RICHES OF GRACE

By A.W. Tozer


Would it startle you if I dared to say that the living God has never done anything in His universe apart from Jesus Christ? Christians seem to be woefully unaware of the full meaning and measure of the grace of God. 

Why should we question God's provision when the Holy Spirit tells us through the Apostle John that the Word who became flesh is "full of grace and truth"? Brethren, the stars in their courses, the frogs that croak beside the lake, the angels in heaven above and men and women on earth below-all came out of the channel we call the eternal Word! 

In the book of Revelation, John bears record of the whole universe joining to give praise to the Lamb that was slain. Under the earth and on the earth, and above the earth John heard creatures praising Jesus Christ, all joining in a great chorus: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory and blessing!" Yes, surely the entire universe is beneficiary of God's rich grace in Jesus Christ!

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

By Andrew Bonar

      Psalm 103: 1-5 

IN this psalm we find the Psalmist standing at the golden altar with his harp in his hand, recounting all his mercies. This psalm teaches us adoration. Adoration is not thanksgiving; it is silent wonder. I once saw a striking instance of this in a sick one, who said to me, 'I got such a sight of the Lord Jesus -- His wonderful Person--His finished work--that at last I was obliged to stop giving thanks, and just look, look, look!' 

Adoration is wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, and it is very sanctifying when He gives us such moments of nearness to Himself. Looking on Him at such times we cannot say, 'Bless the Lord, O my soul!' we can only gaze and wonder. Praise is a little lower down Pisgah. Adoration is higher, nearer the upper sky. It is more than apostolic, it is angelic; for the angels say, 'Glory to Him who sitteth upon the throne.' It is the feeling of a soul under God's afflicting hand, to whom God has given great sanctification. 'Blessed be the name of the Lord. He gives, and He takes away.'

      That is adoration.

      This psalm is a call to praise 'His holy name.' His 'doings' come after. His holy name is the fountainhead; His doings, the streams from Lebanon. We are called to praise Him because

      I. He forgiveth all our iniquities. -- Our first true acquaintance with God is when He pardons us. Manasseh --that awful sinner--that man who leaned over hell-- who spoke with the devil, and would not speak with God--that man was brought to know the Lord, and when He had forgiven him, 'then Manasseh knew that the Lord He was God.' What we need is a God who can take away our sins. 'All thine iniquities.' He does not leave a single sin resting on the conscience; the blood that cleanseth one sin cleanseth all. For our sins are linked together, one great awful chain round our soul, and God takes hold of the first link, and so casts the whole chain 'into the depths of the sea.' We need not wonder that the Psalmist puts this first, 'Who forgiveth all thine iniquities.' Looking up to-day to the Lord Jesus are we not saying, 'In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace'?

      II. He healeth all our diseases. -- This may refer to bodily as well as to spiritual healing. I like to think in connection with this of the palsied man brought by his four friends to Jesus, and Jesus looking on him, and saying, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee.' Then a few minutes after, 'Rise, take up thy bed and walk.' When God takes away our sin He does not forget our bodily trouble. He may not heal us completely, but He takes the sting out of the disease. He has given us a pillow for our aching head in giving us pardon, and He whispers in our ear, 'This chastisement is that you may be partaker of My holiness.' This is the fire that is to melt away the dross. After pardon He gives healing of the soul's diseases. 'Sin shall not have dominion over you.' It is in the repeated use of the forgiving blood, day by day, that we mortify our corruptions, just as it is by the blood that we quench the fiery darts of the devil. When they touch the blood they are quenched. As it is 'all thine iniquities,' so it is 'all thy diseases.' There is not a corruption over which He will not give you victory.

      III. He redeemeth our life from destruction.--We are 'kept by the mighty power of God.' We every day escape dangers that we are not aware of. Is it not a beautiful touch in Jeremiah 2: 6, where God says to Israel, that He took care of him when he was going through the wilderness, 'a land of deserts and of pits.' Israel was skirting the margin of these pits as the Pillar-Cloud led him along--a picture of how we are led. How we shall praise Him yet for all His deliverances! If we but saw the snares Satan lays for us spiritually, how we would adore the Lord who enables us to escape them all! How often the devil tries to make us unwatchful, or gives us false peace, but God is watching over us, and He redeems our spiritual life from these spiritual injuries.

IV. He crowneth us with loving-kindness.--Providential supplies all the way as we journey on, putting a crown of tender mercies and loving-kindness round our head. We are wearing it, and perhaps do not know that we are. Look at the comforts of your lot. Think of the spiritual mercies of your life. 'Bless the Lord, O my soul!' Is He not satisfying your mouth with good things? When you were going to become a backslider He restored your soul. He fulfilled His promise that 'they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength,' and the earth looked very small as you ascended on eagles' wings. 'Forget not all His benefits.' There is a great deal of unbelief implied in forgetting. Faith has a good memory, unbelief forgets. Let us ask the Lord to give us better memories for all His benefits, that we may fix our minds on His grace, in spite of all that may happen to us.

      'Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits!'

      Transcribed from Reminiscences of Andrew A.Bonar D.D.

How Long Can You Wait?

By Warren Wiersbe


Read Psalm 13:1-6 

Have you ever been impatient with God? Impatience is one of my big problems. I always get into the wrong lane on a toll road. Someone's in front of me with foreign currency, trying to buy his way through the tollbooth. I get into the wrong line at the airport, thinking, This line is a good line; it's going to move. But it doesn't because somebody in the line has lost his passport. And I get irritated.

It's one thing for us to be impatient with ourselves or with others. But when we become impatient with God, we should watch out! "How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul?" (vv. 1,2). Four times David asked, "How long?" We're so time conscious today. We have watches that show us split seconds. But what do we do with those split seconds? If we save three minutes by taking a shortcut, what significant thing will we accomplish with the three minutes we save?

We expect God to do what we want Him to do--and right now! But He doesn't always act immediately. Abraham had to wait for 25 years after God's promise before Isaac was born. Isaac had to wait 20 years for his children. Joseph had to wait 13 years before he was set free and put on the throne. Moses had a wait of 80 years. You see, God's schedule is not the same as ours. Sometimes He waits so that He can do more for us than we expect. When He heard that Lazarus was dying, our Lord waited until his friend's death before He came. But when He came, He brought a greater miracle and received greater glory. The hardest thing to do is to wait on the Lord. But we can if we will trust Him and rest on His Word.

Some of your greatest blessings come with patience. When you must wait for God to act, you can be confident that He knows what is best for you and what will best glorify Him. Are you waiting for God to act on your behalf? Align with His timing and rest on the promises of His Word.

God’s Perfect Peace By Jack Hartman

Classic Christian Writings  God’s Word tells us that His "perfect peace" is available to us. No other peace remotely compares with God’s perfect peace. It is total, complete and absolute--a beautiful peace that never changes. The following verse of Scripture tells us exactly how to obtain God’s perfect peace in our lives. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee" (Isaiah 26:3). Our Father will always do His part if we will do our part. His part is to keep us in perfect peace. Our part is, 1) to keep our minds stayed on Him and, 2) to trust completely in Him. Isn’t this exactly the opposite of what most of us do when we’re faced with a crisis? Don’t our minds remain primarily "stayed" on the problems that face us? Don’t we turn these problems over and over in our minds, focusing on them almost constantly? Don’t most of us worry about whether we can solve these problems? In crisis situations, isn’t it true that many of us do exactly the opposite of God’s two requirements for perfect peace? Some of us experience "partial peace." We keep our minds partially on the problem and partially on God. We trust partially in ourselves and partially in God. This is an improvement over doing exactly the opposite to the instructions of Isaiah 26:3, but it leaves us a long way from the perfect peace that we can experience. Why does Isaiah 26:3 teach us that perfect peace is related to our "minds" when Romans 10:9, Proverbs 23:7 and other verses of Scripture place emphasis on our hearts? The answer is that all spiritual battles are fought in our minds. These battles are fought based upon what we believe in our hearts, but the area they take place in is our minds. Our heartfelt beliefs are our "weapons," but our minds are the "battlefield." Satan got to Adam and Eve by cunningly seducing and corrupting their minds. We must be on guard against this same device. "...even as the serpent beguiled Eve by his cunning, so your minds may be corrupted and seduced from wholehearted and sincere and pure devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3, The Amplified Bible). God wants us to keep our minds stayed on Him because He wants us to be single-minded at all times. Christians who aren’t single-minded risk the problems that attack people who are double-minded. "...a man of two minds --hesitating, dubious, irresolute--[he is] unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything (he thinks, feels, decides)" (James 1:8, The Amplified Bible). Double-minded Christians are variable. One day they’re full of faith--defying the problem that they’re faced with, boldly claiming the promises of God, praising Him and thanking Him. Yet, a few days, weeks or months later, these same Christians often are filled with doubt and are very hesitant and wavering. God’s Word warns us about the penalties of being double-minded (offering a half-hearted commitment for trusting God one day and worrying another day). "...ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways" (James 1:6-8). Our Father wants us to look only one way--at Him! No matter what problems come into our lives, He wants us to take our eyes off the problem and keep them on Him. If we do this, the glorious light of our Lord Jesus Christ will shine in our lives. "...if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light" (Matthew 6:22). God’s Word places great emphasis on the importance of being single-minded. However, this is easier said than done. Exactly what must be done in order to become single-minded? How do we keep our minds on God at all times regardless of circumstances and regardless of what our emotions tell us. The answer is that our minds have to be made brand new. They have to be constantly refreshed day after day after day. "...be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind--having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude..." (Ephesians 4:23, The Amplified Bible). We wouldn’t think of trying to feed our bodies on one or two meals a week. Yet, this is exactly what many of us try to do with our minds. The only way to keep our minds "stayed" on God is to renew them each and every day through continual study and meditation in His Word. If we will pay this price, we’ll soon find that constant renewal of our minds will transform us by guiding us into living our lives the way that our Father wants us to live. "...be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2). If we’ll pay the price of constantly renewing our minds so that we’re single-minded and focusing on the Lord at all times, the storms of life won’t be able to hurt us. Think for a moment about a storm at sea. There is no disturbance in the depth of the ocean. It all takes place on the surface. The storms of life are exactly the same. God is always at peace. Nothing disturbs Him. It’s always quiet deep inside ourselves where the Holy Spirit lives. If we keep our minds constantly on Him, the storms of life that take place outside of us won’t be able to get down inside of us. They won’t be able to get into our minds and, from there, down into our hearts. This is why God’s Word tells us to cast out disturbing thoughts--to stop them from getting into our minds by keeping every one of our thoughts on the Lord at all times. "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ..." (2 Corinthians 10:5). Satan can’t get into a mind that is stayed on God. When he tries to get his thoughts into our minds, we need to cast them out. What does a fisherman do when he "casts" his line out into the water? He throws it, doesn’t he? That’s what we must do with the fearful, worried thoughts that try to get into our minds. We need to throw them out! How do we do this? We do this by keeping our minds stayed upon the Lord--by bringing every one of our thoughts into obedience to the Lord. We need to fix our minds on the Lord constantly--not just in morning and evening prayer and at church functions during the week. We need to focus our minds on the Lord throughout the day, each and every day of our lives. This Christ-centered life will lead us into God’s perfect peace! Instead of focusing on the problems in our lives, we need to look to our Lord. This is where our help will come from. "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth" (Psalm 121:1-2). If we focus constantly on the Lord, we won’t be moved by the circumstances of life. We’ll rejoice constantly deep inside of ourselves because we’ll be relaxed and at ease no matter what is going on around us. "I have set the Lord continually before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory [my inner self] rejoices; my body too shall rest and confidently dwell in safety" (Psalm 16:8-9, The Amplified Bible). Have you noticed when we’re exhausted or when our resistance is down how frightening and out of proportion our problems can become? When we focus constantly on the obstacles, they will always seem to be bigger than they really are. This is when we must keep our minds on the Lord. How do we keep our minds stayed on Him? Go back to the final five words of Isaiah 26:3: "...because he trusteth in Thee." These words give us the key. We will be able to keep our minds stayed on the Lord in the midst of severe pressure only if we honestly trust Him. Too often we place our trust in money, government, human intelligence, human abilities, family members and friends. It isn’t wrong to trust in those things at times, but it is definitely wrong to trust in them more than we trust in our Lord. We’ll never be able to keep our minds stayed on the Lord unless we trust Him much more than any worldly security. God is our source. All worldly security is temporary and changing. God is permanent. He never changes. This world is changing faster today than ever before and change can create anxiety. We must not allow change to rob us of our peace. God never changes. God’s Word never changes. Our peace will only be constant to the degree that we focus on our unchanging Father and His unchanging Word. The mind that is stayed on the Lord is always calm and poised because our Lord is always calm and poised. Nothing can sway this mind because nothing can sway our Lord. The more our minds are centered upon the source of all peace, the more His peace will be manifested in our lives. How To Trust In The Lord Isaiah 26:3 tells us that the reason we can keep our minds stayed on Him is because we trust completely in Him....Complete, absolute, unwavering trust in the Lord will cause us to keep our minds stayed on Him no matter what is happening to us. If we are able to do this, we will experience His beautiful perfect peace regardless of the circumstances that we might be faced with in our lives. The Hebrew word that is translated "trusteth" in Isaiah 26:3 means to "have no fear because of our security." If we trust deeply in the Lord, we believe that He is completely reliable, that we are absolutely secure and we have no fear of anything because we know that His power is greater than anything that will ever come against us. The peace of God will rule in our hearts based upon the amount of His Word that lives in our hearts. The key to trusting Him is to have our hearts filled with His Word. "...Let thine heart retain My words..." (Proverbs 4:4). If our lives are controlled by whatever we deeply believe, we should be very careful about what we allow to get deep into our hearts. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23). Our Father wants us to fill our hearts constantly with His Word. When a crisis comes up, He wants His Word to be so deeply rooted and firmly established in our hearts that we will automatically react to what His Word says instead of reacting with fear to the crisis that we are faced with. "...the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established, he shall not be afraid..." (Psalm 112:6-8). We need to have more than just head knowledge of God’s Word. We need to have heart knowledge of His awesome promises. Our hearts need to be so full of His Word that it dominates our souls (our minds, our emotions and our will) in times of crisis. If our hearts aren’t filled with God’s Word, we’ll falter when the going gets tough. If our hearts are filled with His Word, we won’t budge one inch!... Many of us forfeit the peace that our Lord has given us by the words that we allow to come out of our mouths when we are under stress. We’ll never enjoy God’s peace unless we learn to control our tongues. Our tongues cannot be permanently controlled by will power. "...the human tongue can be tamed by no man..." (James 3:8, The Amplified Bible). Our tongues can only be controlled by what we believe in our hearts. If our hearts are full of worry, fear, doubt and discouragement, then a crisis will bring forth words of worry, fear, doubt and discouragement. Spiritual power is released by the words that we speak. Because of this, we should open our mouths several times each day and speak the Word of God. If our hearts are full of the Word of God, our lips will constantly speak His Word. When our words constantly line up with God’s Word, we constantly release His spiritual power. If we constantly speak God’s Word, this will increase our peace. When our ears constantly hear our own lips speaking God’s Word, our faith will grow. "...faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). It is very important to realize that our faith grows by hearing God’s Word. It will grow when we hear other people speak God’s Word, but our faith will really grow when our ears constantly hear our mouths speaking the Word of God. As we fill our minds and hearts with God’s Word, our faith will become more and more childlike in nature...Little children don’t worry. They trust their fathers completely. Our heavenly Father wants us to face the seemingly complex problems of life with this same innocent, childlike trust in Him.

Waiting Upon God

 
George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons

      Waiting Upon God
     
      "I wait on thee." Psa 25:21
     
      In the great biblical thought of waiting upon God there are several interwoven strands of meaning, and it is well to try to distinguish some of these that we may better grasp the importance of the term.
     
      Dependence
     
      The first meaning, nestling at the heart of it and never absent from the mind of any writer, is the concept of dependence. As the baby waits upon its mother for without its mother it will die; as the anguished patient waits upon the surgeon for in the skill of the surgeon is the hope of life, so when one is said to wait on God there is implied an entire dependence upon Him. There is a sense, in biblical phraseology, in which this waiting is a universal thing. "The eyes of all things living wait on thee." The bird that sings, the beast that hunts its prey--all of them are waiting upon God. But such an inescapable dependence does not bring the thought to its full blossoming. That demands a dependence which is conscious. It is when we realize, however dimly, that in Him we live and move and have our being, it is when we waken to the mysterious certainty that we all hang on God for every heartbeat--it is only then the word comes to its fullness in the deep usage of the Scriptures, and man is said to be waiting upon God.
     
      Obedience
     
      Another strand of meaning in the word takes us into the region of obedience. To wait on is another term for service. The man who serves us when we sit down at the table and who is there just to supply our wants, we still distinguish by the name of waiter. When a prime minister waits upon the king, that is not an idle sauntering business. It is part of the service to which he has been called, a service which demands his highest energies. And so when a man is said to wait On God, it is not a negation of activity, for the thought of service runs right through the term. We wait on God whenever we help a brother and do it lovingly for Jesus' sake. We wait on God when we teach our little class or climb the stairs to cheer some lonely soul. The servant in the kitchen waits on God when for His sake she does her duty faithfully. The mistress in the living room waits on God when for His sake she is a lady to her servants. We are all apt to forget that and to narrow down these fine old Bible words. We are prone to limit the great thought of waiting to the single region of devotion. But the root idea of it is not devotion. The root idea is simple, quiet obedience. And what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to obey?
     
      Love
     
      Another of the interwoven strands is love: in true waiting that is invariably present. As love is the source of all the highest work, so is it the spring of all the finest waiting. Jacob waited for Rachel seven years, and the years were as a day or two to Jacob because of the great love he had for her. What makes the mother wait upon her child and rise from her pillow when she hears it cry? What makes her wait on it with tireless patience when it frets or tosses with fever? She may be only a frail and sickly woman, but she never wearies of waiting on her child, and the secret of it is a mother's love. Love beareth all things and endureth all things. Love can wait with a patience all her own. Love can achieve miracles of waiting, as many a young engaged couple knows. And that is why, if we are ever to wait nobly, in the teeth of all our natural impatience, we must be taught to love the Lord our God. It must have been very hard in the times of the older covenant for the common man to wait on God, for God seemed very far away then, and clouds and darkness were about His throne. But now, under the new covenant and by the revealing grace of the Redeemer, it is within the reach and compass of us all. If we hold to it that "God so loved the world," if we say believingly "Our Father," love to God, once so supremely difficult, is in the range of the ordinary heart. And, lovingly, we can wait as Jacob waited, and as the mother waits upon her child, with a service that knows no weariness at all.
     
      Expectancy
     
      There is only one other strand woven in the word and that is the strand of eager, tense expectancy. To wait on, in a hundred spheres of life, is eagerly and tensely to expect. You see that in the dumb creatures--watch the dog waiting on his master. Is the master going to give him a bit of food? Is he going to throw that stick into the stream? You see that in any court of law when the accused waits on the verdict or the judge with an expectancy so tense that it is painful. Now apply that to the realm of prayer and how it illuminates the matter! To wait on God is not just to pray to God, for many pray and never expect an answer. To wait on God is to pray with tense expectancy that the prayer we offer will be answered, for He is the answer of prayer. All prayer is not waiting upon God in the full and highest sense of the Old Testament. For a man may rise from his knees and forget the thing he prayed for and fail to keep on the lookout for an answer. Only when we pray and pray believingly, and climb the watchtower to see the answer coming, do we reach the fullness of that fine old term waiting upon God.

God’s Desert Detours By Stephen S. Friesen

Classic Christian Writings


Scripture Reading: Exodus 13:17-22


The above Scripture passage is overshadowed in these chapters by the dramatic stories of the children of Israel’s deliverance from Pharaoh’s domination and of their deliverance through the Red Sea. It is a passage easily overlooked, but it has some important principles by which we Christians can live.

God was here doing something on a magnificent scale. He was delivering His people from the "womb" of Egypt and was bringing them as "babies" into a new country and forming them into a nation. He was going to take an immature people who had been slaves for hundreds of years, and make them His holy people.

God had promised to take His people into Canaan after bringing them out of Egypt. But immediately after the miracle of this entire nation coming out of Egypt, we read: "And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt: but God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea" (Exodus 13:17-18).

God did not lead them to Canaan by the quickest way, by "the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near." Had they traveled normally, using the easier coastal route, that would have been a three or four weeks’ journey. But God was going to take them through the wilderness, or the desert.

Why A Desert Detour?
God tells us here why He did what He did. God said, "Lest the people change their minds when they see war and they return to Egypt." The Philistines were warlike. It wasn’t until 500 years later that the children of Israel were ready to fight with them with King David as their leader. But at this time they were in no condition to deal with conflict with the Philistines. They were not ready for battle. They needed to grow up in the desert.

It would have been bad for them to have gone back to Egypt. It was ever a temptation to them when things got hard to want to go back to Egypt and the things that they loved about it. They tried several times to do that. That would have been a blot against God’s Name. The enemy would say, "He brought them out, but He couldn’t handle them, so now they’ve come back."

When we come to Christ and start our Christian walk, things may get hard, but don’t go back. Don’t think it was better before you met Christ. Don’t think that the desert experiences are so terrible that it would be better to be how you were before you met Christ. That is not true! It is not better to go back. God is able to bring us out of sin and bondage under His glorious leadership into maturity in Christ and into His Kingdom.

When God takes us through long, difficult, painful, hot desert detours, there are significant reasons. There are all kinds of experiences we could call "the desert." God has things for us to learn from these desert detours. They are for our discipline and training. We will focus here on three things God wants us to learn from desert experiences, although there are more.

Lessons in Trusting God

God wants us to learn first of all to trust Him. We humans sometimes think that the fastest way is the best way. It is not always so. It is as if God says, "Trust Me. The shortest way isn’t the best way. I know. Trust Me. I have more to do in your life before you get to Canaan. You are not ready for that." Then God sends us to the desert.

The question for us is, do we trust God’s wisdom? God knows our weaknesses. He knows our tendencies. He knows when we are inclined to turn back to the old things, the sinful things from which we were saved. He wants us to keep moving, to grow, to trust Him. He is the One who leads, the One who sees down the road, who directs. He is in charge; He is sovereign; He knows the future; He knows the present; He knows our needs. He knows what it takes for us to grow. Do we trust Him?

What is the desert like? It is a lonely way. There is no one around. It is a desolate place, a difficult place. Daytime is terribly hot; nighttime is deep-freeze cold. The desert is not a place you want to go. But there are things we can’t learn anywhere else.

It is amazing that God’s plan for the children of Israel was a year and a half to reach Canaan. It was about two months from Egypt to Mt. Sinai; eleven months there; and then two months from Mt. Sinai to Kadesh Barnea, where they sent out the spies and prepared to take the land. We know they didn’t go in when they were supposed to, but God’s timetable was to use about a year and a half to take the people from Egypt to Canaan. That was not an unreasonable time because what happened during those months was very important.

The first lesson for us is that we have to trust God’s wisdom, His timing, His understanding. We have to remember that for God, the longest way is sometimes the best way.

Learn to Worship God

The second thing that God needed to teach His people in the desert was to learn to worship. How was God going to teach two and one-half million people to worship? When Moses said to Pharaoh, "Let my people go," he gave as the reason that they needed to go and worship God (Exodus 5:1). Why did they need to go to the desert? Why couldn’t they worship God in Egypt?

There were several reasons. Egyptian overseers didn’t give them time to worship. They required them to work from morning until night, and at night they were exhausted. Some of us are like that today. Is there time in our schedule for worship? We have to make time. We have to take time. It doesn’t just happen.

God knows we are not going to grow without time to worship. In the desert we get deeper knowledge of God. It is the place of dedication. It is a place of dependency training. It is a place of discipline in living. It is a place of demonstration of God’s power. It is a place for divine guidance and direction. Don’t be afraid if God takes you out to the desert.

When Moses was in the desert before God called him to go back to Egypt, while he was a shepherd for forty years after escaping from Egypt, God revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush. There God told Moses He would send him to Egypt to deliver His people, and the proof or sign that God would give Moses to show that He was with him was this: "I will be with you: and this shall be the sign unto you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain" (Exodus 3:12). Moses had an appointment at Sinai with God. They couldn’t go directly to Canaan, because of this appointment with God. Why? God wanted them to come back as a people to worship Him first before they went into the land.

Before we become involved in God’s work, first and foremost we need to come before God and to learn who He really is, how awesome and holy and powerful He is, and we need to learn to worship God before we go where He wants us to go. Don’t go to "Canaan" before you learn to worship. Don’t get involved; don’t get too busy. It is a temptation for pastors and anyone in Christian ministry. We start working and don’t take time to quiet ourselves before God and worship Him. God says, I want you to come to this spot and worship Me. You have a divine appointment. Before we can do anything for God we need to know God, to fear God, to love God, to worship God.

I made a list of all the things that happened in those eleven months at Sinai. While they were encamped before the mountain of Sinai, much took place. There’s no comparison of how they looked at the end when compared to how they were when they arrived.

What happened while they were encamped before the mountain of Sinai? There was a tremendous display of God’s glory and power. God descended on the mountain and gave them the Ten Commandments; He revealed all the laws that He wanted them to live by. He gave the directions for the dwelling of God, the Tabernacle, and the services of the Priesthood and the worship of God. The children of Israel then broke the law, but they made a covenant with God there. They erected the Tabernacle. God’s glory filled it there. They got instructions on setting the Tabernacle up and taking it down and transporting it; they learned who carried what and in what order to go. They took a census there. They learned to camp by tribes, how to enter the land, and other such instructions. It took them eleven months to learn to worship God.

We need to focus on God without distraction. We need to learn His power, His laws; we need to become accustomed to His presence, to learn to put our heart and soul into worship. There is no effective service without genuine worship.

Learn To Follow God

God wants us not only to trust Him and to worship Him, but God wants us to learn to follow Him. Deuteronomy, chapter 1, says, "The Lord your God who goes before you, will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way in which you have walked until you came to this place" (vv. 30-31). It is a beautiful image. When God knows you are too tired to walk, He’ll pick you up and carry you. That is what God did for His own children.

The next verse says, "But for all this, you did not trust the Lord your God who goes before you on your way to seek out a place for you to camp, in fire by night and in cloud by day, to show you the way in which you should go." God is teaching them not only to trust Him but to follow Him.

God wants us to learn to follow Him in the desert. There are no roads, no maps, no signs, nothing. How do we know where to go? In Exodus 13:21, it says, "The Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them on the way, and a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night." Sometimes they traveled through the night, all night. Wherever the cloud went in daytime, they went. Wherever the pillar of fire went at night, they went. It is practice: "Follow My guidance."

In Numbers, chapter 9, it gives more detail about how it worked. "The cloud covered the Tabernacle; and in the evening it was like an appearance of fire over the Tabernacle until morning" (v.15). "Whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, afterward the sons of Israel would then set out, and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the sons of Israel would camp" (v. 17). At the command of the Lord, the sons of Israel would set out, and at the command of the Lord, they would camp. As long as the cloud remained over the Tabernacle they remained camped. When the cloud went, they went. When the cloud stopped, they stopped. If sometimes the cloud remained a few days over the Tabernacle at the command of the Lord, they remained camped. Verse 21 says if the cloud remained from evening until morning, when the cloud was lifted in the morning, they would move. God was teaching them to follow His guidance.

Are you learning that guidance? Are you willing to move when God says, "Move"? It is flexibility training. God decides when it’s time to move. In Numbers chapter 33, there are given 41 places to which they went.

The question is, are you on your own journey going somewhere, thinking you know where you’re headed, or are you seriously following God? It may be somewhat unsettling. But God says, "I want you to learn to follow Me." You may say, if I had a cloud and fire, I’d follow. That’s so clear. But now I’m in kind of a muddle. I don’t know what God’s doing in my life. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go and when I’m supposed to move. How does God guide today?

God’s Word is a light to our feet, and a lamp to our path (Psalm 119:105). God gives us principles to live by. We also know that as the fire symbolized God’s presence, we have His presence even more intimately connected with us. The Holy Spirit moves in us. We can learn to listen to Him. The Spirit living in us guides us, speaks to us (not audibly of course), gives us God’s thoughts as we immerse ourselves in His Word, and then we have access into God’s Throne Room through the Blood of Christ. God says, Anytime, come. I’ll show you what I want you to do. How does He tell us? You have to get to know Him. You know when He’s nudging and moving you.

Do you like desert detours, the long way around? God has a purpose for taking us through difficult and painful times. It’s to help us grow, to help us learn to trust Him. It’s to show us His awesome nature, and to teach us to worship. It’s to give us practice in following His guidance really closely. When He moves, go! God knows the experiences we need to make us grow into maturity in Christ.

We can be thankful God gives us times in the hot desert when we can be quiet, when God miraculously supplies all our needs and takes care of us and reveals Himself to us. It is a special time. We dare not get discouraged when things don’t go as we think they should. God is the Master. He does what He knows is best. We can submit and commit our lives to Him.

God’s Cause Prospers When Prayer Is Mighty By E. M. Bounds

Classic Christian Writings :  Open as PDF The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock in heaven by which Christ carries on His great work upon earth. The great throes and mighty convul­sions on earth are the results of these prayers. Earth is changed, revolutionized, angels move on more powerful, more rapid wing, and God’s policy is shaped as the prayers are more numerous, more efficient. It is true that the mightiest successes that come to God’s cause are created and carried on by prayer. God’s Day Of Power The angelic days of activity and power are when God’s Church comes into its mightiest inheritance of mightiest faith and mightiest prayer. God’s conquering days are when the saints have given themselves to mightiest prayer. When God’s house on earth is a house of prayer, then God’s house in heaven is busy and all potent in its plans and movements. Then His earthly armies are clothed with the triumphs and spoils of victory and His enemies defeated on every hand. God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer. The condition was put in the very existence of God’s cause in this world. Ask of Me is the one condition God puts in the very advance and triumph of His cause. Men are to pray—to pray for the advance of God’s cause. Prayer puts God in full force in the world. To a prayerful man God is present in realized force. To a prayerful Church God is present in glorious power, and the Second Psalm is the Divine description of the establishment of God’s cause through Jesus Christ. All inferior dispensations have merged in the enthronement of Jesus Christ. God declares the enthronement of His Son. The nations are incensed with bitter hatred against His cause. God is described as laughing at their enfeebled hate. The Lord will laugh; the Lord will have them in derision. “Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.” The decree has passed immutable and eternal: “I will tell of the decree: the Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psa. 2:7-9). Ask of Me is the condition—a praying people willing and obedient. “And men shall pray for Him continually.” Under this universal and simple promise men and women of old laid themselves out for God. They prayed and God answered their prayers, and the cause of God was kept alive in the world by the flame of their praying. Prayer became a settled and only condition to move His Son’s Kingdom. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7). The strongest one in Christ’s kingdom is he who is the best knocker. The secret of success in Christ’s Kingdom is the ability to pray. The one who can wield the power of prayer is the strong one, the holy one in Christ’s Kingdom. The most important lesson we can learn is how to pray. Prayer is the keynote of the most sanctified life, of the holiest ministry. He does the most for God who is the highest skilled in prayer. Jesus Christ exercised His ministry after this order.

Blazed Out For God By Author Unknown

Classic Christian Writings : When I am dying how glad I shall be That the lamp of my life has been blazed out for Thee. I shall be glad in whatever I gave, Labor, or money, one sinner to save; I shall not mind that the path has been rough, That Thy dear feet led the way is enough. When I am dying how glad I shall be, That the lamp of my life has been blazed out for Thee! Author unknown