Listening for the Promise
Sola Publishing – Weekly Devotions
Baptism of Our Lord – January 12, 2025
SOWeR Site — Weekly Devotional © Sola Publishing: www.solapublishing.com, 2016, written by Julie A. Smith. Scripture taken from ESV Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright ©2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
(permission granted to active subscribers to reproduce this sheet for local congregational use)

“Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you . . .” 
- Isaiah 43:4 -
We don’t often get a crystal-clear explanation for why God does what he does for us.  We have countless statements of what God is doing and has done.  The Old and New Testaments are filled with accounts of God’s activities.  But in today’s passage from Isaiah, we get a little glimpse into why God does these things.  God’s work on behalf of his people is driven by love.  “You are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.”  That’s why God gives ransoms in exchange for his people.  That’s why he has redeemed us.  That’s why he decided to be our God.
It is a strange thing to imagine that the Creator of all that is is concerned about you and me.  It is strange to imagine that he could be driven by love to act on our behalf.  And it is stranger still to consider just what he has done on your behalf.  For your sake he took on sin and death.  For your sake he became incarnate.  For your sake he has handed over forgiveness and new life.
All this because he loves you.  All this because he called you out as one of his chosen ones.  All this because he is faithful to the promises he has made.  The Holy One of Israel keeps the promises he makes, no matter the cost.
Israel hadn’t done anything special to be chosen by the Living God.  And they were continuously rebelling against him, continuously breaking the covenant they had made with God.  But even this rebellion did not move God to turn away from them, because they were precious in his eyes, and honored, and he loved them.  Their faithlessness was no match for God’s unwavering faithfulness.
Of all the mysteries of the faith, this one is the greatest.  The mystery of how or why God would be moved to love wayward people like you and me is something we cannot explain.  But it’s the way it is.  God has declared it to be the case.  He loves you.  And out of that love he has moved mountains for you.  He has given his life for you.  He has taken your sin from you.  He has given himself in exchange for you.  Because you are precious in his sight, and honored, and he loves you.