ZPCBlog

About the author: Bob Rottmann has been a member of ZPC for 3 years. A Christian all of his life, he has been involved in many leadership roles over the years. At ZPC, he attended Great Banquet #125 and was on the GB team for #133 in a speaker’s role. His wife Gloria and he are members of the Olney Home Group and regularly attend the 2nd Half events. They were also privileged be a part of last year’s Israel trip, their second journey the Holy Land.

Isaiah 11 foretells of Jesus coming and who he will be. Verses 6-9 describe a peaceful world that has not existed since the Garden of Eden. I suggest you get your Bible and read the chapter now and keep it handy for the rest of this devotion.

Verse 5 says “Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” The result is vv 6-9. Peace is not an unusual concept in the Bible with over 50 references each in both the Old and New Testaments. Many of them are worth meditating on for a few minutes. Let us look at a few.

Leviticus 26:3-6 tells us that if we follow God’s decrees and obey his commands, he will grant peace in the land.

In Job 22:21 we hear Eliphas say to Job “Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you.

David passes on his thoughts as follows:  Psalm 29:11 “The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace,” and in Psalm 34:14-15 “Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.  The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry.”  Psalm 85:10 states “Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.”

Other chapters of Isaiah also discuss peace as in Isaiah 33:17 “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever,” and Isaiah 54:10 tells us God’s unfailing love for us will not be shaken nor his covenant of peace be removed.

Do you, like me, see the themes running through these 8 passages? Righteousness, faithfulness, peace, and God’s love flow through all passages with the expected consistency we expect to find in the Bible. There are two types of peace, personal and societal. Both are expressed and seem to come from the same source: follow God and his commands; righteousness brings peace.

But we think to ourselves, how righteous do I need to be? I am not very righteous sometimes. Here we can turn to the New Testament, and we discover in Romans 1:17 “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.” And again in Romans 3:21-22 “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” 

How wonderful this is. It is not up to us to earn, but a gift. Knowing we are righteous brings us a peace the world cannot understand, a quietness and confidence forever. Isaiah says this is a fruit of righteousness.

Society and the world will never have the peace described in Isaiah 11 until Jesus returns to rule. In the USA, we see a decreasing amount of righteousness, and this may be why we are also seeing less peace throughout our country. As Christians, still a supposed majority in the USA, is there a role each of us, and collectively, have to bring our country back to righteousness and peace?

Heavenly Father, through your son Jesus you brought righteousness and peace to us. Please grant us the will to spread your peace to others. 
Amen.

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