Psalm 121:1-2 NASB
I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
Under the Weather
I am not feeling very well
today. The past few days my whole body has been aching, and today it feels as
though my glands are swollen some. I feel tired all over and am having
difficulty concentrating and keeping my eyes open.
I tried listening to some encouraging
music, but my mind could not stay focused on the words. I can do mechanical
things, but am having great difficulty staying focused, because my head feels
like it is swimming.
So, here it is after 1:00
p.m. and I have not even started writing my devotion for today. But, I am
determined to hear from the Lord today and to share what he teaches me, for I
find my help in him, not in anything else.
Psalm 121:3-4 NASB
He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
He is Always Working
I love it that my Lord is
constantly watching over me and caring for me. This sickness or whatever it is
that is plaguing me right now has not taken him by surprise, nor does it hinder
his ability to speak to me and through me.
For, I have seen the Lord
give me words to speak when I had a pounding headache and could barely stand
the light of the computer screen, and then when I finished, the headache was
gone.
I believe in rest, mind you,
and I have rested plenty today, so I am not advocating that we push ourselves
till we drop down dead because we did not take care of our bodies.
But, what I am saying here is
that Satan will use lots of different things in our lives in order to get us
distracted from God’s calling on our lives, and to get us not to call on God
but to follow our feelings, instead.
So, when we don’t feel well,
we should not naturally assume that God is giving us the day off, but we should
see what he wants to do in us and through us despite our weaknesses, and then
let him work. If he says “rest,” then we rest, but if he says “I’ve got this,”
then we let him work and trust him with whatever it is that may be leading us
to follow our feelings.
Psalm 121:5-6 NASB
The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
The Lord, My Keeper
Sickness, tiredness,
headaches, body aches and pains, etc. can be catalysts of walking by our
feelings rather than by faith. We may assume that God cannot use us in this
condition, for he first of all needs us to be strong and healthy. But, that
would be a faulty assumption.
For, in his Word we read that
“God chose the foolish things of the
world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the
strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and
the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Co. 1:27-29 NIV).
God is not limited by our
weaknesses. In fact, that is when his power is perfected in us (See: 2 Co.
12:6-10).
Sometimes God uses us in our
weaknesses, and despite them, in order to humble us and so we don’t take the
credit for ourselves, but we give all the glory to him. For, when we are weak,
and we turn to the Lord, and we look to him for our help, and we don’t follow
our feelings, then his power can be displayed in our lives. Thus, “when I am
weak, then I am strong,” for I am strong in the Lord and in his mighty power,
and not in my own flesh.
Psalm 121:7-8 NASB
The Lord will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.
Kept From Evil
The Lord doesn’t always
rescue us from everything bad, not in a physical sense, anyway. Like I said,
sometimes he gets glory through our weaknesses, and so he allows us to go
through difficult times so that he might display his power in and through our lives
for his glory.
The big rescue he provides, I
believe, is from ourselves and from our own flesh. He teaches us to be strong
in him, to lean on him, to rely on him and not on ourselves. He teaches us
perseverance and hope and faith in trying times which try our faith. And, in
these times, when we look to him, we grow in our faith and in our intimacy with
him.
So, what he protects is our
souls, not necessarily our emotions (feelings) or our physical bodies. He
protects us from yielding to the enemy of our lives. He protects us from caving
to weakness, and he teaches us that we can be strong in him despite whatever it
is we are going through.
If we learn to look to him
for our help in weakness, rather than immediately turning to the flesh of man
for our help, and if we look to him to be our strength when we have no
strength, then he can work miracles in our lives. He can do marvelous things
beyond our imaginations when our lives are yielded to him and we are walking in
the Spirit and not according to the flesh.
So, and this is for me, too,
when we are confronted with bad days, difficult circumstances, physical
ailments, persecutions, or whatever might be tempting us to live by our
feelings, and not by faith, we must look to the Lord for our help, and not run to
other things to make us “feel better.”
For, we never know but what
God allowed this in our lives for a purpose, and that if we are yielded to him,
he can use whatever it is we are going through for his praise and for the
comfort and encouragement of others who are going through similar experiences.
Jesus Only
Hymn lyrics by Albert B. Simpson
Music by J. H. Burke
Jesus only is our message,
Jesus all our theme shall be;
We will lift up Jesus ever,
Jesus only will we see.
Jesus only is our Savior,
All our guilt He bore away,
All our righteousness He gives us,
All our strength from day to day.
Jesus is our Sanctifier,
Cleansing us from self and sin,
And with all His Spirit’s fullness,
Filling all our hearts within.
Jesus only is our Healer,
All our sicknesses He bear,
And His risen life and fullness,
All His members still may share.
Jesus only is our Power,
He the Gift of Pentecost,
Jesus, breathe Thy power upon us,
Fill us with the Holy Ghost.
And for Jesus we are waiting,
Listening for the advent call;
But ’twill still be Jesus only,
Jesus ever, all in all.
Jesus only, Jesus ever,
Jesus all in all we sing,
Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer,
Glorious Lord and coming King.
Tuesday, September 11, 2018 –
I hope you will listen to this song, for the person who has sung it here, I
believe, is doing so to the glory of God, and it is beautiful! God has given
her a wonderful gift!
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