Preparing Ourselves for Easter

Welcome to Day 3 of this 5-Day Devotional. If you are just joining us you can find Day 1 here, and Day 2 here.

Using the New Living Translation a section a day for five days this week (Monday-Friday).  The section of the day will be in bold italics. Please read the short section as if you have never read it before. Read it several times. Allow it to sink into your mind and heart. Think about how it must have been for Jesus to experience what is recorded. Why was it happening? What does it mean for us today?

I will comment about the section at the end of the entire passage. Finally I’ll suggest a question for you to ponder.

The post will end with a hymn or video appropriate for the section.

One more thing. Let’s approach this week’s readings with prayer. Ask God to open your eyes and your heart. What does he have for you in the reading. Maybe you don’t have much experience with prayer. That’s OK. God made you. He loves you. He wants to show himself to you. He’ll be glad to hear your prayer.

I am hopeful that Easter will have a deeper meaning for us all after we spend time in Isaiah.

Isaiah 52:13-53:12, NLT

The Lord’s Suffering Servant

52:13 See, my servant will prosper; he will be highly exalted. 14 But many were amazed when they saw him. His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man. 15 And he will startle many nations.Kings will stand speechless in his presence.For they will see what they had not been told; they will understand what they had not heard about.

53:1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,  nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.

4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.

7 He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 8 Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. 9 He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.

10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. 11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. 12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.

Comments on 53:4-6

…he was lashed—and we were healed!(v 5). We—every one of us—have strayed away like sheep! We, who left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one of us! He gave his life so that we could experience peace with God!

Questions to Ponder

Have you experienced for yourself God’s forgiveness of your sins? If so, how has it changed you? If not, would you like to?*

Video

*If you would like to receive God’s forgiveness and don’t know how to go about it, this link might be helpful to you.

Rejoicing in Christ’s Forgiveness,
Ginger