Reading: Isaiah 51:1-53:12

Israel had forgotten God and all that He had done for her because of His Covenant with Abraham. Isaiah reminds Israel of their past deliverance and miraculous provision from God encouraging them to return to God for help.

Hope is the first step towards faith, but it’s often seen as a step backward. Hope can be restored when we remember what God has done for us when we were walking with Him. It’s most important that we remember why God blessed us initially – because He loves us.

Hopelessness can be caused from staying focused on the consequences of our past sins. It can be hard to break the hold our past failures have on us. God often meets us where we are (in the past) and brings us where we’re used to going – backward. Then He reminds us of how He loves us and can help us escape our sin and failures.

Though we suffer from the consequences of our sin – He suffers with us until, like the lost (prodigal) son “we come to ourselves”.

But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”
Luke 15:17-19

When we come to ourselves, we come back to God as suffering servants and He makes us servant sons! Servanthood marks the heart of the truly repentant. Jesus though never lost came for us with the same heart – a suffering servant bringing good news of our redemption.

Jesus took all of our sins, sickness and failure, and all that sin had coming – rejection by men, separation from God, sickness, punishment, on earth and in hell even experiencing death for us. Isaiah foretells this great redemption event in great detail – 700 years before it happened.