The Strength

April 25, 2014

Was it helpful to stop and realize that as Christians, we are what God guaranteed Jesus?

Does it change things when you see that as you live by God's strength with your hope set in Him that you are proof - even to Jesus - of God's faithfulness?

I hope so!

It changed things for Jesus. He did all that He did for His Father's glory and He was able to do it because He was convinced that His Father was faithful.

In Isaiah 50, we see exactly what got Jesus through His ministry on this earth.

In Isaiah 50:4-5 Jesus says, "The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward."

Jesus is saying that He was taught by God .  Jesus says that He is always listening to the Father who opened His ear.

In Isaiah 50:6 Jesus says, "I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting."

That's just SOME of the torment He endured...He knew it was coming and He knew that it was going to take His cooperation.

Jesus tells us about what it was that gave Him the ability to go through with it...By now He has been assured that God is faithful and guaranteed that His work will not be in vain. It was not you and I that got Him through...Isaiah 50:7 says, "But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame." 

Jesus lived and was killed and rose again and ascended because He was driven by these words: "but the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced"! 

Disgraced and put through terrifying things, He wasn't really disgraced. The Lord God helps Him, the one who is faithful would make everything right.

Christian, piece of living proof, your Savior pressed on with His "face set like a flint" because He knew that God was His strength!

At the heart of Jesus' faithfulness was the Father - His glory, His Word, His strength, His plan, and His faithfulness. 

He is YOUR guarantee and you are His guarantee.

God is faithful.

P.S. Remember that these words were recorded about 700 years

 before Jesus Christ was born to the virgin Mary!