how many can you count?

On Sundays, through these days of crisis in our nation and the world, I am leading us to Feast on the Faithfulness of God, through which we remember some of the hundreds of accounts of God´s faithfulness in the Scriptures.

Maybe our taking a week to consider the days of Holy Week seemed an interruption in our focus on God´s faithfulness, but it wasn´t.  Really everything that happened during that culminating week of the earthly life and ministry of our Lord was a testimony to the faithfulness of God.

These blogs are short, at least for me.  I cannot hardly exegete a single verse in less than a page.  But even with my blogs running about a page and a half if printed out, I could not begin to list all the promises God made in the Old Testament that were fulfilled in Jesus´ life just during Holy Week.

So, let´s conclude our consideration of Holy Week with a re-inauguration of Feasting on the Faithfulness of God that will help us walk with Him through difficult days!  This will not so much be me writing for you to read.  This will be you reading and doing.

I want us to take a chapter of Isaiah, and as you read through it, either mark with a pen, or at least make a mental count, of phrases in the chapter that you know were fulfilled by Jesus during the week leading to the cross and resurrection.
Do that, and then read my brief conclusion.

Isaiah 53 NKJV
1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 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.
3 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.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 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.
6 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.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
9 And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

How many did you find?  I identified 32.  You may have found even more.  Even if you found a lot less, there´s still a lot, isn´t there?  And this is one chapter of the Old Testament, just twelve verses.

My friend, see here the faithfulness of God.  See to what lengths God will go to keep His Word.

When things get rough and then rougher, remember that your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ loves you and is ever faithful to you.  Whatever comes, even death, He will get you through!

I love you, and I pray for you.