Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.
O Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You; I will praise Your Name, for You have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
Isaiah 25:1 (ESV)
If you’ve been following my Thursday Encouragement posts for a while now, then you know that Isaiah is one of my most favorite books in the whole Bible. 25:1 is one of my favorite verses. It’s the first line in what is a beautiful prayer to God and prophecy of Israel’s future.
I like that it begins with a declarative statement — “God, You are my God.” It makes me think of Joshua 24 where Joshua tells Israel to make a firm choice in whom they will serve. He tells them, if you want to serve gods, serve gods, and if you want to serve God, serve God. The point Joshua is making is to stop being wishy-washy. Stop being a person who switches teams when it suits. It also makes me think of James 1 where James discusses not being double minded. True faith is being able to stand up and say with all your heart, “God, You are my God!”
I love the rest of Isaiah 25:1 because it illustrates what we should do after we emphatically say, “God is my God.” After we SAY this, we should then ACT. Act by exalting God. Act by praising God’s most perfect and holy Name. How do we act? By proclaiming all the wonderful, miraculous, faithful things God has done for us. We should not only share the miracles God did for us as Israel, but for us as individuals. We should be able to share our stories with others. How did God win our hearts? How did we end up serving Him instead of ourselves? When we do share our stories, God is able to work through us and His Kingdom grows. And this is the faithful plan — His Kingdom growing and growing, and His Son leading us all. I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait for Jesus to rule from the earth. Come, Lord Jesus, come!
The Christian Fiction Girl 