We Take Gifts for Granted
We are surrounded by blessings. We can get so used to them as a part of life that we forget to be thankful. We need to slow down and be intentional about seeing the blessings and being grateful.
As we have been going through the book of Isaiah, we have seen how the people were warned of the impending disaster if they didn’t change their ways. But there is hope if they do. (This is pretty much the message throughout the Bible.)
Isaiah spells it out for the people.
What you’re doing is wrong. If you change, the punishment won’t come. If you don’t, it will.
In Chapters 40 – 52 there is a message of hope. This is the hope of the coming Messiah and the price He will pay for our deserved punishment. Isaiah tells them in Chapter 53, verses 1-9 what’s going to happen 600 years in the future.
Who can believe what we have heard? He possessed no splendid form for us to see, no desirable appearance. He was despised and avoided by others; a man who suffered, who knew sickness well. Like someone from whom people hid their faces, he was despised.
It was certainly our sickness that he carried, and our sufferings that he bore, but we thought him afflicted, struck down by God and tormented. He was pierced because of our rebellions and crushed because of our crimes. He bore the punishment that made us whole; by his wounds we are healed. Like sheep we had all wandered away, each going its own way, but the Lord let fall on him all our crimes.
He was oppressed and tormented, but didn’t open his mouth. Like a lamb being brought to slaughter, like a ewe silent before her shearers, he didn’t open his mouth. Due to an unjust ruling he was taken away, He was eliminated from the land of the living, struck dead because of my people’s rebellion. His grave was among the wicked, his tomb with evildoers, though he had done no violence, and had spoken nothing false.
Even though this had not happened yet, it was being told by Isaiah as though it had already happened.
Granted, it might be hard to believe someone telling you things that hadn’t happened yet. We have no excuse, because it did happen, just like Isaiah said it would.
We need to remember to say thank You for this gift that we have been given by Jesus.
We say thank You by accepting it.
