Isaiah 48:9-22
"For my name’s sake . . . for mine own sake!" All too often we forget this great motive for God’s interventions. In adopting Israel as His people – and us Christians as His sons and daughters – God has, so to speak, committed Himself personally, just as a father commits himself before strangers for the deeds of his children! As the case demands, we are delivered, purified or chastised for the sake of the glory of the Father whose children we are (see Joshua 7:9 end). But God has a further motive for instructing and disciplining us: our profit (v. 17).
Peace of heart "like a river", calm and powerful, flows from the obedience of the believer (v. 18). We may understand by this that in the current of God’s will, neither the turbulence nor the bubbling foam of the mountain torrent is to be found. It is then that we experience 26:3: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee". We note that it was after having enjoined upon His disciples to keep His commandments and His Word that the Lord gave them His peace (John 14:15; John 14:21; John 14:23; John 14:27). Oh, the inestimable peace of the Lord’s redeemed ones! The wicked have no experience of it at all (v. 22).