the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Discovering Christ Day by Day
Today’s Reading: Isaiah 28-30
“Wonderful in Counsel and Excellent in Working”
Isaiah 28:29
When Isaiah declares that the Lord God is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in working,” he means for us to understand and bless God for these three, indisputable facts.
God almighty has a plan by which he always works, from which he never deviates.
All men look upon a person who works without a plan as a fool. Haphazard work is folly. Yet, when we insist that God almighty in all his works is fulfilling his own great plan, men and women get angry. Be that as it may, let wicked men rebel as they dare against it, the truth still stands; and we rejoice in it. God always works by a plan. Nothing in this world is left to chance. God has determined the end from the beginning. He has not left a single screw in the machinery of providence loose. Everything that comes to pass in time is brought to pass according to God’s sovereign, unalterable, eternal purpose (Isaiah 14:24-27; Isaiah 46:9-11; Romans 8:28-30; 2 Corinthians 5:18; Ephesians 1:11).
Man is free to do whatever he wills. And, in as much as he is able, he always does exactly what he wants to do. And every person is entirely responsible for what he does. Yet, the great, eternal God sovereignly works out his purpose and accomplishes his will as perfectly as though men and devils were machines, programmed to carry out his designs. Yes, our God is “wonderful in counsel”
God is “excellent in working,” in the execution of his plan.
As he is “wonderful in counsel,” his works, which are but the execution of his counsel, the fulfilment of his plan, are excellent. Creation (Psalms 104), providence (Psalms 107), redemption (Ephesians 1:3-14), and grace (Ephesians 2:1-7) are God’s excellent works. Examine them closely. Behold their beauty and perfection. And glorify God, who is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.” Everything in time is accomplished “according to the good pleasure of his will” (Ephesians 1:5).
God’s wonderful counsel shall be perfectly fulfilled by the excellent works of his hands (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).
There is a day coming when time shall be no more. In that day, all that God purposed from eternity shall be done, perfectly and completely. Nothing shall have been done but what God purposed to be done. And nothing shall be left undone which God purposed from eternity to do, for the Lord God, our God, is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.” — “His ways are everlasting” (Habakkuk 3:6); and his purpose is sure. He always has done, is doing, and forever shall do all his pleasure everywhere and in all things.
