Lectionary Calendar
Thursday, March 28th, 2024
Maundy Thursday
There are 3 days til Easter!
Attention!
We are taking food to Ukrainians still living near the front lines. You can help by getting your church involved.
Click to donate today!

Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
Devotional: July 25th

Resource Toolbox

THE COMFORTING GOD

Comfort ye, comfort ye My people saith your God, - Isaiah 40:1

This magnificent chapter is the prelude or overture to the grand music of the second part of the prophecies of Isaiah. Its first words are its keynote: " Comfort ye. comfort ye My people." That purpose is kept steadily in view throughout; and in this introductory chapter the prophet points to the one foundation of hope and consolation for Babylonian exiles, or for modern Englishmen, to that grand vision of the enthroned God "sitting on the circle of the earth, before whom the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers."

"They build too low who build beneath the sky."

For nations and for individuals, in view of political disasters or of private sorrows, the only hold-fast to which cheerful hope may cling is the old conviction, " The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth."

Notice how, first, the prophet points to the unwearied God; and then his eyes drop from Heaven to the clouded, saddened earth, where there are the faint and the weak, and the strong becoming faint, and the youths fading and becoming weak with age. Then he binds together these two opposites - the unwearied God and the fainting man- in the grand thought that He is the Giving God, who bestows all His power on the weary. And see how, finally, he rises to the blessed conception of the wearied man becoming like the Unwearied God. " They shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint."

And let me say, here is a lesson for us to learn of meditative reflection upon the veriest commonplaces of our religion. There is a tendency amongst us all to forget the indubitable, and to let our religious thought be occupied with the disputable and secondary parts of revelation rather than with the plain deep verities which form its heart and centre. The commonplaces of religion are the most important. Everybody needs air, light, bread, and water. Dainties are for the few; but the table which our religion sometimes spreads for them is like that at a rich man’s feast - plenty of rare dishes, but never a bit of bread; plenty of wine and wine-glasses, but not a tumblerful of spring water to be had. Every pebble that you kick with your foot, if thought about and treasured, contains the secret of the universe. The commonplaces of our faith are the food upon which our faith will most richly feed.

And so here, in the old, old Word, that we all take for granted as being so true that we do not need to think about it, lies the source of all consolation-the Hope for men, for churches, for the world. We all have times, depending on mood or circumstances, when things seem black and we are weary. This great truth will shine into our gloom like a star into a dungeon. Are our hearts to tremble for God’s truth to-day? Are we to share in the pessimist views of some faint-hearted and little-faith Christians? Surely as long as we can remember the name of the Lord, and His unwearied arm, we have nothing to do with fear or sadness for ourselves, or for His Church, or for His world.

Subscribe …
Get the latest devotional delivered straight to your inbox every week by signing up for the "Music For the Soul" subscription list. Simply provide your email address below, click on "Subscribe!", and you'll receive a confirmation email from us. Follow the instructions in the email to confirm your subscription to this list.
adsfree-icon
Ads FreeProfile