Today’s reading: Isaiah 1:1-4:6
My selection: Isaiah 1:18-20
18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
20 but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be eaten by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
My reflections: The Lord, through His prophet Isaiah, has begun to enumerate the sins of Judah and Jerusalem. They have not just forgotten God, they despise Him. As a consequence, they are oppressed and overrun. They are about to be obliterated as a people. Their sacrifices are an offense to God, because they continue in empty rituals while they commit injustice and oppression against helpless widows and orphans.
But God calls them to come to Him and to be cleansed of their sin. Judgment looms, but there is still hope. All is not lost because the Lord is able to cleanse the most sin-stained person.
My challenge: Does the stain of your sin seem impossible to remove? In Christ, the most wicked are transformed and purified. God delights in saving repentant sinners. Do not think you are beyond the power of His grace. As the old hymn goes, “His blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for me” (by Charles Wesley “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”).
Tomorrow’s reading: Isaiah 5:1-8:22
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