We're looking at God's wonderful blessings when we align our thoughts with His thoughts. His promises are beautiful. Still in Isaiah 55, in the next verse, God pictures fruitfulness. He says,
“Instead of the thorn bush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.”
Still in Isaiah 55, in the next verse, God pictures fruitfulness. He says,
“So, there'll be a change in what's produced. It used to be the thorn bush and the brier, now it will be the pine tree and the myrtle. The thorn bush and the brier are barren, unfruitful; they have no real beneficial use. On the other hand, the pine and the myrtle are beautiful shade trees that begin to transform the nature of the desert. So our ways and our thoughts produce the thorn and the brier. But when God's ways and God's thoughts come, then in place of the thorn and brier will grow the pine and the myrtle. In other words, good fruitfulness will take the place of barrenness and unproductiveness.”
Let's look again at those four immediate results of God's Word coming into our hearts and lives. In verse 12, God says:
“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”
What beautiful language that is. First of all, joy; second, peace; third, praise, and fourth, fruitfulness.
One final thought in that connection. At the end of verse 13:
“This will be for the Lord's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.”
It's important for us to see that the ultimate purpose of what God does is His glory. This will be for the Lord's renown. The Lord will be glorified through it. It will be an everlasting sign. It will be a manifest token of what God has done and it will be everlasting. It will never be undone and it will not be destroyed. So the results that God produces this way in our hearts and lives are permanent, they cannot be undone, and therefore His glory.
Father, thank You that when I think Your thoughts, fruitfulness and beauty will replace the infertile useless desert. When I look around me, I long for Your thoughts, Lord, so that there will be change and Your name is glorified! Amen.
