“I will mention the loving kindnesses of the LORD, and the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD hath bestowed on us,…” (Isaiah 63:7a)
This is the first half of verse 7. Isaiah the prophet, after hearing how the Lord would deal with their enemies, could not keep quiet about the Lord’s Goodness. After all that the Lord has brought us through, how can we keep quiet?
How has the Lord rescued us from destruction? We were condemned before His eyes, full of the vile sludge of sin and rebellion. We wanted nothing to do with the Lord. Did we even believe in a God? We liked the darkness and refused the light because it exposed our defilement. Our hearts were without understanding. Our fears tormented us. Yet we turned to gods of our own making, that we knew wouldn’t see our sin. Our bodies were dying unable to survive the onslaught of the burden of our sin. Yet, knowing us, knowing our sin and knowing our rebellion, Jesus died for us. And He offered us a gift; a gift of life, a gift free of guilt. Forgiveness. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;” (Ephesians 1:7) And we would have continued in our journey to death if the Lord hadn’t opened our eyes and given us understanding of His precious gift. When we found that this gift was for us and that it was because of His great Love for us that He offered it, it seemed to us too good to be true.
This gift is God reaching out to us; a life line from the current of destruction taking us to our death. I will never cease to praise the Lord for His Love. I will never cease to give thanks to the Lord for His mercy. He rescued me and I am forever grateful. I am His. And He is mine.
And He continues to pour out His Love, His Goodness, His mercy and grace on us. He continues to work in us to complete that work. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2) How can we keep quiet when the Lord has rescued us? This is Isaiah’s heart.
And the Lord continues His work in us, to perfect us, to make us more like Jesus. “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.” (1John 2:6) As long as we stay close to the Lord, we will be more like Him. Unbelievers are looking for Truth. They watch the Christian to see if God’s Word is Truth. A follower of Jesus is the only Bible they will ever read. And when we fail to act like Jesus, the unbeliever’s first words are, “And you call yourself a Christian?” And we do fail because we still live in this body, and because we still live in this world. We know that we should not focus on others because we do understand that fellow believers are not perfect and they will fail us. Everyone will fail us at one point. But Jesus will not. As His visible representatives, our witness is one of the most important things to guard. Is what I say and do what Jesus would say and do. There is a popular saying going around. It has been commercially made popular. There are bracelets, home wall plaques, tee-shirts and many other commercial products with the phrase, “What would Jesus Do?” Because of who Jesus is and because of what He has done, we can with the help of the Holy Spirit be His witness, in our manner of speech, behavior and lifestyle. We can be a Bible that others can read. And so, we can take that phrase to heart in our daily walk. “What would Jesus do?” Indeed.
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