22nd February
Read Psalm 149
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
Psalm 149 is a song of rejoicing in God -“Let Israel rejoice in their Maker” (v2) – and the rejoicing is physical – singing, dancing, music-making (v3). It’s difficult to rejoice without these things -picture a football crowd after a great goal is scored! Are we too shy to express ourselves about our life in Christ?
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Monday Isaiah 57:1-13
Chapter 57 continues the prophetic judgement of the largely godless people of Judah amongst whom Isaiah lived. “The righteous perish and no one takes it to heart” yet “they enter into peace as they lie in death”. So God blesses those who trust in him but the others who chase after their idols he pictures as adulterers and prostitutes.
This is a prophecy about the people of Israel in their final days in the promised land before their exile to Babylon but it is also a word of God to all who turn away from him and seek their own way. Their end is to be exposed and to find their lives and ways blown away like a breath (v13).
Tuesday Isaiah 57:14-21
The heading in the NIV Bible here is “Comfort for the Contrite” because the words turn from those who have turned away from God to those who are ‘contrite and lowly in spirit’ (v15). The words are not directed to the ‘unco guid’ or self righteous because God says he was enraged by their sinful greed and he punished them and yet they continued in their wilful ways (v17). God says he will heal them, guide them and restore comfort to them which displays the sheer grace of God to sinners.
God heals and restores sinners as John Newton’s hymn declares in “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me”. The grace of God to us is surely amazing. It is beyond believing yet received by faith.
Wednesday Isaiah 58:1-5
Can you be prayerfully religious and God is not for you? This chapter says, Yes! It opens with a cry to shout aloud that God’s people are in rebellion, they are a sinful people yet they seek God out as though eager to know his ways (v2). They behave as though they did what was right and hadn’t forsaken his commands. They had complaints against God because they had fasted and humbled themselves but he hadn’t taken any notice.
This is a warning to any who call themselves a people of God, a Church in contemporary language. It can be possible to give all appearance of a Christian people in outward terms but be far from him in heart.
God’s charge against the people was that they exploit their workers and quarrel with each other even to the extent of violence (v3,4) and yet they expected to be heard by him. He challenges them asking if they really consider a holy fast to be a day when they bow their heads in prayer and yet live as they are doing. Repentance and obedience to God’s Word is what marks out godly people.
Thursday Isaiah 58:6-14
From v6 we hear the kind of fasting and religious life that God wants and it is “to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppRepairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. Isaiah 58:12ressed free and break every yoke” and goes on to speak of all manner of what we would call social justice, food for the hungry, shelter for the poor, care for the family. All these things fit equally in our present day situations. If this is attended to then their light would break forth like the dawn, their righteousness be evident and the Lord would answer their prayers.
If this was the case then they would be called “Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings” (v12) . If we want to repair our community and country we need to attend to listening to and obeying the Word of God revealed to us in the scriptures of the Bible.
Friday Isaiah 59:1-21
The people cried that God hadn’t saved them from all their troubles and questioned, why? Isaiah tells them that the arm of the Lord had not lost its power and he still hears all their cries and knows their troubles but the problem was that their sins had separated them from Him. There follows a long list of the sins of the people.
By v16 Rabbis spoke of the coming of the Messiah and we would agree in seeing the coming of Christ who is “the Redeemer who comes to Zion to those who repent of their sins” (v20). The Redeemed of God will receive his Spirit and the Word of God will persist in their lips and be spread to their children. (v21). We need always to beware of what has been called Christianity Light, a religion that is a copy of what we have been reading about in Isaiah which was a form of godliness but no true obedience in the heart.
Saturday Isaiah 60:1-22
This chapter begins with “Arise, shine, for you light has come” and it speaks of the light of God shining upon his people and dispelling darkness. The light will not just be for them though, it will be for the nations who will be gathered to them (v3). This theme is repeated again and again in the Old Testament that God’s people Israel is to be the focus of his blessing on the world and we know that the coming of the Messiah is where that light is and shines.
As New Testament Christians we read these promises as speaking of the spreading light through the gospel, and that is true, but we mustn’t obliterate the Jews, the ancient people of God, for these prophesies are about them as much as us. The apostle Paul speaks of God’s plan in the gospel as a plan to unite Jew and Gentile in his kingdom and so, as we look for the coming again of Christ we look too for the gathering of faithful Jews together with us. Ther are divergent views of how and in what manner that will happen but we must always look for the salvation of the Jews through the gospel truths of Christ as our redeemer.