Saturday... A prayer by someone in deep trouble...

Saturday... It is so good to see how others have handled difficult times in their lives. And here is a prayer by someone who was in deep trouble.

King Hezekiah in Isaiah 37:17 (NLT) prayed, "Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see! Listen to Sennacherib's words of defiance against the living God."

Sennacherib was the King of Assyria and he was coming to destroy Judah and he sent a letter to Hezekiah who was the king of Judah and in verse 10 he said, "Do not let the god you depend on deceive you."

Do you have people when you are going through difficult times put you down and ridicule you and they tell you, you're waisting your time believing in God? They not only put you down but also God. They say you are being deceived. And maybe it starts to get to you and it damages your faith. The evil one is great at put downs especially at your faith in God. He knows how effective it can be, especially during difficult times.

But Hezekiah went to the temple and prayed. He goes on in verses 18-19, "It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations. And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned then. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all-only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands."

Now in verse 20, Hezekiah gets down to business. He said, "Now, O Lord, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God." Then the the earth will know that you alone are God.

Could it be that the trouble we are in is there to show who is God? Could it be that the difficulty you are going through is there to show that the God you serve is the real God? That serving Him does really make a difference? That He wants those are are putting you down for your faith to see that they are deadly wrong, that your God is the only God? Could it be that you are an instrument to show that to be true?

In verse 36 it says, "That night the angel of the Lord went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. When the surviving Assyrians woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere. Then King Sennacherib of Assyrian broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Ninevah and stayed there."

So who is the god you serve? Could this be a time for all the kingdoms of the earth to know that you alone, O Lord, are God? Could it be? Yes, yes! #todaysbeginning

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Friday... Yes, we need them. We really do

Psalm 8:3-4 (NLT), "When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers - the moon and the stars you set in place - what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?" Friday... Yes, we need them. We really do. No, not the fact that I can go out my front door and look out at night at the marvels of the sky. I can do that and it is amazing and it takes my breath away each time I see it. Yes, that is a fact but the reality of who did that and the wisdom and the faith that I have to believe that and to marvel that the one who did that cares about me makes such a difference in how I live my life. Yes, God really does. That is so wonderful for us to believe. And that is why faith and wisdom are so important. Now whatever belief you have at how that marvel happened must also be believed through faith. And the sad thing to me is that more and more people have been taught that there is no God and therefore he did not have a h...

Tuesday... Each one of us see and describe what we are going through differently but...

Tuesday... Each one of us see and describe what we are going through differently but... We each one have our own way of explaining what we are going through, don't we? Some of us are maximisers, other are minimizers and neither one is better. We each one are different and we see what we are facing differently but no matter what it is and how you see it and describe it, God can handle it! Now the writer of Psalm 46 shows the extremes. In verse 1 he states the basic reality and then he moves on into our fears and he maximizes them to make sure we really understand. Here is what Psalm 46:1-3 (NLT) says, "God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!" So what do you fear? The Amplified Bible says verse 1 this way, "God is our refuge and strength [mighty and impenetrable], a very presen...

Wednesday... It didn't just happen.

Psalm 16;10 (NLT), "For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one to rot in the grave." Wednesday... It didn't just happen. We are headed into a weekend of deep emotion. One that we really really love was killed and it didn't just happen. David in Psalm 16:10 (NLT) writes of this happening. He says about God, "For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one to rot in the grave." We read over in the Gospels at the beginning of the New Testament in the Bible of the life of God's Son who came to earth to be our sacrifice so that our soul would not be left among the dead. Jesus came so that we wouldn't have to be buried at death and just left there. But he also shares that Jesus who was going to be killed as a sacrifice for our sins would not have to rot in a grave. David many generations before foretold this and that is what happened. Now that had to be a God thing. We can guess a lot about our future and we d...

Todays Beginning

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