#DailyDevotion Jesus Is The Shoot Of Jesse
Isaiah 11:1 A Shoot will come out of the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a Branch will produce fruit. 2The LORD’s Spirit will rest on Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. 3The fear of the LORD will please Him. He will not judge just by what He sees or decide by what He hears. 4He will be fair in judging the poor, and treat the humble right when He makes decisions for them. He will strike the world with the rod of His mouth and kill the wicked with the breath of His lips. 5Righteousness will be the belt around His waist and faithfulness around His hips.
God is doing something new. He is re-establishing the Davidic house. It had become corrupted, even with David himself. So a Shoot came out of the stump of Jesse. Jesus is that Shoot. He is the new David and he is that Branch which produces fruit. You are that fruit if you believe in him. Jesus is of the house and lineage of David and is called David by Ezekiel in in prophetic utterings.
The seven-fold Spirit rest upon Jesus, the wisdom of wisdom, understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the LORD. We can see this in how Jesus expounds upon the Torah in his Sermon on the Mount and his Sermon on the Plain. He shows good works are not merely about the performance of certain acts but the it is also a matter of the heart and spirit. He demonstrates his fear of the LORD as he resists the devil’s temptations both in the wilderness and upon the cross.
The fear of the LORD is not being terrified of the LORD. That would make no sense for Jesus who never sinned. In the Old Testament the “fear of the LORD” is essentially faith. If you fear the LORD you are trusting Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. If you are fearing the LORD, i.e. trusting him to provide what you need, you will not be sinning, breaking the commandments of God, rebelling against his statutes, and trespassing his ways because the reason we do that is we are not trusting God the LORD for every good. That is not to say there is not a certain amount of awe involved in the fear of the LORD but is more of how you feel when you walk into a courtroom or capital building.
During Jesus’ ministry he demonstrated in his encounters with the Pharisees, Sadducee and Scribes as well as the poor, prostitutes, tax collectors his ability to not judge by outward appearances or what he hears. Jesus looks at the heart and judges fairly and treats the humble right. Wealth and riches, humble and poor, Jesus will always judge us impartially. Who we are and what we have and who likes or doesn’t like you doesn’t matter. He will treat you fairly.
Jesus will judge the world and the wicked on the Last Day. He will correct them with the rod of his mouth and the breath of his lips. All those who did not come under his rule in this life will submit to it in the next as he casts them into hell. But if you rejoice in his rule in this life, if you fear him now, you will enter into his kingdom with joy. For those who fear him he treats with mercy, kindness, love, and forgiveness.
Heavenly Father, you restarted the Davidic house with your Son Jesus Christ. Grant us true fear of him and faith that we may live in his kingdom now and into eternity. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.