Chapters of His Heart: Isaiah 4

Happy Friday!

Thanks for stopping in. Sit back, sip your coffee, grab your Bible and lets jump in to chapter four. If you have been coupling my posts with reading the corresponding chapter from Isaiah you may have noticed that this next one is an easy read. In fact you may have read ahead (good for you, you overachiever :D) and you may be thinking, "how can you possibly pull anything about God's heart out of that". I know that's what you're thinking because that's what I was thinking when I read it the first time. But if there is one thing I have learned about reading God's word, it's this, I can read a passage one time and feel like it's just words on a page, and then go back and read the same passage later and a whole new perspective can open up. That perspective can lead me to glean something out of it that I didn't see before. So I waited and tried again and this is what a new perspective (or possibly just an open heart to the voice of God) brought me.

This chapter is short, only six verses, and it kind of has a P.S. feeling about it. It closely follows the theme and message of the previous chapter. Again bringing up the judgement of the unfaithful Israelites and how God will wipe out all that is unclean from His people. However in this chapter a new theme arrises. Restoration. God promises those who are holy in His sight that He will protect them. He is keeping a place of protection for them.

Talk about proving my point, I am sitting here typing my notes and God drops a fresh perspective my way. I wrote these notes a few months ago and now, going over them again, I have discovered a new truth in these verses. Being that Isaiah is a prophet, a lot of what you find in his writing is a foreshadowing of things to come. These verses are not only foreshadowing the future of the Israelites, but the future of Christians as the bride of christ. The Israelites were God's chosen people, and as I've mentioned before, because of what Jesus did on the cross, so are we. God was purging Israel from all the filth they had let creep into their lives. They were His chosen ones, but they were not choosing Him. Much like as Christians we are God's chosen ones, called to live according to His purpose. But on a daily basis we reject Him, we are not choosing to accept the call.

God promised restoration to Israel, restoration of their nation. God promises us restoration as well, but of a different kind. Restoration of relationship. When God returns to restore His people, it will be to reestablish us in His presence. To renew the relationship that God intended for us to have with Him, from the beginning of time. We will be with God and He with us. What a beautiful, hope filled  promise. Israel's promise of restoration came in the form of rebuilding their people. Our restoration will come in the form of an eternal one-ness with God's heart. Our promise, is Heaven. God's heart restores.