Need a reality check for the day? Looking for a healthy dose of Biblical perspective to unscramble the chaos of an already hectic week? Take a few moments to worshipfully read God’s words about himself in Isaiah 40:9-31, then pay careful attention to the eight questions that follow.
________________Get you up to a high mountain,
_____________________O Zion, herald of good news;
________________lift up your voice with strength,
_____________________O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
_____________________lift it up, fear not;
________________say to the cities of Judah,
_____________________“Behold your God!”
________________Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might,
_____________________and his arm rules for him;
________________behold, his reward is with him,
_____________________and his recompense before him.
________________He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
_____________________he will gather the lambs in his arms;
________________he will carry them in his bosom,
_____________________and gently lead those that are with young.
________________Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
_____________________and marked off the heavens with a span,
________________enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
_____________________and weighed the mountains in scales
_____________________and the hills in a balance?
________________Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD,
_____________________or what man shows him his counsel?
________________Whom did he consult,
_____________________and who made him understand?
________________Who taught him the path of justice,
_____________________and taught him knowledge,
_____________________and showed him the way of understanding?
________________Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
_____________________and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
_____________________behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
________________Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
_____________________nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
________________All the nations are as nothing before him,
_____________________they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
________________To whom then will you liken God,
_____________________or what likeness compare with him?
________________An idol! A craftsman casts it,
_____________________and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
_____________________and casts for it silver chains.
________________He who is too impoverished for an offering
_____________________chooses wood that will not rot;
________________he seeks out a skillful craftsman
_____________________to set up an idol that will not move.
________________Do you not know? Do you not hear?
_____________________Has it not been told you from the beginning?
_____________________Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
________________It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
_____________________and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
________________who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
_____________________and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
________________who brings princes to nothing,
_____________________and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
________________Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
_____________________scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
________________when he blows on them, and they wither,
_____________________and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
________________To whom then will you compare me,
_____________________that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
________________Lift up your eyes on high and see:
_____________________who created these?
________________He who brings out their host by number,
_____________________calling them all by name,
________________by the greatness of his might,
_____________________and because he is strong in power
_____________________not one is missing.
________________Why do you say, O Jacob,
_____________________and speak, O Israel,
________________“My way is hidden from the LORD,
_____________________and my right is disregarded by my God”?
________________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.
If this is our God…
- …why allow ourselves to be consumed with worry over the future?
- …why permit the slightest hint of idolatry to infiltrate the fortress of our affections?
- …why delude ourselves into thinking that we are worthy of glory and praise?
- …why not hold the material things under our brief stewardship loosely?
- …why not use the first moments of each morning to confess our need for him?
- …why not saturate this day with prayer?
- …why live as if we will not be accountable to him when our time on earth is done?
- …why would we not cling to him as our greatest treasure?