Thursday Reading: Isaiah 35:1-4
Key Verse: Isaiah 35:4
4 Say to those of a hasty heart, Be strong, fear not; behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the full dealing of God. He will come and save you.
Devotion:
No matter how good it gets here on earth better things await us in Heaven. The prophet wrote of the good times when the land was blossoming like a crocus and people were happy but told of even better times ahead when Christ would come to save people, not just His people but the gentiles as well. The more that we live the more that we realise just how much of a burden we do carry around with us with all the sin that we had in our lives. It is Christ and what He has done for us that allows us to have that burden lifted from our shoulders once and for all.
The closer we get to the end of the week, the more we look forward to the weekend thinking that things are going to get better, possibly quieter and hopefully more restful. The things that we have had to do during the week may well be hanging heavy on our minds but it is to Christ that we should be giving these burdens and not finding earthly ways to try and cover them for a little while. The weekend is short and the week ahead much longer. How can we expect to cover a weeks work of hassle with only two short days? But if we had someone who would come along and help to take those weekday burdens away from us and to leave us free for our weekends we would look forward to them even more!
Christ wants us to be able to stand against the rigours of the week by being strengthened through Him. He wants us to be able to stand sure in His name and to show others that we are supported by Him always. He wants us to know that we can have rest, not just in heaven after we die, but here on earth too. He wants us to bring our burdens to Him and be raised up with a new strength that comes from Him. Nothing the earth can do can ever take our Christ from us!
Points to Ponder:
Do you look forward to weekends?
Do you give your burdens to Christ?
