Today's Scripture
Prayers of the World Isaiah 53:1-12
Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
4 Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
9 They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb[c] with the rich,[d]
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
When you make his life an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
11 Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
RJ's Devotion
What Does the Passage Say?
V. 1. Isaiah is about to reveal the grand plan of God’s saving grace.
V. 2-3 The savior didn’t look like a savior. He was normal, even hard to be considered normal, more close to being dispised.
V. 4-5 He took the burden of our iniquities and bore our sin, so we can become a whole.
V. 6-7 He was silent, to the end, even when the people he came to save turned away.
V. 8-12 The plan was simple, ‘he came to give himself, for us, so we can live.
What Does the passage Mean to Me/US?
“Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?” (V. 1 The Message)
It is hard to comprehend God’s plan for us. It is a paradox hard to phantom.
A God, so many people misunderstand, who seems to be the Punisher, was instead punished.
Not because God was imperfect, but because we were.
Not because there was no other way, God could have just ended the world, but because God loved us so much.
Not because he couldn’t understand, but because God wanted us to believe that God truly understands.
Not only understand but brings victory over death.
It is somehow, still, hard to fathom, let alone believe.
It is, however, the grace that brings us to the point of accepting God’s love and grace.
Prayer
Lord, help us to truly understand your great love and grace. Help us to live worthy of that love. In Christ Name, we pray, AMEN.
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