God is Faithful

Helen Grace Lescheid

Take today’s next step: Feeling harried? Take a deep breath and read.

“Because of the LORD’S great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22 – 23)

King David, who frequently found himself in deep trouble, wrote about God’s faithfulness often–sometimes from a cave. He fled to the wilderness trying to escape the jealous fury of King Saul. I can see him at the end of another harried day, sitting by a dying campfire writing on a tablet. His ragamuffin group of men had found a place to lie down and sleep. But David couldn’t sleep. With his reputation ruined and his life in danger, David poured out his heart to God in another psalm. Often he would conclude his writing with a joyful declaration of God’s faithfulness.

Praise Him with Every Part

Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits--who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

Psalm 103:1-5

After years of quadriplegia, my bones are feeling tired. But whenever I struggle with pain, I pray, "Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name." I force all parts of me to bless the Lord, even my lower back when it's aching - it's one way of making certain God receives glory during physically agonizing times.

Praise God for Answered Prayer!

Written by Charles Spurgeon

Take today’s next step: Why Doesn’t God Answer my Prayer?

 “I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart” Psalm 9:1

Praise should always follow answered prayer, just like the mist of earth’s gratitude rises when the sun of heaven’s love warms the ground. Has the Lord been gracious to you, and heard your voice as your earnestly pray? Then praise Him as long as you live! Don’t deny a song to Him who has answered your prayer and given you the desire of your heart.

To be silent over God’s mercies is to incur the guilt of ingratitude. It is to act as ungratefully as the nine lepers. After they were cured of their leprosy, they did not even bother to return to give thanks to the Lord who healed them. (Luke 17:11-19)

To forget to praise God is to refuse to benefit ourselves. Praise, like prayer, is one great means of growing our spiritual life. It helps to remove our burdens, to excite our hope, and to increase our faith. It is a healthy and invigorating exercise which quickens the pulse of the believer, and nerves us for fresh enterprises in our Master’s service.

His will for every problem and every situation — without exception

Read Psalms 106 -- 107

Highlights:

Want to take a 40-year trip? Travel with the people of God as they relive their desert wanderings. They confess their sins, including when they lusted (Ps. 106:14), murmured (106:25), mingled among the heathen (106:35), and shed innocent blood(106:38).

The magnificence of Israel's history was not the result of her heroes, priests, or prophets, but rather it was the fulfillment of the Word of God (Gen. 12:7). 

All failures which were written in their history — all losses, defeats in battle, famines, and exiles — to be seen as consequences of disobedience to His Word for they believed not His Word (Ps. 106:24). 

Finally, they praised God for their deliverance (107:19-20). 

The Defeat of Disease and Death

When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: 'He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.' Matthew 8:16-17

My friend Skip and I are the same age, plus he broke his neck the same day I did. What's more, his diving accident also occurred in the Chesapeake Bay! I dove into the Maryland side of the bay; he, the Virginia side. You can see why I've always felt a special kinship with Skip. And my heart broke when I learned he died from complications connected with his quadriplegia. It made me angry at death and disease!

At the same time, I felt a sense of joy. Christ defeated death and disease by taking them with Him to the grave. God's judgment on the sin which ushered disease into the world was endured by Jesus when He died. The prophet Isaiah explained, "He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5). The horrible blows on Jesus' back purchased a world without disease - that world is still in the future, but it's coming soon (Romans 8:23-24). And Skip and I can't wait!

                         

Where Are the Nine?

"And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?" (Luke 17:17)

Ten lepers, hopeless and incurable, had come to Jesus, begging for His help, and He had miraculously healed them. All ten should have fallen down to worship and thank Him, but only one praised God and thanked Jesus for His marvelous deliverance, while the others rushed away.

We are at first amazed at such ingratitude, until we realize that not more than 10 percent of even those people who know about Christ ever stop to give Him thanks for His innumerable blessings--life, freedom, food, shelter, health, family, and especially easy access to the Bible and His gracious offer of salvation--far greater in value than the gift of special healing received by the ten lepers.

The Healing Hand of Jesus

… And grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend your hand to heal. Acts 4:29-30

When I was in tenth grade, I experienced my first broken bone. I was playing basketball for Cypress Creek High School. We were playing our archrivals, the Cy-Fair Bobcats. The stands were filled, the energy level was up, and the gym was rocking. Early in the game, I was fouled and went to the free throw line to shoot a one-and-one (if you make the first one, you get another one). I shot and missed. Drag. When I went in for the rebound, I was pushed in the back with my left leg in an awkward position. I heard a nasty-sounding crack and went down hard.

I had broken my tibia right above the ankle. It was painful and debilitating. I was in a cast for nearly six weeks and missed the rest of the season. As much as I wanted to play, I could not. The bone needed to heal before I could be whole again.

PERSISTENT AND PATIENT PRAYER

“As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you.”

 1 Samuel 12:23

An important aspect of prayer is to pray patiently. God meets our needs “at the proper time” (Galatians 6:9). Too often Christians weary of praying, and give up. This is often justified on the basis that God's failure to answer means the request is not according to His will. Remember, God can:

1. Deliver- whatever we ask in His name;
2. Delay- to fit His perfect timing (only He sees the end from the beginning);
3. Deny- and say ‘No’ because we ask amiss or give a
4. Different and better answer.

Jesus urges us to be persistent in prayer (Luke 11:5-8). This does not mean that God does not want to meet our needs and that we need to try to persuade Him. It simply means that only God, who completely understands the whole situation, can know when and how to answer. Only when we have assurance in our hearts from the Lord, should we remove a matter from our prayer list.

GOD HAS EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL

When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever. Proverbs 10:25
Throughout the Bible, God reveals that He is always in control over His vast universe and even our seemingly insignificant lives. Here is a true-life story from a member of the persecuted church:

“I was the only convert of a man who died thinking he was useless to God. Both our crimes were for violent robbery and we actually shared a prison cell together.
“He told me about how—by mistake—he had been placed into a cell with a group of Christians. They were singing hymns at night and praising God together. He saw them as a soft touch and robbed them of their food parcels. He even beat them to show who was boss. For the first time in years he felt powerful again. But somehow they were not afraid of him and repeatedly shared their faith in Christ.