Todays Devotion... Great peace have they which love Thy Law: and nothing shall offend them (Ps.119:165). (Isaiah 22-26) O LORD, Thou art my God; I will exalt Thee, I will praise Thy name; for Thou hast done wonderful things; Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. For Thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defenced city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built. Therefore shall the strong people glorify Thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear Thee. For Thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall (Is. 25:1-4). Here, Isaiah offers great praise to the Lord in response to all the wonderful displays of His power. One might question how the word “wonderful” could be used to describe the judgment that God has brought forth against different nations, but we must remember that these nations were judged for their wicked actions against the Lord. In His judgment against them, God reveals that He is faithful and will always keep His Word. There are times when that means blessings for obedient actions, but there are also times that it means punishment for rebellion. Even when punishment is what is dealt by God, it still contains mercy. A good Father punishes His children in hopes of steering them into doing the right thing. For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is He whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live (Heb. 12:6-9)? The Lord deserves praise regardless of what is going on in the world around us. We must remember that this life is secondary to our spiritual life. We live in this world for only a brief time. The focus of the life that we live here should be centered on the life that is to come after. That does not mean, however, that we should pine away waiting for heaven. On the contrary, we should dedicate every second we are here to the cause of building the kingdom of God. How is our praise related to kingdom building? Our true beliefs are revealed in difficult times. If we are still praising God in those times, then our faith is revealed to be true. When the world sees the confidence we have in God, they will be drawn to Him as well. Let us, therefore, strive to let our faith and trust in the Lord shine through in our daily lives. When life carries us to the mountaintop, praise the Lord! When we find ourselves walking through a long, deep valley, praise the Lord! We must understand that our situation in life will always be subject to change. We may go to bed on top of the world only to wake up the next morning to find that the bottom has dropped out. This is a consequence of living in a fallen world, but it does not mean that God is changing. He is and always will be the solid foundation that the life of the believer is built on. He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock (Luke 6:48). Excerpts from SBC / BiblePathway / Delaney Baptist Church
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 19:50:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015