The Lord Comforts His People

This is what the Lord says: “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances, to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’

“They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill. They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water. I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up. See, they will come from afar— some from the north, some from the west,

some from the region of Aswan.”

Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

your walls are ever before me. Your children hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you. Lift up your eyes and look around; all your children gather and come to you. As surely as I live,” declares the Lord, “you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride.

Isaiah 49:8-18

The Hebrew slaves could hardly believe the assurances of Moses that God would concern Himself with them. But He did, and He does today.

Do we matter to God? Christmas memorializes God’s answer which told us a virgin would conceive and bear a child, and that child would save us from our sins. Because of Jesus, our sins are forgiven.

The fact of Jesus’ coming is the final and unanswerable proof that God cares.

Our Daily Bread – December 1, 2012