In The Day of Trouble

“May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!

May the name of the God of Jacob set you securely on high!

May He send you help from the sanctuary

And support you from Zion!

May He remember all your meal offerings

And find your burnt offering acceptable! Selah.

May He grant you your heart’s desire

And fulfill all your counsel!

We will sing for joy over your victory,

And in the name of our God we will set up our banners.

May the Lord fulfill all your petitions.” (Psalms 20:1-5 NASB1995)

 

As human beings, we are going to have days of trouble and hardships. And as followers of Jesus Christ we will have trials and tribulations to test our faith to help us to grow to maturity in Christ and to be stronger in our faith and in our determination to follow our Lord in walks of obedience to his commands. And we will have persecutions and afflictions, but out of them we should learn more to depend upon the Lord and on his strength.

 

[Matthew 5:10-12; Matthew 10:16-39; Matthew 24:9-14; Luke 6:22-23; Luke 21:12-17; John 15:18-21; John 17:14; Rom 5:3-5; Phil 3:7-11; 1 Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 2 Tim 3:12; 1 Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb 12:3-12; 1 Jn 3:13; Revelation 6:9-11; Revelation 7:9-17; Revelation 11:1-3; Revelation 12:17; Revelation 13:1-18; Revelation 14:1-13]

 

Now we should pray all the time, and I don’t mean that we should be praying 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24/7), but that we should always be in an attitude of prayer in open communication with our Lord so that, at any given moment, we can hear from him, and we can speak to him, and we can call out to him in our times of difficulty and trials and persecutions, and he will hear us and he will answer if we call on him in faith without doubting.

 

But we need to pray according to the will of God, and if we don’t know his will in any given situation, we should pray and ask him to show us his will, or we should pray as Jesus prayed, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” And we should learn to accept whatever God’s will is for us in any given situation, for sometimes he will be silent, and other times he will say, “wait,” “trust me,” “be patient.” And other times, “Just keep praying.”

 

Now the Lord will never refuse to deliver us out of our addiction to sin if we are honest and sincere in our desire to be delivered. He may allow us to go through trials, like he did with Job, and he may say “No” to delivering us from an affliction, because he wants to humble us, like he did with Paul. But we know it is God’s will to deliver us from bondage to sin, and to empower us to live holy lives, for his praise and glory, in his power, strength, and wisdom, and that we live to please him in all that we are and do and say.

 

For that purpose Jesus sacrificed his life for us on that cross, and God the Father raised him from the dead, and he ascended back to heaven, and he sent his Holy Spirit to indwell his followers, to help us to do just that. He died on that cross to rescue us from our slavery to sin so that we will now serve him with our lives in walks of obedience to his commands. And if we are willing, humble, and obedient, he will help us to do that, too.

 

Now, if we are walking by the faith God provided, and we are living to please our Lord, in his power, he will grant our heart’s desire because his desire has now become our desire. He is not going to grant selfish and sinful and worldly desires so that we can continue to live to the flesh and not to God. Our will now must align with his will and purpose for our lives, and we must be living to obey him, and we must pray to know and to do his will.

 

And the best way to know his will is for us to be serious students of the Scriptures (read in a reliable translation, studied in the appropriate context) who not only read them, but who make it our practice to put what we are learning into practice in our daily lives, by the grace of God, in the power of God at work within us. And context is very critical because so many people are teaching the Scriptures out of context and are misinterpreting them.

 

And if we make Bible study our practice, we should learn that Jesus died to free us from our addiction to sin so that we will now serve him with our lives in walks of obedience to his commands. But, if we refuse to die to sin and to obey his commands, and so we continue to live in sin and not in walks of obedience to God, then no matter what we profess with our lips, we will not have salvation from sin nor eternal life with God in heaven.

 

[Matt 7:13-14,21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 10:27-30; Ac 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,15-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

 

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

 

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897

Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

 

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,

This is my constant longing and prayer;

Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,

Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

 

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,

Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,

Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,

Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

 

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,

Holy and harmless, patient and brave;

Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,

Willing to suffer others to save.

 

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,

Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;

Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,

Fit me for life and Heaven above.

 

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,

Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg

 

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In The Day of Trouble

An Original Work / February 27, 2025

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love