“His delight will be in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, he will not execute justice by what he hears with his ears, but he will judge the poor righteously and execute justice for the oppressed of the land.” Isaiah 11: 3-4a
Is this really good news to anyone else? What delights Jesus, what delights the Father is not our appearance - I’m going to say that again, what delights God is not our appearance. What delights him is our fear of him, our awe, our worship, our turning to his mercy and depending on him for the salvation of our souls.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, I’m only a few days away from my 57th birthday and this one has me doing a lot of reflecting. I’ve been thinking about all the time I’ve wasted chasing after things that were never meant to last, like looks. I’m embarrassed to even write that but it’s true. I know it’s largely because of the culture I live in, but it’s also because I bought the enemy’s lie. Yet, when I stand before God he won’t care about my appearance, he won’t commend me on my physical beauty or lack thereof. What we will talk about is the beauty of my heart. We’ll talk about what I did for him during my time here. We’ll talk about how I loved and how I served and how I worshipped him, and we’ll talk about if I pointed others to him. But he’ll never ask me what size my jeans were or if I worked out at least 3 days a week or what my BMI was, or about my skincare routine. He won’t ask how much money I had in the bank or if my house was clean.
It also says he won’t “execute justice by what he hears with his ears…” As I dug around looking into that phrase I kept seeing the same explanation, he won’t judge us based on hearsay. Hearsay is another word for rumor. A rumor is, “talk or opinion widely disseminated with no discernible source.” So what ever anyone else thinks about you or says about you, he won’t be taking that into account when you stand before him either! How freeing is that?
So although all of these things have their place on this side of heaven, I just really appreciated the reminder that they aren’t what’s most important. And I figured if I needed to hear it, maybe you did too.
