THE GOSPEL OF ISAIAH
Isaiah 53:1-12
The 53d of Isaiah is the gospel in miniature. Jesus’ human touch, his warm sympathy with us in our common experiences, the realness of his suffering both in life and in death, his patient steadiness in spite of cruel misunderstanding—especially of why he died, that it was for us, out of love—all this is told hundreds of years beforehand. And there’s the gospel’s glad sequel yet to come—its triumph through all the earth.
Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Think about these questions as you meditate on the verse. What does this verse teach me? How does this verse apply to my Life?
GOD’S MEMORY
Zechariah 13:1-9
God never forgets. He couldn’t. His love prevents it. Through the long wait of the centuries, and the terrible, unending tragedy of sin, he clings to his purpose. The cry of his heart over the world’s need, and the ring of his insistent purpose to meet it, trail through the pages of the Book like the low sob of minor music out of a heart breaking with grief, yet holding steady in its inflexible purpose.
PRACTICAL IDEALISM
Mark 10:46-52
Jesus was a practical idealist. He had ideals, high ideals, the highest. He insisted upon them. Yet at every turn he was so simply, warmly practical. He was in the hurting-grip of his purpose to go to the Cross, yet he stopped at the cry of need. The whole world was filling his vision, yet the plea of a despised beggar stopped him. Only the Jesus-touch makes practical idealists, with broad vision and practical touch.
LOVE AT CLIMAX
Mark 10:32-45
Jesus felt the Cross. He felt it long before he reached it. Its shadow stretched far ahead and wrapped him in its black, clinging folds. He shrank from it, though he never flinched. The thorns tore, and the nails cut his heart, long before his body was touched by them. The shame of it stung to the quivering quick. But love held him steady. If it only might grip us, how Jesus loved us!
GOD’S SIGNATURE
Leviticus 19:11-18
God’s signature of love and right is on every bit of true life. He is love. And love, as God lives it, is not a weak sentimentality of mere talk, but the most thoughtful, sane thing imaginable. It makes an exquisite blend of the practical and the ideal. It burns selfishness out. And getting selfishness out makes one thoughtful in a sane, practical way of everyone he touches, and about everything—and in his own daily life.
