On This Day: How Personal God Gets

   And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. (Mark 1:21-22)

   The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. (Isaiah 50:4)

 

   Because I was up so early, I’ve already had my first nap! I’ll get my second right after church time.

   When I was reading the next paragraph on Mark 1, it was really standing out how people were impacted by Jesus’ teaching as having authority. When this was affirmed by Jesus delivering a man from demonization, it was all the more heightened, that Jesus’ ministry and teaching had authority.

   So, I began imagining myself hearing Jesus teach. What would he have sounded like? What would it look like to see “the Word” teaching us in the flesh? What would that spontaneous feeling of awe and wonder feel like to know that a work of God had come to our town?

   And into my head popped a reference that spoke about someone who was taught. I had to look it up! It is in the box above, Isaiah 50:4. It is fascinating enough to think of being “those who are taught”. It has a sense that we have received training that has equipped us for our assignment. We have been taught, trained, prepared.

   But then it is equally amazing to think of Isaiah saying, “The Lord GOD has given me the TONGUE of those who are taught”, meaning that when we are the ones who are taught by God, we know what to teach others. Our tongues can’t keep quiet in making known what we are taught.

   And that’s when I knew God was assuring me that we have this same ministry in the Scriptures as anyone had it in person, whether Isaiah receiving prophecies from Yahweh, or the Jews hearing their Messiah in person. We have the Scriptures as “the word of God”. Paul told us those Scripture are “breathed out by God” (II Timothy 3:16-17). Hebrews said that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). The point is that we have God’s word, and it speaks to us today as clearly as Jesus spoke to the crowds in his ministry.

   So, when Jesus quoted Isaiah 50:4, “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—‘” (John 6:45), he was showing that God is always teaching his people so we will be taught, or “fully equipped for every good work”, as Paul said.

   I am sure I will be spending a day or two at this viewpoint of Isaiah 50. When I read through it, I discovered it was addressing my life very personally. And since “Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught” I am eager to see what these next few mornings do to get me more “taught” than ever.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)