Passage Read: Isaiah 11-14
Meditation Verses: 12:1-2
Thought
This day is coming, the day described in Chapter 11, the return of Christ and the establishing of His kingdom and the exaltation of Israel. That will be a day of such joy and gladness, the like of which has never been seen. Because it will follow years of oppression, when they thought they were abandoned, forgotten by the Lord. As Peter wrote, judgment begins with the house of God. God's people must be disciplined and corrected before they can be exalted and saved. Great joy comes after great humiliation. God cannot be just if He judges the world for things His people do with impunity. So judgment must begin with us. The difference is that the children belong to the family, so they are not rejected. Outsiders, however, have no hope. The end of their judgment is destruction, not restoration.
Application
Judgment is yet coming on the household of God, Christian and Jew. The only thing I need to make sure is that I suffer unjustly, as one walking faithfully in God's ways, simply hated by the world. I don't want what I suffer to be discipline, but testing and proving that my faith is genuine. That begins by choosing obedience to the Lord in all things now when it's easy, giving up the things of the world for the things of heaven now, so that when it becomes hard, my decision has already been cemented. Then that day when Jesus returns and completes my salvation will be a day of great joy rather than loss. Now is the time to serve the Lord with all I have and all I am, because the day is coming when little or nothing can be done because it will be met with death.