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Beth Moore

5 Oct, 9 tweets, 2 min read

Isaiah 61 today. I’ll never be able to read it without turning to Luke 4. Jesus returns from the wilderness of temptation in the power of the Spirit (that’ll preach right there) and heads to Nazareth where he grew up. Enters synagogue as usual on the Sabbath. Stood up to read.

Now, several practices would’ve already taken place in the order of synagogue service by this time. The congregation would’ve recited the Shema then a set of prayers including the 18 Benedictions. Someone then would’ve read from the Torah (the Law) in Hebrew translated to Aramaic

THEN would’ve come a reading from the Prophets followed by an exposition ordinarily connecting that day’s section from the Law & Prophets. This is where Jesus takes center stage. He’s standing, as was the practice for the reading. Scroll of Isaiah is handed to him. He unrolls it

until he gets to the exact location he’s looking for. Then his voice reverberates words straight out of Isaiah 61 with a taste of 58. The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release for the captives...

and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord‘s favor.” I really love this part: He then rolled up the scroll (I like to imagine that it made a fabulous sound like a metal tape measure rolling back up but it likely didn’t, lol)

He then hands the scroll back to the attendant & sits down. THIS is where the exposition of the readings occurred in the order of service. Every gaze is on him. And there, right before their very eyes, God sat. The Word made flesh, seated right in front of them. Glory incarnate.

And he says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
In other words, “You want exposition?? I’ll give you exposition. I, raised among you, am what I just read to you. This day in Nazareth, let it be known, Messiah prophesied by Isaiah, has been exposed to you.”

They end up trying to throw him over a cliff. But it was like, not today Satan. Anyway, I just love the whole scene. I love Jesus. He still mesmerizes me. There is only one Jesus. And it’s always made people mad that he was exactly who he claims to be. And that only he is he.

He’s seated even right this moment. Seated at the right hand of God, ever living to make intercession for us.
Messiah among us.
For us.
With us.
And for those to whom he is Lord, his very Spirit is IN us.

We’ll be alright.
Happy Monday, y’all.

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More from @BethMooreLPM

Beth Moore

@BethMooreLPM

29 Sep

Do not even try to make me unhappy this morning. It is 56° on a cloudless morning in my corner of Houston Texas and I have greeted every tree, every vine, 2 dogs, 1 hawk, 1 owl, 8 cows and 1 fine donkey in the happy name of Jesus on my before-work walk in the country already.

Of course, some of you don’t think Jesus is happy. You’re gonna be shocked 1 of these days when you enter into your Master’s happiness. We’ve never once been miserable enough to wreck his day. This is the day the Lord has made. This 1 right here.I’m gonna rejoice & be glad in it.

And, anyway, if this calf does nothing for you, I can’t help you.

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Beth Moore

@BethMooreLPM

28 Sep

Isaiah 53 this morning. 1st chapter of Scripture I ever memorized. Recited it in the 6th grade in a church service as part of the completion of a girls’ missions course. Didn’t fully understand it, of course, but this I knew: the OT foretold Christ’s suffering in alarming detail.

This masterpiece actually begins in Is 52:13. That section’s needed because the poem contrasts the Servant’s exaltation & humiliation. There we are told he would be “successful” & greatly exalted but only after grotesque disfigurement. Think of Is.52:13-53:12 as the OT’s Phil 2.

Shelves of books are written about this poem. I’ll stop at quoting some verbal phrases this AM.
He, our Christ, our one and only, was
...so disfigured he did not look like a man...despised & rejected by men... pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities.

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Beth Moore

@BethMooreLPM

24 Sep

A word to Jesus-followers this morning. I’m not talking to those who’d simply check the Christian box on a questionnaire about religious beliefs. I’m talking today to people who regularly seek to walk in obedience to Jesus Christ. We are in colossal need of wisdom from above.

A thick cloud of confusion, chaos, deception & seduction has settled on this nation. We need to be able to see through it & we cannot do so without seeking the Lord urgently & diligently. It’s election season when “we the people” notoriously beg to be bought, flattered & lied to.

Behold the madness of the situation before us when gospel people -followers of the same Jesus Christ revealed by the Spirit in the canonical Gospels- are faced with choosing between the unborn & the born. It’s absurd. We value ALL life or we are utterly clueless about the gospel.

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Beth Moore

@BethMooreLPM

23 Sep

Isaiah 47 this AM. In the Old Testament, Babylon is, of course, an actual city-state & a rising & falling empire but it also becomes symbolic of human decadence, of a society given over to self. Chillingly, Babylon’s slogan in Isaiah 47:8,10 is,
“I am, and there is no one else.”

To fully appreciate the audacity of Babylon’s motto, peruse the previous chapters of Isaiah in which God declares emphatically, repeatedly, “I am God, & there is no other.” The thing about God is that, when we insist long & hard enough on having it our way, sometimes He lets us.

We are flagrantly indoctrinated in our worldly culture to live by exactly the same slogan: “I am, & there is no one else.”
I am who I say I am. Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t infringe upon any of my rights. Don’t get in my way. Don’t even get in my selfie.
I am the Great I am.

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Beth Moore

@BethMooreLPM

17 Sep

The juxtaposition of God’s immensity & tenderness in Is 40 is breathtaking. Your God “who has measured the waters in the hollows of His hand” & “marked off the heavens with the span of His hand” protects His flock like a shepherd, carrying His lambs “in the fold of His garment.”

“Do you not know? Have you not heard?” (Is 40:28)

Oh yeah, many of us have heard 1000X what follows those questions but right about now we may be just exactly exhausted, undone & desperate enough to let them sink all the way from our heads to our hearts then to our actual feet:

“The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to His understanding.
He gives strength to the

FAINT

& strengthens the

POWERLESS.

Youths may become faint & weary, & young men stumble & fall,

BUT THOSE

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Beth Moore

@BethMooreLPM

16 Sep

In the Hezekiah saga of Isaiah in my AM reading. Reflecting today on the poetry - and more generally speaking - the art, prose, music and poignant beauty that only emerge when a pen is dipped in the deep inkwell of pain and suffering. How many songs would never have been written?

Isaiah 38 records the poem Hezekiah wrote in the wake of his illness when the Lord had told him to set his house in order because he’d soon die. He wept bitterly & pled for God to change the outcome and God granted him 15 more years. The song he wrote visits the depths & heights.

A few lines…

“In the prime of my life… I am deprived of the rest of my years…I have rolled up my life like a weaver; [God] cuts me off from the loom… I moan like a dove. My eyes grow weak looking upward. Lord, I am oppressed; support me. What can I say? He has spoken to me.

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