Third Day of Lent

Third Day of Lent

Friday, March 3, 2017

I will make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.  Isaiah 49:6

Isaiah, if not the major prophet of the Old Testament is surely one of the most significant. God gave him great insight into many things that he had planned for Israel and for the whole world. In chapter 49, he calls Israel the Servant of the Lord, and speaks of God as the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel. (verse 7)

When he says that through Israel he will bring light and his salvation to the Gentiles, our hearts should rejoice. He chose Israel for his own people; he planned all along to bring not only Israel but all the earth to himself through Jesus. John says, He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God. (John 1:11-12)

I know that God is not bound by time, yet it still causes me to stand in awe that he would nurture a nation for two thousand years through good and evil times to preserve a people through whom he could bring salvation to any who would receive it. We often quote John 3:16, that God so loved the world. Surely we have to see in his carefully laid and executed plan the great depth and patience of that love.

Isaiah tells us that God planned for Jesus to come. John tells us that he came. Easter reminds us to rejoice that he did all that was necessary for us to be reconciled to God through Christ. Heart knowledge of that makes us sing Alleluia with great joy!

Prayer: Father, we are grateful to be saved to serve such an amazing God. Thank you for Jesus and his absolute obedience that made restoration of relationship to you possible. Amen

And He Set His Face toward Jerusalem. . . .

A Lenten Devotional Guide
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, Spring 2007,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator