Restored (Daily Devotional)

Hello everyone, thank you for joining in as we study from the book of Isaiah. I want to read for us from Isaiah chapter 61, verse 2(the latter portion) and then verse 3, it says, ‘to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.’ We see that our God is somebody who comforts us, He replaces our mourning with rejoicing and gladness. In this passage, we also notice that our God strengthens us, He changes our hearts of distress into hearts that are strong in Him. I want to go back to the passage that says, ‘to give them beauty for ashes.’ In the bible times, when we read about people who put ashes on themselves, it depicted mourning, people put ashes on their heads to show that they were sad, they were grieving and in distress, but when you look at the word beauty there, if you look up the Hebrew word, it is a word called ‘peyar’ which refers to a headdress or a crown. So, what God is saying is, He is a restorer, He changes our predicament, He turns distress around and brings joy into our lives, even such that we are wearing a crown, we are wearing a beautiful headdress instead of putting ashes on our heads and continuing to grieve. So, God can do that, God is the one who brings beauty for ashes. Look at the fact that He replaces our crying and our mourning with joy, He lifts up the spirit of heaviness which maybe pushing us down, He is the one who causes that to be removed from us. Every yoke that oppresses us, He removes it because that is the anointing that the Lord Jesus carries to break the yoke of the enemy over our lives, even the yoke of sadness. Notice here, the last part of verse 3 says that ‘they maybe called trees of righteousness.’ As we think about trees, trees are established, are generally strong, are fruitful, useful for mankind because so much comes from trees and it really enriches the lives of human beings. We see here that God is able to establish an unstable life. It says trees of righteous, through God’s righteousness and we know in and through what Jesus has done, we have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It says the planting of the Lord that He maybe glorified, that points to the fact that it is God who has done it and it shall be unmistakable, everyone will look at such lives and say this has to be God and give Him the glory.

Let’s pray together, Father, we thank you for the truth of your word. We thank you for your love which is vast as an ocean, restoring us, renewing us, and strengthening us. Today, we speak joy and restoration into the hearts and lives of those who maybe in a difficult place, we pray that they will experience your touch and your breakthrough, in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.

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