Fee Fee Baptist Church

Tag: Devotional

  • Devotional Corner – Vol. 61, No. 11

    Taken from L.B. Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert,” Zondervan Updated Edition

    “All that night the LORD drove the sea back,” (Exodus 14:21).

    There is a comforting message showing how God works during darkness. The real work of God for the children of Israel did not happen when they awoke that morning to find they could cross the Red Sea, but it occurred “all that night.”

    There may be a great work occurring in your life when things seems their darkest. You may see no evidence yet, but God is at work. God was just as much at work “all that night” as He was the next day when the Israelites finally saw the evidence. The next day simply revealed what God had done during the night.

    Are you reading this from a place in your life where everything seems dark? Do you have faith to see but are still not seeing?

    “All that night the LORD drove the sea back.” Don’t forget—it was “all that night.” God works through the night until the morning light dawns. You may not see it yet, but through the night of your life, as you trust Him, He works.  —C.H.P.

  • Devotional Corner – Vol. 61, No. 10

    Taken from L.B. Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert,” Zondervan Updated Edition

    “After forty years had passed on, an angel appeared to Moses…in the desert…Then the Lord said to him, ‘…Now come, I will send you back to Egypt,” (Acts 7:30, 33-34).

    Often the Lord calls us aside from our work for a season and asks us to be still and learn before we go out again to minister. And the hours spent waiting are not lost time.

    An ancient knight once realized, as he was fleeing from his enemies, that his horse needed a shoe replaced. The prudent course of action seemed to be to hurry on without delay. Yet higher wisdom told him to stop for a few minutes at the blacksmith’s along the road. Although he heard the galloping hooves of the enemies’ horses close behind, he waited until his steed was reshod before continuing his escape. Just as the enemy appeared, only a hundred yards away, he jumped into the saddle and dashed away with the swiftness of the wind. Then he knew his stopping had actually hastened his escape.

    Quite often God will ask us to wait before we go, so we may fully recover from our last mission before entering the next stage of our journey and work.

  • Devotional Corner – Vol. 61, No. 9

    Taken from L.B. Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert,” Zondervan Updated Edition

    “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” (Joel 2:32).

    So why don’t I call on His name? Why do I run to this person or that person, when God is so near and will hear my faintest call? Why do I sit down to plot my own course and make my own plans? Why don’t I immediately place myself and my burden on the Lord?

    Straight ahead is the best way to run, so why don’t I run directly to the living God? Instead, I look in vain for deliverance everywhere else, but with God I will find it. With Him I have His royal promise: “[I] will be saved.” And with Him I never need to ask if I may call on Him or not, for the word “everyone” is all encompassing. It includes me and means anybody and everybody who calls upon His name. Therefore I will trust in this verse and will immediately call on the glorious Lord who has made such a great promise.

    My situation is urgent, and I cannot see how I will ever be delivered. Yet this is not my concern, for He who made the promise will find a way to keep it. My part is simply to obey His commands, not to direct His ways. I am His servant, not His advisor. I call upon Him and He will deliver me. —Charles H. Spurgeon

  • Devotional Corner – Vol. 61, No. 8

    Taken from L.B. Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert,” Zondervan Updated Edition

    He will do this, (Psalm 37:5).

    I once believed that after I prayed, it was my responsibility to do everything in my power to bring about the answer. Yet God taught me a better way and showed me that self-effort always hinders His work. He also revealed that when I prayed and had confident trust in Him for something, He simply wanted me to wait in an attitude of praise and do only what he told me. Sitting still, doing nothing except trusting in the Lord, causes a feeling of uncertainty, and there is often a tremendous temptation to take the battle into our own hands.

    We all know how difficult it is to rescue a drowning person he tries to help their rescuer, and it is equally difficult for the Lord to fight our battles for us when we insist upon trying to fight ourselves. It is not that God will not but that He cannot, for our interference hinders His work.

    Spiritual forces cannot work while we are trusting earthly forces.

    Often we fail to give God an opportunity to work, not realizing that it takes time for Him to answer prayer. It takes time for God to color a rose or to grow a great oak tree. And it takes time for Him to make bread from wheat fields. He takes the soil, then grinds and softens it. He enriches it and wets it with rain showers and with dew. Then He brings the warmth of life to the small blade of grass, later grows the stalk and the amber grain, and finally provides bread for the hungry.

    All this takes time. Therefore we sow the seed, till the ground, and then wait and trust until God’s purpose has been fulfilled. We understand this principle when it comes to planting a field, and we need to learn the same lesson regarding our prayer life. It takes time for God to answer prayer.

  • Devotional Corner – Vol. 61, No. 7

    Taken from L.B. Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert,” Zondervan Updated Edition

    Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so that he may see,” (2 Kings 6:17).

    This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and one another: “Lord, open our eyes so we may see.” We are surrounded, just as the prophet Elisha was, by God’s “horses and chariots of fire” (2 Kings 6:17), waiting to transport us to places of glorious victory.

    Once our eyes are opened by God, we will see all the events of our lives, whether great or small, joyful or sad, as a “chariot” for our souls. Everything that comes to us becomes a chariot the moment we treat it as such. On the other hand, even the smallest trial may become an object crushing everything in its path into misery and despair if we allow it.

    The difference then becomes a choice we make. It all depends not on the events themselves but on how we view them. If we simply lie down, allowing them to roll over and crush us, they become an uncontrollable car of destruction. Yet if we climb into them, as riding in a car of victory, they become the chariots of God to triumphantly take us onward and upward.

    There is not much the Lord can do with a crushed soul. That is why the Adversary attempts to push God’s people toward despair and hopelessness over their condition or the condition of the church. It has often been said that a discouraged army enters a battle with the certainty of defeat. Recently a missionary said she had returned home sick and disheartened because her spirit had lost its courage, which led to the consequence of an unhealthy body.

    We need to better understand these attacks of the Enemy on our spirit and how to resist them. If he can dislodge us from our proper position, he then seeks to “wear out the saints of the Most High” (Dan. 7:25) through a prolonged siege, until we finally, out of sheer weakness, surrender all hope of victory.

  • Devotional Corner – Vol. 61, No. 6

    Taken from L.B. Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert,” Zondervan Updated Edition

    “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai…Then the Lord said to him, “…I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt,” (Acts 7:30, 33-34).

    Forty years was a long time to wait in preparation for a great mission. Yet when God delays, He is not inactive. This is when He prepares His instruments and matures our strength. Then at the appointed time we will rise up and be equal to our task. Even Jesus of Nazareth had thirty years of privacy, growing in wisdom before He began His work.

    God is never in a hurry. He spends years preparing those He plans to greatly use, and never thinks of the days of preparation as being too long or boring.

    Don’t steal tomorrow from God’s hands. Give Him time to speak to you and reveal His will. He is never late—learn to wait.

  • Devotional Corner – Vol. 61, No. 5

    Taken from L.B. Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert,” Zondervan Updated Edition

    “We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first,” (Hebrews 3:14).

    Often the last step is the winning step. In Pilgrim’s Progress the greatest number of dangers were lurking in the area closest to the gates of the Celestial City. It was in that region the Doubting Castle stood. And it was there the enchanted ground lured the tired traveler to fatal slumber. It is when heaven’s heights are in full view that the gates of hell are the most persistent and full of deadly peril. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up,” (Galatians 6:9). “Run in such a way as to get the prize,” (1 Corinthians 9:24).

    The greatest challenge in receiving great things from God is holding on for the last half hour.

    In the bitter waves of woe

    Beaten and tossed about

    By the sullen winds that blow

    From the desolate shores of doubt,

    Where the anchors that faith has cast

    Are dragging in the gale,

    I am quietly holding fast

    To the things that cannot fail.

     

    And fierce though the fiends may fight,

    And long though the angels hide,

    I know that truth and right

    Have the universe on their side;

    And that somewhere beyond the stars

    Is a love that is better than fate.

    When the night unlocks her bars

    I will see Him—and I will wait.

    —Washington Gladden

     

  • Devotional Corner – Vol. 61, No. 4

    Taken from Mrs. Charles E. Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert,” Vol. Two

    “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,” (Matthew 7:12).

    This universal language is the language of action. I understand that you have a kind heart, because your kindness takes shape in a friendly letter or deed – I can see your kindness. I understand how much you love your family because your love for them takes form in hard working devotion to their needs. In the same way we come to know the Love of God. For long centuries God in His wisdom spoke to men through words, on the lips of prophets and priests and sages and saints, and men could not be sure what God was like. Then when they were ready, He spoke to them in a new way: ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, full of Grace and Truth.’ God’s Love took form in a Life which we could see, in a death upon a Cross which we beheld; and ever since then, men have said, ‘God is like Jesus Christ. God’s Love is like the Cross.’ This was the ‘Incarnation,’ taking shape in flesh before the eyes of people. God has spoken, at last, in the universal language of action!

    George Washington, one day, had a tempting opportunity to preach a sermon on loving your neighbor. He was riding across the farmlands with a company of gentlemen, when the last horse over a stone fence knocked over a number of stones, leaving a large opening. Washington suggested that they stop and repair it, but the others shrugged their shoulders; so he said nothing more, and rode on with them. When the party disbanded, one of them, riding homeward, found Washington back in the farmer’s fence, carefully replacing the stones. ‘Oh, General,’ chattered the man, ‘You are too big a man to be doing a thing like that.’ ‘No,’ answered Washington, gravely inspecting his work, ‘I’m just the right size.’ Washington was preaching his sermon in the universal language of action. Words would have bored the farmer no end, but the deed of neighborliness spoke for itself.

    If you want, with all your heart, to tell someone that you love them, say as little as possible about it, and show them in loving deeds. — SSPEC

  • Devotional Corner – Vol. 61, No. 3

    Taken from L.B. Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert,” Zondervan Updated Edition

    “Surely I am with you always,” (Matthew 28:20).

    Never look ahead to the changes and challenges of this life in fear. Instead, as they arise look at them with the full assurance that God, whose you are, will deliver you out of them. Hasn’t He kept you safe up to now? So hold His loving hand tightly, and He will lead you safely through all things. And when you cannot stand, He will carry you in His arms.

    Do not look head to what may happen tomorrow. The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering or He will give you His unwavering strength that you may bear it. Be at peace, then, and set aside all anxious thoughts and worries. —Francis de Sales

    “The Lord is my shepherd,” (Psalm 23:1)

    Not was, not may be, nor will be. “The Lord is my shepherd.” He is on Sunday, on Monday, and through every day of the week. He is in January, in December, and every month of the year. He is when I’m at home and in China. He is during peace or war, and in times of abundance and poverty. —J. Hudson Taylor

  • Devotional Corner – Vol. 61, No. 2

    Taken from L.B. Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert,” Zondervan Updated Edition

    “God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns,” (Psalm 46:5, NASB).

    “Will not be moved”—what an inspiring declaration! Is it possible for us who are so easily moved by earthly things to come to a point where nothing can upset us or disturb our peace? The answer is yes, and the apostle Paul knew it. When he was on his way to Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit warned him that “prison and hardships” (Acts 20:23) awaited him. Yet he could triumphantly say, “But none of these things move me” (Acts 20:24).

    Everything in Paul’s life and experience that could be disturbed had already been shaken, and he no longer considered his life or any of his possessions as having any earthly value. And if we will only let God have His way with us, we can come to the same point. Then, like Paul, neither the stress and strain of little things nor the great and heavy trials of life will have enough power to move us from “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,” (Phil. 4:7). God declares this peace to be the inheritance of those who have learned to rest only on Him.

    “Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it,” (Rev. 3:12). Becoming as immovable as a pillar in the house of God is such a worthy objective that we would gladly endure all the necessary trials that take us there! —Hannah Whitall Smith