Year 6, Day 10: Isaiah 26

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Guidance

• Guidance: God grants us His guidance.  Sometimes this guidance is God leading us away from temptation.  Sometimes this guidance is helping us to follow in a direction for which He has chosen.  Our default position should be to wait for God’s guidance and then follow when it comes.

This is a great topic to talk about as we flow from Isaiah 25 into Isaiah 26.  Yesterday we spoke about the fact that one of our main callings is to wait upon the Lord and then join God in action when He moves His hand into motion.  That’s what we hear in the definition of guidance that I have set before us today.  We wait for God’s guidance and then follow when it comes.  In fact, that’s pretty much what one of the major points of this chapter in Isaiah is all about.

In the middle of this chapter Isaiah is clear in telling us that we learn through judgment.  God pronounces His judgment and we who are in the wrong – all of us, by the way – are humbled.  We all have something that we can learn through His judgment.

Of course, His judgment is not an easy process to endure.  Who likes to be told that they are wrong?  Who likes to think about how they can change?  After all, change is hard work!  But when God gives us guidance, it is often because we have something within us that needs to be tweaked and changed!

However, the goal of His judgment is for our salvation.  He does not just us to demonstrate our condemnation.  He judges us so that we might see the error of our way, repent, and receive His guidance.  In a very tight nutshell, that is what the Assyrian captivity is all about!  As Isaiah says in the middle of this chapter, if favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness!  That’s us, and that’s what guidance is all about.

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