SCRIPTURE: Isaiah 20
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
Then the Lord said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush, so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared–to Egypt’s shame. [Isaiah 20:3-4]
Not sure how Isaiah felt about this assignment, it must have been very humbling to walk around naked.
But God was making a point through Isaiah: this is what happens when people forsake me and rely on themselves.
Think of the glory of Adam and Eve (without clothes) before they sinned, and their shame after they sinned.
The curse of sin includes shame and exposure and humiliation.
Israel had hoped that an alliance with Egypt would save them; instead they are humiliated and defeated.

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. [Matthew 27:27-31]
When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. [Matthew 27:35]
The curse of sin includes shame and exposure and humiliation.
But wait a minute, why would Jesus need to experience this, wasn’t He sinless?
Here we see how far Jesus was prepared to go for us; He became like us in our shame and misery; He became naked and exposed and humiliated – stripped of His heavenly dignity.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” [Galatians 3:13]

Whenever you think of any experience – in the bible or any time in history, or in your own life – of misery and shame and humiliation and suffering, think of Jesus and what He endured.
He became one with us in these things, in order that He could overcome them.
Jesus does not hide in His ivory tower, God does not stand above the world impassive and disconnected.
He knows our pain, our misery, He feels and shares it with us.
In fact He absorbs the curse of sin, death and hell into Himself so that we could be liberated from it.
Just as Isaiah experienced what Egypt was about to go through, Jesus experienced what we go through.
Not just to identify with us, but to liberate us.
Now, because of Jesus, the shame is reversed, the curse is broken; just as He came out on the other side in new life, we too will come through all shame and humiliation to the other side – eternal glory!

So whatever you are going through right now, relate it to what Jesus experienced; then consider how He came through on the other side, and how as a result you will too!

PRAYER:
Lord, thank You for opening the way from shame to glory, from nakedness to being clothed in dignity and honor. Help us to see ourselves not through eyes of shame, but through Your eyes, as Your much loved children.