Isaiah 59-63 I love the beauty of an early morning sunrise, although I tend to sleep through them these days more than not.  Still, something in my heart resonates with these words of Isaiah, telling about a time to come: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. In spite of the darkness over the peoples…the LORD rises…and his glory appears.  Tomorrow I will think on these verses … Continue reading Arise, shine

Isaiah 54-58 One thing kept jumping out at me today: Sabbath.  Perhaps that is not coincidental…just the other day I wrote in my blog about being still. These chapters of Isaiah give promises for the righteous, for those who seek out the Lord.  But a condition of those promises — over and over again — is for the people to not make the Lord’s Sabbath “despicable:” “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable, and if … Continue reading Sabbath and Such

Isaiah 49-53 Again I am totally awed at the prophetic words in Isaiah…spoken as if Jesus himself were speaking them!  Here’s a snippet from chapter 49: he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” And another one from chapter 50: The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. … Continue reading Prophetic Words

Isaiah 44-48 0 You have trusted in your wickedness and have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you when you say to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’ 11 Disaster will come upon you, and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you. What do secular humanists and the leaders of ancient Babylon have in common?  They both dismissed the existence of the Lord…and calamity was in store … Continue reading Thoughts about ‘I am’