Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
When I first gave my life to the Lord, like many of us, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. If God would have shown me, at that time, all the things that would have to change about me, I think I would have gone running for dear life!
Now, here we are, in Israel, a whirlwind of events going on around us, a growing ministry, all the trials you can imagine in relating to a different culture, language, etc. Ha! If you would have shown me this picture back in the days of my rebellion, I think I would have laughed my head off in unbelief!
But that is the Lord's way. God is a gentleman. He doesn't show us more than He feels we need to know. He knows that we are weak and He's merciful enough not to give us more than we can handle. He desires for us to lay our worries upon Him and trust Him for our future.
God has not given us the power to overcome all the problems we have yet to face. He has given us only the power to overcome what faces us today! Just as the children of Israel could collect only enough manna for one day, the power God gives us to face our trials -- it only comes one day at a time.
God has so many wonderful adventures ahead for us who love Him and are called according to His purpose -- and He will surely give us the strength to endure the trials we'll face with each adventure. Let's trust Him only for today's trials -- and let Him worry about the rest!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]For years, when I visited my father-in-law’s home in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, we would break bread and bless the bread with the traditional blessing – “Baruch Ata Adonai Eleheynu Melech HaOlam Ha-Motzi Lechem Min Ha’aretz” – which translated means,”Blessed are You Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who has given us bread from the earth”. After the blessing, my father-in-law would take salt and sprinkle the challah bread as he broke and passed it to everyone at the table.
One day a passerby saw a homeless man on the roadside. He stopped for a moment to hand him some loose change and casually said “God bless you, my friend”.
“I thank God,” said the homeless man, “I am never unhappy.”
Here in Israel we have an interesting geographical phenomenon – there are two landlocked seas. One is alive and one is dead. The sea full of life is the Kinneret, better known as the Sea of Galilee. The dead sea is…….you guessed it, the Dead Sea. Now the Kinneret is constantly emptying as it flows through the Jordan River valley…. into the Dead Sea. But the Dead Sea does not empty its water at all. Instead, the Dead Sea is continually shrinking, because the intense heat at this lowest place on Earth actually evaporates more water than is flowing in. Do you see a parable here?
One of my passions is studying history, especially the American Civil War. Here is an amusing story about General Stonewall Jackson’s famous Valley Campaign. During the war, Jackson’s army found itself on one side of a river when it needed to be on the other.
We tend to focus on the part of that scripture where God does the blessing — but why did He bless Him? The answer lies in the passage! The Lord told Abraham: “I will bless you — and you shall be a blessing.” Abraham was blessed so that he could be a blessing!
In the Olivet discourse recorded in Matthew 24, Yeshua prophesied that “… nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” The word “nation” in Greek is the word “ethnos”, from which we get the English word “ethnic”. All of this polarization and ethnic warfare which the media feed upon and incite is the work of the enemy as he stirs up the sinful nature of men.
Several hundred years before Jesus was born, a plague broke out in Athens, Greece. In an effort to stop the plague and appease the ‘gods’, the Athenians sought counsel from a wise man named Epimenides from the island of Crete.