He is Using You

The work the Lord Jesus Christ is doing among us is so incredibly glorious! I was reminded of that this morning from Isaiah 61. For some reason in familiarity, I had limited the significance of the passage in Luke 4 where Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah and said it was fulfilled in their presence… until I saw that passage afresh… inflamed with the total glory of its original context in Isaiah 61 (God is so gracious)… and I just had to share… because this is the work HE continues to do through the church. Yes, even through your ministry. Just look at the work Christ does through His people:


Shares good news with the poor
Binds up the brokenhearted
Sets captives free
Releases prisoners from darkness
We proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
He is using you to comfort those who mourn and are grieving
He is using you to impart beauty from lives that are sometimes in ashes
... to replace misery with gladness
From the ladies mouths he will replace mourning and despair with praise…
And we will all display his spendour. Yes, Christ’s work among us is so glorious.

Did he have us in mind when the words of Isaiah 61:5-6:

Aliens will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
And you will be called priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God.

I often pushed those verses aside because of their reference to Christ’s second coming, but even Peter used them to reference the church. (1Pet2:9). Well, I hope you can join me… and the saints of the past and of the future in rejoicing over these verses…

10 I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.


Lord, please open our eyes as we consider afresh the work you are doing through us as you minister through us. Apart from you, we can do nothing. Help us to stand… having done all, to stand.