Jesus holds your future in His hands

"Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the LORD!                                                         Psalm 27:14    NKJV 

Are you a patient person or completely the opposite? For the impatient person, this verse may be a 'no no'. Not many people like waiting for things; supermarket checkout queues come to mind and traffic jams the next. Have you noticed that these things tend to happen when you have a lot of things to attend to and, this all leads to the stress of the situation? However, when God tells us to wait, there is no way around it, we have to wait. Sometimes we may wait for a short time, at other times, it may seem forever; just look at Joseph in prison, he was there several years. However, he had the trust in God to wait patiently and it paid off for him.

Stuart Hamblin, a Christian singer songwriter, writes in one of his songs, 'I know not what the future holds but I know who holds the future.' This is so true; we don't know what's around the next bend but we have a Saviour who does and who we can trust to lead the way for us. 

Warren W Wiersbe writes, 'If Jesus is your Saviour and Lord, then the future is your friend and you have nothing to fear.'

As we can see from our text today, as we begin to wait for the Lord, He encourages us to be of good courage and then He shall strengthen our heart. This is quite important as our health must be taken care of. Many people when they have been stressed out, have had strokes or heart attacks purely because they have allowed themselves to become so agitated and worried about something that their heart has failed. Don't let this happen to you. Take care of yourself. God is telling each of us to wait patiently for whatever it is we are expecting and allow God to fill us with His courage, strengthening us so much that joy becomes a major strong point in out lives.

As we wait for the Lord, we demonstrate confident expectation. The Hebrew word for 'Wait' can be translates as, 'Hope'. To hope in God is to wait for His timing and His action. RT Kendall always says, 'He's never early, He's never late, He's always on time'. And this is so true. Allow yourself to drop down a gear and just cruise along with Jesus, in fact, let Him drive while you rest. He always knows best and He always has your best interests at heart.

Copyright 2021 Grahame Howard.                                 

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'Come away'

"The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like deers feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills."                                       Habakkuk 3:19    NKJV

Yesterday, we saw that Habakkuk was speaking of the lack of fruit and no produce from their labour. All that had been done, had failed and they were left with relatively nothing; and yet, they praised God and shouted for joy with a sacrifice of praise - 'Yet I will rejoice in the Lord' 3:18.

Today, we go further into scripture, 'The Lord is my strength; He will make my feet like deer's feet and He will make me walk on my high hills.' 

 Let us look at Song of Solomon 2:10-13:

"Rise up, my love, my fair one and come away. 11 For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. 12 The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land. 13 The fig tree puts forth her green figs and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell. Rise up, my love, my fair one and come away.'

In comparison to Habakkuk 3:17, even though it is a different scripture and a different time, we can see the benefit of putting our trust in God and praising Him. Here, we see a great example of change. Whereas, there were no figs on the tree and the vines had failed, we see things can change rapidly when we put God in the driving seat, when we heed His voice and 'Come away'.

Warren W Wiersbe gives us a great insight into the term 'Come away':

'Come away, is a great word of the gospel of God's grace. It is God's lovely invitation to the weary who need rest, (Matthew 11:28-30), the sin-stained who need cleansing, (Isaiah 1:18), the hungry who need nourishment, (Luke 14:17) and all who thirst for the water of life, (Revelation 22:17).

You may have been going through a harsh winter, not only battling with the rain, cold and the storms of recent days and the future may look bleak as well. But, spring is upon us, the birds are singing, trees and bushes are budding and flowers give us beautiful colours. It is spring and God is saying: 'Come away, walk and leap with Me. Things are going to get better, just learn to trust Me more and praise Me deeper. It will be ok. Come away'.

Personalise Song of Solomon 2:10-13 and pray it out loud and claim it and allow yourself to be open to the changes God wants to make in your life.

Copyright 2021 Grahame Howard.                                 

dailylifewithjesusbygrahamehoward.blogspot.com          

If you would like to contact me, CLICK HERE

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No matter what happens, I will still praise Him

"I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth."   

                                                                                              Psalm 34:1    NKJV

Notice the phrase, 'at all times' and 'continually'. Although things may appear uncertain and indeed, very scary at times, God is always worthy of our praise and blessing. David didn't boast about himself - how skilful and good he was; not at all, he boasted about the Lord for who He us, no matter what situation David found himself in and, this is how we should handle situations that we come up against.

In Habakkuk 3:17-18, we read: 'Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labour of the olive may fail, and the field yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, 18 yet, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.' 

Habakkuk had realised the scary fact that his nation would be invaded by a merciless enemy. He knew many would be killed. He knew that all would be destroyed. This is not unlike what is happening in our world today with Russia and Ukraine. Yet, Habakkuk told God he would trust in Him - no matter what; and we need to do the same.

God may allow us to go through various trials so that we will draw nearer to Him, lifting up our circumstances. He may not change them but, He will change us so that we can meet the circumstances head on and, have the strength to run and leap, instead of hiding under a bush in fear.

When you face such adversity, you need to focus on God because, He's taking you to the next level. Be careful what you say because, in such moments the devil will suggest that you curse God and die (see Job). Don't do this and don't curse yourself or others. Instead bless and praise the only One who matters - God Himself. You see, this is called a sacrifice of praise (Hebrews 13:15). It is so easy to complain and criticise when we are in pain or suffering. Instead, we should give thanks to God for everything that He does for each of us.

So do this 'at all times' and 'continually'.

Copyright 2021 Grahame Howard.                                 

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The Weakest Link

"Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, 'The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?' 3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the Angel. 4 Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him saying, 'Take away the filthy garments from him.' And to him He said, 'See, I have removed your iniquities from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes."   Zechariah 3:1-4 NKJV

Zechariah saw Joshua, clothed in filthy garments, standing before the Lord, with Satan standing beside him full of accusation. Most of which Satan says are lies, but at times he is correct, especially when he accuses us before God. He has an accusatory spirit and loves to get us into trouble. In one way, we can also say that he is a 'tell tale'. 

The scene that day in heaven, would have been rather like a court scene, with Joshua as the defendant, God the judge, Satan the prosecutor and Jesus as the defence barrister. Satan is our accuser when we are charged with sin; Jesus, our advocate, represents us before the throne of God at such times. God, the judge, knows how Satan works, He has had much experience of His crafty, accusatory and twisted ways and, like here, He rebukes Him following the pleas from our defence lawyer, Jesus. Thank goodness for this.

Satan will have us believe that we are weaklings, in fact he will try and place the derogatory label of The Weakest Link, upon us and point the finger putting a strain on the whole of our testimony. But let us remember that it is ok to be weak, because when we are, then we are strong, because we have Jesus on our side.

In 2 Corinthians 12, we see how Paul had the most amazing experience of being in heaven and viewing the wonders that were there. Not long afterwards though, he is being buffeted by a thorn in his side which he pleaded to have taken from him, but was unsuccessful. At this time he knew what it felt to be weak and also realised that God can allow certain burdens to come upon us to prevent us becoming too proud because of the many blessings we receive. But, Jesus spoke to Paul and said, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' v9. Paul came to the conclusion that when he felt weakness, he was really strong v10.

Never allow yourself to feel the negative implications that you are The Weakest Link. You are not, it is a lie and derogatory arrow that Satan fires at you. When you feel weakness however, and you will, praise God because, when you are weak, through Jesus, you are strong. Did I hear an Amen?

Copyright 2021 Grahame Howard.                                 

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Worry and Burdens

"Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you"    Psalm 55:22    NKJV 

The burdens and worries of life drag people down. Did you know that worrying robs us of our effectiveness, and the thing is statistics show that about 85% of things that people worry about, never happen. Mark Twain made a famous quotation, 'I have spent most of my time worrying about things that have never happened'. What about you, do you fit this category?

Jesus told us, 'Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own thing. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble'  Matthew 6:34. Jesus does not want us laying awake most of the night worrying about something, whether it has happened, might happen or will definitely happen either tomorrow or soon after. If there is anything we can do about it, then fine, get up and do it. However, often there is nothing and we are worrying for worrying sake.

Instead, Jesus wants us to hand over our worries to Him, He is more qualified than we are to handle things. In fact, many of the worries can be classed as burdens and as we can see from our text today, the scriptures tells us to, 'Cast your burden on the Lord, and he shall sustain you.'. Now let's look at this more closely; we are to 'cast' the burden on the Lord. Cast means to throw it or release hold of something. As we do, He shall 'sustain' us. Sustain means to keep you going, maintain and nourish, supply and provide for.  When we do cast our burden on Him, He gives us the wherewithal to be able to cope. In one way it is like we are placing the burdens upon His shoulders and waiting for Him to come up with some good answers to our problems. In one way, this is good, but He does want us to handle the things ourselves, He just gives us the tools to be able to do this. 

Kidner writes, 'The promise is not that God will carry it, but that He will sustain you. We still have to go through it all.'  Copyright Derek Kidner. In addition, Campbell writes, 'The experience of suffering was not taken away from the servant of God, but he was sustained and so made strong enough to resist its pressure and through it, to make his service more perfect. This is how God sustains us in the bearing of burdens.'  Copyright G. Campbell Morgan

God allows burdens at times to see how we will cope and how we will handle each given situation. He is there to help and will do, however, rather than taking the burden completely away from us as if it never happened, He sustains us and gives us the assistance and help that we need. We should always cast our burdens on Him. It is the difference between carrying an empty bag of crisps or a bag of cement. Which would you rather carry? I know my answer.

Copyright 2021 Grahame Howard.                                 

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Jesus the Good Shepherd

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep."  

                                                                                                       John 10:11    NKJV

In v8, Jesus primarily referred to the religious leaders of the day. They were not true shepherds and didn't have the approval of God on their ministry. Jesus is the door; many counterfeits have come but not one of them has the staying power or quality that Jesus has. They are just very good at imitating and misleading people. It was the same here; Jesus was saying that the sheep will not go near or accept anyone except the true shepherd. 

Jesus said in v10, 'The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.' He offers life in abundance, in fact, superabundance and more than enough. 'Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us'  Ephesians 3:20. He gives us more than we could ever imagine as long as we remain in Him and Him in us.

Jesus gave His life for the sheep and He is our true shepherd. The hirelings or hired workers, only do the job for their wage; when they see a wolf attacking the flock, they run off to save themselves and leave the sheep to the mercy of this savage animal. Not so the Good Shepherd - Jesus. True shepherds give their life for the sheep and are with them constantly.

Jesus knows His sheep through and through. He knows all about you - everything. He knows what you think, what you do in secret, He knows the behind closed doors syndrome of your life and the words you use; and He still adores you because you are His, He cares for you and will never let you go. Even if you wander off - and sheep are prone to wander - He will come looking for you. His love and concern is truly amazing. 

Where could you go to find a more genuine love that Jesus offers you? He took your life out of the dirt, washed you clean and put clean clothes on you. He then declared that you are His - eternally. One day you will see the Good Shepherd face to face; what a privilege that will be!

Copyright 2021 Grahame Howard.                                 

dailylifewithjesusbygrahamehoward.blogspot.com          

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Jesus the True Shepherd

"But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep"    John 10:1-5    NKJV

In the minds of the Jewish leaders, a shepherd was any kind of leader, spiritual or political; people looked on the king and the prophets as shepherds. They should have been Israel's spiritual shepherds but, they were spiritually blind. This is why Jesus highlighted the difference between shepherds and thieves.

Thieves and robbers did not enter through the door of the sheep pen; they would climb over the wall and enter the fold through deception. If they did manage to get in, the sheep would never follow them for sheep, whose eyesight is not good, would only follow the voice of their own shepherd. False shepherds can never lead the sheep, so they must steal them away. When Jesus came to the nation of Israel, He came by the appointed way as the scriptures promised.

Every true shepherd must be called and sent by God. If he truly speaks God's Word the sheep will follow - they will know His voice and will not be afraid. The true shepherd will love and care for his sheep. This is probably why a lot of churches don't thrive and only have a small following. It may be that the pastor is either in the wrong place or, he has not been called by God in the first place. They are known by their fruit and the people will only follow who feeds, nutures and encourages them by God's Word.

Satan and his followers have no concern for the well-being of the sheep, they enter the sheep pen for their own gain. The true shepherd offers safety, security and loving care, this is why the sheep follow him or her. When you are next in a field where sheep are present, try and approach them and you will see that they run away. Why is this? It's because you are a stranger to them and they do not recognise you at all. They will not follow you no matter where you try to lead them. They are familiar with their own personal shepherd, they have a personal relationship with them and this is akin to your own personal relationship with Jesus. 

Jesus is our personal shepherd, He loves, cares and guides us. He knows the way and He will lead us accordingly. Don't be tempted to veer off the right path. Things may not always go how you would like them to go but, if Jesus is leading, you are on the right way because, He is the way, the truth and the life. No matter what, your personal shepherd has laid down His life for you.

Copyright 2021 Grahame Howard.                                 

dailylifewithjesusbygrahamehoward.blogspot.com          

If you would like to contact me, CLICK HERE

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