The Voice of the Prophet, Day 34 Define success. Read Isaiah chapter 34. As God continues to discuss judgment on the people of Israel, we are forced to examine what it is that we use to define success. God talks about the fact that he’s going to take away everything in the kingdom and the people will be left with nothing to call a kingdom. The very items and status that they used to define success will be ripped away from them. How do we define success in our lives? When we come to the end of the day, how do we know whether or not we’ve had a good…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 33 The key. Read Isaiah chapter 33. So many people, myself included, are looking for the key to life, the key to happiness, or the key to wisdom. Here, as we see God explaining more about his righteousness and judgment, we understand that God himself is actually the key. God is the key to the treasure of knowledge and wisdom. God is the key to the rich store of salvation. As we think about a key, we realize that keys are there to unlock something that, without the key, we wouldn’t be able to access. Without God we will not be able to access…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 32 Peace and Confidence. Read Isaiah chapter 32. In all the discussion from previous chapters about the Lord’s judgment, we need to make sure we understand exactly what God’s justice brings about. You see, God bringing judgment on people paves the way for the righteousness of God to be seen. When God’s justice is experienced, God’s righteousness overflows. There’s some incredible benefits to the righteousness of God. God’s righteousness brings peace and confidence. Without God’s righteousness, we cannot experience peace and we will not have confidence. We cannot experience God’s righteousness without understanding God’s justice. These two things go together. We must understand and…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 31 No defense needed. Read Isaiah chapter 31. As Isaiah continues to prophesy judgment, we learn more about who God is. Isaiah gives an analogy that God is like a lion. But, not just any lion. In verse 4, we see that the lion is roaring in its power, and even though all of the armies and all of the people coming together against the lion, it does absolutely no good. The lion is victorious. We can trust that God will be victorious in every battle. We do not have to try to defend God. We do not have to try to fight a…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 30 “Lie to me.” Read Isaiah chapter 30. When we read these verses, we see that the people really just wanted to be lied to. They didn’t like the truth, so they decided that they would prefer to be lied to. Instead of understanding their sin and dealing with it, they would rather just be told that everything is OK. They just wanted to be lied to. What do we want? Are we willing to confront the honest truth, even when it’s hard and uncomfortable? Or, do we want lies, and just want to hear things that make us feel good? We need to…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 29 The Hypocrite. Read Isaiah chapter 29. As God continues sharing about judgment of the people, we read this verse. The people are telling God that they love him, but in actuality, their hearts don’t demonstrate that. Often, people who are frustrated with churches and church people accuse them of being hypocrites. A hypocrite is someone who says one thing and yet, does something else. In a lot of cases, there’s truth to the accusation in churches. The Christian life is about denying yourself and living for Christ. We can all admit that some days we do that better than others. Some days we…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 28 The wreath. Read Isaiah chapter 28. Wreaths are very common this time of year. Often we think of a wreath as something that we hang on a door or a wall as a decoration. For the people in this day and time, the wreath was the winner’s crown. It was a garland decoration given to someone to award them for winning the prize. This chapter talks about how the people had created their own wreath that they were giving as a prize. But, it wasn’t actually very prizeworthy. Instead, people were foregoing receiving God as the prize and instead seeking after this pale…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 27 God the Gardner. Read Isaiah chapter 27. Isaiah is sharing about who God is in this chapter. God shares that he is the one who tends the garden. He keeps the vineyard. So much care and compassion goes into tending plants. God is so faithful and so loving and kind that he gives them exactly what they need. In this example, he’s caring for the people of Israel. Even when we don’t understand it, and even when we disagree with how he cares for us, we can trust that his care is the best for us. There are many days when I want…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 26 Peace in God. Read Isaiah chapter 26. This chapter of praise to God is a beautiful expression of what it means to wait and trust in God. Our mindset is so crucially important. What we have our minds set on and what we think about will dictate much of what we experience on a day to day basis. God wants us to realize that setting our mind on him and trusting in him is going to keep us on the right path. If we will keep our minds steadfastly fixed on him, we can experience tremendous peace. What is our mind fixed on…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 25 God acts. Read Isaiah chapter 25. Reading through Isaiah chapter 25 is a beautiful reminder of all that the Lord is going to be doing. We know that God is in control of everything. We know that God is overall things. There will come a point in time when God will act on the authority that he has. It can be easy for us to not think about God in the position of power that he truly has. But God is, in fact, the one who is in control over everything. He will choose to act. We will see his glory displayed in…