Psalms 37:23-24 The LORD makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.
My wife used to teach Israeli dance workshops all over the world. And over the years, she has acquired a few interesting and rather funny stories of people, including herself, tripping and stumbling over each other during a class.
Stumbling is not one of my most favorite things in the world. It's embarrassing and often hurts. The fact is, however, that stumbling is something we all must experience. The question is -- what do we do when it happens?
Imagine this. You're walking home and you trip and fall over a random object on the sidewalk. You scraped your knee and it hurt a little. And the kids walking home from school behind you saw you trip and giggled amongst themselves -- that was kind of embarrassing. But will you go all the way back from where you came and start again from the beginning? Or will you just sit and sulk on the curb, refusing to take another step at the thought of it happening again? No! Of course not! That would just be silly, wouldn't it?
So is it on our walk through life with the Lord. Satan would love nothing more than for us to go sulk in a corner somewhere and dwell on our humiliation and fear that it might happen again. But the Lord wants us to rise up, dust the dirt off our clothes, maybe give a little chuckle ourselves and move forward for His Kingdom!
Yes, we may stumble on this long and sometimes treacherous journey but we will not be cast down! The Lord has upheld us and He will always! So get back up, continue to press through ... and remind yourself once again the victory was already won for you 2000 years ago!
Enjoy a break from a long week ... enjoy your weekend ... Shabbat Shalom!
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]I could tell you about countless difficult and drawn out circumstances over which we have tried to stand firmly in faith until they finally came to pass. Sometimes we made it and sometimes we were weak and began to doubt. But God mercifully came through for us on most of these things, despite our lack of strength to stay faith-ful.
New Testament genealogies of Yeshua Ha Mashiach (Jesus the Christ) all identify Him as the son of king David. It was universally understood from the Tenach (OT) that the messiah would be descended from David and that he would restore the Davidic monarchy to its ultimate and most universal expression, even that this king would reign and sit on the throne forever.
This weekend, the Jewish people will celebrate the festival of Purim. This holiday commemorates Israel’s amazing reversal in Persia during the reign of King Xerxes (Ahasuerus) when Queen Esther and her uncle Mordecai gained victory for the Jews and protected them from annihilation at the hands of the evil Haman.
Over two decades ago, when I moved to Israel, I had the opportunity to spend considerable time with a pastor and his wife. This pastor imparted significant wisdom to me during that period, counseling me to “be like the children of Issachar,” he directed me to this specific passage in 1 Chronicles 12.
Over the past few days, I’ve been discussing the will of God and how to walk out His will daily in our lives. The Lord’s general will involves the development of our character and the ways in which we relate to Him and to our fellow man. Much of this is the same for every believer. But each of us is unique, and each has a potential life vision unlike any other. God has an individual will for every soul that belongs to Him, an individually shaped destiny which varies according to our gifting and calling and purpose in His Body.
As God worked on creation for six days and rested on the seventh day, so our seven day week is established on that pattern. If, as the scripture declares, with the Lord one day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years as a day, then the seven-day cycle also finds expression in a great historical “week”. As we approach the 1,000-year reign of the Messiah, this “millennium” as it is called, (described in some detail in Revelation chapter 20), is clearly understood as a time of global rest, peace, and righteousness throughout the Earth.
The word for “restitution” in this passage is the Greek word – “apokatastasis”. This is the one and only place it is found in the New Testament. The word literally means to “restore again” or “to repair”. The plan of God in sending His Son Yeshua (Jesus) was to restore that which had been broken and ruined. The Lord’s saving work is a global repair job. Each one of us has come to Him already ruined by sin. But God’s will and His promise is to restore and renew us through His Son.