Listening That We May Live

Today’s Word of Encouragement From Wayne:

“Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you according to the faithful mercies shown to David. Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples”

Isaiah 55: 3-4

Praise God, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and let us “listen carefully” to what God has said in this text, that we may truly live and that we may delight ourselves in abundance. Let us eat what is good, the good news of Jesus Christ and His “everlasting covenant according to the faithful mercies shown to David.”

God was merciful to David, and God made this specific promise to David, saying, “If your sons are careful of their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel” (1 Kings 2:4). This is exactly how “Jesus son of David” (Mark 10:47) walked before Father God. Exactly. Every word. Perhaps we all could appreciate and be blessed more fully, seeing how God made, and fulfilled, this loving promise to, and through, David of Jesus, Who Scripture declares is now “a son made perfect forever” (Hebrews 7:28).

Once more this touches God’s promise through David in Psalm 110, which said, “The Lord says to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.’” And “The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizadek” (Verses 1&4).

Right now, Jesus IS God’s loving and fulfilled promise to David. Jesus has sat down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12) and is, therefore, our present and eternal “Lord” and “priest forever.”

David was a great king and, as we have seen in our studies, David had the heart of a priest. One, of so many texts David wrote, said “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple” (Psalm 27: 4).

Melchizadek was a king and priest (Genesis 14:18). David was a king and priest before God (2 Samuel 6:14 as an example). Jesus, now, is our King and High Priest. And, if I may make this one more, relevant, statement, God is looking to us, right now, His church, the body of Christ, to walk in this same Spirit and understanding, as His own “royal priesthood” (1st Peter 2:9). Let us look, once more, at what the 24 elders in the book of Revelation, sing to Jesus Christ, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break it’s seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God” (Revelation 5: 9-10). This scripture should hugely impact every true Christian, for THIS is specifically what God is looking for from us, right now in this life, to live in this same holy Spirit as His priests in His kingdom.

It is all for our good, and for God’s glory, when we “listen carefully” to the “everlasting covenant” of our “leader and commander” Jesus Christ. Hallelujah!