Growing up, our gang of neighbourhood kids often played “Hide and Seek”. While one person closed their eyes and counted to a certain number, everyone else would scatter and hide. When the counting was over, the person who was “It” would yell out, “Ready or not, here I come!” A similar call is ringing out over the earth today. Jesus is coming back for His bride. “On that day, with a command that thunders into the world, with a voice of a chief heavenly messenger, and with a blast of God’s trumpet, the Lord Himself will descend from heaven; and all those who died in the Anointed One, our Liberating King, will rise from the dead first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16 VOICE). When that happens, time for preparation will be over. In Matthew 25 Jesus told the parable of the ten virgins who were given the task of being ready to meet the bridegroom. Five of them brought enough oil for their lamps and five did not. The virgins represent all those waiting for Christ’s return and the lamps, the outward profession of faith. Oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit and represents true faith and a living relationship with God through Jesus. The bridegroom is Jesus. This parable illustrates the contrast between those who develop an intimate relationship with the Saviour, spending time daily with Him in His Word, praying, and soaking in the beauty of His Presence (the wise), and those who outwardly profess faith but lack true commitment (the foolish). When the bridegroom arrived, the prepared virgins went with him into the marriage feast, and the door was shut. The unprepared virgins were left outside, pleading, “’Lord! Lord! Open the door for us’” ( Matthew 25:11 NLT). “But he called back, ‘Believe me, I don’t know you!’” (Matthew 25:12 NLT). Jesus concluded the parable with a sober warning. “Watch therefore [give strict attention and be cautious and active], for you know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of Man will come” (Matthew 25:13 AMPC). As the above verse states, we don’t know the exact timing of Christ’s return. Therefore, in order to be ready, we need to live ready – in a state of spiritual preparedness. “Let us rejoice and be glad! Let us give him the glory! For the time has come for the wedding of the Lamb, and his Bride has prepared herself” (Revelation 19:7 CJB). In closing, I ask myself these questions. Do I love Jesus more than anyone or anything else in this world? Do I spend time with Him daily, basking in His Presence, reading His Word, and communing with Him in prayer? Or do I leave Him on the sidelines, because I'm too busy with the things of this world? Can we say with the apostle John, “Amen! Come, Lord Yeshua!” (Revelation 22:20 CJB). As I examine my heart before God, I ask myself, am I ready for His coming? Are you?
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Proverbs 12:2 (NOG): “A good person obtains favor from Yahweh...”
We can’t do anything to earn God’s favour. It is His gift to us. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the barrier between God and man was torn down, enabling us to receive the favour of our heavenly Father. Like everything else in the Christian life, favour is activated by faith. If we don’t activate it, we won’t reap its benefits. In the following Scripture verses, I want to look at five of the benefits of God’s favour.
2 “ When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. 3 Then the king asked, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given you.” 4 “If it pleases the king,” replied Esther, “let the king, together with Haman, come today to a banquet I have prepared for him.” 5 “Bring Haman at once,” the king said, “so that we may do what Esther asks” (Esther 5: 2-5 NIV). 4. Battles are won which you don’t have to fight, because God will fight them for you. “For our fathers did not possess the land [of Canaan] by their own sword, Nor did their own arm save them, But Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence, Because You favored and delighted in them” (Psalm 44:3 AMP). 5. Divine favour can produce supernatural increase and promotion, even in the midst of lack. “Now there was famine in the land...Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him. The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy.” (Genesis 26: 1, 12-13 NIV). God wants to give His children favour. Psalm 30:5 tells us His favour is for life. So let’s make 2025 the year we grab onto the Father’s promises and activate them by faith. Even when things don’t look like we want them to, we need to hang on. God's promises are ALL “Yes” and “Amen”. Christmas is a reminder of God’s provision for us. Through Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden, humankind fell short of His glory. But before the foundation of the world, He had provided a solution. The Scripture says, “But when the proper time came God sent his son, born of a human mother and born under the jurisdiction of the Law, that he might redeem those who were under the authority of the Law and lead us into becoming, by adoption, true sons of God” (Galatians 4: 4-5 Phillips). Through believing in the work of Christ on the cross and in His resurrection, we are adopted back into His family.
God’s provision for us does not depend on the economy. His supply comes from His riches in glory, which are limitless. “My God will richly fill your every need in a glorious way through Christ Yeshua” (Philippians 4:19 NOG). Like everything in the Christian life, we appropriate God’s promises by faith. And how do we get faith? “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Messiah” (Romans 10:17 TLV). I recently read a wonderful story of God’s provision I would like to share with you. In the 1930’s, during the Great Depression, a pastor and his wife relied daily on God’s provision for their needs. They honoured God, even while experiencing urgency for food. They prayed, professing God’s promise of provision. One morning, the wife looked out her window and saw over 20 hens approaching their property. The hens entered their outbuilding and laid more than 20 eggs. Then they marched back to their home. The wife returned the eggs to the owner and shared the story. The owner told her, “Those aren’t my eggs. Those hens haven’t laid a single egg since I got them months ago.” Miraculously, God provided for this family. So whatever needs you are facing today, look to our supernatural God as your provider. He is our Source and not limited by the constraints of this world. As we speak in agreement with His Word and honour Him with our income, God will open the windows of heaven. If we do our part, He has promised do His. I like the rendering of Malachi 3:10 in the New Living Translation: “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the LORD of Heaven's Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it!” Merry Christmas! “The weapons of the war we’re fighting are not of this world but are powered by God and effective at tearing down the strongholds erected against His truth. We are demolishing arguments and ideas, every high-and-mighty philosophy that pits itself against the knowledge of the one true God. We are taking prisoners of every thought, every emotion, and subduing them into obedience to the Anointed One” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5 VOICE).
According to the Apostle Paul, we are in a battle – not a physical battle with tanks and drones, but a spiritual one. It is a battle fought in the realm of thoughts and words. Jesus said, “Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation” (Matthew 12:27 MSG). “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it [for death or life]” (Proverbs 18:21 AMPC). Where do words come from? They come from what is in our hearts – what we dwell on. “...A person full of goodness in his heart produces good things; a person with an evil reservoir in his heart pours out evil things. The heart overflows in the words a person speaks; your words reveal what’s within your heart” (Luke 6:45 VOICE). And when we face negative circumstances, what words come out of our mouths? Do we speak the problem or the promises of God? We always have a choice. For example, when we are condemned and falsely accused, do we rail against the accuser, or do we focus on God’s Word, which says, “...but no weapon that can hurt you has ever been forged. Any accuser who takes you to court will be dismissed as a liar. This is what God’s servants can expect. I’ll see to it that everything works out for the best. God’s Decree” (Isaiah 54:17 MSG). If financial challenges come our way, do we spend sleepless nights trying to balance our cheque book, or do we stand on the knowledge that Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law, remembering that poverty and lack are part of the curse? “Do you remember the Scripture that says, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree?’ That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse” (Galatians 3:13 MSG). Often, sickness and disease rear their ugly heads when we least expect them. Again, we have a choice. We can focus our minds on the sickness, or on the Word of God. “...it was our pains he carried – our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him – our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises, we get healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5 MSG, bolding mine). “He gives power to the faint and weary, and to him who has no might He increases strength [causing it to multiply and making it to abound]” (Isaiah 40:29 AMPC). By speaking God’s Word over our situations, we align ourselves with His truth. Jesus said He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). He is not A truth, He is THE truth, the embodiment of truth itself. As we speak God’s Word, we reshape our thoughts to be a reflection of His truth. By meditating on His Word, we take our thoughts captive, so we can walk in peace, wholeness, and victory. “Yahweh’s blessing brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it” (Proverbs 10:23 WEB). My prayer is that today, and every day, each one of us walks in the blessing of God. Today, I am reposting an article I posted on June 28 2021. I would love to receive your comments.
There’s an interesting verse in Micah 4:9. It says the following: “Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king among you? Has your counselor perished, that pains have taken you like a woman in labor?” (Amplified Bible, italics mine). I’m sure if the Body of Christ was asked this question today, we would give the right answer. “Yes, there is a King among us, Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords.” So why, then is the church not making more of an impact on the world? Perhaps it’s because we’ve lacked a kingdom perspective. In the Scriptures, Joseph, Daniel, and Esther, to name a few, were chosen, taken out and raised up to represent the Kingdom of God before the kingdoms of this world. As born-again believers, we too have been brought out, trained up and sent back with the good news and demonstration of God’s kingdom. “… you are a chosen people, set aside to be a royal order of priests, a holy nation, God’s own; so that you may proclaim the wondrous acts of the One who called you out of inky darkness into shimmering light.” (1 Peter 2:9 The Voice). “The reason the Son of God was revealed was to undo and destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8 TPT). We as His church are to be the enforcers of the victory Jesus won over satan and his minions when He rose from the dead. “Jesus replied, “While you were ministering, I watched Satan topple until he fell suddenly from heaven like lightning to the ground. Now you understand that I have imparted to you my authority to trample over his kingdom. You will trample upon every demon before you and overcome every power Satan possesses. Absolutely nothing will harm you as you walk in this authority.” (Luke 10:18-19). “Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner; they were his!” (Colossians 2:15 TPT). Sometimes I think we as Christians, myself included, act as if we’re satan’s prisoner rather than him being under our feet. “So don’t ever be afraid, dearest friends! Your loving Father joyously gives you his kingdom with all its promises!” (Luke 12:32 TPT). Another translation says that it’s the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom (MEV). “Since we are receiving our rights to an unshakable kingdom we should be extremely thankful and offer God the purest worship that delights his heart…” (Hebrews 12:28 TPT). The kingdoms of the earth are extremely volatile. But the kingdom we belong to – the Kingdom of God, is unshakable. It is God’s desire to see His will be done on the earth as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6:10). “For he has rescued us out of the darkness and gloom of Satan’s kingdom and brought us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who bought our freedom with his blood and forgave us all our sins.” (Colossians 1:13 TLB). After reading over these verses, my heart is singing. As believers, we need to remember who we are in Jesus. We are not victims but victors. Let us rise up as citizens of God’s kingdom and do what He has appointed us to do. The Jews were exiled to Babylon in multiple waves. In 538 BC, the King of Persia, Cyrus the Great, conquered Babylon and gave permission for the Jews to return to their homeland.
The focus of the first return from exile was building Zerubbabel’s Temple. The second addressed spiritual reformation and relearning the laws of God. Under Nehemiah the Prophet in 444 BC, the third return concentrated on rebuilding the broken walls of Jerusalem. Like Jerusalem’s fallen walls, we as born-again believers can have fractured walls in our lives – walls relating to our health, finances, relationships, past mistakes. What can we learn from the Book of Nehemiah in dealing with the crumbled walls in our lives?
Nehemiah repented for his own sins and for the sins of the people. Before God restores us, He wants us to repent of any unconfessed sin. Joel 2:13-14 (NLT) says, “Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead. Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love...” If we truly repent, God has promised to forgive us (1 John 1:9). 2. Nehemiah and the people gave themselves fully to the work of God To get the work done, the people gave time, money, resources, and energy. Men and women together put their lives on the line. Amazingly, in spite of enemies who didn't want to see the Jews succeed, they reconstructed the walls in just 52 days. As born-again believers, we must work together as a community in beseeching God to restore our fire and desire for Him. We need to support each other as we allow God to go behind the closed doors of our hearts and clean out the dirt and garbage. 3. We need help from the good hand of God In Nehemiah 2, when Nehemiah asked the king for letters requesting safe travel to Jerusalem and timber for rebuilding the walls, it says, “and the king granted these requests because the gracious hand of God was on me” (Nehemiah 2:8 NLT). When the enemies of the Jews scoffed at the rebuilding of the walls, Nehemiah answered them, “...The God of heaven will help us succeed” (Nehemiah 2:20 NLT). In everything, we must acknowledge the hand of God at work in our lives – changing us, purifying us, and making us into the image of His Son, Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 ESV). The Apostle Paul wrote, “Today I am who I am because of God’s grace, and I have made sure that the grace He offered me has not been wasted...” (1 Corinthians 15:10 VOICE). “God is good to one and all; everything he does is soaked through with grace” (Psalm 145:9 MSG). God’s good hand is on each one of us. Will we cooperate with Him and allow Him to rebuild our broken walls and make us into the people He wants us to be? My prayer is that for His glory, we will. Do you get tired of the repetitiveness of everyday life? I know I do. I think that’s why we enjoy a vacation or a special holiday so much. It gets us out of our familiar routines and allows us to experience new things.
The idea of new things made me think about people in the Bible God called out of their comfort zone and what the consequences would have been if they hadn’t accepted that call. Abraham is a perfect example. God called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans - to leave his family, friends and everything he had ever known and go to a new place, somewhere he had never been before. “One day, the Eternal One called out to Abram...Abram, get up and go! Leave your country. Leave your relatives and your father’s home, and travel to the land I will show you. Don’t worry-I will guide you there” (Genesis 12:1 VOICE). Although Abram got waylaid in Haran, he did eventually make it to Canaan, the land of promise. He decided to trust God and the result was the nation of Israel and the lineage of Jesus. What would have happened if Abram (Abraham) didn’t go? God’s purposes will prevail and He would have chosen someone else. But Abraham would have missed out on all the blessings. “’I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you’” (Genesis 12:2-3 NLT). “And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith” (Genesis 15:6 NLT). The disciples Peter, his brother Andrew, and brothers James and John are another illustration. They left everything familiar and their source of livelihood to follow Jesus. At the time they answered His call, they only knew they’d become fishers of men, as Jesus told them. They didn’t know that in the power of the Holy Spirit, they would turn the world upside down. The Apostle Paul is another case in point. Circumcised when eight days old, a citizen of Israel, member of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, one who obeyed the law without fault. He left everything he knew about how to be righteous in his own strength and accepted the call to be made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). What a paradigm shift he underwent. But he had to be willing to let go of the old. If he had clung to his old ways, he would have missed seeing the salvation of Jews and Gentiles alike, as well as being used by God to pen at least thirteen letters in the New Testament. I would like to conclude with a prayer. “Father God, we ask you for strength and boldness when you call us to step out of the comfort of our everyday world. In our own strength, we are weak, so we ask for Your divine power to obey. "Fill us to overflowing with Your Holy Spirit. Replace our fear with unwavering confidence in You and in Your promises. Give us the courage to follow You, our Shepherd, no matter the cost, trusting Your plans are for our good. In the precious Name of Jesus, Amen.” I recently read about a grandmother watering her freshly planted vegetable garden while her young granddaughter watered the flowers. Suddenly, her grandchild said to her, “Don’t water the weeds, Nana.” That got me thinking about weeds. Actually, I’ve been thinking about weeds quite a bit lately because my front lawn is full of crab grass and bit by bit, I’ve been pulling it out. Some of those roots go deep and I have to pull them out with two hands. It’s a lot of work. In my research, I learned the following about weeds.
In short, weeds are nasty things. The weeds in my lawn also got me thinking about the weeds which can invade our lives, like selfishness, jealousy, lying, greed, envy, anger, and pride. In this blog post, there are three types of weeds I want to talk about in more depth. The first is the weed of spiritual laziness. Proverbs 24:30-31 NKJV says, “I went by the field of the lazy man, and by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding; And there it was, all overgrown with thorns; its surface was covered with nettles, its stone wall was broken down.” One of Satan’s strategies is to make us lazy about reading the Word of God. He’ll put thoughts in our minds, like, “you read your Bible yesterday, you don’t need to read it today.” That type of thinking wouldn’t work with physical food – and it doesn’t work with our spiritual food either. We need a daily intake of God’s Word. Without it, we starve spiritually. Unbelief is another deadly weed. When the seed of the Word of God is sown into our hearts (see Luke 8), the weed of unbelief can grow up and render it null and void. “But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless, and its curse is imminent. In the end it will be burned” (Hebrews 6:8 BSB). The above verse shows the condition of the soil is important. Is it producing weeds or good fruit? What is the quality of the soil in our hearts? Are we keeping it moist with prayer and the washing of the water of the Word? “...For he (Jesus) died for us, sacrificing himself to make us holy and pure, cleansing us through the showering of the pure water of the Word of God” (Ephesians 5:25-25 TPT). Is our heart soil holy, pure, and cleansed, ready to receive the Word, or full of weeds ready to choke it out? The third weed I want to mention is fear and worry. This weed grows quickly and devours everything in its way. It must be dealt with as soon as it appears and yanked out by its roots. How do we eradicate it? With the words of our mouth. “Your words are so powerful, that they will kill or give life, and the talkative person will reap the consequences” (Proverbs 18:21 TPT). When the weeds of fear and worry raise their ugly heads, the solution is not to speak the problem, which will cause them to proliferate, but to speak the Word of God. If the fear is about finances, God has promised to supply all our need (Philippians 4:19), if it is about our health, He heals all our diseases (Psalm 103:3), and when it is about our children, He has promised that all our offspring will be taught of the Lord (Isaiah 54:13). Because weeds choke out the harvest, we must be diligent in rooting them out of our lives. If we want a harvest of the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, the weeds must be gone. So, like the granddaughter told her grandmother, “don’t water the weeds.” Instead, treat them like the enemy they are, and get rid of them. Whether the controversial segment of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France was a mockery of Jesus, the Lord's Supper, and Christianity, or the depiction of a pagan celebration featuring Dionysus, the Greek god of fertility, wine, and revelry, I think it provided insight into the current decadent state of western civilization.
How should we, as Christians respond? My heart rejoiced when I saw believers in France filling the streets of Paris, not to perpetrate violence, but to sing praises to God. It brought to my mind the concept of “remnant” which we see in the Bible. The definition of remnant is what is left over from a larger portion or piece. It can be a portion of food, or material a garment is made from, or even a group of people. Although the world may see a remnant as a worthless scrap, God sees as valuable those He has set aside for holy purposes, people He calls a remnant. Isaiah 10 talks about a remnant. There, Isaiah writes about God’s judgment on the Assyrians. Isaiah 10:12 says, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes.” Verses 17 and 18 go on to say, “The Light of Israel will become a fire, their Holy One a flame; in a single day it will burn and consume his thorns and his briars...” Further on, Isaiah writes that Israel will turn back to God as a result of His display of strength against the Assyrians. “In that day the remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no longer rely on him who struck them down but will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. A remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob will return to the Mighty God” (Isaiah 10:20-21). Even though God doesn’t use the term to describe them, Noah and his family are an example of a remnant saved out of all those on the earth before the flood (Genesis 6). And when Elijah cried out to God that he was the only one left in Israel who had not bowed his knee to idols, God told him He had reserved a remnant of seven thousand “...whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him” (1 Kings 19:18 NIV). Another remnant is the Church, the Body of Christ, those of us who have chosen to follow Jesus and love and serve Him wholeheartedly with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). Jesus made it clear the remnant would be small when compared with the number of people on earth throughout history, when He said, “Heaven can be entered only through the narrow gate! The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide enough for all the multitudes who choose its easy way. But the Gateway to Life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it” (Matthew 7:13-14 TLB). As previously stated, Isaiah writes in Isaiah 10:17 that God would destroy the King of Assyria for his pride and “the Light of Israel will become a fire, their Holy One a flame...” I believe that in His Body today, Jesus wants to become a fire, a flame burning in each one of us, consecrated first of all to our Saviour, and then set ablaze to spread the Good News of the Gospel. At Pentecost in Acts 2, the fire of the Holy Spirit rested on each of the believers, and they went out and changed the world. Today, let’s be like the men (and women) of Issachar “...who understood the temper of the times...” (1 Chronicles 12:32 TLB). As the world around us becomes increasingly dark, as Christ’s “called out ones”, His remnant, let’s shine ever brighter with the fire of the Holy Spirit. In the Bible, the Valley of Baca is mentioned only once, in Psalm 84. “What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord, who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs. The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings” (Psalm 84:5-6 NLT).
In most translations, as in the NLT above, Baca is rendered as “weeping”. The Hebrew word baca is related to bakah. Bakah means “to weep”. Baca refers to a type of weeping tree – a tree that drips with resin or gum-like tears, such as balsam, mulberry, or aspen trees. In 2 Samuel 5:23, in the ESV, bakaim is translated as “balsam trees”. Verse six of the Psalm says those on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem walk through the Valley of Weeping. They don’t make it a permanent place to dwell. It’s a place the people of God occasionally walk through. So when we’re in that valley, we’re not to lower our shield of faith and give up. No! We’re to shout that the Valley of Baca is not where we live. We’re headed to a better place. We’re just passing through. This is similar to what David wrote in Psalm 23. In verse four, he states, “Even when your path takes me through the valley of deepest darkness, fear will never conquer me...” (TPT). David was going through. Not staying in. And David certainly knew about deep darkness. In Psalm 3:1-2 (TPT), he wrote, “Lord, I have so many enemies, so many who are against me. Listen to how they whisper their slander against me, saying: ‘Look! He’s hopeless! Even God can’t save him from this!’” Sometimes when we’re travelling through the Valley of Baca, we’ll run into naysayers who will speak unbelief and doubting to us. For certain, Satan will. He’ll whisper in our ear that God is not faithful. Our heavenly Father may have helped us in the past, but He won’t this time. The problem is too big. Like Satan did with the Israelites, he'll point out the giants and the walled cities and tell us we’re too puny. When that happens, we must not listen. We mustn’t talk the problem, but dwell on the covenant we have with God. That’s what David did. Verse 3 of Psalm 3 says, “But in the depths of my heart I truly know that you, YAHWEH, have become my Shield; You take me and surround me with yourself. Your glory covers me continually. You lift high my head” (TPT). As you read through the Psalms, you’ll notice David often began in sorrow and ended in faith and praise. In verses 6 and 7 of Psalm 6, he wrote, “I’m tired of all this-so tired. My bed has been floating forty days and nights on the flood of my tears. My mattress is soaked, soggy with tears. The sockets of my eyes are black holes; nearly blind, I squint and grope” (MSG). Then it seems to dawn on him that speaking his misery is not helping him, for he says, “Get out of here, you Devil’s crew: at last God has heard my sobs. My requests have all been granted, my prayers are answered” (verses 8-9 MSG). Going back to Psalm 84, the Valley of Baca can be a place of blessing. “When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs. The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings. They will continue to grow stronger...” (verses 6-7, NLT). Our God is the God of the valleys as well as the mountains. We must not make the mistake the Arameans made in 1 Kings 20, where they stated Israel’s God was “a god of the mountains and not...of the valleys” (verse 28). They attacked the Israelites on the plains near the city of Aphek. The Israelites were vastly outnumbered, but God gave His people a great victory, showing He is Lord, not only of the mountains, but also of the valleys. So when we’re in the Valley of Baca, we must keep marching through. We’re not to stop and set up our tent in defeat. If we’ll continue to trust God and walk in faith, He WILL bring us out the other side to a place of refreshing springs and numberless blessings. |
AuthorIn this Blog, I want to share with you some of the things I've learned from many years of following Jesus. Archives
January 2025
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