us to give up the future, unseen blessings for the present, visible things of this world. The reason we can hold fast is because He who promised is faithful and it is far better to trust in His faithfulness rather than our own. God’s promises can never fail; no one who trusts in Him will ever be disappointed. Jesus is coming back just as He has promised, and His people will be with Him forever.

 

“Therefore do not throw away your confidence,

which has a great reward.” Hebrews 10:35

 

Don't throw away your trust now—it carries with it a rich reward in the world to come. Trusting in God, placing our confidence in Him carries a present reward in His peace, His joy, His abiding presence and His power to overcome obstacles in our lives; but it will have a greater payment of reward in the life to come.

Luke 6:47-49 Devotional Scripture - House Built on the Rock

 

“For everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words [in order to heed their teaching] and does them, I will show you what he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood arose, the torrent broke against that house and could not shake or move it, because it had been securely built or founded on a rock. But he who merely hears and does not practice doing My words is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, against which the torrent burst, and immediately it collapsed and fell, and the breaking and ruin of that house was great.”

Luke 6:47-49 (AMP)  

 

 The "rock" in these verses is God’s word.  Petra, the Greek word for rock, is a word that describes a great outcropping of rock which is solid, stable, and unmovable. This is describing a person who continually spends time with the Lord in His Word and when the storms come in the future she is immovable because of what she has already accomplished in the past.

 A wise woman is a doer of the Word. She spends time and energy digging into the word and applying it to her life.  When a storm hits her life she responds in faith. She places her trust in the Lord and her foundation, what she bases her decision making on, is the Word of God. 

The foolish woman may attend church regularly and yet when she hears the Word she doesn’t obey to it. Her main concern is what will satisfy her or make her happy today. She just wants to build her house quickly and enjoy it.  After decades of being in the Word she doesn’t seem to be any stronger or any more stable as the winds of life come.  This woman does not submit to the Lord’s authority and therefore, she has no foundation for her decision making process.  When something happens to shake her world she makes decisions based on her raw emotions and that never turns out well.

What is it that is going to keep you in place when the wicked winds pound and opposition threatens to overwhelm you?  Only the love if God and Spirit of God can hold you in place. In love, Jesus gives us the code, which is His word, that will withstand all storms and His Spirit gives us the power to carry this out in our lives. If we build according to His code, which calls for obedience to His Word, we will not be swept away when crisis hits our lives.

James 1:2 Devotional Scripture - J-O-Y

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. 

James 1:2

Jesus warns us that in this life we will have troubles.  There is no avoiding it.  This scripture tells us that we should count it all joy.   How do we do that?  How do we find joy in a trial when there is so much pain attached to the trial? When God says to count it all joy when you face trials, He’s not talking about the joy found in earthly things. Circumstances turning out how we desire, possessions and positions, and even good health only offer happiness. They are temporary.

What God longs for us to have is deep, lasting joy found in Jesus.  This word “count” means “evaluate.” When trials come, we must evaluate them in light of God’s truths and promises. It’s not the trial itself we consider a joy. Rather, it’s the results that will come from the trial that we consider pure joy. This involves trusting that God is actively working for our good even in the midst of painful circumstances. And as we trust Him, we will find an inner gladness rooted not in our circumstances, but in the reality of the living God who transcends our circumstances. Jesus alone is the source of our joy. When discouragement comes and you feel you cannot take one more step, remember these three words, Jesus Only You!  J-O-Y.   Jesus came so that I . . . so that you . . . can experience His joy fully and completely in us through any and all circumstances.

1 Cor. 5:17 Devotional Scripture - New Creation

 

Last week we planted our garden.  Most of it was from seeds.  It has been fun watching the soil and looking for the plants to sprout up.  Yesterday, I was surprised to see a bunch new plants sprouting out from the soil.  As I looked at them I thought of 1 Corinthians 5:17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

I am a new creation.  I no longer look at things the same way.  My desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract me.  The things that used to really matter to me no longer matter.  This new life in Christ is working itself into every detailed part of my being. I even think differently.

This promise of being a new creation is for anyone. Anyone can be a new creation in Jesus Christ. This is something God alone can do in us.  He changes those who come to Him by faith and He gives them the power to please Him and do what is right. 

Living as a new creation is something God works in us, using our will and our choices. We must both receive the gift of being a new creation, and live the life of a new creation.  When you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your life and in your thought life. And when a crisis comes you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. This does not happen overnight but as you progress in your Christian walk you will notice your desires change and they start matching to your position, in Christ.

Does this mean we will never see any of those old habits or hang ups in our new life? No, though we are free from the penalty of sin and we are no longer compelled to obey sin, we are still in these corruptible bodies and therefore we will commit sins. The difference is that before, our old self would continually and willfully chase after sin, but now that we are in Christ we have a new power to resist the pull of sin. Now, in Christ, the general direction of our conduct and the bent of our behavior are all upward. God wants to do a new thing in our lives.  The old things have passed away and all things have become new.

Deut. 1:26 Devotion Scripture - Don't Doubt God's Love

In Deuteronomy 1 the nation of Israel is about to enter the Promise Land.  Moses is remembering their first journey. Forty years earlier they were at this same location. At that time Moses said to them,

Look, the Lord your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the Lord God of your fathers has spoken to you;  do not fear or be discouraged.   Deuteronomy 1:21

The Promised Land was ready for them to take by faith, if they would obey the Lord and not fear or be discouraged, but they wouldn’t do it. Instead, they wanted to send spies into the land to check it out. There was no reason for them to send spies into the land unless they did not believe God. When ten of the twelve spies came back with a report filled with fear and unbelief, the nation believed them and refused to believe God's promises.  As Moses remembers that day he said,

Nevertheless you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.   Deuteronomy 1:26

They refused to do what God commanded them to do. Despite the fact that they had seen His faithfulness in the past, they would not trust Him with their future.

God had done nothing but show Himself faithful to Israel. They could not point to one instance where He had let them down.  The journey was not always easy.  They didn’t always get what they wanted but God was always faithful.  Yet they were not convinced that God loved them and they found it hard to trust a God they did not believe loved them.
Like the nation of Israel, our walk can be hindered if we doubt God’s love for us. God has already given the ultimate demonstration of His love:

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were  still sinners, Christ died for us.   Romans 5:8

The love that He has for us is eternal.  It is fixed.  It is immovable.  It is steadfast. He can do nothing greater than what He has already done in Jesus to prove His love to us and yet we continue to doubt His love and trust in ourselves rather than trust in God.

If we could grasp and hold on the truth of how much God really loves us, we would gladly submit to Him and trust in Him.  We would know that everything that comes into our lives have been approved by His loving hand and if He brings if into our lives that it is for our good and His glory.  The only way to know God and understand his love for you is to be in His Word. I encourage you to get to know your God and get to know the riches of His grace and His kindness and love he has toward you. When you take the time to get to know your God, than you will see how easy it is to follow Him.