Tag: promises of God

God Does Not Overlook a Single Thing in Our Lives

2 Chronicles 27:6
King Jotham became powerful because he was careful to live in obedience to the LORD his God.

Jotham became king at the age of 28. He was obedient in all things. Because of his faithfulness, he was given victory in all of his battles and a resting place of honor when he died.

God does not overlook a single thing in our lives. Everything that we do is examined by Him. He delights in our obedience in even the simplest of acts.

On the other hand, we can miss out on the promises of God in our lives simply by not complying to the small things of life that the Holy Spirit may place on our hearts. How many times have we passed up the opportunity to assist a grouchy neighbor, lend a helping hand to a needy stranger or respond politely and with love when receiving poor service? Each time we passed on one of these or numerous other Holy Spirit led opportunities, we deprived God of His delight in us. It is quite possible that we also limited the release of His power in our lives. It is important that we seek and give full consideration to the will of God concerning all elements of our daily lives.

Let us listen to the urgings of the Holy Spirit as we go through our daily activities. Let us surrender ourselves to being vessels of the perfect love and forgiveness that we have received from Our Heavenly Father. May the fruits of our obedience delight the Lord.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us the opportunity to bring honor and glory to Your Name when we allow the marvel of Your grace to be exhibited in our lives. Teach us, Father, to recognize You and Your love in the simplest of tasks that are performed in service to others. Lord, we pray that You release the fullness of Your power in our lives as we learn to share Your perfect love and forgiveness with the world around us. We ask all these things in the name of the Lord of Our Lives, Jesus Christ.

Fighting a Good Fight on Behalf of Our Children

Isaiah 44:3

For I will pour out water to quench your thirst and to irrigate your parched fields.  And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your children.

No other time in history has produced such a blatant spiritual attack against our children. The indoctrination of the enemy is starting in some school systems as early as pre-K.  The constant peer pressure on our pre-teens and teens is continuous.  Satan is viciously consistent in his efforts to destroy our families and in his efforts to destroy the lives of our children. 

We must be diligent in praying a hedge of protection around our children.   We have the power of protecting them through our prayers.  Our Heavenly Father promises us that He will pour out His Spirit on our descendants and pour out His blessings on our children.

No matter what circumstances that our children may be in, we must not believe the lies of Satan.  We must hold to the promises of Our Father. We must never give in to the evil work of the devil who will urge us to give up on our children.  Satan will do all that he can do to discourage our efforts to pray for our children because he knows the power that we access and release when we pray for our children.

Let us be resolute in fighting the good fight on the behalf of our children.  Let us continuously pray a hedge of protection around them.  Let us proclaim the promises of Our Lord that He will return our children to us and, most importantly, that He will return our children to Himself. 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for hearing our prayers of protection for our children.  Thank you for providing a way for us to shield our children from the enemy who is set on destroying them.  Strengthen us, Lord, that we may never falter in covering our children with our prayers.  We rejoice in knowing that You will reward us for our diligent, prayerful efforts on behalf of our children.  We cling to Your promise to return our children to the land that You have set aside for them.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Refuge from the Storm, Jesus Christ.

Seeking the Presence of Jesus in Our Lives

Luke 11:9
And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

In this passage, we find a solemn declaration and promise made by Jesus Himself. The declaration rests on His authority. He makes the statement with the boldness of knowing it is true. He opens the way for us to ask for food for the body and nourishment for our souls and He promises that for those that act in accordance with His counsel shall find their requests satisfied.

When we knock at Jesus’ door, seeking Him, our lives are changed forever. Once we have accepted Him as Our Savior, we are new men and women in Christ. We are new people who are faced with the eye-opening need to let our old selves die, so that our new selves are properly prepared to be in the presence of Our Lord.

Once we establish our relationship with Him, we will be in a place that is greater than anything we have ever experienced before. We will never want to leave that relationship. To stay there, we will find that we are forever humbled by our need to cleanse ourselves. We will find that the experience of first meeting Him is the beginning of our preparation for being in His presence for all eternity.

Let us knock on the door of heaven and let Jesus know that we desire to have an intimate relationship with Him. Let us humbly accept being yoked to Him. Let us learn to surrender to the fullness of living in His presence each day. Let us joyfully anticipate the eternal resting place that He is preparing for us in His Father’s house.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we humbly bow before You. We thank You that we are allowed to approach Your throne because Your Son, Jesus, has prepared the way for us. Make us forever mindful of His sacrifice which washed away our sins for all eternity. Open our eyes to see the sins that remain in our lives so that we may ask forgiveness of them and repent of them. May Your Holy Spirit guide us in continuously seeking the presence of Your Son in our lives. May we find all we need in Him. We ask all these things in the name of the Lord God Omnipotent, Jesus Christ.

Delay for the Express Purpose of Our Edification

Luke 11:10
For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

Whether we lack food, shelter, finances or wisdom, the Lord promises to provide us with our needs. He also promises to provide us with the desires of our hearts. But in all these things, He provides according to His perfect timing and His will for our lives.

God in His love promises that He will provide ample supply for all of our needs. Quite often, however, we experience a delay between our prayers and the answers to our prayers. In His infinite wisdom, Our Heavenly Father uses the experience of the delay for the express purpose of our edification.

If there were never any delays between our prayers and God’s provision, we would lose sight of the fact that God is controlling the process and not us. We would also lose the perspective that God wants us to rely on His grace for all things. We would lose the fervency of our prayers.

Because of the delay experience, we learn to go to the Holy Spirit to get help with our prayers. We learn that our prayers are too often coming from the desires of our flesh and not the desires of our spirit. By turning to the Holy Spirit, we learn to put our prayers in line with God’s will for our lives.

Let us turn to the Holy Spirit for the inspiration of our prayer content. Let us learn to rely on the Holy Spirit to align our prayers with the will and plan that Almighty God has for our lives. Let us rejoice in knowing that every need in our lives will be faithfully met through this powerful supernatural process.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your grace that is the source of all of our provision. We thank You for the perfect timing of Your answers for our prayers. We thank You for providing the Holy Spirit to help us pray properly for the things that we need. We pray that You show us Your will for our lives so that our prayers will be in accordance with Your plans for our lives. May our Holy Spirit inspired prayers touch Your heart so that You release from Your hands all that You have set aside for us. We ask all these things in the name of the Power of God, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Accepted Public Hatred, Ridicule, Scorn, Suffering and Death for All Mankind

Philippians 2:8
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The fact that Jesus left His divine state to become a man illustrates an act of humility that surpasses anything that any human could imagine. Accepting the lowliness of man, it would have been reasonable by any human standard that He would a least appear as a king. Not so for this divine man, He took not a royal station but accepted a position in a lowly manger. His state within humankind never advanced to any level above the lowest elements of society. He worked His entire ministry in the streets and hillsides among the common people.

Aside from His transfiguration before Peter, James and John, His splendor was never to be seen by man until He ascended to His seat beside His Father in Heaven. In the meantime, He endured a life of poverty and suffering which ended in an exposition of public hatred, ridicule and scorn. Then, having no place for personal pride, He accepted death so that we may have life.

Let us lie at the foot of His Cross each day and learn from Our Savior King. Let us take note of His complete obedience to the Father under all circumstances. Let us allow our personal pride to dissolve in the face of knowing why He made these choices – to save us from our sinful and prideful nature. Let us be inspired by His faithfulness and His promises. Let us humble ourselves to the point of putting the old man in our lives to death so that our new man in Christ may live.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we humbly bow before Your throne, asking Your forgiveness for our sins. We thank You for providing the way for us to overcome our sinful nature. May we cling to the Cross of Our Savior. May we learn to set aside our pride and serve those around us in the manner that You call us. May we ignore the scorn of the world as we are obedient to Your calling on our lives. We ask all these things in the name of The Captain of Our Salvation, Jesus Christ.

The Medium of Access to the Throne of God is Jesus Christ

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.

May We Never Doubt Your Faithfulness Lord

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 Foundational Importance of Our Moments When We Feel the Presence of the Living God

2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.

From time to time, we truly experience the exhilarating feeling of God’s presence in our lives. We cannot see God, but we know that He is with us. These moments are precious. These moments are important building blocks in the foundation of our faith. These moments are glimpses of things not seen, but things that hold everlasting promise. These are the moments that will carry us through our daily duties and trials when we do not feel the presence of God with us. These moments have eternal value.

On the other hand, the special moments that we experience in the flesh are only temporary. How can we put our faith in the things of the flesh that will be here today and gone tomorrow? How can we put our faith in the calamities of life? How can we put our faith in all those things that will be stripped away at our death?

Let us be governed by the things of eternal hope and not by the appearance and lure of present things. Let us walk by faith as we look to Jesus Christ for righteousness, peace, pardon, and eternal life. Let us live in the fullness of life offered by Our Savior. Let us live in confident expectation of the things that are to come. Let us live and act based on our faith which reveals to us that all the promises of God’s Holy Word are true.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the times that You allow us to experience Your presence in our lives. We pray that You will use those moments to build our faith in You. We pray that You will use those moments to strengthen us when our burdens are heavy and we do not feel Your presence. We ask, Lord, that we will be filled with joy even when You have called us to tedious tasks. May the Holy Spirit remind us how pleasing it is to You when we are obedient to Your calling in our lives. We pray that we will be living vessels of those moments in Your presence so that the world around us may experience who You are. May the strength of our faith draw others to Your Son, Jesus. We ask all these things in the name of our eternally faithful king, Jesus Christ.

The Merciful Hand of the Lord Never Leaves Us

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 for 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.

God Will Always Provide a Way

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.