Tag: Devotions

Taken from Henry T. Blackaby and Richard Blackaby’s “Experiencing God Day By Day”

“I have been very zealous for the Lord God of Hosts,” he replied, “but the Israelites have abandoned Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they’re looking for me to take my life,” (1 Kings 19:14)

Kingdom work can be challenging! You can give everything you have to God’s service and come away exhausted. This is what happened to Elijah. God had just used Elijah to call down fire from heaven in a spectacular display of divine power. But Elijah’s exhilaration was soon replaced by strenuous work followed by death threats, causing him to flee for his life. Now he was alone, exhausted, and discouraged.

Again, God came to Elijah. This time, He came not in fire or in a loud, spectacular way, but in a still, small voice. God’s servant was tired, and God brought him comfort. Elijah’s focus had shifted from God to God’s enemies. He had allowed his circumstances to overwhelm him, leaving him disoriented to God and feeling alone. So God encouraged him. God provided Elisha for him as a helper, friend, and companion. God removed Elijah from the activity for a time, so that he could rest and spend time with God. When the nation next saw Elijah, he was rejuvenated and refocused on God and His assignment.

If you are overwhelmed by kingdom work so that your focus is no longer on God but on all that there is to do, let Him comfort you. Listen to His gentle voice. He will encourage you and provide exactly what you need to prepare you for what comes next. If He needs to remove you from your work for a time, He will. He may place a friend or co-laborer beside you to help carry the load. God knows exactly how to encourage you. Let Him do so.

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

“I will build you with stones of turquoise,” (Isaiah 54:11).

The stones in the wall said, “We have come from mountains far away—from the sides of rugged cliffs. Fire and water have worked on us for ages but have only produced crevices. Yet human hands like yours have made us into homes where children of your immortal race are born, suffer, rejoice, find rest and shelter, and learn the lessons that our Maker and yours is teaching. But come to the point of being used for this purpose, we have endured much. Dynamite has torn at our very heart, and pickaxes have broken and split us into pieces. Often as we lay disfigured and broken in the quarry, everything seemed to be without design or meaning. But gradually we were cut into blocks, and some of us were chiseled with sharper instruments until we had a fine edge. Now we are complete, are in our proper places, and are of service.”

“You, however, are still in your quarry. You are not complete and because of that, as once was the case with us, there is much you do not understand. But you are destined for a higher building, and someday you will be placed in it by angelic hands, becoming a living stone in a heavenly temple.”

In the still air

the music lies unheard;

In the rough marble

beauty hides unseen;

To make the music

and the beauty needs

The master’s touch,

the sculptor’s chisel keen.

 

Great Master, touch us

with Your skillful hands;

Let not the music that is in us die!

Great Sculptor,

hew and polish us; nor let,

Hidden and lost,

Your form within us lie!

“By faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope,” Galatians 5:5.

There are times when everything looks very dark to me—so dark that I have to wait before I have hope. Waiting with hope is very difficult, but true patience is expressed when we must even wait for hope. When we see no hint of success yet refuse to despair, when we see nothing but the darkness of night through our window yet keep the shutters open because stars may appear in the sky, and when we have an empty place in our heart yet will not allow it to be filled with anything less than God’s best—that is the greatest kind of patience in the universe. It is the story of Job in the midst of the storm, Abraham on the road to Moriah, Moses in the desert of Midian, and the Son of Man in the Garden of Gethsemane. And there is no patience as strong as that which endures because we see “him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:27). It is the kind of patience that waits for hope.

Father…give me strength to wait for hope—to look through the window when there are no stars. Even when my joy is gone, give me the strength to stand victoriously in the darkest night and say, “To my heavenly Father, the sun still shines.”

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.

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.

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.

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

 

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

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

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

“Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: for thou art my rock and my fortress,” (Psalm 71:3).

Near the Capitol in Rome there stands an ancient building, built when Christianity was still very young in the world. In one of its corridors is a stone bench where the little pages sat waiting calls from their masters. On the wall, right over the bench, is scratched a rude cross with an outstretched figure on it. Beneath it the mischievous artist had cartooned one of his companions, and had written, “Silly Aleximos worships Christ.” The other boys thought it strange that Aleximos should look up to Jesus Christ as his King. For, as someone has pointed out, the world had never seen a King who had no possessions…

At His birth Jesus was born in a borrowed manger. He preached a sermon in a borrowed boat. He rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed beast. He ate His last supper with His disciples in a borrowed room. He was buried in a borrowed grave. Yet He stands, the Living, Risen Son of God, stripped of all earthly possessions, saying, “All authority has been given Me in heaven and earth.”

Other kings have always needed to be propped up; have needed to lean against many supports: gold in the treasury to buy men’s souls; a host of marching legions to destroy all opposition; games in the arena to keep the crowds in good humor; bread to feed the hungry to keep them from becoming dangerous.

But Jesus Christ leaned on none of these supports. He leaned only on the Eternal God, the unseen and everlasting Father. And, while the supports of other kings had always crumbled in the end, the Supporter of Jesus stood firm as Pilate growled, ‘Behold your King!’; stood unshaken as the mob yelled, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’

Then Easter came, and the centuries began to file by; and the world began to see that true Kingliness needs no gold or armies to hold it up. Men began to see that a Kingly Spirit stands unbroken, unbreakable, before all the blows of life, because the Spirit of the Living God within a man is stronger than any enemy there is!