Day 265

Isaiah 51:17-54:17, Ephesians 1:1-23, Psalm 109:21-31

God sets out quite a grand image of how the afflicted city will look once He has finished with it, adorned with all kinds of grand gems, it will look better than those gold encrusted hotels of Dubai, Bahrain and a number of other gulf states. Before this though, he speaks of the lamb that will be led to the slaughter – a prophesy of Christ.

Through our reading of the Old Testament we are quite accustomed to the idea of sacrifice and indeed the fact that lambs were a significant part of the sacrifice. In an image that is quite close to Christ’s arrest where he did not put up a fight we hear of the silence of the lamb that was to be slain. Hung on the cross next to two robbers (“the wicked”) having done no violence nor deceit, we can see why this passage is read concerning the death of Christ. It is a direct prophecy of what is to come.

It is significant that this precedes the part about the afflicted city. Initially it was this part of the reading that jumped out at me, the image of grand finery and the idea that this is what God does for us, we are precious in his sight, in fact we are more precious than this image of a glorious city. When we put the two passages next to each other we are reminded that it is by the death of Christ on the cross that we are turned from an afflicted city to a most precious sight for all the world to see. It is Christ’s death, an atonement, a sacrifice that we are made glorious in his sight.

Sometime we do not feel as though we are precious, we feel as though we are afflicted. We need to remember that we are the most precious thing in the sight of the Lord and through the death of Christ we are made even more precious.

Claim that preciousness for yourself today, for you are His.