Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

Worth The Wait

ISAIAH 25:8-9 – He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

 

THEME OF THE DAY:  WORTH THE WAIT.  By and large, we are not very good at waiting on things.  From the trivial like a long traffic light stuck on red for what seems like eternity to the more significant like the Lord answering our prayers in life’s great trials to the ultimate event of the Lord’s Second Coming, we struggle with waiting.  Yet, waiting is one of the choice tools the Lord uses in our lives to build Christ-like character.

 

In today’s scripture, we have two actions being taken: one from the Lord and one from us.  The first action is the Lord’s promises given.

 

There are three sure promises He will accomplish in and for His children. The first two are He is going to forever get rid of the last enemy we face – death and the associated tears we shed.  No more funerals.  No more cemeteries.  No more weeping over graves of loved ones. No more lonely homes where someone is missing from the dinner table.  When the prophet Isaiah writes of God, He will swallow up death forever, our minds immediately ponder the next to last chapter in our Bibles and the repeated theme of no more death – He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:4).

 

The third “promise action” God is going to give to His children is the removal of being maligned, persecuted or being, the “laughingstock” of the world – and the reproach of His people He will take away from all the earth.  In this promise, we also find a New Testament compliment – This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels (2 Thessalonians 1:5-7).  Rejoice, someday, these promises will become reality, and that leads to the action in today’s scripture we are called to do.  It is repeated twice in the scripture of the day.

 

God would have His people learn patience in His dealing with us. Throughout life, this is one of the chief virtues the Lord develops in us and that by waiting upon Him to intervene in our lives, to answer our prayers, and to bring about help and relief in life’s many tough trials.  But the ultimate call to wait is the fulfillment of those eternal promises in today’s scriptures. Twice this is proclaimed by His waiting people – we have waited for Him.  Friends, I know it is hard to wait, but oh, focus more not on the act of waiting but on what and who we are waiting for.  Such meditation enables us to wait for those glorious promises with confidence and submission.  And for sure, all will be worth the wait!

 

PRAYER: “Father, strengthen me in the midst of life’s difficulties to wait upon the Day when all will be new.”

 

QUOTE: “We are called to wait on the Lord and in the waiting, we develop much spiritual character.”

 

Because of Him,

 

Pastor Jim