No Sacrifice Too Great

No Sacrifice Too Great

"Even Lebanon is not enough, nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering." Isaiah 40:16 NASB

"The closer we draw to God, the more we are awed by His greatness and majesty. The prophet Isaiah recorded how his vision of the transcendent God affected him: "Woe is me, for I am ruined! ... for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5, NASB) The Lord graciously cleansed him, drew him into a closer intimacy than he had ever had before experienced, and entrusted him with amazing insight into His divine character.

In the latter half of his prophecy, Isaiah depicted to the discouraged exiles a God who is incredibly great and majestic, but who yearns over His people and tenderly woos them back into fellowship with Himself.

Isaiah 40 has been termed on the noblest pieces of prose ever created. It combines in a unique way a simplicity and majesty that compels us to realize the inadequacy of our conception of God. Its theme, the awesome transcendence and tender love of God, is worthily expressed in the Swedish hymn:

Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed:
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee,
How great Thou art!

What adequate and worthy response can we make to a God so great, so holy, so transcendent? Isaiah 40:16 tells us that using all the cedars of Lebanon to kindle an altar fire to consume all the cattle on its slopes, would be no extravagance. Our debt to Him is so great that no conceivable sacrifice would be too great to make for Him, since sacrifice is "the ecstasy of giving the best we have to the One we love the most." -- Today's devotional is from "HOW GREAT THOU ART -- A DAILY DEVOTIONAL" by Steve Halliday and William Travis. It is published by Multnomah

God's WORD for YOU: Proverbs 10; Job 41-42; Acts 16:22-40

Great Quote: Finally, mark this, that you must always make the AMEN strong, never doubting that God is surely listening to you with all grace and saying YES to your prayer. Remember that you are not kneeling or standing there alone, but that all Christendom, all devout Christians are standing there with you and you with them in one unanimous, united prayer which God cannot ignore. And never leave off praying without having said or thought: There now, this prayer has been heard by God; this I know of a certainty. That is what 'Amen' means. Martin Luther