Thursday, September 24, 2026

Opening Scripture

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Hebrews 12:11-15

Opening Prayer

Gracious Father, thank you for this day, another chance to love and serve You. Help me make the most of it and do everything I can to please You. May Your priorities be mine. Remind me that, apart from You, I can do nothing. Help me follow the Spirit today as He guides me in grace, truth, and knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Help me not to be foolish, but to understand your good, pleasing, and perfect will. Open my heart and mind to all You want me to know and learn. As I draw near to You, please draw near to me and help me sense Your presence. Help me to stand strong against the evil one, and to think and act as Your child. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Daily Bible Reading

Isaiah 35:3-4

Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

Reflection  

After the rebuke and judgment of Chapter 34, today’s passage is a source of encouragement. Yesterday, the arid wasteland burst into bloom as the glory of LORD came down like refreshing rain. “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.”

Beyond the joy of the Jewish captives returning from Babylonian exile to their homeland, there is an everlasting joy here that corresponds to the everlasting destruction prophesied in the previous chapter. Beyond the historic events of Israel’s rebellion, judgment, repentance, and restoration, there are the final and eternal events surrounding the destruction of God’s enemies and the salvation of God’s people.

The sure and inevitable reality that Almighty God will, at some point, bring human history as we know it to a close ought never be far from our minds. That truth is woven into the prophecy of Isaiah from beginning to end. While we can look forward expectantly to the certainty of God’s eternal blessing, we often struggle to reflect on the certainty of God’s eternal judgment. Yet, along with salvation, there will be punishment. Along with Heaven, there will be Hell.

The “universalist” view that all human beings will ultimately be saved and reconciled to God – with no one subject to eternal punishment – stands in stark contrast to the testimony of Scripture. The position that “all roads lead to Heaven” seeks to neutralize and soften the dire warnings given throughout the Bible.

While “universalism” sounds pleasant to the modern hedonistic ear, it also sounds like the desperate appeal of the people of Judah to the prophet Isaiah. “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”

It is the same heresy that Paul warned Timothy about. “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Universalism may be a lot of things, but it is not biblical and it is not Christian.

Flourishing Habit

Flourishing Christians

Much of Isaiah and other parts of Scripture are an affront to our modern sensibilities. We live in an age where “tolerance” is the supreme virtue. Live and let live. Love is love. You do you. The exercise of unrestrained freedom is viewed as the ultimate right of every person. It sounds like the last verse of the book of Judges. “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.”

While we are each free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions. That is the purview of Almighty God.

Again, the reason the good news is so good is because the bad news is so bad! Salvation is available to all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus, trusting Him alone for forgiveness of sin and eternal life. Jesus clearly said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

The sad reality is that most people will die apart from God. They will never experience the eternal glory of God in the new Heaven and Earth. Even some who claim to be “Christian” will die in their sin, having never truly been born again. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

Tragically, many would rather make up their own religion than embrace what God has revealed to us in His Word. Jesus echoes the prophecy of Isaiah when He declares that, at the final judgment, the King will render this ultimate decree: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:41,46).

Each of us must daily pledge our allegiance to King Jesus, declaring our loyalty and devotion to Him, committed to delighting in His will and walking in His ways to the glory of His name… not only for our own sake, but for the sake of everyone around us. It is literally an eternal life and death situation!

This week’s collective prayer: Father, please place someone in my path who needs to know you truly love them and are seeking after them. Amen.

Remember: Nothing changes until something changes!