Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - A New Year's Eve Prayer | Historical Books | Isaiah 55

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

As we wrap up our year in the Historical Books, join Jensen in taking a moment to rest and pray through Isaiah 55, reflecting on 2025, and praying for God's blessing on 2026. Read the Bible with us in 2026! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Isaiah 55

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. And the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. The start of a new year often begins with shouts of joy, streamers, kissing, hopeful anticipation of what is to come. It offers people the feeling of a chance to start over, maybe to make a change, to make this year different. On the last day of 2025, I want to offer us space, to rest. Before the celebrations, before your resolutions kick in, before you go back to school or work and life picks up again, I wanted to offer you an invitation to pause, to reflect on God, to reflect on his presence in this moment with you right now, wherever you are, to remember the

ways that he has been with you in each moment this year, to recognize the places that he has provided, protected, sustained you. And of course, to look forward, to surrender the coming year into his hands, to re-center your focus, your goals, your aims for the next year on living in step with God, experiencing his presence, resting in his plans for your year. So today might feel a little different than normal, but I hope it's a refreshing moment of pause and reflection before the year ahead. So will you join me in praying through Isaiah 55 today? Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters,

and he who has no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Lord God, may we heed your invitation today. We come before you. thirsty, hungry, in need, desperately unable to satisfy our desires. So we come to you to the one who offers us the gift of life without cost. God, thank you for your generosity. Thank you for your provision. Thank you for wanting us to draw near, for desiring that we come and find rest and satisfaction in you. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that

which does not satisfy? God, I confess the ways that I have sought the comfort and presence and satisfaction of things that are not of you. I confess the ways my heart longed for and desired and meditated on lust, greed, consumerism. The ways I've tried to satisfy myself apart from you. Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food, incline your ear and come to me here that your soul may live. God, we are humbled by your mercy, humbled that even in our weakness you make away, you remain faithful to your promises for the sake of your glory. God, I am listening. Speak to me. Teach me your ways. Holy Spirit, move my heart to hunger for your presence,

to delight in your word. God grant me in your graciousness, the gift of life as I learn to follow in your ways. And I will make with you an everlasting covenant my steadfast sure love for David. behold I made him a witness to the peoples a leader and commander for the peoples behold you shall call a nation that you do not know and a nation that did not know you shall run to you because of the Lord your God and of the Holy One of Israel for He has glorified you Lord God you have made a way for me to be brought into your holy people through the Messiah Jesus the descendant of David the one who fulfilled your covenant of promise to your people. Because of him, I can draw near to you. I can rest in your presence. I can

bask in your glory. God, thank you for this gift. Thank you for your steadfast nature, for your faithfulness to redeem your people and to welcome me into your family. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. You are here, God. In this moment, right here, today with me, you will be with me as I walk into the coming year. You have been with me every day of my life. You are ever present. God, wake me up to that reality. Awaken my heart and mind to the reality that you are near.

Help me to grasp the magnitude of that gift. To seek you, to call upon you, to find you, and sit with you daily. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. Lord God, I see the ways of this past year I have failed. I have followed the ways of the people I want to be like, want to be loved by, admired by. I have satisfied my desires apart from you. God, I repent of my wickedness, and unrighteousness. Holy Spirit, convict me. Remain active and alert in my life that each time I am tempted to step aside from your ways, return my heart to the Lord. Remind me of the outstretched arms of the

Father waiting to receive me, to show me compassion to bless me with abundant grace. I am undeserving. But you, God, you are so good. So, in incomprehensibly merciful. For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways, my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. God, we praise you in your ways. All glory to the one who is greater and higher and more holy than anything we can imagine. That you, the creator of all things would love us, run to us, offer us compassion, invite us to dwell in your presence, give us life. God, you are unimaginably good. Nothing compares. Nothing deserves my love, my devotion,

my praise, and worship more than you, God. For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving the seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Lord, your word does not return to you empty. You accomplish what you set out to do. God, would you work in my heart, producing life in my soul, producing the fruit of the spirit in me this year? God, would you be the one who grows me, who uses me to plant the seeds of mercy and love and compassion

in the lives of those around me? Use me as an instrument of your choice, that my life would be a tool given in service to the building of your kingdom, the proclaiming of your righteousness, the bringing of your good news. Use me. Give me the confidence to know that you will accomplish what you set out to do. May I boldly proclaim Jesus in every area of my life this year, God, for your glory by your power. For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountain in the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle, and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

God may it be so in our lives, in our communities, in our world. As we take with us the joy of your promises, the peace of your presence, may you produce a world that sees who you are, that acknowledges your greatness. May we be a people that makes a name for you, that our lives. lives would direct others back to your goodness and that they would see your power to restore, to redeem, that out of darkness and thorn and briar that you produce life, flourishing, and joy. May we rest today, knowing that in all things and at all times, your promises are sure. Our future is secure.

You have given us an everlasting sign of your faithfulness. Lord Jesus, may we wait in hopeful expectation for the day that you will return again and restore creation beyond what we can imagine. Until that day, may we remain ever aware of your presence. May we satisfy our desires in you. May we rest in your mercy. And may we make our home in the house of the Lord. Father God, we love you. Amen.