Incredible

It’s an incredible thing to believe the promises of God—not just intellectually but with a whole-life kind of trust—as if our lives really depend on him. (And they do!)

It’s an incredible thing to believe that salvation is of the Lord—to truly know that the condition of our own hearts is too desperate for any lesser Savior.

It’s an incredible thing to believe in the goodness of God’s wrath and to see his sovereign judgment of sinners as “overflowing with righteousness” (Is.10:22).

It’s an incredible thing to know that the prophets of old told the truth: “The glory of his forest” (God’s chosen nation Israel) was hewn down by the ax of foreign nations because of their idolatry (Is 10:18-19). And we deserve no less because of ours.

It’s an incredible thing to behold God’s lavish mercy in the preservation of a remnant “so few that a child can write them down” (Is. 10:19). Although the trees were axed to the ground, a stump remained—a stump containing holy seed in its roots (Is 6:13).

It’s an incredible thing to behold the incarnate Son of God—the shoot from the stump of Jesse (Is. 11:1), the branch born to save us through his death on a tree. The “yes” to all of God’s promises.

It’s an incredible thing to know resurrection life—to be a branch of God’s chosen remnant, grafted into Christ the true vine and able to bear good fruit in the midst of our remaining sin and suffering and all that is “not yet.”

It’s an incredible thing to believe that “the root of Jesse” will return as “a signal for the peoples” (Is. 11:10)—that he will eradicate evil from the world and gather his own to a resting place more glorious than we can imagine.

Our God makes the incredible…credible. He gives his chosen ones eyes to see the unseen—the gift of true belief. From the very stump of his judgment he raises up “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified” through their everlasting joy (Is. 61:3,7).

Redemptive reversals too many to name. Incredible!