For this is a people without discernment. Therefore, He who made them will not have compassion on them. He who formed them will show them no favor.
– Isaiah 27:11
Oh, make this connection. You put the first and second parts of this verse together.
Isaiah 27:11 is a call to discernment.
People without discernment experience the judgment of God, experience the consequences of foolishness. Isaiah 27:11 is a call to discernment, to pray for discernment. Think about this word, this picture of wisdom and knowledge being able to discern what is right and good, what is wrong and evil, the ability to know that which is a wise course of action and that which is an unwise course of action. Oh, we all need discernment in our lives all day long.
Just think about my life today. I’ll make all kinds of decisions. I’ll say all kinds of things, do all kinds of things. I want to be discerning in them all. I want to be wise at every moment. Don’t you? We don’t want to say foolish things. Or want to do foolish things. We don’t want to choose the wrong path. We need discernment and the good thing is God promises to give it to us when we ask Him. So let discernment in our lives start with asking God for discernment instead of thinking we know what’s wise in and of ourselves. We need to be like Solomon early in his leadership when he asked God, above everything else he could have asked for, for wisdom, for discernment.
So let’s do that now and let’s do that intentionally throughout our day. God, we pray for discernment. We need discernment from you. God, we know that, left to ourselves, we lack discernment. We are a people without discernment, without wisdom. We are people who are prone to choose the wrong course of action, the unwise course of action.
Isaiah 27:11 encourages us to ask God for wisdom.
So help us, we pray. We need discernment and how to live today and how to love others best today and how to make decisions that bring you the most glory and others good and us joy, for our words to be discerning, for our thoughts to be discerning, for our plans to be discerning. God, please lead us and guide us. By your Spirit, we praise you, Holy Spirit. You’re the Spirit of Wisdom living inside of us. So lead us, guide us, direct us with your holy, wise, divine discernment that you promise to give us when we ask.
God, please keep us from ourselves, our foolish ways, our prideful thinking we know what’s best. God, we don’t. We don’t. We pray that you would save us from ourselves and our lack of discernment and you’d help us to walk in the discernment you make possible for us and, in the process, to experience the fruit of wisdom in our lives and in others’ lives. God help us to give wise, discerning counsel to others and encouragement to others and ultimately to share the wisdom of the cross and the wisdom of your salvation with others today. We pray for opportunities to share the gospel and boldness to share the gospel today.
Prayer for the Hmong People
God, we pray for people who’ve never been reached who don’t have access even now to the wisdom of the cross of Jesus Christ. God, we pray for the spread of the gospel. Specifically today, we pray for the Hmong people spread out around the world specifically in Southeast Asia, 777,000 of them who have little to no knowledge of your love in Jesus. God, we pray that that would change. We pray for their salvation. Lord, we pray that they would be reached with and saved by your gospel, the good news of your wisdom and power and love and salvation in Jesus. We pray all of this in his name according to Isaiah 27:11. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
