Monday after Cantate
Posted on May 16, 2022 by under
Scripture: Isaiah 14:1-3 (NKJV)
14:1 For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will still choose Israel, and settle them in their own land. The strangers will be joined with them, and they will cling to the house of Jacob. 2 Then people will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them for servants and maids in the land of the Lord; they will take them captive whose captives they were, and rule over their oppressors.
3 It shall come to pass in the day the Lord gives you rest from your sorrow, and from your fear and the hard bondage in which you were made to serve.
Devotion
The Lord’s gracious promises to His people–to choose them, to bless them, to sustain and protect them–give us hope when we are surrounded by our spiritual adversaries. The mercy and grace which God promises to those who love Him go hand-in-hand with the destruction of those who hate Him and who persecute His chosen generation. When God promised the people of Israel that He would deliver them from bondage and bring them to their own land, He also promised to overthrow their enemies and to put the oppressors in subjection. The Church has the fulfillment of these promises in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, its Head. When He rose from the dead, He not only brought life and immortality to light for all believers, but He crushed the head of that old serpent, the devil, and triumphed over death and the grave. While we still must contend with our spiritual adversaries here in this life, we know that the battle has already been won by the Captain of our Salvation, who shares this victory with us.
St. Paul writes to the Romans, “The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.” As God finally delivered Israel from their captivity and brought them back to their own country, we look forward to the day when Christ will lead us out of this old world, into the Paradise of the world to come.
Prayer: O God, Who makest the minds of the faithful to be of one will: Grant unto Thy people that they may love what Thou commandest, and desire what Thou dost promise; that, among the manifold changes of this world, our hearts may there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
