Isaiah 53:2-6 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
This pivotal passage of scripture, Isaiah 52 and continuing into Isaiah 53, profiles a suffering servant whom the nation of Israel would not recognize. The spiritual leaders of Yeshua’s (Jesus) day were blinded to the messianic passages which pointed to the messiah’s role as a humble servant and bearer of sins.
Expecting a conquering king who would vanquish the Romans and set up a restored Davidic kingdom, they completely missed and ultimately rejected the lowly servant that God sent, an unpretentious carpenter’s Son from a not-so-respectable town who was virtually unknown until He was about thirty. Yeshua of Nazareth did perfectly fulfill God’s messianic qualifications even though He arrived in Jerusalem riding on a donkey and not a majestic horse. [Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:7] One wonders what might have happened if he had been recognized and received, since He did come proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at hand.
Since it was absolutely necessary that the Son of God would die for sins to restore the spiritual plight of the entire world which was separated from God, before He could restore the Kingdom to Israel, Yeshua came preaching repentance and righteousness. He drew large crowds, demonstrating His uniqueness among all of Israel’s prophets by performing many amazing miracles and signs by the power of the Spirit, and delivering unprecedented, authoritative teaching which surpassed everything that had ever been heard before. Yet while His ministry was growing, so was His opposition, and His awareness that He was destined for suffering and death. This suffering also surpassed anything we can begin to imagine as the iniquity of the entire world was laid upon Him and He bore it willingly. Yeshua exemplified and revealed the profound connection between serving and suffering by becoming a suffering servant to all mankind. Later testifying that there was no greater love than that a man lay down his life for his friend, He made it clear that love, the deepest love, involves sacrifice.
We say that we want to be like Him. If so, we will be learning and practicing a lifestyle of sacrifice, not caring who sees or knows what we are going through for His sake, because we really just want to make Him happy, because we love Him and are infinitely grateful and full of admiration for Him. It’s true for most of us that we naturally seek the spotlight, and are hungry for attention. But if we’re truly honest we must admit that the praise of men is a hopelessly futile addiction that we need deliverance from. God’s praise is the best praise, and His pleasure in us, the only really lasting kind.
Yeshua pleased His Father by suffering for us. We can afford a little discomfort to make Him happy. Don’t you think?
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]When Elijah cast his cloak over Elisha in the field, it wasn’t just a symbolic act — it was a divine call. Elisha understood this and responded not with delay or excuse, but with decisive action. After asking to say goodbye to his parents, he returned, slaughtered his oxen, and used the wooden yokes as fuel for the sacrifice. Then he gave the meal to the people and walked away from everything familiar to follow the prophet Elijah.
Elijah had just come through one of the most intense seasons of his life. He had called down fire from heaven on Mount Carmel, seen the prophets of Baal defeated, and yet found himself running in fear from Jezebel, exhausted and discouraged. In the cave at Horeb, he cried out, believing he was alone and that all was lost. But it was there—in the still small voice—that God revealed His presence and His plan.
Over the weekend, the United States launched a bold operation aimed at ending Iran’s nuclear program. In the quiet of the night, unseen by human eyes, B-2 Spirit bombers initiated Operation Midnight Hammer—a precision strike designed to eliminate hidden threats before they could bring harm. With unmatched stealth, they cut through the darkness, delivering a decisive blow against danger.
Every true move of revival begins where few look for it—at the hidden brook, in the quiet place of God’s pruning. Cherith (נַחַל כְּרִית) means to cut off, to separate, to covenant. Before Elijah could stand on Mount Carmel and call down fire, he had to be separated, set apart for God’s purposes.
Before God’s servants can stand in high places before men, they must first bow low before Him. Elijah, fresh from proclaiming God’s judgment to Ahab, might have felt indispensable to God’s plan. Yet the following command was unexpected: “Hide yourself.” The brook Cherith became Elijah’s place of humbling, where pride was stripped away, self-reliance was broken, and his soul learned the sweetness of depending on God alone.
God’s servants must learn to walk by faith–one step at a time. This is a simple lesson, yet one that challenges even the most faithful. Consider Elijah: before he left his quiet home in Thisbe to stand before King Ahab with the word of the Lord, how many questions must have stirred his heart!
As we continue our journey through the life of Elijah, let us take heart in this: Elijah was a man just like us. He was not born with heroic strength or unshakable resolve. He knew weakness, fear, and moments of failure—the same struggles we face. And yet, this one man, by faith, stood alone against a tide of sin and idolatry. By faith, he turned a nation back to God.