Tag: promises of God

Finding Peace in a Troubled World

John 16:33
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

Jesus spoke directly to the apostles before He left the earth. He wanted the apostles to know that even though He would be leaving them in the flesh that He would still be with them in spirit. He wanted them to understand that He would be with them always as He is with the Father always. He wanted them go forward in peace, without fear, having faith that the victory was theirs through Him. He wanted them to be empowered by knowing that He had already overcome all the tribulation that the world and Satan himself had to offer. Through His indwelling with them, they would have the power that they needed to endure all things.

And so it is with us. When we accept Jesus as Our Savior, His Spirit indwells with us. We become one with Him as He is one with the Father. We receive all that the apostles were told that they would receive.

Unfortunately, one facet of the things to come for us is the fact that we will face tribulation. We will encounter the fierce opposition of the evil one and of those who represent him. And we will certainly face the persistent opposition of our own flesh. But Jesus wants us to be of good courage and hope for He promises to provide all that we need to overcome anything that is thrown at us. When we surrender to Jesus, we have all that we need to overcome the temptations of Satan, the infirmities of our own flesh and the carnal offerings of the world.

Let us allow our faith to override our fears as we are swamped by trying circumstances. Let us face every trial in life with the peace, the comfort and the confident hope that Jesus has promised us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we humbly come before You in thanksgiving for the power that You have granted us through Your Son, Jesus. We pray that You teach us how to develop and enjoy our relationship with Jesus. May we find our strength in Jesus, just as Jesus found His strength in You when He was in the flesh. May our victories over our tribulations bring honor and glory to You, to Your Son and to the Holy Spirit. We pray that our victories become living testimonies that will draw others to Jesus. We ask all these things in the name of the Upholder of All Things, Jesus Christ.

All Prayers are Heard and All Blessings are Bestowed in the Name of Jesus

John 16:23
In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.

Why is it that we do not have enough faith to believe in all the promises that God has given us through His Son, Jesus? There is certainly an overwhelming amount of evidence to prove that God has power over all things. Why can’t we believe in His simple promises to meet our every need and to work out all things for our eternal good?

The medium of access to the Father is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the mediator between Almighty God and man. The sacrifice of the life of Jesus and His righteousness speak loudly in heaven. The account of His blood pleases the Father, thus His mediation is powerful and guaranteed. In His name, all prayers are heard and all blessings are bestowed.

When we fully surrender our lives to Jesus, we will have all the faith that we need to go boldly to the the throne of Our Creator. We will ask for things with confidence in the power and the promises of Our Mediator. We may find a number of things we do not fully understand, but we will never find our prayers unanswered.

Let us boldly claim our rights under the power of our mediator, Jesus Christ. Our Father in heaven granted us these rights through the sacrifice of His beloved Son. Let us glorify the name of the Father and the Son as we seek with bold assurance what has already been set aside for us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we come before You in the name of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We thank You for every blessing that we receive in His holy, mighty and precious name. We pray for the wisdom and the strength to surrender all that we are and all that we have to You in His Name. We rejoice in knowing that we will serve You for all eternity with never a need again. We ask all these things in the name of the Mediator of the New Covenant, Jesus Christ.

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.

The Conditional Promise of a Truly Abundant Life

Matthew 6:33
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

We have been raised in a world where goals, objectives and top line results are everything. We feel measured by the things that we have and the things that we have accomplished and pressured by the things that we are trying to accomplish. We have been trained to be independent and self-reliant. This is absolutely upside down from the kingdom of God. Our all-sufficient Lord promises that He will meet our every need.

Although Our Lord promises us that He will provide all that we need and all the desires of our hearts, we must realize that these promises are conditional. We must first seek His kingdom and the righteousness that living in His kingdom requires. Then all of these things will be given to us. Food, drink, clothing or whatever other worldly sustenance that we need will be given to us freely and liberally. We are able to receive these gifts without having to think about how they will come, without having to concern ourselves about the timeliness of their arrival and, most importantly, without due consideration of our own merit or our own capability.

Let our great goals in life be set based on our relationship with Jesus Christ. Let all of our objectives be directed toward putting our relationship with God first. Let us set aside our need to worry over our results. Let us receive the truly abundant life that has been promised to us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the abundant life that awaits us when we seek You first. We bring You all the honor and glory for being Our Provider. We ask Your forgiveness for seeking the things of the world before You. Teach us, Lord, how to prioritize our lives according to the principles of Your kingdom. May the Holy Spirit enlighten us so that we may live in Christ and not in the world. We ask all these things in the name of Our Promised and Abundant Provision, Jesus Christ.

The Lord Provides Every Good Thing

Psalm 34:10
The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

We can find great comfort in the Psalms as we discover David’s prayers that he used to silence his fears. Through his faith David often looked to the Lord in prayer. He was wonderfully revived and comforted time after time.

Be assured that God owns everything. If we seek Him, we can expect the fullness of His provisions in our lives. He does expect a little from us. He expects us to put Him first in our finances, first in our interests, first in our relationships, first in our schedule and even first in our troubles. If we do these things, we will lack no good thing.

Let us follow the good model shown to us by David. Let us not turn to the world where we will find trouble. Let us not trust in ourselves, thinking that our own efforts will be sufficient.

Let us seek God’s provision in all things. Let us look at His promises instead of focusing on our problems. Let us be persistent in our prayers until we receive what we cannot see now but hope for with the same faith as David.

Let us be positive and let God develop our potential. Let us rejoice in seeing Him provide more than we can imagine. Let us marvel as He surrounds us with people who are filled with His precious love.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing us with every good thing that we need. We praise the name of Jesus who has provided us with our greatest need – to be washed clean by His shed blood. We pray, Lord, that Your Holy Spirit will teach us how to taste and see Your goodness as we learn to put our total trust in You. May Your grace be sufficient to transform us from living lives in the flesh to living lives in the spirit. We ask all these things in the name of the One who brings salvation to all people, Jesus Christ.

The Faith to Hold on to the Promises of God When Trouble Abounds

Deuteronomy 11:11-12
But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

The Lord is our provider. He provides everything. He gave us life. He sustains us. He grants us eternal life through His Son, Jesus. He endows us with the riches of His Kingdom for all eternity.

All we have to do is receive His Son as Our Savior and through our faith in His promises step out of the land in which we are living and into the land that God has set aside for us. It will mean that we will look past those things that we think are unsurmountable. We will seek the promise and not get overwhelmed by the problem. We will rely on God and not ourselves to be the source of our needs.

Once we turn our lives over to God and surrender to the reign of His Son in our lives, all of our needs will be met. Provision may come from our own hands as God favors us with productive ideas and capabilities. Provision may come from the hands of others or may even come from our enemies, if so directed by the Lord. But rest assured, provision will come directly from the hand of God and it will be according to His perfect timing for our lives.

Let us rest on the promises of Our Savior. Let us confidently await all that we need from this world and eagerly look for more than we can imagine from the hand of Our Lord.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the countless blessings that You shower us with each day. From breath to breath, You sustain us. We praise You and bless You for Your eyes never leave us. You are our constant comfort and provision. We pray that Your Holy Spirit will teach us, Lord, to rest in Your promises. We ask that Your Holy Spirit strengthen us, Lord, so that we may step out of the world of the flesh into kingdom living. We ask all these things in the name of Our Omniscient King, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Takes Us to Places of Joy We Cannot Reach on Our Own

Jeremiah 31:25
For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.

What a tremendous promise we have from the Lord. The promise was first spoken to draw the Jews out of bondage back to their homelands and back to Himself. Through His prophet, Jeremiah, Almighty God was assuring the Jews that they would find a rest and joy in their new settlement if they set aside their idols and returned to Him.

The promise still holds true for all of us today as the Lord encourages us with His extraordinary promise to give us the strength that we need to break away from all the bondage in our lives. The promise includes drawing us back to Himself when we have separated ourselves from Him by living in the world and taking on personal idols that we have set ahead of the Lord. The promise includes giving us the spiritual inspiration that we need to renew our devotion to Him when it is lagging.

Through His incredible promise, He calls us to live in a higher place, a place where His presence brings us complete comfort, peace and satisfaction. He calls us to a place where the weary find rest and the sorrowful find joy. There is no other place except in Jesus Christ that we can find such a promise.

Let us take our weary souls before Our Father in heaven. Let us languish there and be replenished in body, mind and spirit.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for drawing us to Yourself. We bless the name of Jesus who provides all that we need to be one with You and one with Your Son. We pray that You raise up in us the desire to bring to You the fullness of love and devotion that You seek from us. Lift us up, Lord, to a higher place – a place that we cannot reach without You. We pray that Your Holy Spirit will strengthen us to leave behind the things of the world that we place ahead of our devotion to You. We ask all these things in the name of our Most High Savior, Jesus Christ.

God Promises to Raise Us Up from Our Lowest Places

Daniel 4:14-15
He proclaimed aloud and said thus: ‘Chop down the tree and lop off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it and the birds from its branches. But leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, amid the tender grass of the field.

King Nebuchadnezzar was at ease in his house and prospering greatly. In his own words, the Most High God had blessed him in every way. But because of Nebuchadnezzar’s unrighteousness and iniquities, it was all taken away from him. The Most High God, who had provided it all to Nebuchadnezzar, allowed it all to be taken away. Ultimately, when Nebuchadnezzar turned his eyes back to the the Lord, all was returned to the King.

In the prophetic words of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar is the tree. God commands that the tree be stripped of all branches, leaves and fruit. But as the God of all mercy stripped everything away from the tree, he left a stump from which the tree could rise again.

Almighty God is not only the God of all provision, He also the God of all loss. In some unusual cases, He may order our losses to occur. In most cases, He is simply allowing a loss to occur as a result of our iniquities or as a result of the attacks of the enemy. Be certain that no loss can occur in our lives without God allowing it. Be even more certain that our merciful Lord, who is filled with lovingkindness, is also the God of restoration. So no matter what we are going through, or have gone through, God has commanded that some good remnant be left in us from which He can raise us up according to His perfect plans for our lives.

Let us gird ourselves with the promises that God has made to us when we are going through the greatest of trials. Let us rejoice in knowing that He is not only prepared to restore us, it is His desire that we be restored. Let us find comfort in knowing that the loving and merciful hand of the Lord never leaves us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for every provision in our lives. We give You all the glory and the praise for Your grace and lovingkindness. Teach us, Lord, how to give you all the glory and praise when we are experiencing loss in our lives. Build up our faith so that we may endure while You raise us up from “what is left” in our lives to the good and perfect place that You have planned for us. We ask all these things in the name of our all-sufficient Lord, Jesus Christ.

Where the Weary Find Rest and the Sorrowful Find Joy

Jeremiah 31:25
For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.

What a tremendous promise we have from the Lord. The promise was first spoken to draw the Jews out of bondage back to their homelands and back to Himself. Through His prophet, Jeremiah, Almighty God was assuring the Jews that they would find a rest and joy in their new settlement if they set aside their idols and returned to Him.

The promise still holds true for all of us today as the Lord encourages us with His extraordinary promise to give us the strength that we need to break away from all the bondage in our lives. The promise includes drawing us back to Himself when we have separated ourselves from Him by living in the world and taking on personal idols that we have set ahead of the Lord. The promise includes giving us the spiritual inspiration that we need to renew our devotion to Him when it is lagging.

Through His incredible promise, He calls us to live in a higher place, a place where His presence brings us complete comfort, peace and satisfaction. He calls us to a place where the weary find rest and the sorrowful find joy. There is no other place except in Jesus Christ that we can find such a promise.

Let us take our weary souls before Our Father in heaven. Let us languish there and be replenished in body, mind and spirit.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for drawing us to Yourself. We bless the name of Jesus who provides all that we need to be one with You and one with Your Son. We pray that You raise up in us the desire to bring to You the fullness of love and devotion that You seek from us. Lift us up, Lord, to a higher place – a place that we cannot reach without You. We pray that Your Holy Spirit will strengthen us to leave behind the things of the world that we place ahead of our devotion to You. We ask all these things in the name of our Most High Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Unfathomable Faith of Abraham

Genesis 22:2
He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

Did anyone, other than Jesus Himself, have to endure a greater test than Abraham? Can you imagine yourself standing over a loved one, especially your child, with knife in hand? Can you picture yourself ready to offer him or her as a living sacrifice? Can you even conceive of the idea that you would have gotten as far as picking up the knife?

To have to end the life of your child by the act of your own hand, who could endure such a test? Only a person of unfathomable faith in the promises of God could stand up to such a trial. When Abraham headed up the mountain with Isaac, he held the promise from God that God would make Abraham a great nation. Abraham believed that the promise could not be fulfilled without Isaac.

Abraham makes two comments that indicate that he faced his trial girded by faith in God’s promises. The first confirmation of his faith came when he saw the place of sacrifice from afar. He told the servants that had joined him and Isaac, “Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” The second confirmation of his faith came when Isaac asked where was the lamb for the sacrifice. Abraham responded, “God will provide the lamb for Himself for the burnt offering, my son.” And so it was that Abraham became a great nation as he stood with his knife ready, waiting in faith for His God to fulfill His promises.

God will test each of us. He wants us to build up our faith in Him. He wants us to live with complete confidence that He will provide all that we need to endure that which we may feel is unbearable.

Let us take strength from the story of Abraham and Isaac. Let us rejoice in knowing that God will always provide a way for us to fulfill the plan that He has for our lives and for the lives of those that we serve.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for covering us in the many promises of comfort, provision and strength that You have revealed to us in Your Holy Word. Test us, O Lord, to build our faith in who You are. Strengthen us, O Lord, that we may pass the tests that prepare us for our place in Your eternal kingdom. Comfort us as we endure the trials. Build up in us the faith of Abraham. May we rejoice in seeing the fruits of our faith. We ask all these things in the name of the Author of Our Faith, Jesus Christ.