Reading your Bible for today January 13

January 13 : Isaiah 53:1-12

Key Verse : Isaiah 53:5
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

Devotion :
I had been putting off writing this lesson simply because I do not like writing about Christ's death – why I should not, I don't know; for He is risen and building a place for us in heaven! Then it struck me... His crucifixion was predicted from the beginning of time, so why not highlight one of those events. Isaiah chapter 53 is one place in our bibles which was written about 700 years before Christ was born! Everything about Christ's crucifixion had been planned a long time before He came to earth. When He was here, He simply carried out what had to be done. It is not only until we read up about His death are we profoundly affected by how He lived His life... Just because of His awesome love for us!

He endured the pain of knowing what was about to come. He endured the physical pain as it happened. He endured the pain of people rejecting Him. He endured the pain of knowing how many had not turned to Him before it was finished. Each time we know of someone in our families who dies without knowing Christ, we are affected. Sometimes we think we will never get over people’s deaths, but with His grace and support we live on. But it must have been something else to know He was saying goodbye to many people who had rejected Him when He went to that cross!

Jesus was not just doing this all to prove a point. He was not doing this all to be a martyr. He was doing this all because He had promised to do this. He had shown others like Isaiah the promises He had made. Now was the time to show us His extraordinary love by living up to His promises.

When we make a promise to follow Him, we often get side tracked as we go along our way. There are times when we even forget about that promise. Christ never forgot. Christ never wavered. Christ will never forget and will never waiver. He is our rock of absolute truth whom we can depend on to help us live for Him!

Points to Ponder :
Have you broken a promise recently?

What sort of example were you?