In Deep

www.bible.com/1713/isa.55.11.csb

Isaiah is probably the one book in the Old Testament that reads like the New Testament when it comes to showing God as a loving, inviting, gracious God who calls all to come to Him and be saved. Many times as I’ve read through Isaiah, it didn’t feel like an old dusty book talking to old dusty people. It often felt like God was talking to me. Before putting this blog together today, I felt the same reading through Isaiah 55. I recommend it. For it feels just as fresh today as it ever has. It is hopeful, inviting, and makes you feel like the Lord is talking to you.

That’s why many verses out of this short chapter often get quoted, because they are so relatable. How is that? How can a book that was written and put together 2800 years ago (give or take) still sound like its today’s sermon? Because that is the essence of what God is saying in this verse. His word does not return to Him, without first stirring the soul and echoing in the chambers of the heart. His word, like rain as he explains in verse 10, falls upon the earth and causes growth. His word causes change. You cannot read His word and come away the same. It changes you. In burrows deep inside you, whether you accept it or reject it, to take root in you and cause you to think differently about things.

But that is what the word of God is supposed to do. It is to plow your heart, fertilize it with good seed, so that the Spirit can do His work in you. The word breaks up fallow ground and it fertilizers ground within which the seed is growing. The word is God’s agent for both creating new places for the Spirit to work, and for places for the Spirit to continue its good work until completion. This is why we always need the word, whether we are believers or before we become believers.

As you read today, may I encourage you to continue to let the word do it necessary work. Allow it deep inside. It will not harm you. It may hurt, but it is the kind of hurt that surgery must do in order to heal. Trust in God’s word. It will always tell you the truth, which is something we don’t often like to hear. Let it do God’s work in you, and let it drown out the voices of falsehood and lies. Let it work in you, and you will be refreshed as with a spring of fresh water in a garden.

Lord God, may my heart be open to Your word, and Your word alone today. I will hear many voices of discouragement and doubt, but in Your alone I may trust. Many will try to discourage me, but I know that in You, I do not fear. Help me Father to trust Your voice and work your greater work in me through Your word and Your Spirit. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.