And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and strength,
The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And He will delight in the fear of the Lord,
And He will not judge by what His eyes see,
Nor make a decision by what His ears hear;
But with righteousness He will judge the poor,
And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth;
And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.
Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins,
And faithfulness the belt about His waist.
(Isaiah 11:1-5)
I love learning what scripture reveals about Jesus' earthly relationship with the Father. Even though Jesus is fully God, He walked on earth as simply a man, and one of the reasons He did this was so that we could observe what it is to walk in a complete, healthy relationship with God -- because we ourselves were created to walk in such a relationship. How can I know what healthy worship is without observing what it meant for Jesus to worship? How can I know what true obedience is without fully taking note what it meant for Jesus to obey? In short, how can I know what it means to live in full relationship with God without studying Jesus' own relationship with His Father? Wonderfully, there are many places in God's word where truths of this relationship are revealed -- not only directly, in Gospel testimonies of Jesus' life, but also in the rest of scripture.
The Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 11:1-5 appears to cover multiple time frames, but clearly it includes references to Jesus' earthly life. The line that speaks most deeply to me is "And He will delight in the fear of the Lord," the first part of Isaiah 11:3. Jesus lived by this principle -- He walked in complete reverence for the Father, a lifetime of "Not My will, but Yours be done," and it was His delight to do so. Why? Because the Father was His support system, His best friend, His deepest love, His provider, His sustainer, His comforter, His teacher, His ally, His protector, His life, His hope, His past, His present, His future. Jesus ached to return home to the Father, but was also fully focused on the life and tasks the Father had given to Him. Fulfilling the divine plan was Jesus' entire mission -- He hadn't come just to see what it was like to live as a human being, or to hang out with a bunch of fishermen.
Is God's plan my entire mission, too, now that I'm beginning to learn what it is to live in delight of the fear of the Lord? I can test this out by asking myself if I'm fully focused on the life and tasks God has given me. Nope. Definitely not there yet, not by a long shot. But it's a process, and the only way this will ever become true of me is if I continue to grow and live in delight of the fear of the Lord. Yet this is His work in me. I am simply to rest in His sufficiency, and to obey whatever He asks of me.