Isaiah 63:1-6

Be Still:  Help me, Lord, to recognise your glory and holiness and stand in awe before you. Amen

Read: Isaiah 63:1-6

‘For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold; so my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me.’ (v4-5) 

Encounter:  ‘Our full homage to demand’*

In my Bible, verses 1-6, are headed: ‘The Lord’s Day of Vengeance’ and v7-14 ‘The Lord’s Mercy Remembered'. 

How do we understand God’s vengeance and judgement and then equate them with his love, mercy, forgiveness and grace? Well, I think both are true and to say that God of the Old Testament and God of the New Testament are different, is to dishonour God - he is always the same and does not change.

Over the years I have greatly admired daily devotions written by Selwyn Hughes.** He wrote two very helpful things about how we see God. He first suggested that today's Christians need a greater awareness of God’s holiness (alongside his love and mercy). Secondly, he said he doubts that many modern-day believers accept that God ‘hates sin’. 

Clearly sin and complete holiness cannot co-exist; God understands the damage and the separation that sin causes. Author A.W. Tozer in ‘The Knowledge of the Holy’***, says that goodness cannot be good without justice (and opposition to all that is bad) and that justice must oppose sin. 

Because sin separates from God, who is holy and perfect, Jesus had to die – the only way our sin could be punished and dealt with, so we could enjoy a relationship with God. We are rescued from sin, forgiven, and granted undeserved grace. In Jesus' infancy, the Magi's gift of myrrh, signified that Jesus would die a sacrificial death. It was all part of God’s wonderful, loving plan from the beginning of time.

Apply:  'With promises like this to pull us on, dear friends, let’s make a clean break with everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without. Let’s make our entire lives fit and holy temples for the worship of God' (Romans 7:1 The Message)

Devote: Jesus, thank you for dying in my place, for forgiving my sin and making me right with God. Help me by your Spirit to pursue holiness.

*Let all mortal flesh keep silence - an ancient chant of Eucharistic devotion, based on

Habakkuk 2:20,

**A Year with Selwyn Hughes published by CWR, Waverley Abbey 

*** The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer, James Clarke 1965