The Offspring

Isaiah 11:1 A Shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. (during a time when King David's lineage was in disarray because of the disobedience and lack of faith of his descendants, Isaiah describes the revelation that the Messiah will actually come from those very fallen remains of Jesse's line; though David was a revered and honored king of Israel, a man of God who had united the Israelites and had powerfully expanded the kingdom of God, and though Israel and David's lineage were now in shambles, here is the promise that the Messiah would rise from the fallen deadness of a stricken line; while Jesse himself is relatively unknown to us, his son became one of the most revered kings of Israel with the ultimate descendent from Jesse fulfilled in the birth of Christ Whose kingdom exponentially expanded far beyond David's; embedded in this message about Jesus, about the Person of Christ, about the wonder of the Messiah, about the fallen state of Israel's affairs, about Jesse, is a promise that God still gives us today; while our own existence may seem small, while our own efforts may seem small, while our own impact may seem small, while our life may be in a fallen state of brokenness, as we walk out the Lord's purposes in our lives today, we become the source of a heritage today and for the future that may be unimaginable to us at this moment; whatever the Lord is leading us through today may, in fact, be the stump from which a branch will come forth in our lives that will eventually bear eternal fruit; our job today is to trust Him with our ordinariness, with the commonplace life we may feel we live, and with the disarray and brokenness that may describe our lives; in Christ, we are a mighty source of good, we have a powerful impact on the kingdom, and He brings forth in us hope and triumph in the midst of darkness!) Submitted by: Sally Shields