Don't Give Up!Sample

Isaiah

Isaiah answered God’s call and prophesied to the Israelites for sixty years. Not one person, that we know of, turned from their evil ways.

Jewish tradition tells us the people grew so tired of listening to him that they eventually sawed him in half to silence him. If that is true, it means he was not alive to see how God would use his faithfulness to change lives. He could have died believing he was a failure, yet today we know him as one of the greatest prophets of all time.

Isaiah announced the coming Messiah, spoke of His virgin birth, foretold His sacrificial death, and proclaimed His eventual return. No other prophet is quoted more in the New Testament. There are sixty-six direct quotations, and twenty of the twenty-seven books reference Isaiah. His book is often called the fifth Gospel because of its many messianic prophecies. Isn’t that amazing?

How many of us would continue sharing God’s Word for that long without visible results? Isaiah understood that God desires obedience, not worldly success.

Don’t Give Up.

Do you ever feel like no one cares or that no one is listening? These words are for you: don’t give up. In God’s perfect timing, if you remain obedient to His Word, you will reach exactly who He intends for you to reach, and lives will be changed. God does not measure success the way the world does. He desires your obedience, even when it seems like nothing is happening.

Keep listening to the Lord and trust that, in His perfect timing, you will reap a harvest. Until then, remember 1 Peter 5:6–7: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”