Joyful Thanksgiving
“In that day you will say: “O LORD, I will praise You. Although You were angry with me, Your anger has turned away, and You have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. For the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the springs of salvation, and on that day you will say: “Give praise to the LORD; proclaim His name! Make His works known among the peoples; declare that His name is exalted. Sing to the LORD, for He has done glorious things. Let this be known in all the earth. Cry out and sing, O citizen of Zion, for great among you is the Holy One of Israel.”
We must remember that when Isaiah was writing his prophecies, he did not divide them into chapters. That division came thousands of years later. Sometimes the divisions make sense and sometimes they create unnecessary confusion. Chapter 12 is a continuation of the description of the coming of the Messiah.
I am writing this devotional on Christmas Day, and throughout the world, people are celebrating. But no matter how grand or wonderful or touching those celebrations are, they are only a pale shadow of the joy that those who believe in the Messiah will have when He returns.
Let’s look at this prayer. First comes acknowledgement of sin. ““In that day you will say: “O LORD, I will praise You. Although You were angry with me, Your anger has turned away, and You have comforted me.” When God called Isaiah to be His prophet, the first thing Isaiah realized was that he was a man of unclean lips and that he dwelled among people with unclean lips. In other words, Isaiah felt total unworthy to speak even a single word for a holy God from his sinful human mouth. It was then that a cherub took a coal from the sacrificial fire in the temple and touched Isaiah’s lips, cleansing them.
None of us is without sin. Before we can worship God, we must confess our sins and ask for forgiveness. But 1 John 1:8 – 10 tells us, “ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.” God forgave Isaiah his sins, and God will equally forgive our sins when we confess them.
Once we have confessed our sins, we too can sing, “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. For the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation.” What does it mean to “draw water from the springs of salvation?” When we know that our sins have been forgiven, we can approach God with our needs, knowing that He will hear and will help us. This does not mean that life will be smooth and easy; sometimes God’s most advanced saints have been the ones who have suffered the most, even to the point of dying as martyrs. But we have the assurance that God will be with us in whatever we go through.
““Give praise to the LORD; proclaim His name! Make His works known among the peoples; declare that His name is exalted. Sing to the LORD, for He has done glorious things. Let this be known in all the earth. Cry out and sing, O citizen of Zion, for great among you is the Holy One of Israel.” Sometimes we might read these words and think, “So what? I’m not Jewish. Does this stuff still apply to me?” But God only chose the Jews to be His people so that they could demonstrate to the rest of the world what could happen to a nation completely dedicated to Him. The failure of the ancient Jews to fulfill God’s plans for them did not nullify God’s desire that all the world should know Him, the One True Living God.
There is an earthly Zion, namely, Jerusalem. But there is also a heavenly Zion to which anyone may belong if he or she will follow Jesus the Messiah. Jesus is worthy of all praise and worship because He has already defeated death and the grave and lives and reigns forever. Jesus is with us, for one of His names is “Immanuel,” “God with us.”
APPLICATION: Sometimes we wonder if God is really “Immanuel!” Our Christmas Eve this year was anything but quiet! On the evening of December 23rd, as we were passing slowly through a market day crowd in a nearby village, a motoking tricycle vehicle just like the one in the photo ran into our left rear bumper! With all those witnesses, it took a long time to sort out the owner of the vehicle and the driver. The driver proved to be a young man with a glazed look in his eyes, a Rasta hairstyle, and a necklace of cowrie shells.
We were not surprised to learn that the vehicle that hit us had no brakes and that it had been going way too fast. Where was God amid this problem? God used us to spare the lives of many people in the market day crowd as well as the lives of those riding in the open wagon of the motoking. Coming through the crowd from the other direction was an enormous articulated lorry. Had the motoking not run into us, it would have rushed on into the market day crowd, striking several innocent people and flattening itself on the front of the lorry. It’s likely that everyone riding in the motoking might also have been injured or killed. As it was, the only lasting casualty was our rear taillight cover that got broken.
But this accident proved to be a God – given opportunity. The following morning, the owner of the vehicle came to our home with a local dignitary. We were able to extend forgiveness to the family, encouraging them to get the vehicle repaired. My husband also encouraged the young man who had been driving to change his lifestyle and to accept Jesus.
Truly, if we have Jesus in our hearts, if Jesus is “Immanuel,” “God with us” to us, then we can celebrate, even when someone rear ends us. And one day when Jesus returns, there will be the greatest celebration of all time. God the Father will be celebrating along with Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. God is a good Father, and good fathers always want their children to join them when they celebrate. Why not join us?
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, help everyone who reads this to realize how much You love them and how much You want them to join that celebration. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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