Isaiah 61:11

Isaiah 61:11 “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.”

We’ve had rain recently in California, torrents and buckets like we haven’t seen in quite a while. In front of my house is a strip of dirt that’s been waiting a long time for me to decide what to plant there.

Then it rained. The soil has now made the sprouts to come up, and they didn’t stay as mere sprouts for long. I now have clumps of grass, dandelions, milkweed, and one other plant whose leaves remind me of nasturtiums but it isn’t one.

I didn’t do a thing to make that happen. Those seeds were already in the soil waiting for conditions to be right. And when the rains came, the seeds took off like…weeds. Isaiah tells us it’s going to be just like that with the Sovereign Lord. The seeds of righteousness are already in Him, and He will make righteousness and praise spring up before all the nations.

I’m not sure how Bible scholars view this passage, but it may point to a time that’s still future to us at the end times, when every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord.
It could also refer to the time when Jesus walked the earth, He who is Righteousness itself and whose death and resurrection brought the praise of God to all nations.

But whether either of those views is correct, at the personal level, it is the Sovereign Lord who brings righteousness and praise to each Christian life through His Son Jesus. And we are to shine that Light to all nations.

May the glory of the Lord be praised forever and ever. Amen.

Brenda