VIDEO Angels Watching Over Me – His Lovingkindness

Angels Watching Over Me

In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old. Isaiah 63:9

The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, an early book of church history, tells of a believer named Theodore, who was subjected to torture under the direction of Emperor Julian the Apostate. Theodore was later asked about the levels of pain he endured. He was asked which was worse—the scourging or the rack. Theodore said he was not able to answer that question because during the torture a young man suddenly appeared beside him and, using a soft and cooling linen, wiped away the sweat, cooled him with water, and so strengthened his mind that the trial became a season of rapture rather than of suffering.

Can you recall a moment in your life when you unerringly felt that you had been protected or given supernatural help? We’ll learn more about that moment in heaven, but surely if Jesus Himself needed angelic assistance, so do we; so the angels are nearer than we know, all through the night and day.

All night, all day, angels watching over me, my Lord. African-American Spiritual

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His Lovingkindness, Isaiah 63:7-9 – Pastor Chuck Smith – Topical Bible Study

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Kick the Bad Ones Out

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Colossians 3:15

Oswald Chambers wrote, “There are certain things we must not pray about—moods, for instance. Moods never go by praying, moods go by kicking.” He wasn’t telling us to never pray for better attitudes, but he was stating a basic emotional reality. We must take charge of our moods and kick the bad ones out of our hearts and minds. Just as importantly, we must open the door and usher in some better attitudes and let them rule in our hearts.

Gratitude is a choice we make. It’s a command to obey, for the Bible tells us: “Be thankful.” Remembering and reflecting on God’s goodness is one of the blessings of thanksgiving. Take a moment and think about a situation that’s causing you distress. Somewhere among the feelings of hurt, fear, anger, or anxiety—somewhere—there are some things for which to be thankful. What are they? List them, thank God for them, and let the peace of God rule in your heart.

We have to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves, and we will find that we can do what we said we could not…. The Christian life is one of incarnate spiritual pluck. Oswald Chambers

God Is Good in Trials

Romans 5:1-5

If God is always good, why does He allow His people to experience pain? Although there will be a day when He makes all things right, for now we live in a fallen world filled with suffering. God hasn’t lost control, but if we don’t understand what He’s doing, we could become discouraged or angry when we face trials.

Our heavenly Father sovereignly uses every difficult and hurtful situation to bring about His purposes in our life. That’s why we are told to exult not only in the hope of the glory of God but in our tribulations as well.

Rejoicing in tribulations (not for them) is possible only if we know the glorious things God accomplishes through trials. The good He produces is progressive in nature, moving from one positive result to the next:

Perseverance. When our hope and trust are on the goodness, love, and power of God, we have all the resources we need to keep going instead of becoming disillusioned and abandoning our faith.

Proven character. God uses trials to purify us from sin and increasingly transform us into His image so that our character, conduct, and conversation reflect and honor Him.

Hope. Knowing the good purposes for which God allows pain and trouble in our life keeps us from descending into discouragement. Instead, we are confident of His love and place our hope in what He is accomplishing through His Spirit within us.

Trials in your life have the potential to develop good qualities within you. That’s why you can exult in the Lord, even in tribulation.

Seventh Day

“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:11) 

God’s word is omnipotent, and He could just as well have created an entire universe, fully populated and functioning, in an instant of time. Instead, He chose to do it in six days, with a seventh day to be set aside as a day of rest and remembrance of His completed, “very good” creation. Since that time, it has been the universal practice among monotheists—those who believe in one Creator God—to measure time in seven-day weeks, with one of those days observed as a day of rest and worship of the Creator.

This divine assertion was inscribed with “the finger of God” on a table of stone (Exodus 31:18), clearly settling, once and for all, the ancient question of the age of the cosmos, at least for those who really believe in the inerrant perspicuity and authority of the Holy Scriptures. Not only did the Lord precisely equate the six days of man’s workweek with the six days of His own workweek, He then pronounced it all “very good” and “sanctified” the seventh day (Genesis 1:31; 2:3). This would have been an unthinkable thing for Him to say if there were, at that time, a great mile-deep graveyard consisting of the fossil remains of dead animals from the so-called geological ages extending all around the globe. These fossils must all be dated as post-Eden, after human sin and God’s curse brought death into the world (Romans 5:12).

Today, those who believe in God and creation should certainly continue to remember Him by observing every seventh day as a day of rest and worship in honor of their Creator, who has now also become their Redeemer and who will soon come again to reign as eternal King. HMM

The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night

2 Peter 3

2 Peter 3:3, 4

They insinuate that there is no God, or that if there be he takes no interest in the affairs of men, or else surely he would have come to judge his enemies long ere this.

2 Peter 3:5, 6

They wilfully forget that there was one grand interposition of vengeance, and therefore it is not altogether true that the machinery of nature has from time immemorial moved on regardless of human sin. Once by water has the world been destroyed, and by another element it shall soon be overwhelmed.

2 Peter 3:7-9

He waits that men may wait on him. He gives the race space to repent; but, alas, it abuses his longsuffering!

2 Peter 3:14-16

Good doctrine can be twisted to bad purposes. This is not the fault of the doctrine, but of the foolish or wicked minds which pervert it. We must not neglect the study of those great truths which Paul treats of for it is the ignorant who wrest them, and therefore we should not be of the number. If we are well acquainted with the deep things of God we shall, by God’s grace, be all the less likely to abuse them.

 

Jesus, thy church with longing eyes,

For thy expected coming waits;

When will the promised light arise,

And glory beam from Zion’s gates?

 

Yes, thou wilt speedily appear;

The smitten earth already reels;

And, not far off, we seem to hear

The thunder of thy chariot wheels.

 

Teach us, in watchfulness and prayer,

To wait for the appointed hour,

And fit us by thy grace to share

The triumphs of thy conquering power.

 

His Ever Present Gifts and Graces

… gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will. (Hebrews 2:4)

I go back often to Genesis 24 for the illustration and the figure in the Old Testament reminding us of the adornments of grace and beauty that will mark the believing Body of Christ. Abraham sent his trusted servant to his former homeland to select a bride for Isaac.

The adornment of Rebekah’s beauty consisted of jewels and the raiment that came as gifts of love from the bridegroom whom she had not yet seen.

It is a reminder of what God is doing in our midst right now. Abraham typifies God the Father; Isaac, our Lord Jesus Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom. The servant who went with the gifts into the far country to claim a bride for Isaac speaks well of the Holy Spirit, our Teacher and Comforter.

He gives us, one by one, the gifts and the graces of the Holy Spirit that will be our real beauty in His sight. Thus we are being prepared, and when we meet our coming Lord and King, our adornment will be our God-given graces!

 

The “All” of Belief

“Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” Mark 9:23

Our unbelief is the greatest hindrance in our way; in fact, there is no other real difficulty as to our spiritual progress and prosperity. The Lord can do everything; but when He makes a rule that according to our faith so shall it be unto us, our unbelief ties the hands of His Omnipotence.

Yes, the confederacies of evil shall be scattered if we can but believe. Despised truth shall lift its head if we will but have confidence in the God of truth. We can bear our load of trouble, or pass uninjured through the waves of distress, if we can gird our loins with the girdle of peace, that girdle which is buckled on by the hands of trust.

What can we not believe? Is everything possible except believing in God? Yet He is always true; why do we not believe Him? He is always faithful to His word; why can we not trust Him? When we are in a right state of heart faith costs no effort: it is then as natural for us to rely upon God as for a child to trust its father.

The worst of it is, that we can believe God about everything except the present pressing trial. This -is folly. Come, my soul, shake off such sinfulness, and trust thy God with the load, the labor, the longing of this present. This done, all is done.