Why Isaiah?
A Note From Mark:
Dear Life for Leaders Friends,
If you’ve been reading Life for Leaders for a while, you may recall that in the second half of the summer I take a break from writing new devotions. For a few weeks, I’ll share some devotions I wrote five years ago. They are based on the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament. (Don’t worry. I’ll get back to 1 Thessalonians in a few weeks.)
What you’ll see this year isn’t just the same as what I wrote before, however. I go through each devotion, editing, adding, cutting, and updating. So, even if you were reading Life for Leaders in 2017, what you’ll get this time around will have been refreshed.
Isaiah is an amazing book of the Bible. It reveals God and God’s heart to us in a way we need to hear today, perhaps now more than ever. So I commend to you these devotions from Isaiah.
As always, while on my break I’ll be praying for you and the other Life for Leaders readers each morning, asking God to guide, comfort, challenge, inspire, and bless you as you seek to live for God’s purposes and glory in all you do.
Grace and Peace, Mark
Scripture – Isaiah 40:31 (NIV)
Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Focus
The Old Testament book of Isaiah speaks powerfully to us today, even as it spoke to the people of Israel centuries ago. Isaiah will help us to know God and God’s ways that we might do them. Isaiah reveals God’s passion for justice. Isaiah helps us to know Jesus better. And Isaiah gives us hope.
Devotion
For the next few weeks our Life for Leaders devotions will be based on the Old Testament book of Isaiah. Why Isaiah? I have chosen this book for four main reasons. First, it speaks to today’s world in many ways. To be sure, Isaiah’s world was not modern, and we must remain aware of the wide cultural gap between his age and ours. Yet Isaiah spoke into a time of considerable confusion and conflict. The people of God were troubled by unsettling changes in the world around them that threatened to disrupt or even destroy their lives. This might have motivated them to cling even more tightly to God. Yet, it did not. In a day when so much felt uncertain, the Israelites chased after the capricious and idolatrous ways of the world. They turned their back on the Lord and his righteousness. Sound familiar?
Second, Isaiah helps us to understand, value, and live according to God’s justice. Time and again throughout this book, we’ll hear how the people of God have failed to live just lives. Yet God has not given up on them. Rather, the Lord reveals his passion for justice and calls his people to share this passion. God desires “to loose the chains of injustice, and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke” (Isaiah 58:6). We need to hear again God’s call to justice, so that we might live truly and fully as the people of God in a world filled with violence, oppression, and inequality. Isaiah will help us do this.
Third, though Isaiah prophesied for several decades, though he was active about seven centuries before the birth of Jesus, and though he addressed the people and situations of his own day, the book of Isaiah points with striking clarity to the coming of Christ. Some of the prophecies of Isaiah shaped in a stunning way the life, ministry, and death of Jesus. (We won’t get to many of these this summer. You’ll have to wait for 2023, I’m afraid.) Moreover, the ancient words of Isaiah helped the earliest Christians know Jesus more truly so they might live as his disciples more fully. Thus, Isaiah will help us know Jesus better and live more faithfully as his followers.
Fourth, though Isaiah minces no words in condemning the unrighteousness of Israel, and though he does not whitewash God’s wrath, the book of Isaiah is full of hope. No matter how dismal things might seem, God’s Servant, whom we know to be Jesus the Messiah, “will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth” (Isaiah 42:4). Therefore, “those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (40:31).
Have you been running so hard you have grown weary? Isaiah can help.
Have you been walking so much you feel faint, in heart if not in body? Isaiah can help.
Do you need hope that renews your strength today? Isaiah can help.
Do you want to soar on wings like eagles? Isaiah can help.
Thanks be to God!
Reflect
When you think about the prophecies of Isaiah, what comes to mind? Do you remember certain passages? What do they mean to you?
What things in your life make you weary? What events, people, or duties make you feel as if you might faint? How is God present to you in those parts of life?
Would you say you feel hopeful these days? Or hopeless? Or somewhere in between?
What helps you to be a person of hope?
Act
Go ahead and read the first chapter of Isaiah, paying attention to key themes. This will help you get ready for what is coming in this series on Isaiah.
Pray
Gracious God, thank you for the breadth and depth of Scripture. Thank you for all that you have for us when we allow your Word to speak to us. Thank you, most of all, for revealing the Incarnate Word through the written Word to us.
As we begin our journey through Isaiah, we ask you to be with us, to guide us, teach us, convict us, comfort us, inspire us, and give us hope.
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Commentary on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Isaiah and Work
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Mark D. Roberts
Senior Strategist
Dr. Mark D. Roberts is a Senior Strategist for Fuller’s Max De Pree Center for Leadership, where he focuses on the spiritual development and thriving of leaders. He is the principal writer of the daily devotional, Life for Leaders,...