Day 90 – December 27, 2023: Isaiah 33-35 and Matthew 5-7

Isaiah speaks out strongly against the other nations and warns them that God will bring down his strong arm of judgment. Even though the power of God is highlighted it does seem to be less geared to the surrounding nations and more for an opportunity for Isaiah to encourage and lift up the drooping spirits of the people of God. As they see the inevitable decline and fall of all that they once held dear a good prophecy of how God will swoop in and empty out the enemies with a vengeance never hurts to lift the spirits. Chapter 35 does provide us with some verses that we have seen before and which should sound familiar. It provides a hope for the future that will be built upon the presence of the Lord in our midst. It is Emmanuel without actually saying the word.

These are Jesus’ ten commandments in Matthew 5-7. The Beatitudes, named as such because each verse in chapter 5:2-11 begins with the obligatory: “Blessed are you…” The “Blessed are you…” is the term beatitude, which means blessed in an English that we rarely use today. But the entire three chapters we find Jesus on a mountain and so it is called the sermon on the mount. I love going to this place in Israel, not so much for the church that is located marking a hypothetical spot where Jesus may have preached, but right next to it there is a field where I like to take the group and we spread out and imagine what it may have been like to hear Jesus’ words directed to us. These words in this sermon are really directives on how to live our lives.

You can’t miss the importance of the commandments that Jesus gives in these chapters. As we focus on them we see that we are able to live lives of righteousness if we would just follow what Jesus says in these three chapters. It should be an emphasis on how we live and an emphasis on how we make our decisions on who to elect into office, and it should be an emphasis on who we decide to hire. So many things in our lives, all things really, ought to be directed by these three chapters and the words that Jesus speaks in these chapters.