24–30 December 2017. Our Lord Jesus, So many times you have come to our hearts and found no place to stay. Forgive us our overcrowded lives, our busyness and our distractions, and our preoccupation with ourselves. Come again now, Lord. And even though our minds are a jumble of voices and our hearts are […]
17–23 December 2017. Isaiah 57 (click to read). In Isaiah 57 we find another example of God’s fierce criticism of Israel and all the evil they had been doing. Straightaway in verse 3 we get a sense of how deeply hurt God is by Israel’s behaviour, as he accuses them of being “witches’ children”, and […]
10–16 December 2017. Isaiah 48 (click to read). Reading through the book of Isaiah, we’ve gotten used to hearing lots of prophecies of judgement against the countries surrounding Israel. But that doesn’t mean that Israel itself was innocent and holy. Quite the opposite. Many of Isaiah’s harshest words were saved for Israel, because the Israelites […]
3–9 December 2017. Isaiah 41 (click to read). When the ancient Israelites looked at the world, they had a lot of reasons to be afraid. The Babylonians were always attacking and fighting for power, and there was little that tiny Israel could do. The strong and powerful did what they wanted, and there was simply […]
26 November – 2 December 2017. Isaiah 34 (click to read). During the history of the church, some people have looked at all the problems and disasters going on in the world, at all the pain and suffering, and have thought that God must have left us. “Maybe God was here when he created this […]
19–25 November 2017. Isaiah 27 (click to read). One of the hardest things in life is to let go of the people we love and watch them leave us. Children grow up, and then leave home to go study far away. Families separate to search for work in different cities. Friends leave us as their […]
12–18 November 2017. Isaiah 19 (click to read). Egypt was one of the great superpowers of the ancient world. For centuries they dominated the region around the Middle East and Northern Africa. And even when Egypt’s strength started to weaken and Assyria and Babylon began to rise to power, the Egyptian rulers still kept influencing […]
5–11 November 2017. Isaiah 12 (click to read). In Isaiah 12, the writer shares with us two wonderful hymns of thanksgiving and praise, giving thanks to God and celebrating his great love and compassion. In Isaiah’s day the Israelites had suffered so much. They were attacked by foreign countries, and they watched their cities be […]
29 October – 4 November 2017. Isaiah 5 (click to read). It’s a good feeling to make plans. We sit down and think of the future, think of the great things we want to do, the places we want to visit, the things we want to achieve. It makes us excited, and it fills us […]
22–28 October 2017. Psalm 103 (click to read). We all know that Jesus commands us to forgive others. Jesus tells us not to take revenge, not to pay back evil for evil, but to be ready to forgive people for the things they have done to us. While we all know this, sometimes we forget […]