Today’s Bible readings are 1 Samuel 12:1-13:23, John 7:1-30, Psalm 108:1-13, & Proverbs 15:4
Psalm 108:1-5
1 My heart is confident
in you, O God; no wonder I can sing your praises with all my heart! 2 Wake up, lyre and harp! I
will wake the dawn with my song. 3 I will thank you, Lord, among all the people. I will sing your praises among the
nations. 4 For your unfailing love is higher than the
heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. 5 Be
exalted, O God, above the highest heavens. May your glory shine over all
the earth.
How confident is your heart in God? Confidence is everything
when it comes to receiving from our Father. It is confidence that gives us
boldness to ask. It is confidence that gives the courage to stand. It is confidence
that gives us the patience to wait. It is confidence that builds our faith to
believe.
David spoke of his confidence & how it moved him to
sing. People who are confident in God are people who sing even when the fire is
blazing & the storm is raging. People who are confident in God don’t need a
reason to praise. Their confidence moves them to praise. It is knowing that
something is about to happen that causes us to praise in advance.
Acts 16:22-29
22 A mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas,
and the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods. 23 They were severely beaten, and then they were
thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape.
24 So the jailer put
them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks.
25 Around
midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the
other prisoners were listening. 26 Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake, and the
prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and
the chains of every prisoner fell off! 27 The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide
open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill
himself. 28 But
Paul shouted to him, “Stop! Don’t kill yourself! We are all here!”
29 The jailer
called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down trembling before Paul
and Silas.
At first glance
of this story we could easily say that there is not much to be excited about.
There is not a lot of stuff happening at this moment that would give many a
reason to praise God. Yet, that is exactly what Paul & Silas did. They
began to sing praises to God.
I wonder what
the other prisoners were thinking as they heard these two men who had just been
severely beaten began to raise their voice & song of the goodness of God.
The others must have thought that they were crazy; that is, until their chains
fell off.
Many people in
the body of Christ are like the other prisoners. We all go through adversity.
We all have moments where the enemy attacks. These things come to weaken our
faith & cripple our confidence. The problem is that too many Christian just
stay quiet when it happens. They don’t praise God. They don’t have confidence
in Him. So when the going gets tough, they assume God has abandoned them. NOT
TRUE!!!
Paul & Silas
represent a different breed of believer. They are the ones who KNOW the
integrity of God & His promise. They are a breed that doesn’t need
something good to sing about because they have a GOOD GOD to sing about! They
have confidence in God. They KNOW that He will do it again.
What kind of
person do you want to be? Do you want to be a Paul & Silas or do you want
to be like the rest? The choice is yours. For me, when I take a look at where I
am now & what all God has brought me through, it leaves me with only one
conclusion to come to—I can have total confidence in God. He has always come
through for me & He never changes.
Here is the
truth—God is faithful! You can trust Him & have confidence in Him. You don’t
have to be a “fair weather”
Christian. You can have confidence in Him every day because He loves you. His
love reaches to the heavens & His faithfulness stretches the skies.
1 John 5:14-15
14 And we are
confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. 15 And since we know he hears us when we make our
requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.
No comments:
Post a Comment