Tues.’s Devo - Walk in the Light

Read: Isaiah 51:1-53:12; Ephesians 5:1-33; Psalm 69:19-36; Proverbs 24:7 Isaiah spoke to those looking for deliverance and were losing hope. He told them to remember how God took one man, Abraham and made a whole nation from him. God would do it again. God would preserve his people and make them great again. Isaiah prays that God would wake up and do something like he did in the past when he dried up the sea and made a path of escape through the dry ground. God responds to his prayer and brings comfort. They should not fear mere humans who can’t create anything. He is the creator of the whole earth and everything in it. They should not fear these people who intimidate them with fear. He tells them to wake up and put on strength as a garment. He tells them to rise and sit in place of honor and to remove the chains of slavery from their neck. God reminds his people that they chose to go into bondage because they turned from him and worshiped the gods of Egypt so he sent them to Egypt. Now they will know His voice and come to know his power. God was calling them out of the places they had been taken captive and they were to rejoice and look forward to a new life of freedom in their own land. Isaiah gives the most descriptive picture of Jesus’ first coming. He said that he would be a servant who would be despised and rejected by men. He would carry our weaknesses and sorrows. We would think he was being punished by God for his own sins, but they were really ours he was being punished for. He would be beaten beyond description and have all our sins laid on him. He would be like a lamb led to the slaughter without putting up a fight or defending himself. His life would be cut down in the middle of his time and be buried like a criminal. He would offer his life an offering for our sin. When it is all over, he would see the Lord’s good plan to save many was well worth all his suffering. He would receive his inheritance of many offspring and be honored and exalted above all. Paul tells the Ephesians to live their life as children of the light. Carefully examine what pleases the Lord and do those things. We are to expose the darkness - not participate in it. Jesus is the light inside of us and we are to let it shine through our lives. His light only produces what is good and right and true. We do that by being filled with the Holy Spirit, singing songs to the Lord among our saved friends and in our hearts. Everything we have comes from God and we can be thankful to him for all of it. We also submit ourselves to one another as Christ submitted his life to us. Women submit to their husbands who are the type of Christ. Husbands are to live as the picture of Christ to their wives. They are to love them as they love themselves and the wife is to respect her husband. Lord, we thank you for taking our sin in our place and giving us life instead of the death we deserved. May our lives bring you joy. May we walk in freedom and light.