MEDITATIONS
FROM ISAIAH
February 8,
2006
Reading: Isaiah 48:1-11
“I knew that you would deal very treacherously, and were
called a transgressor from the womb” Isa 48:8
It is not only humbling but often profitable to you, my soul, to look back and remember how God has dealt with you over the years. Return far enough and begin with this consideration—God knew you would be treacherous and a rebel against Him. In spite of this, in His sovereign love and power, He called you to Himself and manifested the riches of his grace by justifying you, adopting you into his family, making you one of His sons: and giving you the Spirit of his Son in your heart, whereby you are able to call Him ”Abba, Father.”
You can look back and truthfully acknowledge that you have often been guilty of continued treachery yet He has not cast you aside but has dealt with you accordingly. His discipline was always an act of His love and it continued until it had done its work. Now the rod has been set aside and, as you look back, you can thank Him for it because you now enjoy a closer relationship with Him than ever before.
“Jesus
deals by thee, not according to thy deserts, but according to his own free and
sovereign grace. His love, and not thy merit, becomes the standard of his dealings
with his people. Oh! how blessed is it to trace mercies to their fountainhead,
and to behold God in Christ, dispensing pardon, love, and favour,
from his own free and sovereign will and pleasure; and every renewed mercy
carrying with it this divine signature, ‘Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and
confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel’.” Robert Hawker
“For My name's sake I will defer My anger, and for My praise I will restrain it from you, so
that I do not cut you off. Behold, I
have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of
affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it” Isa 48:9-11