Anointed
Day 340, Thursday, July 17
Isaiah Chapters 60 – 61
Chapter 61 begins with very familiar words: the passage Jesus reads at the beginning of his public ministry.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Interestingly, when Jesus quotes this he stops in the middle of a sentence, not adding the next phrase, “and the day of vengeance of our God.”
Often it’s vengeance or revenge we want, more than peace or justice. For Jesus, though, that wasn’t the priority part of his message—at least not yet.
Later in his ministry Jesus spoke of judgment to come, but his first priority was favor, not vengeance.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Thursday meditation

Job 7:6-10
“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope. Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again. The eye that now sees me will see me no longer; you will look for me, but I will be no more. As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so one who goes down to the grave does not return. He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more.

Prayer focus
Lord, we are grateful that we live in the era of your favor—let us live into it!