I went 15 years without “really knowing”. Didn’t know that God really existed, didn’t know that the Jesus of “Christmas-season fame” really was Saviour of the World, didn’t know that He loved me personally and bore the consequence and weight of my personal salvation upon His personal cross.

Revelation of Jesus Christ is exactly that! It’s a revelation (a revealing of truth) … and it’s personal. So I’m praying that if this blog finds it’s way into your world and if your heart is thirsty for truth and a reason for your existence, then the One who is more than capable of revealing Himself will do so. To those who genuinely knock, seek and search, He will be found.

Isaiah 53 is in the Old Testament. It is a recorded prophecy of the servant Son (Jesus Christ) who would one day come, grow into manhood, offer His life in exchange for ours and purchase our souls back into the arms of the Father. It is shocking, sobering and beautiful beyond comprehension. I pray it blesses you and enlarges your heart to the Love of a very gracious and caring God.

Bobbie
Isaiah 53. (Message Bible translation)

1 “Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? 
Who would have thought GOD’s saving power would look like this?

2 The servant grew up before God– a scrawny seedling, 
a scrubby plant in a parched field. 
There was nothing attractive about him, 
nothing to cause us to take a second look.

3 He was looked down on and passed over, 
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. 
One look at him and people turned away. 
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.

4 But the fact is, it was our pains he carried– 
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. 
We thought he brought it on himself, 
that God was punishing him for his own failures.

5 But it was our sins that did that to him, 
that ripped and tore and crushed him– our sins! 
He took the punishment, and that made us whole. 
Through his bruises we get healed.

6 We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. 
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. 
And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, 
on him, on him.

7 He was beaten, he was tortured, 
but he didn’t say a word. 
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered 
and like a sheep being sheared, 
he took it all in silence.

8 Justice miscarried, and he was led off– 
and did anyone really know what was happening? 
He died without a thought for his own welfare, 
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.

9 They buried him with the wicked, 
threw him in a grave with a rich man, 
Even though he’d never hurt a soul 
or said one word that wasn’t true.

10 Still, it’s what GOD had in mind all along, 
to crush him with pain. 
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin 
so that he’d see life come from it– life, life, and more life. 
And GOD’s plan will deeply prosper through him.

11 Out of that terrible travail of soul, 
he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it. 
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, 
will make many “righteous ones,”
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.

12 Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly– 
the best of everything, the highest honors– 
Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch, 
because he embraced the company of the lowest. 
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, 
he took up the cause of all the black sheep”.