イザヤ書 51:1-6 Jc

For Reading and Meditation:     Isaiah 51:1-16

We spend one last day meditating on Jesus' words: "Blessed [or happy] are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Facing negative feelings such as grief, sorrow, hurt and emotional pain is essential if we are to know our Lord's purpose for our lives. When we are willing to go down into the hurt and feel it, then...

In seasons of severe trial, the Christian has nothing on earth that he can trust to, and is therefore compelled to cast himself on his God alone. When his vessel is on its beam-ends, and no human deliverance can avail, he must simply and entirely trust himself to the providence and care of God. Happy storm that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God and God alone! There is no getting at our God sometimes because of the multitude of our friends;...

Methinks, I see in vision a howling wilderness, a great and terrible desert, like to the Sahara. I perceive nothing in it to relieve the eye, all around I am wearied with a vision of hot and arid sand, strewn with ten thousand bleaching skeletons of wretched men who have expired in anguish, having lost their way in the pitiless waste. What an appalling sight! How horrible! a sea of sand without a bound, and without an oasis, a cheerless graveyard for a race forlorn! But behold and wonder!...

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity. § No eye pitied you … but you were thrown out into the open field, when you yourself were loathed on the day you were born. And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you … ,“Live!”He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth—praise to our God.When we were still without strength, in due time...

Hearken unto Me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord; look unto the rock from which ye are hewn" (Isa. 51:1).

If we care for His glory, we will want to serve. If we care for others, we will want to be well prepared for that service. And that care will enable us to...