Daily Devotional For Thursday, July 16, 2026
Good morning Southside! Our daily devotional reading for today comes from Isaiah 22. For today, we are going to look at verses 1-4:
“This message came to me concerning Jerusalem—the Valley of Vision: What is happening? Why is everyone running to the rooftops? (2) The whole city is in a terrible uproar. What do I see in this reveling city? Bodies are lying everywhere, killed not in battle but by famine and disease. (3) All your leaders have fled. They surrendered without resistance. The people tried to slip away, but they were captured, too. (4) That’s why I said, “Leave me alone to weep; do not try to comfort me. Let me cry for my people as I watch them being destroyed” (NLT).
Have you ever read the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne? Hawthorne called it a “drama of guilt and shame.” The story takes place in Puritan Boston and it involves a minister by the name of Rev. Dimmesdale and a lady named Hester Prynne. They commit adultery and she becomes pregnant. As a result, she is forced to wear a red letter “A”, for the word adultress, for the rest of her life. Rev. Dimmesdale initially goes unpunished because neither one will disclose who she had the affair with. Eventually, Rev. Dimmesdale is so overcome with guilt, shame and regret. After 7 years, he makes a public confession, opening up his shirt showing his own scarlet letter “A” etched into his chest, which was more painful physically than Hester Prynne’s embroidered “A.”
What is so sad about this book is that no one in it understands redemption, grace, forgiveness and how God helps us start over after we have blown it. In this story, no one has hope because no one can see how a merciful God jumps into the mess and wreckage we cause. This is the story of the Gospel – God stepped into the sin of this world to redeem it. When we read verse 1, Isaiah is stating something very sad. “The Valley of Vision” is not an actual reference to seeing spiritually, but sarcasm to refer to spiritual blindness.
God had warned Jerusalem and Judah destruction was coming if they did not repent, but they would not listen. What had been a mountain is now a valley. What had been spiritual sight was now spiritual blindness. The stench of death is everywhere and overwhelming as people die from starvation, not from the attacks of Assyria. Isaiah’s vision asks a very important question: how should God’s people relate to the world? There are several possible answers:
- First, Christianity can be subordinate to our culture. Our culture should tell us, the church and Christians what to believe and how to live it out. This subjects the Christian faith to the world and destroys our faith. This will not work.
- Second, Christianity can negate this world, or at least treat the world as a necessary evil, while we attempt to live in our own isolated Christian world. This will not work because it denies the Lordship of Christ in our lives as witnesses to this world.
- Third, Christianity can go with the attitude of consecration. Instead of subordinating Christianity to culture, and instead of running from culture, God wants us to consecrate all things to His glory. God doesn’t bow to the world. Neither does He run from the world. He redeems the world, because His glory shines the most brilliantly in His grace.
God wants to minimize the number of people spiritually walking around with a spiritual “A” on them because they adulterated their souls with other gods. Christianity, the church and Christians are to help people come from the Valley of Vision (spiritual darkness) to the Light of the World (Jesus Christ and spiritual vision).
There is no question that Judah and Jerusalem are under God’s discipline and the people still chose spiritual darkness rather than spiritual light. In Isaiah 22, Isaiah is sick to his stomach over the sin, devastation and the lack of repentance by God’s people. Their stubbornness has blinded them spiritually and until there is repentance, the attacks will continue.
Reflection Assignment: Are you sickened over the lack of repentance in the lives of Christians today? Are you sick that there are those who call themselves a Christian, but their lives resemble more our culture than Christ? Is your life sincerely one of calling sin in your life that God calls sin, confessing it and repenting from it? Why or why not?
Scripture To Meditate On: 1 John 1:9, “But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness” (NLT).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, please convict me to call sin in my life You call sin. I want to have a life of confession, repentance and restoration. I do not want a stubborn, hardened heart, but a soft and open one to You and Your word. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly