Isaiah 55:1-9 (NRSV)
Read Isaiah 55:1-9 on biblegateway.com
Chapter 55Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Verse 2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Verse 3Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. Verse 4See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Verse 5See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
Verse 6Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; Verse 7let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Verse 8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. Verse 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Devotion
Isaiah urges us to “seek the Lord while he may be found.” Why would the prophet need to urge this of us? Don’t we want to have the Lord near to us? Most of the time, no, we really don’t want God near us—that would be both inconvenient and more than a little scary. We want God around, but only when we want, like a genie that we summon, control, and dismiss when no longer needed. But that is not the way it is with our God, who is always with us, even when we don’t want this. Why not? Because we know, only too well, how much our lives don’t measure up to the life that our God wants for us, and we really don’t want to change. But the life God offers us is so much better, if we would only trust and draw near.
Prayer
God, be near me and uphold me, through all the days of my life. Amen.
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