June 6, 2024

Passage Read: Isaiah 63-66
Meditation Verse: 66:24

Thought

One day, we will be able to look on all those people who rejected the Lord, as they suffer torment. Their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched. They will be visible to all the redeemed, and we will be able to look on them whenever we desire. And they will be an abhorrence to all who remain. We will see friends and neighbors and even relatives who rejected the Lord, who refused to believe and obey Him, and we will not feel pity but disgust. We will be so loyal and amazed and delighted in the Lord that those who reject Him disgust us. We will feel more loyalty to the Lord than toward those we once cared about and pleaded with to believe and repent. But because they refused, they will now be abhorrent to us.

Application

My love for God must far eclipse my love for people. My desire is that we all be at peace with the same love and delight in the Lord, but I cannot make others choose the Lord, and the Lord must be far more precious to me than even my own flesh and blood. If my family and friends will not bow the knee and honor the Lord with their lives, then I should certainly be grieved over that, but that should also be abhorrent to me. I know their end, if they continue in rebellion! I should love the Lord so much that if others treat Him with contempt, I have no pity for them, even as I long for them to repent. But they are not my highest priority: The Lord is, and seeking those who will honor Him, seeking to call others to glorify Him with their lives, from the heart.