Isaiah 58:11 And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
Bill Bright tells an amazing story in his book, “How You Can Be Filled with the Holy Spirit”.
During the Great Depression, poverty swept across America like a whirling tornado, ripping up dreams and scattering hopes to the wind. One such poverty twister hit a small part of Texas where a man named Yates ran a sheep ranch. Struggling even to keep food on the table, Yates and his wife did all they could to survive. Finally, they had to accept a government subsidy or lose their home and land to the creditors.
One day, in the midst of this bleakness, a geologic crew from a large oil company came knocking. With Yates’ permission, they wanted to drill a wildcat well on his property, promising him a large portion of the profits if they struck oil. “What could I lose?” thought Yates, and he signed the papers.
The oil crew immediately set up the machinery and began drilling. Five hundred feet down, they came up dry. Eight hundred feet, dry. One thousand feet they sunk the shaft, and still no oil. Finally, at a little over eleven hundred feet, they tapped into one of the richest oil reserves in Texas. The hole sprayed its black wealth high into the air, and soon the well was pumping eighty thousand barrels of oil a day.Overnight, Yates and his family became millionaires. His property, once called Yate’s Field, became known as Yate’s Pool. And soon hundreds of oil wells dotted the land where once only sheep grazed.
Hmm. What if they had stopped at a thousand feet?? I believe that there is a well of blessing within us that is just waiting to be found. And the victory will only come when we dig for it. We need to to press in when the circumstances look their bleakest! We need to believe that the blessing is there for the taking and not stop when we get discouraged and don’t see the fruit of our labor! We need to expect great things and rich oil in the Spirit! Because this is what the Lord has for each one of us!
Our breakthrough is just under our feet! Be encouraged! Keep digging! God has more in store than you can imagine!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s love, however if we want to experience His blessings we need to observe the qualifications that He’s given us in His Word. Psalm 112 details a whole list of blessings, but the key to receiving them is verse 1.
Looking at the relationship between “love and affection” (“chiba” in Hebrew) and “obligation” (“chova” in Hebrew), we find another closely related word, “chaver”, one of the Hebrew words for “friend”. Friends are people with whom we share love and affection and also a sense of obligation. Our God and Father wants us to be His friends, to share love and affection with Him and to carry the sense of responsibility and obligation which friendship requires.
We are called to be servants, are we not? Well, what does a servant do? He (or she) carries out the will of his master. A servant doesn’t tell his master what to do — he performs whatever tasks the master requests of him. A servant doesn’t choose what days or times it’s most convenient to serve his master. A servant’s function is simply to follow and obey his master’s instructions. A servant does not develop a vision for the master either. The master is the one with the vision — and he wants his servants to be ready and available to carry out that vision and bring it to fruition.
David is called a “man after God’s own heart.” Considering that he lusted after his neighbor’s wife, committed adultery with her, and had her husband murdered, the Lord’s description of him is remarkable. How could a man who was convicted a murderer and an adulterer also be called one after God’s own heart?
“Break up your fallow ground.” In this context, the Lord is referring to breaking up the ground overrun with weeds and thorns creating a hardness to produce righteous fruit.
This passage in Isaiah contains a poetic play on words which is lost to any reader but one who understands Hebrew. A word for word translation runs something like this: “If not you will believe (lo ta-aminoo), surely not you will be established (lo te-amenoo).” The three letter Hebrew root – “aleph”- “mem”- “nun”, is the same in both words, and the Holy Spirit through the prophet Isaiah is clearly playing on this root to emphasize His point. The same root letters are also used in the spelling for the familiar word “Amen” which literally means “truthfully”.
Momentum is simply the force or speed of movement that carries an object to its final destination. If you want to break through, you need to have a certain amount of momentum. In order for a rocket to blast into space, it needs tremendous momentum to break the gravitational barrier – but with the enormous power of jet engines and rocket fuel the ship is propelled faster and faster till it breaks free of the earth’s gravitational pull.