Isaiah 29:13

"This people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men."

What an important warning for me to hear! It is so easy to exult in God with my mouth and honor Him with my lips while actually being quite far from Him in my heart. My heart is so deceitful. I can act right and talk right but my longings and desires are twisted and depraved, miles away from the words I'm saying. Do I really love God and find joy in Him, or do I love His gifts and find joy in His blessings to me?

This indictment makes me thankful for three things: 1) the power of the word to cut through the façade and deceit in my heart and to show me what I am really like (Hb 4:12); 2) the work of the Holy Spirit to convict me of sin and to help me see who I really am (Jn 16:8); 3) and the cross of Christ to atone for the sins of my heart and my hypocrisy and to change me radically from the inside out (2 Cor 5:17, 21).

Oh Father, by your word and your Spirit and the cross of your Son, please spare me this rebuke!

Hebrews 13:9-16

The whole old Jewish system of worship through animal sacrifices has been fulfilled and abrogated by Christ. But what does that mean practically? Does it just show what my worship is NOT—namely, bloody, ritualistic, and costly? No, it means way more than that…

1. It shows me that my most important nourishment is grace for my heart rather than food for my body (vv 9-10). The old system of slaying an animal resulted in an abundance of food for the worshiper (cf. 1 Cor 9:13; 10:18). But this new worship through Christ provides me with a feast of grace.
2. It shows me that my identification with Jesus, who is my sacrifice, costs me (vv 11-14). In the old system the worshiper would burn the sacrifice outside the camp (v 11; cf. Ex 29:14). Similarly, Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice outside the city (v 12). And we who worship Him must so treasure Him and the future He offers (v 14) that we will also “go to Him outside the camp” (v 13). The result of that kind of treasuring Christ and identifying with Christ is that we will “bear the reproach that He endured.”
3. It shows me that my sacrifice isn’t occasional but continual (v 15). The old system required sacrifices on a regular basis, fairly frequent but certainly not continual. Christ is so magnificent, my sacrifice to Him—namely, my praise to His name—ought to flow incessantly.
4. It shows me that my worship involves my whole life, not just the occasional ceremonies and corporate gatherings (vv 15-16). The old system had a pretty limited scope of what worship included. But in Christ, my words of thanks (v 15), my mundane acts of obedience (v 16), and my hospitality toward others (v 16) all are transformed into expressions of worship.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all!

Proverbs 31:10-31

“God, what a marvelous portrait of biblical femininity! Faithfulness (vv 11-12), industriousness (vv 13-27), tenderness (vv 20, 26), strength (vv 17, 25), honor (vv 25, 28-29), foresight (v 25), wisdom (v 26). Thank you, Lord, for putting me around so many women who aspire to be this way and a wife who succeeds. Please help me to praise and honor her as I ought.

And please help the young ladies in our church and our own little Julia Grace to be this way. Please make this picture of womanhood compelling and desirable to them. Help them fear you more than scorn. Help them enjoy you more than praise. Spare them the emptiness and transience of treasuring beauty and charm over character and wisdom. And please bring to them the kind of men who know what really matters in a woman and cherish these ladies for it.

Lord, please do all this in them and for them by the power of the gospel, for our deepest joy, and for your great glory! Amen."

Isaiah 64:4

This verse has been a favorite for several years, but I still love meditating on it. I love how it highlights the uniqueness of our God. I also love what it is about our God that sets Him apart from others: He acts on the behalf of His people. All the rival gods that vie for my worship today—comfort, affirmation, money, etc.—none of these will actually go to work for me. Instead, they require me to work for them. But my God is one who “acts for those who wait for Him.” Wait on God!

Isaiah 61:10-11

10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

Two things stood out to me when I read these verses:

1) I’m struck by the NT sort of imagery Isaiah uses for the salvation he’s enjoying. This talk about being clothed with garments of salvation and covered with a robe of righteousness—these are descriptions I would have expected to find in the NT rather than the Old. Hmmm... Surely Isaiah didn’t have a full-fledged concept of imputed righteousness... One thing is clear: the salvation he was praising God for was, at least in part, still future for him (v 11). He was looking forward to the day when “the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations”—a promise that appears to me to be fulfilled in Christ in the gospel.

2) I’m challenged by Isaiah’s intentionality about praising God for His gift of salvation. Often I need to be more deliberate about just praising God rather than waiting until I feel like praising. But it’s significant to me that Isaiah’s praise definitely wasn’t dry and empty. It sounds nothing like an obligatory ritual. His imagination is going full speed as he reaches for the most vivid images he can conjure up—a bridegroom and bride adorned with beauty for their wedding. The value of imagination when it comes to worship and praise...

Isaiah 57:15

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”

One of the amazing paradoxes of our God is this: that He, the most glorious Being in the universe, intentionally hangs out with those who appear most unlike Him. He is high; they are lowly. He inhabits eternity; their spirit grovels in the dust. He is holy; they are broken over their lack of holiness. Lots to ponder here...

Hebrews 11:32-40

The long legacy of the triumphs of faith: “conquering kingdoms, stopping lions’ mouths, quenching fire, routing armies…” (vv 32-35). But not everything in the list looks like a triumph from our perspective. There’s a massive shift right in the middle of the list (v 35), where the writer moves to another sort of triumph: “being tortured, being mocked, being stoned, being sawn in two…” (vv 35-38). In fact, there is one contrasting pair that makes the change very obvious: some “escaped the edge of the sword” (v 34) and some were “killed with the sword” (v 37). Same faith, opposite result.

This shows me at least two things. 1) Great exploits matter less to God than great faith. Some of the people in this list didn’t win huge battles or accomplish great feats. They were just great believers in what God said. 2) My circumstances are never the main issue in living for God; my faith is. This encourages me because none of the peripheral things in my life—pain in my body, disappointment in my relationships, doubts about my ability to accomplish all that I must—none of these circumstances needs to occupy my focus today. My focus should be on sustaining my faith in God’s promises—promises like verse 40, where I’m reminded that in just a little while, Christ is going to finish His work in His people and make us all perfect!

Isaiah 51:17-23; 53:4-6

I think one of the reasons God’s love isn’t more amazing to me is my own mistaken sense of personal worth and desert. I tend to feel like God ought to love me. An inflated sense of self = a diminished sense of delight at being loved by God.

But the times when I am most amazed by and enraptured in God’s love are those times when I see it and feel most undeserving of it. That’s where texts like this one are so helpful.

In these verses God makes people drink the “cup of His wrath” as judgment for their sins: first rebellious Jerusalem (vv 17-20) and then Jerusalem’s enemies (vv 21-23). It’s quite a cup. It’s called “the cup of staggering” (vv 17, 22). It means devastation and destruction, famine and sword (v 19). Those who drink it pass out and lie in the streets (v 20) or lose control like a drunken man (v 21).

And then it gets very personal in chapter 53, where I read that I deserved to drink this cup. My sins earned punishment and sorrow from God, too; but when the cup passed to me, Jesus took it up and drained every drop (cf. Matthew 26:39). Amazing grace. Amazing love...

Isaiah 49:15-16

What brings me joy today? Consider this assurance from the lips of God Himself: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” He picks up probably the most tender and attentive image we have in human relationships—a nursing mother and her baby—and applies it to Himself with me.

And just to make sure my sense of His faithfulness and affection gets all the way into my heart, He says it another way: “I have engraved you on the palm of my hands.” Now that is stunning.

All my lesser joys fade away—accomplishment, family, health, weather—and all my sorrows lose their sting in light of that kind of love from that kind of God. So I have financial worries? Jesus Christ’s palm is marked with my name. So people are disappointed in me? God fingers His palm with a smile. So small sorrows threaten to diminish my joy? Not when I hear God saying: “I have engraved you on the palm of my hands.”

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea:
A Great High Priest whose name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands;
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart –
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

Hebrews 10:34-36

Three times the writer orients his readers to the rewards promised for faith and obedience: “you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” (v 34); “which has a great reward” (v. 35); “so that... you may receive what is promised” (v. 36).

I am so thankful that it’s Sunday and I get to go to corporate worship today. So often corporate worship opens my eyes to God’s glory and beauty and helps me see that His rewards and He Himself are so desirable.

Isaiah 44 & 45

I noted 11 occurrences of “Who is a God like me?” type statements in these two chapters. Hmmm… Think God is trying to say something?

I was also struck by the finality and sufficiency of Christ’s single, definitive sacrifice in Hebrews 10, especially verse 14: “for by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

I am disappointed though that neither one of these awe-inspiring thoughts from Hebrews or Isaiah inspired any awe or sense of wonder in my soul. Some days my heart is just so hard and my eyes are just so blind. Perhaps as I continue to meditate throughout the day…

Isaiah 43:25

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” The phrase “for my own sake” arrested my attention this morning. It indicates that God forgives for God’s sake. That is both humbling and reassuring to me.

It humbles me cuz it reminds me that I am not at the center of God’s heart; God is. Even the incredible grace of blotting out my sins He does for His own good first and mine second.

It is reassuring cuz it grounds my hope in God’s worth and not my own. “What if God gets tired of forgiving me?” is a question I never need to ask, since He never tires of pursuing His own glory. God opposes unforgiven sin in me with the same zeal that He opposes any other enemy to His glory. He will have me entirely clean, by His own blood, for His own glory.

Isaiah 40:18

“To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with Him?” The preceding and following verses expound upon and support this theme. God's supremacy over all flesh, which withers away like grass (vv 6-8). His stunning majesty in comparison even with the vastness of creation (vv 12, 15-17). His glory over earthly kings (vv 21-14). His tender grace to His needy people (vv 11, 27-31).

My ability to describe God’s supremacy in writing or even to comprehend it is so small. But I will meditate on God’s glory today for two reasons: 1) It brings humility to see my feeble dependence and His omnipotent independence. 2) It gives me hope to know He brings all His awesome power to bear on behalf of those who wait for Him:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:28-31

Isaiah 37:15-20

It’s easy to mistake that other people’s gods might just be worth serving, cuz their lives often look smoother, more prosperous, more desirable than mine (e.g., the conversation I had with Aundrea recently about spending lots of money to have a nicely furnished house). That’s the position Hezekiah was in here with the Assyrian army on his doorstep. Sennacherib even made the point explicitly about superior gods (vv 10-13).

So Hezekiah’s prayer is helpful to reorient my soul. He recalls that God is exalted (“enthroned above the cherubim”), personal (“God of Israel”), supreme (“you are the God, you alone”), and powerful (“who made heaven and earth”). Then he implores God to listen and to see their dire situation, which he recounts in picturesque language (vv. 17-19). He observes that the nations who fell to Assyria had one distinct difference from Israel: fake gods (v 19)! And finally, he requests salvation for God’s own sake: “that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord” (v. 20). An awesome model prayer and one that gives me so much hope in my own struggle against the enemies of God in my own life!

Isaiah 34-35

The wasteland images of chapter 34 is changed into images of paradise and glory in chapter 35. What a switch! My anxieties and sorrows are all put into perspective and lifted away by the depiction of the joy prepared for God’s people...

Hebrews 7:1-17

The writer points out that Jesus is from the tribe of Judah, which is an aberration on the Old Testament pattern: Levi was the tribe of the priests, not Judah (7:13-14). But that's OK, cuz Jesus is from a different order of priests. He doesn't follow Levi; he follows a dude called Melchizedek (7:11-12, 15-16). The writer of Hebrews finds it very significant that Melchizedek has no recorded birth or death—he just appears out of nowhere like an immortal (7:3).

I just love the wording of verse 16, where the writer brings his point home: "Jesus has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent [like the Levitical priesthood], but by the power of an indestructible life." Like Melchizedek, our Priest had no beginning or end, but the writer uses this great language to convey that image: "the power of an indestructible life"!! What an awesome Christ!

I have this picture in my mind of this check-in area, like with a booth and a sign-in register, and a dude behind the counter and stuff like that. And all these men are coming in and signing up to be priests: "Yeah, I'm here to sign up..." "Descendant of Levi?" "Yep." "Sign in below and take a number, please."

Then Jesus walks up: "I'm here."
"Family of Levi?"
"Judah."
"I'm sorry, sir. Priests must be from the family of Levi."
"Oh, I'm not here for that line of priests. I'm here to sign up with the immortal, eternal ones. The ones like Melchizedek. Some Roman soldiers slaughtered me three days ago, but I'm back."
"Uhhh... How's that again?"
"I can't die. They tried to kill me, but my life is indestructible."
Long pause. "Thank you, sir."
Turning to the rest of the room: "You all can return home. The priesthood isn't accepting any more applications. We have the One we need, thank you."

Isaiah 26:3-13

A theme of trust in God runs through these verses, coupled with the idea of desire—longing, yearning, emotional as well as volitional. “Trust” here is a desirous hope.

Often when I think of hope in God, I take a very personal and narrow view of what that means. I’m thinking, “God, you are my desire because you will bring satisfaction to my soul.” But the desire for God here is centered on what He will do to right the wrongs in the nations and in society. It’s not just “God, I’m lost without you.” It’s also “God, our world is a mess without you.” This awareness of the satisfaction and joy God will bring to the entire world makes me long for Him all the more…

Luke 22:24-27

Jesus is so adamant that His followers learn humility and service. He says it directly: “Let the greatest become like the youngest, and the leader as the one who serves” (v. 26). He also puts Himself, their leader, forward as the example of service, in contrast to heathen leaders: “But I am among you as the one who serves” (v. 27). We learn from John’s gospel that the context of these utterances was His washing of the disciples’ feet: a pretty humiliating form of service.

So my leadership of this family and these other elders and this church must take the form of serving them and making myself as the lowest profile among them.

Hebrews 4:12-16

I love the juxtaposition of these two paragraphs. The first (vv. 12-13) basically says, “Don’t neglect God’s powerful, living word. His word will expose even the slightest, hidden unworthiness in you, so don’t make peace with even the most insignificant sin. Believe God’s truth, not sin’s lies!”

The second (vv. 14-16) says, “Your hope is not in yourself, so don’t despair! You can hang on to your faith even in the most excruciating test or enthralling temptation. Jesus knows every struggle personally, and He’s ready with perfectly timed grace and mercy. Come to Him!”

Hebrews 4:1-12

The passage focuses on God’s word to His people (vv. 1, 2, 6, 12) and their responsibility to believe it. Historically, God’s people haven’t believed and thus have failed to enter His rest (3:18-19; 4:3, 6), so the appeal in this chapter is to believe God’s word and to thus enter His rest.

The point is clear: what God expects from his people is belief in His word. Enter the great enemy: unbelief. But why would people not believe God’s word? The answer is from yesterday’s reading: the hardening effects of sin’s deceitfulness (3:12-13). Sin builds up layers of resistance to God’s point of view, making it impossible for us to believe.

So what’s the solution? God’s word (v. 12). The word of God is both the object of my belief and the means to my belief. It cuts deep, slicing through the layers of unbelief and deceit, laying open the deepest impulses and longings of my heart. So I need the word in me. I have got to have God’s thoughts slicing through sin’s deceitfulness and exposing my heart. And when this miraculous work of the word happens in me, belief results and I enjoy God’s rest in my soul.

Isaiah 12-13

One thing I notice right away reading Isaiah again is how difficult it is to find your way around in this prophecy, particularly in detecting which predictions are more literal and which are less so. We now can look back at 7:14 and 9:6 and see that God had a literal intent there. But what about 11:6-9? If no literal kingdom will occupy this globe (as in amillennialism or postmillennialism), these promises are figurative. How can you know? One thing for sure: prophecy keeps me humble, exposing what I don’t know!

There’s such a sharp contrast between the condition of those to whom God is kind (ch. 12) and those to whom He gives judgment (ch. 13). The gore in chapter 13 is graphic: people thrust through with swords, infants dashed to pieces, women ravished. And the joy in chapter 12 is just as intense: drinking from the wells of salvation, the glorious triumphs of God, His greatness in the midst of His people. What makes the difference? How can we ensure His blessing and avoid His anger? Neither of these chapters tells that part of the story, but the thrust of Isaiah’s prophecy is clear: a heart of humility (2:11-17) that hopes in God (8:11-17), upholds social justice and mercy (1:16-17), and obeys God’s word (1:18-20).

While I can strive for that kind of humility, justice, mercy, and obedience, ultimately I fail. But then the gospel comes to bear on this scene and tells me that, because of Christ, God sees me as entirely humble, just, merciful, and obedient. The gospel reminds me that the requirements of the law are entirely satisfied, and the blessings of Isaiah 12 are all mine in Christ!