Psalm 27:4-5 One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock.
The world these days is full of bad news, with the aftershocks of Covid, an ongoing war in Ukraine, tensions throughout the Middle East, and the natural disasters that continue to take place. It's a time of trouble all right, and for us believers, it may sometimes be hard to believe – but it never is as bad as it seems. Let me illustrate with a joke I like to share with my messages.
Way out west (in America, of course), a cowboy is driving down a road, his dog riding in the back of his pickup truck, his faithful horse in the trailer behind. As he takes a curve on the highway he suddenly loses control of the vehicle and has a terrible accident.
Sometime later, a State Police officer comes on the scene. A great lover of animals, the officer's attention is first drawn to the horse. Realizing the serious nature of its injuries, he draws his service revolver and puts the animal out of its misery. Then walking around the accident he finds the dog, also critically wounded, and whining miserably in pain. This grips his heart and he quickly ends the dog's suffering as well.
Finally, the police officer locates the cowboy, who has suffered multiple fractures and can barely breathe. “Hey, are you okay?”, he says.
The cowboy takes one look at the smoking gun in the trooper's hand and quickly replies, with unexpected energy, “Never felt better!”
We are pilgrims in this dangerous world, which will wound us at times so badly it will seem unbearable – yet we have this promise from God, “in the time of trouble He will hide me”. Our true life for us as believers is hidden in Him. So when the world approaches us with a smoking gun, ready to put us out of our misery, perhaps we can find a supernatural strength, and simply say, "I never felt better!"
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]For centuries in Ethiopia, there have lived a people we now know as the Falashas. They kept all sorts of Biblical traditions and call themselves Beta Yisrael (House of Israel). As experts began to study the matter, it became clear that these were descendants of the Jewish people who came to Africa in ancient times and intermarried. Unbeknownst to many, a percentage of them became believers in Jesus over the years. Jesus (or Yeshua, as they called Him) became a part of their identity as Jewish people. Many Falashan Jews worshipped Jesus as their Messiah and continued to practice Jewish tradition.
So often in our walks with the Lord, we become focused on what we can see, what we can hear and what we can sense in the physical realm. Like that young man, we focus on the enemy’s attacks around and about us. At times we can get so focused on our physical circumstances that we forget that the Lord has already provided for us the victory!
Why is it that some believers seem to go much deeper in their walk with God than others? I believe it has to do with a desire to pursue God and not to stop until they feel His very presence in their lives. These believers decide not to settle for anything less than a growing, vibrant relationship with God, and God honors that desire for those who seek it.
This pivotal passage of scripture, Isaiah 52 and continuing into Isaiah 53, profiles a suffering servant whom the nation of Israel would not recognize. The spiritual leaders of Yeshua’s (Jesus) day were blinded to the messianic passages which pointed to the messiah’s role as a humble servant and bearer of sins.
A recent study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of California Los Angeles wanted to find out, “if you had to choose between more time and more money, what would it be?” While they found most respondents answered, “more money”, they also found that those who preferred “more time” were generally happier! When I read this article, it reminded me of a story, that I’d like to share.
The Lord spoke to Moses, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt to be desperately cornered with the Red sea before them and Pharaoh’s chariots advancing upon them from behind. Overwhelmed with terror they cry out to Moses, “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Having just miraculously escaped from the miserable life of slavery, and only beginning their new life of freedom, the children of Israel were faced with the most dire threat to their existence.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve begun a series of devotions based on the Exodus wanderings of the Children of Israel, and their tragic mistakes which we can learn from and avoid. One powerful influence common to their failures was fear.