For My Glory (Isaiah 43:5-6)

 

Saturday, 6 December, 2025

Psalm 86

Isaiah 42:18-43:13

1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11

Observance: Nicholas of Myra, bishop and philanthropist (d. c. 342)

For My Glory (Isaiah 43:5-6)

“I will say to the north, Give up,
    and to the south, Do not withhold;
bring my sons from afar
    and my daughters from the end of the earth,
everyone who is called by my name,
    whom I created for my glory,
    whom I formed and made.”

God seems to have given us a great many number of hints in this world of how he works, and who he is like. When Holy Scripture reveals to us that we have a heavenly Father, for example, we can see glimpses of that in human fathers, especially in those particular instances when they are very proud of their children, and happy to be around them.

Isaiah prophesied that, when God gathered his people to himself through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, his people were created for his glory. I wonder if we can get a sense of what that must be like when we consider the example of the father I just mentioned.

A man with plenty of children that he loves to be around is not something we see so often in our hyper-individualistic modern Australia. But I think there is something deep down in the heart of every human that knows instinctively what that is like; and what the ideal would be like.

What about this that brings me to my knees in wonder is the fact that this is God who is saying this. God, high and holy, ineffable, perfect and glorious, is glorified in me and you gathering around him through his Son.

What is your sense of the relationship between God’s love for you, your love for him, and he being glorified in that love?

Lord our only saviour, who declares and saves: gather us, your Church from all the ends of the earth into the body of your Son, that we may glorify you in our rejoicing.