Strength In Waiting (and other devotionals)

Strength in Waiting

Isaiah 40:28-31

God has a purpose and plan for your life, and His timing is perfect. Sometimes He answers our prayers with "yes" or "no." But at other times, He says "not now"--when that is the case, we can avail ourselves of the rich rewards that come when we wait.

One very practical blessing is that God strengthens us as we lean on Him during delays. Isaiah 40:31 tells us that "those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength." We are given the metaphor of an eagle with wind beneath his wings. It is interesting to note that the words "wind" and "spirit" come from the same Greek word--pneuma. The spirit of God lifts us up, and His energy and strength sustain us as we abide in Him.

When we are facing a difficult decision, the real key is learning to wait. There is no verse of Scripture that tells us to take control and fight our own battles. God is the one who fights them on our behalf (2 Chron. 20:15). We are to be patient and trust in Him.

When David faced his greatest battles, he waited upon the Lord. God delivered him from destruction and set his feet on solid ground. (Ps. 40:1-3) He will do the same for you. When you abide in Him, He gives supernatural energy to accomplish the things He requires of you--His Spirit does for you what you cannot do for yourself.

In reading through the Scriptures, we see that every time one of God's saints gains a victory, he or she is waiting and trusting in the Lord. You can likewise experience triumph in your life. When you have the omnipotent Creator of the universe acting on your behalf, you can't lose.

~Dr. Charles F. Stanley~

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Good News

BIBLE MEDITATION:
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!” Isaiah 52:7

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
I once heard of a pastor who received word from the war department that a young soldier, reported missing in action and presumed dead, was found alive! His mother had already been informed of his death. And now they asked this pastor to be the one to tell her that her son was alive.

Do you think this pastor said, “Well, I've got a little vacation I'm going to take first, and I want to play a round of golf or do some other things”?

What a thrill, going to tell that message! I want to tell you, there ought to be that thrill and urgency in my heart and yours every time we tell a poor, sin-sick, lost, and undone sinner there is good news that Christ died for our sins.

ACTION POINT:
If you know the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and you're not interested in sharing it, I sincerely doubt you've ever been saved. How could a person know the Gospel and not want to share it? 

~Adrian Rogers~

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Exodus 8:28

Only ye shall not go very far away.

This is a crafty word from the lip of the arch-tyrant Pharaoh. If the poor bondaged Israelites must needs go out of Egypt, then he bargains with them that it shall not be very far away; not too far for them to escape the terror of his arms, and the observation of his spies. After the same fashion, the world loves not the non-conformity of nonconformity, or the dissidence of dissent, it would have us be more charitable and not carry matters with too severe a hand. Death to the world, and burial with Christ, are experiences which carnal minds treat with ridicule, and hence the ordinance which sets them forth is almost universally neglected, and even contemned. Worldly wisdom recommends the path of compromise, and talks of "moderation." According to this carnal policy, purity is admitted to be very desirable, but we are warned against being too precise; truth is of course to be followed, but error is not to be severely denounced. "Yes," says the world, "be spiritually minded by all means, but do not deny yourself a little gay society, an occasional ball, and a Christmas visit to a theatre. What's the good of crying down a thing when it is so fashionable, and everybody does it?" Multitudes of professors yield to this cunning advice, to their own eternal ruin. If we would follow the Lord wholly, we must go right away into the wilderness of separation, and leave the Egypt of the carnal world behind us. We must leave its maxims, its pleasures, and its religion too, and go far away to the place where the Lord calls His sanctified ones. When the town is on fire, our house cannot be too far from the flames. When the plague is abroad, a man cannot be too far from its haunts. The further from a viper the better, and the further from worldly conformity the better. To all true believers let the trumpet-call be sounded, "Come ye out from among them, be ye separate."

~Charles Spurgeon~

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The words that I speak to you are Spirit, and they are Life. (John 6:63)

This Life is a very vast Life. It reaches into God's great purpose, and we are a part of it; we are "the called according to His purpose." We want to know the purpose; we want to know our place in the purpose; we want to know our faculties, our functions. How shall this be? Not by studying up what they are, but by being in Life. It may be very interesting to have a scientific knowledge of the workings of our human bodies, but it is not necessary in order to live. Live, and the thing happens. You never have to consider whether you will take your next breath, to sit down and make a mental problem of it. You do it, and everything else is bound up with it, and follows in proper order. Breathing properly has a great deal bound up with it. Well then, live and everything else will follow. That is only saying, in other words: move, have your life in the Holy Spirit, and all the plan and order of God will follow. You are bound to come into it, you cannot help yourself.

Thus the object is to get the Lord's people to a place where they walk with the Lord, and are so open to Him that they are prepared for all that walking with Him means. Sometimes it will mean that they will have to leave a great deal that is of a secondary character; perhaps forsake many things, even religious things, the accepted things, to walk with the Lord. There may be a price attached to it; misunderstanding, and loneliness, and much besides; but if you are so open to the Lord that nothing else matters, and you mean to walk with God whatever the cost, no matter what people say you ought to do as (in their thought) a part of a great Christian order or religious machine, you will come into all God's secret thought as naturally as a flower opens to the sun, and you will be making discoveries and finding that there is a vast realm of meaning and possibility and capacity and power that you never dreamed of. The Lord is not going to stretch it out before us, and show us it. We shall discover it as we walk in the Spirit.

~T. Austin-Sparks~