MEDITATIONS
FROM ISAIAH
January 18,
2006
Reading
“I am God, and there is none like Me”
Isa 46:9.
Take careful note, my soul, that these words not only declare Jehovah to be the only God but that nobody anywhere is like Him. In spite of the numerous claims of the heathen that God has challengers, let them compare them to our God and they will fall embarrassingly short.
Jesus Christ is a divine person and therefore every divine attribute is found in Him. Apparent extremes meet in the One we call God, our Savior and Lord. His magnificence is beyond our comprehension, yet He lowers Himself to wash the feet of His disciples. None can compare with Him in holiness and righteousness, yet He exposed Himself to our filth and wretchedness by becoming sin for us. From His high position as King of Kings and Lord of Lords He offers Himself to be slaughtered by tyrants. In His sight from glory men are but worms and nations as a drop in a bucket, yet He humbled Himself and became one of them.
Such extremes are only to be found in your Redeemer—and it was necessary for your salvation. This was the only way God determined that you and He could be reconciled. The distance between you and God, created by sin, was so great that your Jesus “humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
Because of His divine sacrifice His enemies are made friends; those who are but worms in His sight He has made saints and participants of divine glory; those who nailed Him to the cross receive forgiveness, and those who spit in His face are offered salvation from their sins. This is the finest example of grace. Exercise your mind as you contemplate how He who is beyond comparison in glory and majesty became sin so you could be reconciled to God.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me;
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.
Thro’ many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years.
Bright shining as the sun;
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.
John Newton, 1779.