Tag: faithfulness

Waiting on God’s Perfect Timing

Genesis 8:1
But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.

This passage might seem to suggest that God had let His promises to Moses slip His mind for some period of time before He fulfilled them. That interpretation would be inconsistent with who God is. God had not forgotten Noah for He does not and cannot forget His promises to His children.

But it is quite possible that Noah, a man of extraordinary faith, may have been wondering if God had forgotten about him and his family. Surely Noah had a few anxious thoughts when he and his family spent year upon year working on the ark with no sign of rain except the ridicule that was raining down upon them. Surely Noah was getting a bit on edge after spending seven months on the waters before the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Can you imagine the anxiety waiting another three months before any other mountain tops appeared above the water? Surely Noah was beyond frustration when the doves he sent out returned to the ark without having found a landing place. But God in His faithfulness remembered Noah and the promises that He had made to Noah. On the twenty-seventh day of the fourteenth month, God told Noah that he and his family could now go out from the ark. Noah finally took his family and all the animals out to the earth that was perfectly prepared for them.

It seems reasonable to assume that Noah and his family surely wanted off the boat before it was time. But God was not going to let them leave the boat until the earth around them was properly prepared. As we go through life, our expectations often lead us to question whether God has remembered us. We are simply placing our desires ahead of God’s perfect plan for our lives. The God of Faithfulness never forgets us or His promises to us.

Let us have unwavering faith in the promises of Almighty God. Let us have unflinching trust in His perfect timing. Let us rejoice in what He has provided for us even before we see it.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your faithfulness to Your promises. We rejoice in knowing that You will not let a single promise return void. We pray that You will give us the grace we need to build our faith when we are waiting on Your perfect timing for our lives. May we never doubt You. We ask all these things in the One who is faithful and true, Jesus Christ.

Seeing the Promises of God Graciously Bestowed in Our Lives

2 Peter 1:4
Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

The great God of heaven and earth, the creator and ruler over all things, has made His divine nature available to us through His Son, Jesus. He confirms this endless gift of grace through His promises, His power and His faithfulness. Whether our faith be weak or strong right now, we can find hope in claiming what has already been granted to us.

Yes, the struggles can be overbearing, but we can be certain that God promises us that the tough times will end. Do we not know that the divine nature and power of Jesus Christ is sufficient to provide victory for us in all things? Once we have accepted Jesus as Our Savior, the victory is ours. All that we need has been provided to us free, without conditions and unchangeable. All of it is provided to serve the great ends and purposes of Almighty God. All of it is provided to proclaim His glory as He showers us with His everlasting good.

Through this divine intervention, we are able to escape the frailties of our own flesh and the corruption of the world. With the precious promises graciously bestowed and powerfully applied, we are able to live under the divine influence of Our Savior and avoid the ungodliness of our carnal nature.

Let us claim total victory over all the evil pleasures that our corrupt world offers us. Let us boldly claim what has been promised to us through the divine nature of Christ Jesus.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing Our Blessed Hope and Assurance, Jesus Christ. We praise You, worship You and exalt Your Name for all that You have set aside for us. We pray that You teach us how to submit to Our Lord, Our Master and Our King, Jesus so that we may be fully prepared to receive our eternal inheritance. May Your majesty, Your grace and Your power be manifested in us here on earth as it is in heaven. May it all be for Your glory and the gain of the kingdom as we reject the evil offerings of this corrupt world. We ask all these things in the name of Our Divine Mediator, Jesus Christ.

The Power of the Indwelling Christ in Our Lives

Colossians 2:6-7
Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

We are called to walk in the fullness of Jesus Christ who dwells within us. We are to mirror in every way His love, patience, humility, meekness and faithfulness in carrying out His duties. But more than that, we are to lean on Him. We are to derive from Him the grace and strength that we need to live under His influence, by His direction and through His assistance.

In Jesus, we find beauty, glory, fullness and everything suitable for living our new lives in Christ. We should not consider our own plans ever again, unless they are derived by seeking the guidance of Our Savior first. We must learn not to lean on our own understanding, but to trust in the Lord to make our paths straight.

Once we acknowledge Our Lord and receive the benefit of the good and perfect plans that He sets aside for us, we must express our gratitude for all that He has provided. For God justly withdraws His provision from those that receive it without thanksgiving.

Let us move swiftly to the yoke of Jesus Christ. Let us receive the fullness of all of His promises as we pour out our burdens upon Him. Let us tell the world of the peace and comfort that He provides us. May it all be for the glory of Our Lord and Servant King.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing Your Son, Jesus, to dwell within us. Make us mindful of His presence at all times. Teach us to gladly, joyfully and willingly seek the plans that have been set aside for us through Our Savior. Mold our hearts so that we will be ready to receive the fullness of Christ into our lives. We pray that You fill our hearts with continuous gratitude and thanksgiving for our ever present King. We ask all these things in the name of the One who transforms us through His indwelling presence, Jesus Christ.

Surrendering to the Will of God

Matthew 26:39
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Jesus fully accepted His assignment of death on the Cross. He knew that His sacrifice was necessary for the salvation of all men. He knew that His death on the Cross was the reason He was sent to earth. The thing that overwhelmed Jesus was the impending separation from the Father when He would take on the sins of all men. Yet Jesus was fully obedient to the will of the Father for the good of all mankind. And He was received in all His glory by the Father.

According to this example of Christ, we must drink of the most bitter cup which God puts into our hands. Even though our flesh will seek immediate relief from all trial in our lives, we must recognize and accept the will of Our Father as we go through our trials. For, as God allowed the unspeakable trial of the Cross for the benefit of all mankind, He allows each of us to go through our trials for our ultimate eternal gain. Through our faithful obedience, one day we will be standing sinless before Almighty God and we will be received into glory by Him.

Let us face each cup of bitterness in our lives with hope and confidence in the promises of the Cross. Let us rejoice that Almighty God loves us so much that He works every detail in our lives for our eternal good. Let us exalt the name of Jesus for accepting His cup of bitterness so that we may have victory over every trial in our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You that You allow the trials in our lives that prepare us to be received by You. May You provide the grace we need for our spiritual maturation so that we are able to take our cup of bitterness and rejoice in our submission to Your will and plan for our lives. We pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us and strengthen us so that we may overcome the weakness of our flesh. We surrender to Our Savior and ask that we live in the fullness that He has made available to us through His sacrifice on the Cross. We ask all these things in the name of the Word made flesh on our eternal behalf, Jesus Christ.

Resting on the Providence and Promises of Our All-Sufficient Lord

Psalm 55:22
Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

It is obvious from this verse that we are to have burdens in our lives. But God in His mercy promises us that He will not give a burden that is larger that the provision that He will grant to overcome the burden.

God gave His own Son a cup of sorrow and suffering that was so intense that Jesus sweat blood as He faced His upcoming crucifixion. But Jesus did as the verse commands, He cast His burden upon the Father. Thus He was provided with all He needed to face the Cross and rise from His trial in victory.

No affliction or tribulation is joyous. They are all troublesome. Some are much heavier than others. At times they even seem to gather together or to extend much longer that we would care to bear. The total of it all adds up to the burden we face. Our relief is to look to Jesus Christ who bore it all on the Cross and took it away from us.

Let us cast our burdens upon the Lord. Let us claim the promise of Our Heavenly Father that He will not let His righteous children fail. Let us rest upon His providence and promise. Let us rejoice in His faithfulness.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your promises that we can lean on as we deal with the cups of sorrow and suffering that we must swallow. We thank You for using our trials to build our faith in who You are. We thank You for insuring our victory through Your Son, Jesus. We thank You for insuring our righteousness through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We pray for Your mercies to be granted us each day as You release fresh supplies of strength and comfort just as we need them to overcome our trials. We ask these things in the name of the One who gave His life for the ransom of many, our all sufficient Lord, Jesus Christ.

The Faithful Love, Protection and Provision of Almighty God

Psalm 91:1
He that dwells in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

In this world, to live in someone’s shadow is generally thought to be an undesirable place. It is regarded as a place where you cannot live up to the standards of the one who preceded you. In the kingdom of God, quite the opposite is true. Living in the shadow of Almighty God enables us to be more than we could believe to be possible.

Loving faith in Almighty God on our part will always be met by faithful love, protection and provision on God’s part. His covering of us is much greater than we can imagine. If we are abiding in Him, there is no limit to His shadow that is over us. He protects us at all times from natural and supernatural enemies. He makes our homes secure. He is our refuge in every storm.

But it does not stop there for those that seek to live in His shadow. He invites us to enjoy so much more. There is a special nuance in this passage that must not be overlooked. The blessings spoken of in today’s passage can be greater for those believers who live in ongoing, close fellowship with God. The delightful fullness of these most high blessings are for those who habitually abide in the shadow of Almighty God. Those who stand in continuous communion with God set themselves up to become possessors of rare and special benefits.

Let us seek the grace to be constant refugees in the fortress of Almighty God. Let us enjoy the fullness of His shadow.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank You for the shadow of protection and provision that You place over us when we surrender our lives to You. We bless the name of Jesus who has made it possible for us to come to Your mercy seat. We pray, Lord, that Your Holy Spirit will guide us and strengthen us as we seek to abide under Your shadow. May our hearts be prepared to seek that secret place of constant communion where we can access the fullness of Your most high blessings. We ask all these things in the name of the One whose mercies never end, Jesus Christ.

Good and Faithful Servants Wait on the Lord to Put Things in Order

Psalm 130:5
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.

In our society, patience is a lost virtue. Everybody wants satisfaction instantly. Nobody is willing to wait on anything. This may be especially true at the start of a new year as many of us have such strong intentions of getting our new year off to a good start. Each of us is anxious to jump into the new year to get on with our perceived new paths to being more productive and more prosperous.

This rush to get things done is in direct opposition to how Our Heavenly Father works. No single thing is done in His kingdom until everything is in perfect order for the perfect result. This is especially true in our lives. The Lord does not want us to advance until He has prepared us and our surroundings properly. If we try to move ahead of God’s plan, we will meet heartbreak and disappointment.

From a human perspective, we can make a lot of good decisions in our lives without God. We can also accomplish a lot things deemed good by the world without God. We cannot, however, accomplish anything of real kingdom value without placing our reliance on Our Heavenly Father and waiting on Him to direct us through His Holy Spirit. In order to be deemed good and faithful servants, we must learn to wait on the Lord in all things. We must learn to wait on His grace and the working of His power in our lives.

Let us believe God to be who He says He is. Let us learn to wait for God to open doors for us. Let us learn to rest until He puts things in perfect order for us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for working all things in our lives for our good when we trust in You. We thank You for providing the Holy Spirit to be with us always to remind us to lean on You and not on ourselves. We pray, Lord, that you will give us the patience to wait on you. We ask that You show us how to be still in the valley as you prepare the mountain top for us and those that You have given us to serve. We rejoice in Your faithfulness. We ask all these things in the name of the One who did nothing without knowing He was operating in Your will, Your Son, Jesus.

Joining Jesus in a Lifetime of Obedience

John 4:34
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

Jesus Christ spent every day of His life on earth fueled by the desire to fulfill the work that He had been given by His Father. It was the Father’s will that all of His children could become heirs to His kingdom in heaven. The sacrificial death of Jesus was required for any man or woman to be deemed acceptable to claim the inheritance that the Father had prepared for them. Jesus took on the sin of all men on the Cross by divine decree. It was the reason that He came to earth. He faithfully completed the work that His Father gave Him to do.

His unimaginable accomplishment was crowned by His own words, “It is finished.” Through His perfect life and His atoning death, He glorified the Father and opened the way for all men to become heirs to the kingdom of Almighty God.

With His work complete, Jesus called on His disciples to join Him in fulfilling His Father’s plan for mankind. He warned them that they would suffer many trials in carrying out the Father’s will in their own lives. He explained that each of them would have to pick up their own crosses. He encouraged them by telling them that He was going to provide them with a helper to give them the strength that they would need to bring the salvation plan to all men. As it was with the disciples, Jesus is calling each of us to join Him in a lifetime of obedience to the will of Almighty God.

Let us cling to the Cross – the supernatural bridge that provides the only way to Our Father in heaven. Let us pick up our own crosses to do what is necessary so that we may help the world around us find the way, the truth and the life that is Jesus Christ. Let us be fueled by our desire to do the will of the Father.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for loving us so much that You sent Your Son to die on the Cross to atone for our sins. We exalt the name of Jesus who accepted His assignment on earth so that He might glorify Your name and open the way to heaven for all men. We pray, Father, that we may glorify Your name by faithfully completing every good work that You have set aside for us. In the name of Jesus, we ask for the grace to see and the strength to accept the things that You have called us to do so that others may see the way, the truth and the life that is Your Son, Jesus. We ask all these things in the name of the Lamb slain for our sin, Jesus Christ.

Extraordinary Plan that God has for the Relationships in Our Lives

1 Thessalonians 5:24
He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

The God who calls us to our Christian faith is faithful to fulfill His promises to us. From the moment that we surrender to His Son, Jesus, as Our Savior, He commences a good work in us that He promises to finish. He will be steadfast in His continuous work of sanctification in our lives.

New government authority, new boss, new co-worker, new neighbor, new acquaintance, new friend – not a single one is new by chance. God has placed each of those that are around us to teach us new things about ourselves. It seems impossible that such a plan could be put in place for each of us. But our God is a God of the impossible. He has no limits to His power and His authority. He loves us so much that He goes to an extraordinary, nearly unimaginable, level to insure that we are surrounded by a host of intercessors. These intercessors in our lives are placed there for one reason. God in His mercy and His grace wants to insure that we are properly prepared to spend eternity with Him.

In the life of the believer, there is no such thing as chance. Our sovereign God is always in total control of everything. Do not miss the flip side of our relationships with our surrounding intercessors. God wants us to join Him in the work that He is doing in the lives of those around us. We are simultaneously the other half of all of these relationships in our lives. We become the new boss, the new co-worker, the new neighbor, the new acquaintance, the new friend to someone else. And again, not a single one of the new relationships is by chance. God has purposely placed us in each relationship to be a giver as well as a receiver of His intercessory work in our lives.

Let us embrace every relationship in our lives. Let us be proactive in gleaning the good things from each person God has placed around us. Let us also be determined to be productive intercessors for each person that God has put in our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your providence in our lives. We rejoice in knowing that You understand our weaknesses and provide intercessory support through those that You place around us. We pray, Father, that Your Holy Spirit will alert us to the intercession that You have planned for us. May we learn to grow through the circumstances that engulf us from time to time. May we be gracious and willing receivers of the intercession that You have placed in our lives. We pray that in turn You will provide the wisdom that we need to be fruitful intercessors for others as we engage them in the journey that is life. We ask all these things in the name of Our Most High Intercessor, Jesus Christ.

We Are All Called to Glorify Our Father in Heaven Through Our Obedience

John 17:4
I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

Jesus Himself declared that His principal work was to be obedient to the will of His Father in heaven. He did not seek His own glory. He sought only His Father’s glory. In the process, He did away with Satan, sin and death and He provided for the redemption and the salvation of all men.

Just as Jesus was faithful in completing His work on earth to glorify His Father, He will also be faithful in completing His work in us so that we may glorify Our Father. We will not experience the complete fullness of His work in us until we meet Our Savior in His eternal kingdom. But as we surrender to the will of the Father, we can expect to accomplish more here on earth than we can imagine that we are capable of. And we can be certain that our work will bring glory to Our Father in heaven.

Be mindful that Satan and our own flesh will come against us as we seek to glorify the Father on earth. But fear not for the Spirit of the Lord will insure that we overcome the work of the enemy. We do not need to be concerned about our circumstances, Our Savior will be sufficient. And it will all be for the glory of The Father.

Let us surrender everything to Our Father in heaven. Let our obedience to His call on our lives glorify His name. May those around us glorify the Father when they see our faithfulness.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the grace that You have given us through Your Son to overcome the world. We bless the name of Jesus for His faithfulness in completing the good work that You gave Him to do. We pray that the Holy Spirit will lead us and strengthen us so that we may fully surrender to Your will just as Your Son surrendered His all to You. May it all be for Your glory, for the glory of Your Son and the glory of the Holy Spirit. We ask all these things in the name of the obedient Son of the Most High God, Jesus Christ.