God tells Isaiah to speak to the heart, so I think we should hear these words at a heart level, too. So let me ask you a question: What kind of person do you want to become?

There is a man I know and one of the first things I ever heard anyone say about him was this: “He’s only as good as the last person that talks to him.” What they meant by this comment was that this guy was wishy-washy. He could be swayed easily because he didn’t have deep convictions.

I don’t want to be that kind of person. I doubt anyone does. I want to be the kind of person who lives according to his convictions. But that requires trust. And in Isaiah 40, God is telling us that we can be confident that when we put our trust in His Word, we’re trusting in something eternally secure and solid.

In Ephesians 4, God talks about His desire for us to be spiritually mature, not tossed back and forth by every wave and every wind of doctrine. But in order to become that person, I have to put my trust in His Word.

We tend to think of maturity as achieving a state of dependence. You grow up, you become your own person, etc. But spiritual maturity is not based entirely upon my independence like this. Instead, spiritual maturity is based — at least in part — upon my dependence upon God and my dependence upon His Word. In order to become the spiritually solid, unwavering person God wants me to be, I have to put my trust in Him, which means trusting in His Word, trusting in the goodness of His commands, trusting what He says.

That’s the point we made last week: obedience actually sets you free! The world won’t tell you that, but it’s absolutely true! Submitting myself to God in obedience is actually liberating. Spiritual maturity isn’t measured by my degree of independence but rather by the degree of my dependence upon God and His Word.

So the point is that God’s Word can be trusted to bring us comfort. And in trusting His Word, we become the people He wants us to become.