Wake up!

“Awake, awake, O Zion, 

clothe yourself with strength. 

Put on your garments of splendour, 

O Jerusalem, the holy city. 

The uncircumcised and defiled 

will not enter you again.                                             Isa.52.1

This sounds to me like a wake-up call. Zion has been “asleep”. The people have ignored the Lord God. They have neglected, abused and disowned Him. God has punished them with exile and captivity.

But now the time has come for reinstatement. God is speaking to His people. His promise is that He will renew them. They will no longer be enslaved by others and they will be protected and saved from future threats.

God encourages His people to boldness. He tells them to put on strength and to wear garments of splendour. I see this as the true placement and being of the people of a sovereign and supreme God.

As I read the Scriptural accounts of God’s dealings with His people, I see much that can be applied to myself and to society today. If only God’s people would awake, truly awake and clothe themselves with garments of splendour, they would become a force for good and right living in the world.

The body of Christ has slumbered for too long. It has created its own ideas to the detriment of God’s plans, purposes and ways. People “preach” the message but do not live it. How different the world would be if Christians practiced and lived in the ways of their leader.

Most Holy Father,

I grieve over how Your people have lost their way. Surely it is time to wake up, to clothe ourselves with strength and wear garments of splendour. May we show the truth of You to a world that has largely spurned You, where people mock, deride and fully deny You.

Let us know that we have been set apart by You. Protect us from “the uncircumcised and defiled”. Bring us to fullness in You, and lead us forward in Your truth and Your ways.            Amen.