Being Salt and Light: Overcoming Modern Challenges

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“The proud city of Samaria— the glorious crown of the drunks of Israel— will be trampled beneath its enemies’ feet. It sits at the head of a fertile valley, but its glorious beauty will fade like a flower. Whoever sees it will snatch it up, as an early fig is quickly picked and eaten. Then at last the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will himself be Israel’s glorious crown. He will be the pride and joy of the remnant of his people.”
Isaiah 28:3-6 NLT

Why do people sometimes fail to see serious problems and issues and carry on their lives regardless? The leaders in Samaria failed to see that their inebriation was badly affecting their ability to make rational decisions, including that of worshipping God. But Isaiah could see a time when the drunkards were no more, and “at last the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will himself be Israel’s glorious crown”. But verse 6 ends with the sobering thought that there will only be a remnant of the people left. The majority will have disappeared along with the bad leaders.

But returning to our initial question today, consider an alien from another planet observing the human beings on Planet Earth and the way they were conducting their lives. They would observe the same drunkenness affecting people’s behaviour, and they would wonder why they did it. Add into the mix the other drugs that seem to underpin so many lives, and they would be left scratching their heads in wonder. How could such an intelligent species fall into such strange and debilitating habits? must have been their question. In Samaria, drunkenness led to the collapse of a nation. Today, in 21st-century Britain, drugs destroy lives and lead to the rest of society having to mop up the after-effects. Ruined lives and families, and health care costs that reach eye-watering levels.

Of course, the drug community is small, compared with society as a whole, but it is still significant, affecting society negatively. But in another part of society we have the Christian believers, who are also small in number. They are also significant, but nevertheless have a positive impact on society because of Jesus’ exhortation to be “salt and light” in their generation, their families and amongst their friends and communities. Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavour? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:13-16). 

Salt adds flavour to the food we eat, and in times gone by, before refrigeration had been invented, salt was used to ensure food, particularly meat, didn’t spoil. In our societies, the analogy extends to believers, pilgrims such as us, who are meant to stop moral decay in our society by standing up for honesty, kindness, and justice. I support an organisation called the Christian Institute, and they do just that. They constantly lobby politicians and others in authority, trying to introduce or develop Godly influences into the very seat of our governments. Often the work that they do goes on under the radar and away from the public gaze. Only rarely does their work generate a media headline, but the “salt” in their activities achieves many good results. We pilgrims, too, have the same influence when we interact with our fellow citizens, and it is worth considering joining a community group, where our knowledge of God and His ways will counter the enemy’s disruptive activities. Believe it or not, this is also an important role in our churches because some congregations lose their way from time to time, building their spiritual activities on liturgies and jumble sales rather than the Word of God. But we remember that salt only works if it keeps its unique properties. If a believer acts just like those in the selfish world around them and forgets God’s teachings, they lose their spiritual impact and become useless to God’s mission. A sobering thought.

We pilgrims also remember that we are beacons of light in our communities. A question sometimes asked, “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” I ask this in a positive way, because unless those around us know about our faith, how can we ever hope to “give light to everyone in the house”? Our “house” will extend beyond our homes to anywhere we go, such as our places of work, or the supermarkets, the local park, care home or wherever. Jesus referred to “good deeds” in His analogy and how they can influence people so that they see God in all that we do. Evangelism is mostly not up-front Gospel preaching on a street corner, or the handing out of tracts outside a nightclub, but demonstrating that, in all that we do, we are doing it for God. People will then see from the quality of our work that we are of a different spirit. Colossians 3:23, “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people”. Someone once said, “Preach the Gospel and if necessary use words”.

Samaria was facing destruction and exile in the years to come, but “the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will himself … will be the pride and joy of the remnant of his people”. God always has a remnant of His people who carry the torch of His presence from generation to generation. As we pilgrims know, we are just such a people. Through our Godly lifestyles, we worship and praise the One who one day will bring to fruition a world full of remnants, gathered over the centuries. A people that the Apostle John could see, as we read in Revelation 21:7, “All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children“. We may be facing all sorts of challenges, but one day things will be different, as we dwell in God’s presence forever.

Dear Heavenly Father. We thank You for Your Word and Your Spirit, which assist us in every situation we find ourselves in. Drunkenness is not for us, and we pray today that You fill us afresh with Your Holy Spirit, so that we can be effective for You wherever You have planted us. We praise and worship You today. Amen.

Restoration Through Christ: From Useless to Fruitful

Posted on by Adrian Clark
Pink and white blossoms growing on a grafted tree in an orchard

“The Lord did this to purge Israel’s wickedness, to take away all her sin. As a result, all the pagan altars will be crushed to dust. No Asherah pole or pagan shrine will be left standing. The fortified towns will be silent and empty, the houses abandoned, the streets overgrown with weeds. Calves will graze there, chewing on twigs and branches. The people are like the dead branches of a tree, broken off and used for kindling beneath the cooking pots. Israel is a foolish and stupid nation, for its people have turned away from God. Therefore, the one who made them will show them no pity or mercy.”
Isaiah 27:9-11 NLT

The picture Isaiah painted from his thoughts was one of future desolation, an apocryphal scene of towns intact but with all inhabitants gone. Signs of neglect would be everywhere. There would be no people, only a few calves left wandering. They would have no proper food, so they would fare the best they could on what they could find, mainly twigs and branches. Their future would be uncertain. The Asherah poles and pagan shrines would all be demolished, a fitting end to the idolatry that brought Israel down. As he mused on the picture before him, Isaiah compared the people to branches found on a forest floor, branches that had died and, after falling off the tree, were left mouldering until they eventually disappeared, absorbed into the vegetable detritus below the trees. And all because they had “turned away from God“. God would have no pity or mercy for them because He would honour the choices they had made. He had to, because that was how He created them. In Deuteronomy 30:19-20, we read, “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”. That same principle applies to all human beings who have the capacity to make the choices to which God referred.

As we read yesterday, Jesus is the true Vine, and He said, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me” (John 15:4). He then said, “Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.” It’s obvious, really. Any branch that loses the life-giving sap that runs through a tree will inevitably die and fall off, no longer useful for bearing fruit. It might be useful for heating cooking pots or fertilising the ground for future growth, but nothing else. In the same way, any Christian who ceases to be connected to Jesus by following His ways will end up in the same place as a useless branch, “gathered into a pile to be burned”.

Jesus’ analogy of His disciples as branches growing from a grapevine was one they would immediately relate to. Any gardener today will understand this analogy as well, because there are many bushes that consist of a decorative variety grafted onto a wild root and trunk. My wife and I had a cherry tree planted in our front garden, with the wild part so vigorous that it started to take over, and the impressive display of grafted blossom became smaller and smaller each year. Isaiah’s picture of desolated towns, empty of the people he described as dead branches, fits well with what Paul wrote in Romans 11:17: “But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree—some of the people of Israel—have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree“. As with my cherry tree, we pilgrims are new branches grafted into the original rootstock, Jesus Himself. 

The question for us pilgrims is about the fruit we are producing, if any. Jesus said, “[His Father] cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more” (John 15:2). The danger for disciples everywhere, even us pilgrims, is that we stop producing fruit. But what fruit are we supposed to be producing? We find a list in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” How can we test ourselves objectively to assess our fruit-bearing? As the Psalmist David wrote, we need to bear our souls before God and pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Psalm 139:23-24). What is God saying to us today about the condition of our hearts? 

But back to the question about the fruit we are producing. Here are some signs of slowly growing spiritual fruit in our lives: are we noticing that we react more calmly than we used to when facing times of stress and anxiety? Do we care deeply about the well-being of others, even when it requires sacrifice or the forgiveness of wrongs? Do we refuse to respond to harsh words, instead letting the Holy Spirit help us to hold our tongues? Are we consistently faithful to God rather than just visiting Him from time to time? Many more examples show the Holy Spirit producing the kinds of fruit God desires in our lives, and we don’t have to strive to produce them. Living a life pliable in God’s hand is all that is required.

Many questions remain for us pilgrims today, but no matter how difficult the answers may be, we need to reflect on them. Paul wrote, “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5). We need to trust Jesus in all that we do, not just in times of difficulty. We need to listen constantly to the voice of the Holy Spirit within us, allowing Him to guide us into all truth and help us produce the fruit that God desires. Paul wrote, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10). God never intended us to become useless branches. Thankfully, God is in the recycling business. He takes the useless and transforms them into the useful through the blood of Jesus. A miracle, if there ever was one.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for Your grace and love, and for Jesus, who came at just the right time so that we might be restored and justified, no longer useless. We declare our faith and trust in You, and we invest our lives deeply in Your life-giving Spirit, so that we can produce the fruit You require. We ask this in Your precious name. Amen. 

Podcast Episode: Resurrection Hope In Isaiah

Posted on by Adrian Clark

Pip: There's a particular kind of hope that doesn't flinch at a grave — and Being a Pilgrim is the place where Adrian Clark goes looking for it, straight through Isaiah and into Revelation.

Mara: This episode sits entirely in that territory: resurrection promises in Isaiah 26, and what happens when those promises collide with the end-times imagery of Revelation 20 and 21.

Pip: Let's start with what Isaiah actually says about death, suffering, and the hope that outlasts both.

Isaiah 26: Resurrection, Judgement, and the Hope That Outlasts Death

Mara: The opening question here is a hard one — what do you do when your best efforts produce nothing? Isaiah 26 names that failure honestly, and then turns it into a theological pivot.

Pip: The passage does something striking with that pivot. Isaiah sets up the despair first, then lands the counter-claim — and the contrast is the whole argument.

Mara: The verse that anchors this is Isaiah 26:17-19, and the setup is the suffering: "We, too, writhe in agony, but nothing comes of our suffering. We have not given salvation to the earth, nor brought life into the world. But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy!"

Pip: So the upshot is that human effort hits a hard ceiling, and resurrection is what breaks through it — not as a reward for trying harder, but as something given from outside entirely.

Mara: Exactly that. The post is direct: "our ultimate hope does not rest in what we can accomplish, but in what God accomplishes for us." That's the load-bearing claim everything else hangs on.

Pip: And to illustrate how far people will go to avoid that conclusion, there's a genuinely arresting detour into cryopreservation — bodies frozen to minus 196 degrees Celsius in liquid nitrogen, waiting for a future revival that still cannot guarantee salvation.

Mara: It's used to make a precise point: no expenditure of money or ingenuity purchases life after death. The post quotes Paul — "God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God" — and sets that against every human workaround.

Pip: The resurrection itself is then grounded in Jesus as the first instance. The post quotes Matthew 28:6 — "He is not here; he has risen, just as he said" — and frames the empty tomb as the prototype for what Paul describes in 1 Thessalonians 4:16.

Mara: And the segment closes on a genuinely joyful image: the dead awakening and singing. "Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy" — resurrection leading not to relief but to worship.

Pip: The second post in this theme, End Times: Isaiah 26 and Revelation Insights, picks up exactly where that joy leaves it — with the verses that immediately follow in Isaiah 26, which are considerably less comfortable.

Mara: Verses 20 and 21 instruct God's people to lock their doors and hide while the Lord comes to punish the earth for its sins. The post connects this directly to Revelation 20's Great White Throne — the dead judged according to their deeds, and anyone not found in the Book of Life cast into the lake of fire.

Pip: That is a significant tonal shift from a resurrection chorus, and the post holds both without softening either.

Mara: It does. There's a careful note that the judgment described in Isaiah may have addressed Israel's immediate situation, but the post argues that through Jesus, believers escape the coming judgment regardless — citing John 3:17-18: those who believe are not judged; those who do not are already walking in judgment, effectively out on bail awaiting their trial date.

Pip: That phrase — out on bail — does a lot of work. It makes the urgency concrete without being theatrical about it.

Mara: The post ends with Paul's words from Romans 15:13: "I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit."

Pip: So the arc runs from writhing in agony, through an empty tomb, to a song — and the judgement passages sit in the middle not as a threat to believers but as the reason the message matters to everyone else.

Mara: What holds these two passages together is that the hope isn't wishful — it's grounded in something that already happened, and it points forward to something still coming.

Pip: A grave borrowed for a weekend, and a song waiting on the other side of it. There's more of Isaiah ahead — we'll see you there.

The Promise of Resurrection in Isaiah’s Teachings

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Just as a pregnant woman writhes and cries out in pain as she gives birth, so were we in your presence, Lord. We, too, writhe in agony, but nothing comes of our suffering. We have not given salvation to the earth, nor brought life into the world. But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead!”
Isaiah 26:17-19 NLT

Isaiah describes the efforts the people made so that something would happen. They writhed apparently in agony, “but nothing comes of [their] suffering”. In times of extreme stress and distress, people sometimes do extraordinary things, as much out of desperation as anything else. The bottom line, though, was that Israel’s own efforts could not bring about the salvation they desperately needed. That points us towards a fundamental biblical truth: our ultimate hope does not rest in what we can accomplish, but in what God accomplishes for us. Isaiah wrote that salvation could not come through human efforts, no matter how hard we try. Some people do extraordinary things to maintain their appearance or prolong their lives through this potion or that snake oil, but inevitably their efforts reach an endpoint that keeps them from reaching their ultimate hope. But even that doesn’t stop some people. They arrange for their bodies after death to be frozen, a process called cryopreservation, where their body fluids are replaced with a medical form of antifreeze before their remains are frozen in liquid nitrogen to a temperature of -196 degrees Celsius. But their salvation still cannot be guaranteed, even if, on some future date, they can be unfrozen and brought back to life. Sooner or later, eternal death will result. As we pilgrims know, there is only one way to be saved, and that is through Jesus. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Paul wrote, “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God” (Ephesians 2:8). The reality is that no matter how much money you spend, it is impossible to purchase a life after death through anything we can do. Our bodies will die and be returned to the elements from which they have been constructed, but our souls and spirits will live eternally in the place of our choosing. We can reach out in faith to our Heavenly Father, accepting His free gift of eternal life spent with Him, or we can reject Him and find out what hell will ultimately be like. 

There is another Godly “but” in the next verse from our reading today. “But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again!” The previous verses speak of pain, failure and helplessness. Then God says that death itself is not the final word for God’s people. David wrote, “For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one to rot in the grave. You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever” (Psalm 16:10-11). The first “Holy One” was, of course, Jesus, and we know that the tomb in which He was laid was soon empty. Jesus only borrowed it for the weekend. After the death of Lazarus, Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?” (John 11:25-26). Early on in His ministry, Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. Such a straightforward and simple statement, but the truth and reality of Jesus’ mission has divided mankind for centuries, with most people choosing to reject what He said. Worse, partly because of Jesus’ heritage and ancestry, there has been an uprising of animosity against the Jews, something we term anti-semitism. But this animosity has been extended to include Christians, and Open Doors has calculated that 388 million believers in Jesus are being persecuted for their faith today. This amounts to 1 in 7 believers across the globe. 

One day we pilgrims will be resurrected. Jesus was the first: the angel said to the women who had come to prepare His body for a proper burial, “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay” (Matthew 28:6). No matter how hopelessly final Jesus’ crucifixion, death and burial seemed to have been, we worship a God who specialises in bringing life out of situations that appear to be hopeless. What happens next is beyond even our wildest dreams. Paul wrote, “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). In 1 Corinthian 15:53, Paul wrote, “For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies”. The hope that we pilgrims hold is therefore much more than wishing tomorrow will be better. Our hope reaches beyond the grave. Even death cannot separate a believer from God’s purposes and promises.

Our verses today end with a song. Isaiah wrote, “Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy!”. How marvellous is that! Our future hope is in a life of joy where there will be no more sickness, crying and death. The dead are described as awakening and singing, and we are promised that the grave is not the end; our resurrection will lead to worship. Can we get our minds around the fact that we will wake up in God’s presence with a song of praise on our lips? In our current lives, we may be passing through the valley of death, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. One day we will be singing our spiritual hearts out in God’s presence. It is only God who can deliver the salvation our hearts yearn for, and once again I am reminded that I have been commissioned to tell this fact to those around me. A simple message: “Hell is hot, Heaven is real, and Jesus saves!” 

Dear Heavenly Father. A song is already forming on my lips, a song of worship to You, who loved me so much that You sent Your Son, Jesus, to die for my fellow pilgrims and me. There are no words available to express our gratitude, but grateful we are with every fibre of our beings. We worship You today, and will continue to worship You across the Great Divide into Heavenly places. Amen.

Understanding Why the Wicked Prosper

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“In the night I search for you; in the morning I earnestly seek you. For only when you come to judge the earth will people learn what is right. Your kindness to the wicked does not make them do good. Although others do right, the wicked keep doing wrong and take no notice of the Lord’s majesty. O Lord, they pay no attention to your upraised fist. Show them your eagerness to defend your people. Then they will be ashamed. Let your fire consume your enemies. Lord, you will grant us peace; all we have accomplished is really from you.”
Isaiah 26:9-12 NLT

Isaiah introduces something that has constantly baffled the righteous followers of God for millennia. Why do the wicked get away with their wickedness? Why doesn’t God just zap them when they do wrong, those people who “take no notice of the Lord’s majesty”? But it’s worse than that because the same wicked people do harm to God’s people. Isaiah called out to God to “show them [His] eagerness to defend [His] people”. We can all think of people in the public eye who are overtly wicked and who, in their pride and arrogance, think that they are immortal and unstoppable in their wickedness. They may even redefine the word wickedness to mean good, and many gullible people will swallow the lies. Isaiah wrote about them once before in Isaiah 5:20, “What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter”. One current example of this can be found in the war between Russia and Ukraine, in which the leader of the attacking side declared his goal was to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine. Wasn’t that just an excuse to reoccupy a nation with the false justification that it had a moral duty to do this? We pray that God will bring justice to the poor people in Ukraine and Russia who are suffering so much.

The Psalmist, Asaph, had a similar problem, as we read in Psalm 73:3, “For I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness”. He goes on to describe the ways in which the “wicked” prospered, through good health, lack of troubles, and with everything they need. But in their pride, Asaph could see their arrogance, the way they boasted and crushed those less fortunate. They spoke only evil and scoffed at God. Psalm 73:11, “”What does God know?” they ask. “Does the Most High even know what’s happening?”” Asaph concludes in the next verses, “Look at these wicked people— enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply. Did I keep my heart pure for nothing? Did I keep myself innocent for no reason?” He then continues with “I get nothing but trouble all day long; every morning brings me pain”. This is a very human Psalm, because Asaph’s feelings are bang up to date. Was there a hint of self-pity infecting his soul? As we read, he next tried to rationalise in his own mind why such evil people got away with their evil. “So I tried to understand why the wicked prosper. But what a difficult task it is!” (Psalm 73:16). Don’t we do the same? A burglar steals and is never caught. A mobile phone is snatched, and the owner never sees it again. At the other end of the scale, a despotic leader sends a million young men to their deaths but is still in power at home. Why does God allow such people to get away with their wickedness?

Asaph finally went into God’s presence, and there he found the answer to his dilemma. “Then I went into your sanctuary, O God, and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked”. There is no use fretting about God’s apparent lack of action because God will act. Asaph wrote, “Truly, you put them on a slippery path and send them sliding over the cliff to destruction. In an instant they are destroyed, completely swept away by terrors. When you arise, O Lord, you will laugh at their silly ideas as a person laughs at dreams in the morning” (Psalm 73:18-20). Asaph then turns his thoughts away from the wicked, as God’s light illuminated his soul. He realised how bitter he had become, and he turned his gaze to God Himself. Asaph completes the Psalm with, “Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever. … But as for me, how good it is to be near God! I have made the Sovereign Lord my shelter, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things you do” (Psalm 73:25-26, 28). When we lift our gaze into Heavenly places, we find a different perspective, because we find that God is still on His throne and He has everything under control. He wants no one to perish, and He is gracious and patient, just in case the wicked people finally realise the error of their ways and turn to Him in repentance.

But just one more thing that we need to bear in mind, even pilgrims such as us. Paul wrote, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Romans 3:23). If God had zapped all the wicked people, would I be writing this? Would any of us be still alive on this planet? We pilgrims need to fall on our knees before God with grateful hearts, thanking Him for His patience and grace.

Dear Heavenly Father. We are so grateful that You sent Your Son “to seek and save the lost”. Unless Jesus had walked on this world, we pilgrims would have had no hope for the future other than a miserable existence in a place where we wouldn’t want to be. All other religions are about man seeking a god, but there is only one God who came to seek sinners like us. So on our knees before You today we offer our worship to the One who has done so much for us. Amen.

Seeking God: Morning and Night Reflections

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“In the night I search for you; in the morning I earnestly seek you. For only when you come to judge the earth will people learn what is right. Your kindness to the wicked does not make them do good. Although others do right, the wicked keep doing wrong and take no notice of the Lord’s majesty. O Lord, they pay no attention to your upraised fist. Show them your eagerness to defend your people. Then they will be ashamed. Let your fire consume your enemies. Lord, you will grant us peace; all we have accomplished is really from you.”
Isaiah 26:9-12 NLT

Morning and night. Special times perhaps for God’s people, and pilgrims like us everywhere. Some nights, lying in bed in that “starting to drift off into sleep” mode, I’m conscious of a feeling of relief after a confusing and chaotic day, and I bring before God my thoughts and emotions, asking Him for His perspective and confessing any sins that I might have committed. This leads to praying for the issues that have emerged over the past few hours, and that’s how the day ends. But Isaiah went further; he earnestly searched for the Lord. That builds a picture of a man who is aware of society’s ills and where God cannot be found at all. We pilgrims perhaps feel the same, as we consider our increasingly secular society, where God has been forgotten, ignored and even vilified. Where our fellow citizens follow their selfish desires as they did in the days of the Judges: “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Their moral compass long gone. Their songs, devoid of praises to God, would instead have the lyrics “What’s in it for me” or “I’ll do it my way”. But Isaiah searched for God while lying on his bed, and I’m sure, in the quiet of the night, he found His Lord.

But on awakening, Isaiah sought God again. Faced with such an arrogant and Godless society, he knew that he needed God to be there with him. He didn’t know what he would face in the day ahead, and perhaps he was even a bit scared about the issues he would have to face. The people around him had forgotten God, as we have read in previous chapters, and were following sinful practices, particularly idolatry, even though they went through the motions of the Jewish rites and rituals. But do we pilgrims feel the same? Do we too wake up and immediately start to think God-thoughts, earnestly seeking Him for whatever resources we need for the day ahead? Are we like the Psalmist David, praying as in Psalm 5:3, “Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly”? In a time of great stress, David wrote another prayer: “O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1). This might be an appropriate prayer for those of us pilgrims who are currently living in drought-filled parts of England. But the land in which we live is indeed parched without the living water of God’s Spirit flowing throughout our societies, our churches and communities.

What requests do we have this morning? And, here’s the thing, do we believe that God can bring answers to our prayers? But I know that some people wake up in the morning, just relieved that they have survived another night, having been racked with pain, or unable to sleep. Others wearily haul themselves out of bed, wishing that they didn’t have to face the day ahead at all. But not Isaiah. He had an eager expectation that God would be there with him. He knew what Solomon had written years before: “Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning” (Lamentations 3:23). 

Jesus always spent time in prayer in the mornings. Mark 1:35, “Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray”. Why did He have to do that? Because when He left Heaven, Jesus left behind most of His divine attributes, taking on human form with all the limitations that would follow. So He had to spend time communicating with His Father in Heaven to ensure that He would follow His will in the day ahead. We should do the same because we don’t have a clue about the issues that might appear in the hours ahead. We pray for grace and compassion in our interactions with fellow citizens, God-followers or not. We pray for the words to say when someone needs comforting. We need the leading of the Holy Spirit when God wants us to bring His message of hope into a life devoid of hope at all. And, above all, we need God to fill us afresh with His Spirit, resourcing us for the day ahead. I do not know what I will face today. But I know Someone who does, and I need to hold His hand throughout the day ahead. Thankfully, His hands are big enough to hold each one of us. 

Almost despairingly, Isaiah wrote, “For only when you come to judge the earth will people learn what is right”. A statement of truth, but within it there are pockets of hope for those who follow Him day by day, for those who earnestly seek God for His resources and His righteousness. But by Judgment Day, it will be too late for most to understand the difference between right and wrong. For those who have never understood what God truly desires, Fanny Crosby wrote a hymn in 1869 called “Near the Cross”, and the first verse reads, “Jesus, keep me near the cross,/ There a precious fountain; / Free to all, a healing stream,/ Flows from Calv’ry’s mountain”. And the chorus goes: “In the cross, in the cross / Be my glory ever, / Till my ransomed soul shall find / Rest beyond the river”. That’s where we pilgrims need to be, always aware of what Jesus has done for us. Always close to our Master.

Dear Heavenly Father. It all starts with the Cross at Calvary, and Your Son in agony of body and spirit, taking on to Himself the sins of the world. And before You this morning, I declare my gratitude. In this weary and parched land, I pray that once again, You will awaken us with a new move of Your Spirit. Raise up Godly men and women, we pray, who will pray without ceasing for revival to hit Your churches, shifting the people’s gaze far above their leaking church roofs to Your throne. It’s all about You, Lord, and we echo Your prayer for Your Kingdom to come and Your will to be done, in Your precious name. Amen.

End Times and Trust: Understanding Isaiah’s Prophecies

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“In that day the people will proclaim, “This is our God! We trusted in him, and he saved us! This is the Lord, in whom we trusted. Let us rejoice in the salvation he brings!” For the Lord’s hand of blessing will rest on Jerusalem. But Moab will be crushed. It will be like straw trampled down and left to rot. God will push down Moab’s people as a swimmer pushes down water with his hands. He will end their pride and all their evil works. The high walls of Moab will be demolished. They will be brought down to the ground, down into the dust.”
Isaiah 25:9-12 NLT

“This is our God! We trusted in him, and he saved us!” What a wonderful way to start our devotions today, with the thought that God has saved us. But we need to unpick this verse a bit to extract some more important messages. The first thought centres on “in that day”. Once again, Isaiah’s writings refer to a day when the world order will be destroyed, and it must have been of some importance because the phrase “in (or on) that day” occurs 57 times in the Book of Isaiah. God revealed to Isaiah some important truths about what was to come, and Isaiah faithfully wrote down what God revealed to him. But when will that day be? Of course, we don’t know, and Jesus said to His disciples, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know” (Acts 1:7). In Matthew 24:6-8, Jesus set out some signs to look for: “And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come”. So the indications are that we are in the End Times, but, with more events scheduled to happen, we’re not there yet. John’s vision in the Book of Revelation is worth a read for the inquisitive. But, as any mother can tell us, the labour pains can come suddenly or can drag on for days. On the other side of all the End Time events yet to happen, though, there will be a people who will proclaim, “This is our God! We trusted in him, and he saved us!” 

What does it mean to trust in God? Trusting God means relying completely on His goodness, wisdom, and power, even when life is hard or uncertain. It is a daily choice to let go of control, stop worrying, and believe that His character and promises are true. But, human nature being what it is, we find that it is very hard to let go and trust someone else with our lives, both now and in the future. And if that Person we trust is God, who, in the natural, we can’t see or feel or communicate with, face to face… But that is when faith comes into play. The natural response, when we encounter hard and difficult times, is to cast around to find a human remedy. So when money is short, we head to the banks or moneylenders, or use our credit cards. If we are short of food, we think of the food banks. If we lose our jobs, we see what financial assistance, “benefits” we can receive from government agencies. If we are in danger of losing our homes, we think about alternatives, such as staying with relatives, or phone around to find another. But trusting in God means that we set aside our anxieties and instead look to God for a solution. Philippians 4:6, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done”. Jesus said, “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:31-33). 

But trusting God also means that we must wait for His solution, and not try to get ahead of Him by producing an Ishmael. Remember the story? God promised Abraham a son, but after a few years of waiting, he and his wife hatched a plan to get one through Sarah’s servant. Ishmael duly appeared, but he wasn’t the son of the promise. That son, Isaac, was still to come. And, as we know, in this world, the consequences of producing an Ishmael still continue. Getting ahead of God would likely produce something second-best, not the perfect result our Heavenly Father has waiting for us. And in it all, when anxieties and problems emerge, as they will in this troubled and imperfect world, we learn the peace that comes from trusting in our Father with our lives and all that we are. After all, we know who controls this world, and we remain faithful and hopeful, calm in all the storms. 

The people will also proclaim “in that day” that God saved them. When God saves us, it means He rescues us from the punishment and power of sin through Jesus Christ. Salvation means that we are delivered from eternal death through our faith in Jesus, who granted us forgiveness and a new relationship with God. Think about it. All the sins, the things that we have done wrong, the thoughts that have polluted our minds, the failure to do what we should have done – the list is endless – have all been forgiven and erased from God’s Heavenly slate. Psalm 103:12, “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west”. But it gets better. 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ”. We pilgrims can now stand before God clothed with Jesus’ righteousness and adopted as His children. Romans 8:15, “So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father””.

Isaiah 25 ends with a warning to Moab, but “Moab” can be extended to include all people who refuse to trust in God. Their pompous pride and evil works get in the way. As with all unbelievers, their belief that they didn’t need to acknowledge the Lord God of Israel is their downfall. But He will knock down the fortification of their human walls and defeat them in His judgment. We all know someone in this category, I’m sure, and we must reach out to them with God’s love, sharing His message of hope and salvation, so that the Holy Spirit can bring conviction of their sin. 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent”. Yes, God’s patience is driven by His love and grace for human beings, and we must, in our capacity as His ambassadors to Planet Earth, extend the same.

So we end these devotions today echoing how we started, declaring that the Lord is our God, that we trust in Him, and thanking Him for our salvation. We are truly favoured as God’s children.

Dear Heavenly Father. As we draw to a close in another chapter in Isaiah, we thank You for the prophet and Your messages communicated through him. We thank You for Your Word, and the truths held within, so useful for helping us, and keeping us founded on the Rock who is Christ. Amen.

Divine Banquet on Mount Zion: A Biblical Vision

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.”
Isaiah 25:6-8 ESV

There is a mountain involved in Isaiah’s vision, where God will prepare and serve “a feast of rich food” with all the trimmings. What a wonderful banquet that will be, particularly for the poor and needy people in their distress. And even for those who are accustomed to enjoying their food with a variety of possibilities, the divine banquet will be literally out of this world.  However, this event will be held on the mountain, assumed to be Mount Zion, where God will be a stronghold and refuge for those in need. 

There is much significance to this mountain. In the Bible, Mount Zion was first described as a specific hilltop fortress in Jerusalem captured by King David. Over time, the name expanded in scripture to mean the Temple Mount, the entire city of Jerusalem, the people of Israel, and finally a symbol for God’s Heavenly kingdom. In Hebrews 12:18, we read, “You have not come to a physical mountain, to a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind, as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai”. This was the mountain we find in Exodus 19:12, “Mark off a boundary all around the mountain. Warn the people, ‘Be careful! Do not go up on the mountain or even touch its boundaries. Anyone who touches the mountain will certainly be put to death”. The Hebrews epistle was addressed to the Jewish people, so they would have known the significance of any reference to Sinai. But back in Hebrews 12:22-24, we read about the “Heavenly Jerusalem”, where God will be found. “No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel”. Will we pilgrims be there? Of course we will. Where else will we be able to enjoy “a feast of rich food”? A banquet like no other.

There is something else significant about that mountain. In our verses today, we read, “There he will remove the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth”. What is this “shadow of death”? It is sin. Some translations refer to a veil hanging over humanity, so that they cannot see God, just as Moses wore a veil to prevent the Israelites from seeing his glowing face. The curse of sin and death hangs over every life, but God promises to remove that covering forever. Paul describes unbelievers as spiritually veiled, as we read in 2 Corinthians 3:14, “But the people’s minds were hardened, and to this day whenever the old covenant is being read, the same veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ”. Two verses on, “But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away”. We pilgrims have had our eyes opened to God and His Kingdom, through Jesus and all He did for us at Calvary. We have access to God beyond the veil that stops all unbelievers from seeing Him. Paul wrote, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely” (1 Corinthians 13:12). For us pilgrims, the veil has been removed, but one day we will see God clearly, without any spiritual myopia at all. Will that be on Mount Zion, on that day when we will be enjoying the banquet of delicious food? That is our hope, our faith, in the promise of God.

There on Mount Zion, “[God] will swallow up death forever”. Revelation 21:4, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever”. Back to Paul again in 1 Corinthians 15:54, “Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory”. On the Cross, Jesus defeated death forever, and He confirmed that through the empty tomb. Jesus is still alive today, sitting at God’s right hand, where He is interceding for us. One day, we will be alive with Him for eternity. But notice what this means. Death is humanity’s greatest enemy. Medical science may delay it, and philosophies may explain it, but only Christ defeated it. And the enormous truth is that death itself will one day die.

Dear Father God. We pilgrims will one day come to Mount Zion, the New Jerusalem, Your dwelling. You are preparing a place for us there, something for which we are very grateful. Amen.

Finding Hope in Isaiah 25: Praise Amidst Chaos

Posted on by Adrian Clark
Person in a cloak kneeling and praying on a rocky peak above a sea of clouds at sunrise

“O Lord, I will honour and praise your name, for you are my God. You do such wonderful things! You planned them long ago, and now you have accomplished them. You turn mighty cities into heaps of ruins. Cities with strong walls are turned to rubble. Beautiful palaces in distant lands disappear and will never be rebuilt. Therefore, strong nations will declare your glory; ruthless nations will fear you.”
Isaiah 25:1-3 NLT

We leave the devastation of God’s judgments in Isaiah 24, and move on to the next chapter. Isaiah 25 is one of the most hope-filled chapters in Isaiah’s writings, and here the prophet suddenly turns to praise. The chapter looks beyond immediate historical events to God’s ultimate victory, the salvation of His people, and the coming Messianic kingdom. It also contains one of the clearest Old Testament prophecies of the resurrection. But in many ways this chapter follows on from the previous verse at the end of chapter 24, which ended on a note of hope, “for the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will rule on Mount Zion. He will rule in great glory in Jerusalem, in the sight of all the leaders of His people”. It is almost as though Isaiah turns in a different direction, away from looking at the destruction of the earth, to God Himself, the One who destroyed all because of the “sins of the people, for they have twisted [His] instructions, violated His laws, and broken His everlasting covenant … its people must pay the price for their sin”. Isaiah understood well the consequences of sin.

So, Isaiah turned to God Himself, bursting into a personal outpouring of his praise. You see, God’s purposes had been completed in the previous chapter, the end of the story leaving Isaiah free to look at what God means to Him. Today, we pilgrims look on as life around us seems to reflect a maelstrom of chaos, both near and afar, but Isaiah knew that nothing was going to happen that God had not already planned. World events, on the one hand, and even personal happenings when we walk out of our front doors, all fit in with God’s plans for mankind. This is a hard statement to believe, because we have to face into the reality that sooner or later God will have to act because of mankind’s sin. Many people today are very worried and concerned that someone will push the nuclear button and the world will self-destruct, but we can be assured that nothing like this will happen unless God allows it. For other people, there is a huge cry of “why!” when a baby dies, or a plane crash kills all on board. They shake their fists in God’s face in anger and frustration, that is, if they ever believe He exists in the first place. Could God stop such occurrences? Of course, He could, and one day God will judge the world and its sin, bringing righteousness to bear when there is now only evil and sin. In the perfect to come, we read that there will be no more crying and no more death. Revelation 21:4, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever”. Through the resurrection of Jesus, we received a message of hope, because He was the first to defeat death. And this one event sealed our faith in God and His plan for the future, a future to be enjoyed by us pilgrims as we live with God forever.

Isaiah saw in his vision what the judgment would look like, but we never find him remonstrating with God with a “why”. Instead, he said, “O Lord, I will honour and praise your name, for you are my God”. Isaiah referred to what had happened as “wonderful things … planned … long ago”. Isaiah praises God for dealing with Israel’s enemies, and those nations that stand against God will one day have to praise Him. But we know that from Paul’s writings in Philippians 2:10-11, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. That’s a very complete count of everyone who has, or will, ever live. No exceptions at all. Paul echoes the same confidence as Isaiah. He wrote, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them“.

For us pilgrims, there is a principle we do well to follow. When life makes little sense, then we look upwards into the Heavenly realms, where we find the One who has all under control. We may not understand what is going on, but we do know the One who does. So, when life makes little sense, and we are tempted to look at the circumstances around us, it is more profitable instead to get on our knees in praise and worship. Faith trusts God’s plan before seeing God’s purpose.

Dear Heavenly Father. When all around us is descending into ever deepening depths of evil and sin, we instead look to You, the Rock upon whom we stand. Amen.

Lessons from Tyre: God’s Redemption and Purpose

Posted on by Adrian Clark
Two shipwrecked wooden boats on rocky coast near medieval castle ruins under cloudy sky with sunrays

“For seventy years, the length of a king’s life, Tyre will be forgotten. But then the city will come back to life as in the song about the prostitute: Take a harp and walk the streets, you forgotten harlot. Make sweet melody and sing your songs so you will be remembered again. Yes, after seventy years the Lord will revive Tyre. But she will be no different than she was before. She will again be a prostitute to all kingdoms around the world. But in the end her profits will be given to the Lord. Her wealth will not be hoarded but will provide good food and fine clothing for the Lord’s priests.”
Isaiah 23:15-18 NLT

Something strange happened, as the Lord revived Tyre after 70 years of forgotten neglect. Isaiah’s prophecy stated that Tyre would be laid low and forgotten (punished or sidelined by dominant empires like Babylon or Assyria) for 70 years—symbolising the lifespan of a king or a complete cycle of judgment. After this period, Tyre would be revived and return to its old ways. The “song about the prostitute” (playing a harp and singing in the streets to attract attention) describes an ageing harlot trying to lure customers back. It symbolises Tyre going right back to its aggressive, opportunistic trading habits. Surprisingly, the passage notes that Tyre’s eventual commercial profits would not be hoarded for selfish pride, but would instead end up consecrated to support those who dwell before the Lord, something that was historically fulfilled in part when Phoenician merchants supplied materials to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

But all this is remarkable until we understand that God’s goal was never merely destruction. His purpose was consecration. There is a parallel here for us, pilgrims and believers everywhere, when we consider how God deals with us when we get things wrong. We read in Hebrews 12:10-11, “For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterwards there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way”. We need to realise that God is in the recycling business. He takes imperfect and sinful human beings who are useless to Him, but, through Jesus, He makes them useful to Himself once again. 

We read in the last verse of Isaiah 23, “But in the end her profits will be given to the Lord. Her wealth will not be hoarded but will provide good food and fine clothing for the Lord’s priests”.  Tyre’s wealth once fuelled pride, but one day that same wealth would honour God. This anticipates a biblical principle seen repeatedly, that God often takes what once served sin and redirects it for His glory. I once knew a man who was a successful entrepreneur, and he established an IT business. But part of his testimony was that he heard the Gospel and encountered a crossroads in his life. Before that, his life could have gone one of two ways: a life of crime or a life dedicated to God. Thankfully, he chose the right way. We pilgrims all have natural gifts that can be used for sinful purposes as well as for God’s glory. We remember the Bible stories of people like Moses. He had a classical Egyptian education as a prince in Pharaoh’s court, which stood him in good stead when he was negotiating with Pharaoh for the release of the Israelite slaves. Of course, when a young man, he nearly screwed up, forcing him to run for his life, but God is patient and brought Moses back again at the right time. Another example was in the case of Zacchaeus, who was, according to the people, “a notorious sinner”. But we read what happened in Luke 19:8-10, “Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost””. God doesn’t merely forgive people for their sins: He transforms and restores them. 

Tyre thought that their trading would continue forever, invincible as they thought they were. But God had other plans because their wealth was being used for corrupt purposes, fueling their pride and arrogance. There was a time when Tyre supplied what was required to build the Temple in the days of David and Solomon, but later Tyre opposed God’s purposes and paid the price. But if we extend the message and lesson about Tyre to global proportions, we see that there will come a day when the world’s wealth will be devoted to the glory of God. Referring to the new Jerusalem, we read in Revelation 21:24-26, “The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the world will enter the city in all their glory. Its gates will never be closed at the end of day because there is no night there. And all the nations will bring their glory and honour into the city”. Commerce by itself is not necessarily evil, and it becomes holy when it is surrendered to God. 

But none of this was a surprise to God, and Jesus taught similar principles. Tyre’s wealth faded and eventually disappeared, but Jesus warned against using our earthly treasures for the wrong purposes in Matthew 6:19-20, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal”. I suppose we pilgrims need to ask ourselves what sort of wealth we are building. Many a person has come to grief making unwise investments, but there is nothing unwise about investing in the Kingdom of God. Those who do will hear one day, “Well done, …” 

Another lesson from Tyre is that earthly kingdoms will come and go, but God’s Kingdom lasts forever. Tyre is now just a pile of ruins, a monument to a kingdom long gone. But we read in Psalm 145:13, “For your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. You rule throughout all generations. The Lord always keeps his promises; he is gracious in all he does”. In Daniel 2:44, we read, “During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed or conquered. It will crush all these kingdoms into nothingness, and it will stand forever”. But one day God will renew this earth, destroying all the remaining earthly kingdoms in the process. Revelation 21:1-2, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband”. One day that will be our dwelling place, you and I, and we read the next two verses, “I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever””. 

We pilgrims are a truly favoured people because we are God’s people. Before Him today, we repent of our pride, and in all humility, we kneel before Him, giving Him all the praise and all the glory. In awe, we look into the face of Jesus, with inexpressible gratitude rising up within us. Thank You, Lord.

Dear awesome Heavenly Father. Thank You for Your Word, that teaches us so much. And even more, we thank You that You never give up on us, patiently leading and guiding us in Your ways. Thank You, Jesus, for coming to this world, bringing a touch of Heaven with You. And thank You, Holy Spirit, for living within me, empowering me for all that I face in the day ahead. Amen.