from Rachel: The Display of His Renown

Read Isaiah 43:1-12. What do verses 8, 10, and 12 suggest God purposes to do with your life?

“(7? 9?) We are to be His witnesses, to testify of the great things He has done.”

Please write the five benefits of your covenant relationship with God based on the book of Isaiah.

– “To know God and believe Him.
– “To glorify God.
– “To find satisfaction in God.
– “To experience God’s peace.
– “To enjoy God’s presence.”

‘You are my “witnesses,”’ declares the Lord, ‘and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may “know” and “believe” Me, and understand that I am He.’ Isaiah 43:10

Think of someone who helped authenticate some part of God‘s word as a witness to you…Describe what about his or her life made you think, It is true.

“The first Sunday school teacher I remember is Donna McMahon in fourth grade, although Pastor Clark’s children’s sermons made sense much earlier. I don’t think it was ever a question of ‘true,’ it was from both of them that I understood that it is important and personal and not just for Sundays.”

What is the heart desire of those ‘walking in the way’ of His laws?

“His name and renown”

⃰God chose one nation to be called by his name. This would be a blessing to all nations. The ‘Semites’ or Israelites were literally a people of God‘s name. The concept of a name is far more than a title. Shem means ‘the idea of definite and conspicuous position… a mark or memorial of individuality. By implication, honor, authority, character. Thus the Israelites were called as a nation to show the definite and conspicuous position of the one true God in their lives. They were called to be a mark of individuality and were to show his honor, authority, and character.

Based on what you’ve just learned, what do you think Isaiah was implying when he said ‘Your name [is]… the desire of our hearts‘?

“We want to be His people, be associated with Him, and have people think of Him and His name when they think of us.”

The name you and I are called most in reference to our spiritual beliefs is Christian. We are a people of Christ’s name. Based on what we’ve learned about a name, what should this mean to us?

“It should be an enormous honor, joy, and responsibility to represent the name as uprightly as we can manage.”

Compare Psalm 63:1-7. How do you know that the yearning described in verse 1 evolved from intimacy with God, and not from the emptiness of hardly knowing Him?

“Verse 2 speaks of seeing Him in the sanctuary and beholding his power and glory, and verses 6 and 7 refer to comfort and help in the past.”

God deeply desires to hear our petitions, but His greatest joy is to hear them flow from the mouths of those who want Him more than anything else He could give.

Dearest Rachel –

While I know you were older than I was when you came to Christ, you still grew up as a Christian from childhood. So I understand your comment about never having had a question about God’s word being true – as well as the challenge of figuring out how it applies to one’s Monday-through-Saturday life, sometimes. I think even during our times together, it wasn’t obvious to us; although it’s possible that it was so much a part of us that we just didn’t necessarily give it a lot of thought; certain courses of action simply came naturally to us, I’d like to believe.

One of those things I’ll not be able to understand, since it was probably a thought of the moment, are the answers you gave to the last couple of questions, which I haven’t transcribed as such (because marking an “X” on a continuum doesn’t translate particularly well to the page). You were asked about your present yearning to know and believe God, as well as to how quickened your desire was to make Him known. The former you seem to have given a 3 (or, let’s be generous, 3½) on a scale of 1 to 10 – perhaps you felt like you knew most of what was being covered? I know I feel that way pretty often myself, and when a lesson feels a bit like a rerun, I can understand not really wanting to repeat things like that. However – and this seems more like you – you gave your desire to make Him known a 6½ or 7. Since you had people you wanted to reach, this also makes sense.

I wonder about those people at this point. There are some I know about (some of whom you might be disappointed about to this day), but others I’ve lost contact with, and still more that I may never have known about in the first place. How many of them will you be able to see one day in the future, when time is no longer, I wonder?