3.273 A Loving Parent

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as Savory Salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

I got a new context of these Isaiah chapters through our family scripture study. And I want to share that new context with you today. We are reading this week Isaiah chapters 40 through 49.

And it was inside of our Sunday evening scripture study as a family. I, your host. Thank you for watching a small episode every week for the scriptures, and it's called "Drawn In." It's a wonderful family opportunity.

I'll make sure that I send the link here that you can go check out "Drawn In" if you're interested. But inside of David Bowman's episode for this week, inside of Isaiah 40 through 49, he provided a context that I thought was really interesting. And I then went into the scriptures myself and I thought, how is this changing the way that I'm reading Isaiah?

This is what I've landed on. He shared the idea that through these Isaiah 40 through 49 chapters, what if we saw it through the lens of a loving parent trying to take care of his children? And it really changed the way some of these messianic verses spoke to me.

Because here we sometimes have Isaiah speaking directly, like, "I am the Lord" or "I, the Lord, say these things." But it changed when David Bowman brought up the idea of what if this was just a parent talking about their children. And so our verse for today, and perhaps other verses throughout the week as you study them, maybe you can lay this context on them and see what it does for you inside of your study of Isaiah. Our verse for today is Isaiah chapter 42, verse 6, and it is a continuation. 6 and 7 are one sentence, so I'm going to make sure you get the sense of 7 as well.

But verse 6 says this: "I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." Now that's already a pretty beautiful verse in my opinion. "I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness." Having a parent reach out and say, "Hey, come on, it's time to study your scriptures," or, "Hey, come join us for family prayer." I'm imagining that call for righteousness, call in righteousness. "And will hold thine hand." "And give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." My friends, what a beautiful verse, showing a loving parent who's concerned about his children and willing to do the things to help his children. Verse 7 continues that beauty, and I'll let you dive into that and see what it means for you in your life as well. I hope this week, inside of our reading, we can perhaps remember more so than usual the fact and the beauty that our Heavenly Father is our Father, a spiritual Father of all of our souls, and that these scriptures speak of His desire and the desire of His Son, Jesus Christ, to help us in righteousness, to hold our hand, to keep us, to provide a light for us all.

A beautiful, beautiful context for scripture study this week. That's all for today, my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this.

Step forward in faith and let's be savory salt. We will be here tomorrow, and we hope