Obtaining Mercy

Today, I'd like to focus on one more reason for you to have hope:

Your children will learn to have hope if you have hope.

They will also learn to be hopeless if you model that in front of them.

I know that there were many times as an adult that I prayed out of mere habit. Often, I lacked the faith that God was going to answer my prayer. The practice had already been put into place, though, and so I prayed anyway.

Many times, God was merciful, and answered those prayers that I asked halfheartedly; and every time He did, my faith grew. I learned a little more about the character of my Heavenly Father. I realized that He liked to give good things to His children. I determined to continue asking.

Through the years, my faith has grown. I have seen miracles. I have seen Christians and non-Christians alike wag their heads in amazement at what God has done for me and for my family.

• Not because I am a great Christian.
• Not because I'm anything special.
• Not because I am so spiritual.

It's because I keep asking. I keep going to God with childlike faith, simply believing that He will meet my needs.

And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.
Luke 18:7-8a

He's been meeting my needs all my life, because my mom taught me how important it was to go to God with my needs.

I learned to pray, because prayer was important to my mom. She lived out that belief, and I learned by her example.

Observe your children.

• Are they hopeless?
• Are they troubled and anxious?
• Do they have little faith in God's provision?

If so, they are mirroring what they see in you.

Our only Hope for a life of hope is in Jesus Christ. The only way we can learn about that Hope is from the pages of the Word of God, the Bible.

We need to read it for ourselves, study it, hear it preached by Godly men, sing about it, talk about it, live it out.

A life centered on Jesus is a life filled with Hope.

Your children will learn to be hopeful or hopeless by watching your example.

What is your life teaching them?

"Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him and expect help from Him, He will never fail you.

An older brother who has known the Lord for forty-four years, who writes this, says to you for your encouragement that He has never failed him.

In the greatest difficulties, in the heaviest trials, in the deepest poverty and necessities, He has never failed me; but because I was enabled by His grace to trust Him, He has always appeared for my help.

I delight in speaking well of His name."

~George Mueller

Like a River Glorious
Frances R. Havergal

Like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace,
Over all victorious, in its bright increase;
Perfect, yet it floweth fuller every day,
Perfect, yet it groweth deeper all the way.

Refrain:
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.

Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,
Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;
Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,
Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there.

Refrain:
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.

Every joy or trial falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial by the Sun of Love;
We may trust Him fully all for us to do;
They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.

Refrain:
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28

There are days when our minds want to completely reject the above verse.

It's a hard verse to believe.

All things? For our good?

But Paul doesn't just state this incredible fact. He follows up it with an explanation.

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:29-31

Did you notice the progression of God's work in us?

1. He foreknew us
2. He predestinated us to be conformed to the image of Jesus.
3. He called us.
4. He justified us.
5. He glorified us.

It's astonishing, really, to think about all that God has been doing in our lives before we even existed!

With this in mind, Paul then asks us a question.

After all that God has done, who can thwart His plan for our lives?

Who or what is greater than God?

Then to take it a step further, Paul asks,

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Romans 8:32

How can we doubt God? He sacrificed His only Son for us.

Why do we have to be convinced of His great love for us?

Just in case we need that, though, Paul includes the following list of things that cannot separate us from the Father:

• tribulation
• distress
• persecution
• famine
• nakedness
• peril
• sword
• death
• life
• angels
• principalities
• powers
• things present
• things to come
• height
• depth
• an other creature

That just about covers everything, I think!

You are precious to God! He gave the very best He had for you.

He will not allow anything to come into your life that is not for your good.

• I cannot explain that.
• I cannot understand that.
• I cannot logically contemplate how that will work with every circumstance that I experience.

All I can do, by faith, is simply believe it.

That belief then gives me peace, no matter what circumstance may occur.

So then, with Paul I can say

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28

There is great hope in believing the truth of the Scriptures.

In Leviticus 8, we find Moses offering up the sacrifices for Aaron and his sons who were to serve as priests before God for the people of Israel.

It is interesting to me to note that the offering of consecration was called a Wave offering. At one point during the ceremony, Moses takes the parts of the ram that were for the sacrifice and waves them before the Lord.

It's as if he were saying, "Look, God! Here is the sacrifice You have requested!"

After these parts are burned in sacrifice before God, he then holds up the breast of the ram, and waves that before God as well.

The breast of the ram was Moses' part of the sacrifice.

For you and I, we have no physical sacrifice to wave before God.

Our sacrifice was offered up on the cross of Calvary in the person of Jesus Christ. He paid the price of our sin – past, present and future.

We have nothing to offer of ourselves that could atone for sin.

We have no works to fill our hands and hold up to God and say, "See God! This is my offering!"

Nothing.

All we have to wave before God are empty hands.

What's in your hands today?

Are they full of all kinds of service and good intentions? Are you waving them around to God, saying "Look, God! This is what I'm bringing to you!"?

It isn't enough. No amount of offering in your hands is enough to pay the price of your forgiveness.

Until we come to God, with our hands completely empty, we cannot know His salvation.

Rock of Ages
Augustus M. Toplady, 1776

Rock of Ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyes shall close in death,
When I rise to worlds unknown,
And behold Thee on Thy throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.

Empty your hands of all that you are trying to offer God.

Come to Him, claiming nothing but His blood shed on Calvary as the sacrifice for your sins.

There is a wonderful hope found in forgiveness and salvation!

Do you ever wonder…

• Why am I here?
• What is God's purpose for me?
• Where do I fit in God's plan for mankind?

I guess we all have these questions at different times. They are good questions to ask.

Scripture, as always, has an answer for us.

Granted – it is not a detailed answer. It won't tell us all the we'd like to know.

It should, however, be enough of an answer…

To give us hope.

Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.
Isaiah 43:7

God's plan and purpose for us is to bring Him glory.

That is enough to give our lives purpose, direction, guidance for today…

And hope for tomorrow.

Is your life bringing glory to your God?

It is the first Monday of a new year. Many people are beginning new routines, habits, schedules and plans this week.

When I read my devotions this morning out of 2 Chronicles, I thought

"What an excellent 'resolution' for the New Year!"

To set the story a little, Asa was king over Judah. The Scriptures say he "did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God."

Asa's kingdom had 10 years of rest during which they built walled cities and prospered as a people.

Suddenly, though, a host of Ethiopians attacked. The Bible says there were a thousand thousand soldiers and three hundred chariots.

As Asa went out to battle, he prayed to God.

And Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord, our God: for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee.
2 Chronicles 14:11

What a testimony of Asa's great faith is his God!

Some days, we could spring out of bed and pray this prayer with all our hearts. Other days, it would take a great act of our will and our faith to pray these words.

I believe Asa cried out to in the midst of the battle the deep truth that he believed in his heart: "it is nothing with thee to help."

How big is God? Can He help you? Do you believe He can deliver you?

I believe the truth of this verse in my head.

Now, I'm asking the Lord to engrave the truth of this verse on my heart.

In the middle of my crisis, I want to be able to cry out to God for deliverance and have the faith that He will come to my aid. Not because I am worthy to be rescued, but because I am resting on Him.

Oh, and as for Asa, 2 Chronicles 14:12-13 tells us

"So the Lord smote the Ethiopians…and the Ethiopians fled…and the Ethiopians were overthrown, that they could not recover themselves, for they were destroyed before the Lord , and before his host…"

God is always victorious. We must be sure He is the One fighting our battles for us, as we rest in Him.