OUR GREATEST STRENGTH

 

JULY 5, 2023

 

 Isaiah 30:15 

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” 

 

In today’s passage, the prophet Isaiah is speaking to a rebellious people; those who were unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction. Isaiah 30 opens with ““Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the Lord, “to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin …” Then at verse 9 we read, “For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction.” Then we read of the people’s desire “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”

It’s a sad commentary really, isn’t it? The kind provision that God had given His people so that they might live a blessed life, but in turn they totally ignored it. “Stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel.

Despite all this later in Isaiah 30 we hear that “the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

How I pray that you and I would not be unwilling to heed the Lord’s instruction! As the world continues to draw us into a lifestyle of frantic frenzy, telling us “pleasant things, prophesying illusions.” may we have the wisdom to recognize that it is in repentance, rest, quietness, and trust in God, that we find our greatest strength.

 

REFLECT

Meditate upon each of these directives and consider how you might implement them in your life.

•     Repentance
•     Rest
•     Quietness
•     Trust