Daily Devotion

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.


Nothing Is Too Hard for God
The LORD says,
Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant,
To bring Jacob back to Him,
So that Israel is gathered to Him
(For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the LORD,
And My God shall be My strength),
Indeed He says,
"It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth."
Thus says the LORD,
The Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One,
To Him whom man despises,
To Him whom the nation abhors,
To the Servant of rulers:
"Kings shall see and arise,
Princes also shall worship,
Because of the LORD who is faithful,
The Holy One of Israel;
And He has chosen You." - Isaiah 49:5—7 NKJV

God is not in hiding. He is standing out in the open, shining brightly. The servant of this passage from Isaiah is someone other than Israel. And the servant is someone other than the prophet Isaiah, since Isaiah was not the one to "raise up the tribes of Jacob." Nor was Isaiah the one to give "light to the Gentiles." Paul quoted from this passage in Acts 13:47 and applied it to himself and Barnabas as missionaries to the Gentiles. In Acts 26:23, when he explained the gospel to King Agrippa, he said that the Messiah would suffer, rise from the dead, and "proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles" (NIV).

Simeon was an old man living in Jerusalem when Jesus was born. God had told him that he would live to see the Messiah with his own eyes. When Jesus' parents brought him to the temple to consecrate him to God and offer the sacrifices required of a newborn son, Simeon took the infant Jesus into his arms and quoted Isaiah's passage. He told Mary and Joseph that Jesus would bring the light of revelation to the Gentiles (Luke 2:29—32).

Jesus and his body and bride—the church—have done and are doing just what was predicted of them by God's words to the prophet Isaiah. They have brought the light of salvation to everyone.