How beautiful [and delightful] upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Isaiah 52:7 (ESV)

There isn’t a question mark in this verse because God is making a statement through the Prophet Isaiah rather than asking a question – notice the exclamation of ‘How beautiful’ – it’s as though God can’t take in how beautiful our feet are to Him. There is a longing in the Word of God for the ones God has made.

Listen to King David in Psalm 16:3,

As for the saints (godly people) who are in the land, they are the majestic and the noble and the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.

Similarly, in Romans 10:15 quoting this exact verse from Isaiah 52 above, Paul makes a bold and missionally motivating proclamation of the beauty of the church rather than asking the church in Rome to go away and work out if they were worthy or able enough.

No. God delights in us and this is the boiler room of our ‘going’. He call us Hephzibah not Azubah or Shemamah; He calls us My Delight is in her not Abandoned or Desolate (See Isaiah 62).

Publishing Good News

God delights in us enough to have orchestrated the great condescension of Jesus from the glory and majesty of the throne of God to the frailty of human frame and the freezing temperatures and animal muck of a farmyard.

Imagine being a Daddy and having a beautiful newborn baby boy. Imagine laying him on a cross of torture and suffering. Imagine placing him down naked on a cold, wet winter pavement, turning away and abandoning him.

What love is this?

This Love is our God and our Saviour.

This Christmas – Cold Feet?

This Christmas I’m taking this verse from Isaiah 52, where God describes our feet as being beautiful, and digging down into why it often is that we live and move and have our being with cold feet rather than the experience of feet that are beautiful.

Why?

Cold Feet is a term often forming part of the stereotype for men and women who have a fear of commitment to long-term relationships or marriage. I’m sure that all of us can relate to this same ‘fear’ when it comes to going hard after God and the great commission – of taking the gospel to the lost.

How about you? Do you have cold feet when it comes to the glorious gospel and ‘publishing’ and proclaiming it boldly for popular consumption? I know I often do.

We need to walk more closely with the Spirit of God.

This Advent – Beautiful Feet

This Advent I’m making room to reconsider Jesus, the call of God on my life and how it is that I “Go” for the sake of the lost, the church and the glory of His name.

Would you join me?