I Will Uphold You With My Righteous Right Hand!

Isa 41:10  Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

What a precious promise this is for all God's feeble children, who are daily fearing that they shall fall or be crushed under the weight of their troubles and trials!

O believer, what comfort is here!

This promise is confirmed to you in Jesus, by His death. Yes, it is yours - as much so as if it was spoken to you directly by the mouth of God.

Oh, what a mercy! God says that He will uphold you.

He will put strength into you; He will enable you to bear your afflictions and will bring you safely through all your troubles.

Satan may say, "I will trip you up."
God says, "I will uphold you!"

Unbelief may say, "You will one day fall and perish."
God says, "I will uphold you!"

Your flesh may cry out, "I can never bear up under this cross."
God says, "I will uphold you!"

Your feeble heart may say, "How can I endure such privations, such bereavements, such buffetings of Satan, such temptations, such losses, such fiery trials?"
 
God says, "I will uphold you!"

The Bible testifies that all believers "go from strength to strength, until each appears before God in Zion"

Psa 84:7  They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.

In weakness - the Lord strengthens them;
in poverty - the Lord supplies their needs;
in sickness - the Lord sustains them; and
in death - the Lord gives them the final victory!

O Father, I am weak...but You are strong. Give me of Your strength so that I may serve You and walk with You all the days of my life on this earth.

Psa 37:23  The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
 

Psa 37:24  Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.

~James Smith~

By Faith Not Feeling

                                                  
Rom 1:17  For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

I shall not die, I can, I do, believe in the LORD my God, and this faith will keep me alive.

I would be numbered among those who in their lives are just; but even if I were perfect I would not try to live by my righteousness; I would cling to the work of the LORD Jesus and still live by faith in Him and by nothing else.

If I were able to give my body to be burned for my LORD Jesus, yet I would not trust in my own courage and constancy, but still would live by faith.

Were I a martyr at the stake I'd plead my Saviour's name; Intreat a pardon for His sake, And urge no other claim.

To live by faith is a far surer and happier thing than to live by feelings or by works,

The branch, by living in the vine, lives a better life than it would live by itself, even if it were possible for it to live at all apart from the stem.

To live by clinging to Jesus, by deriving all from Him, is a sweet and sacred thing.

If even the most just must live in this fashion, how much more must I who am a poor sinner!

LORD, I believe. I must trust Thee wholly. What else can I do? Trusting Thee is my life.... 

~Charles Spurgeon~

Enemies At Peace

I must see that my ways please the LORD. Even then I shall have enemies; and, perhaps, all the more certainly because I endeavor to do that which is right.

But what a promise this is! The LORD will make the wrath of man to praise Him and abate it so that it shall not distress me.

He can constrain an enemy to desist from harming me, even though he has a mind to do so.

This He did with Laban, who pursued Jacob but did not dare to touch him.

Or He can subdue the wrath of the enemy and make him friendly, as He did with Esau, who met Jacob in a brotherly manner, though Jacob had dreaded that he would smite him and his family with the sword.

The LORD can also convert a furious adversary into a brother in Christ and a fellow worker, as He did with Saul of Tarsus. Oh, that He would do this in every case where a persecuting spirit appears!

Happy is the man whose enemies are made to be to him what the lions were to Daniel in the den, quiet and companionable! 

When I meet death, who is called the last enemy, I pray that I may be at peace.

Only let my great care be to please the LORD in all things. Oh, for faith and holiness; for these are a pleasure unto the Most High!

~Charles Spurgeon~

My Choice Is His Choice

Psa 47:4  He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved. Selah.
 
Our enemies would allot us a very dreary portion, but we are not left in their hands.

The LORD will cause us to stand in our lot, and our place is appointed by His infinite wisdom. 

A wiser mind than our own arranges our destiny, The ordaining of all things is with God, and we are glad to have it so; we choose that God should choose for us.

If we might have our own way we would wish to let all things go in God's way.

Being conscious of our own folly, we would not desire to rule our own destinies. 

We feel safer and more at ease when the LORD steers our vessel than we could possibly be if we could direct it according to our own judgment.

Joyfully we leave the painful present and the unknown future with our Father, our Savior, our Comforter.

O my soul, this day lay down thy wishes at Jesus' feet!

If thou hast of late been somewhat wayward and willful, eager to be and to do after thine own mind, now dismiss thy foolish self, and place the reins in the LORD's hands.

Say, "He shall choose."

If others dispute the sovereignty of the LORD and glory in the free will of man, do thou answer them, "He shall choose for me."

It is my freest choice to let Him choose. As a free agent, I elect that He should have absolute sway. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

Sources Of Endurance: Faith

The first of these is faith...a burning and bright faith within the heart.

That is the thought in the apostle's mind when he tells us to take the shield of faith (Eph 6:16).

A shield is not a weapon of offense.

It is different from sword or spear. A shield is a protective bit of armour.

It guards the soldier amid blows and buffetings.

And Paul means that if we are to be guarded amid the blows and buffetings of life, there must be radiant faith within the heart.

If our darker hours have no meaning in them, if they be quite devoid of plan or purpose, if there be nothing in life but accident or chance, the most man can achieve is resignation. 

But if God be love, and if everything that comes to us arrives in the perfect ordering of the Father, then another attitude becomes possible.

He who believes that God is in the difficult circumstance is empowered to endure it.

He can say with Christ, "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight."

Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

Faith finds the soul of goodness in things evil.

Faith is one great secret of endurance.

~George Morrison~

Through The Fire

Job 42:12  So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.

Through his griefs Job came to his heritage. He was tried that his godliness might be confirmed.

Are not my troubles intended to deepen my character and to robe me in graces I had little of before?

I come to my glory through eclipses, tears, death. My ripest fruit grows against the roughest wall.

Job's afflictions left him with higher conceptions of God and lowlier thoughts of himself. "Now," he cried, "mine eye seeth thee."

And if, through pain and loss, I feel God so near in His majesty that I bend low before Him and pray, "Thy will be done," I gain very much.

God gave Job glimpses of the future glory. In those wearisome days and nights, he penetrated within the veil, and could say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth."

Surely the latter end of Job was more blessed than the beginning.--In the Hour of Silence

Trouble never comes to a man unless she brings a nugget of gold in her hand.

Apparent adversity will finally turn out to be the advantage of the right if we are only willing to keep on working and to wait patiently.

How steadfastly the great victor souls have kept at their work, dauntless and unafraid!

There are blessings which we cannot obtain if we cannot accept and endure suffering. There are joys that can come to us only through sorrow.

There are revealings of Divine truth which we can get only when earth's lights have gone out. There are harvests which can grow only after the plowshare has done its work.

~Selected~
     
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire, and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gates of Heaven.

~Chapin~
     
I shall know by the gleam and glitter Of the golden chain you wear, By your heart's calm strength in loving, Of the fire you have had to bear.
     
Beat on, true heart, forever; Shine bright, strong golden chain; And bless the cleansing fire And the furnace of living pain!

~Adelaide Proctor~
    
  

You Cease To Be Childlike When You Cease To Be Receptive

Mat 19:14  But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

You ask me why? I think there are three reasons; there are three penalties that follow when the child-spirit dies, and the first is, that we cease to be receptive.

The joy of childhood is its receptivity. The greatest duty of it is to receive. 

The child knows nothing of a haunting past yet, and it is not yet anxious about the future. Its time is now, and now is God's time too, do not forget. 

But you and I have so overlaid this present with yesterday's sin and with tomorrow's project, that we have little heart for today's message.

We are not receptive as the little child is, and so we grow very commonplace and dull; there is plenty of dust about us, and no dew.

Let the dead past bury its dead!

Do not be living in a quenched yesterday. And take no anxious thought about tomorrow.

Consider the lilies; be a child again.

To feel the eternal in this passing moment, to catch the rustle of God's garment now, not to be burdened with a vain regret, not to be peering forward through the curtain; all that, with the open eye and feeling heart, is to be childlike.

And of such is the kingdom of heaven.

~George Morrison~