the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
Isaiah 40:1
‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God’
Read Isaiah 40:1-11
This is the charge which God gives to all who preach the gospel. The prophets of God are preeminently messengers of comfort (Isaiah 52:7). We come to men in the name of God and proclaim to all who will receive it a message of blessed comfort in Jesus Christ.
Here is a word of comfort: the great God calls us ‘my people’! All men and women belong to God. He who created us owns us. But there are some people in this world who are especially loved of God and belong to him, as children to a father, as a wife to her husband. God says, of all who are saved by his grace, you are ‘my people’. We belong to him by special election, by particular purchase, by gracious regeneration, by his distinguishing call, by the faith which he has given us and by the bond of love which he has created.
It would seem that nothing could be more blessed than this: God says of us, you are ‘my people’. Yet, here is something even more blessed and comforting: the eternal, sovereign, triune God says to us, I am ‘your God’! The almighty, infinite, incomprehensible God condescends to be the personal possession of every believing sinner! He is God. I rejoice in that. But he is my God! That gives me comfort. Child of God, try to get a heart grip on this truth: God almighty is your God!
And our great God desires and, delights in the comfort of his people! Just as a father finds happiness in the comfort of his children, our Father delights in our comfort. He sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the world to comfort mourning sinners (Isaiah 61:1-3; Luke 4:17-21). The primary work of the Holy Spirit in this world is that of a Comforter (John 14:16; John 16:17). Our heavenly Father sovereignly arranges all the affairs of providence for the spiritual, eternal comfort of his people. Let every believer grasp this blessed truth: our great God delights in our comfort John 14:1-3).
