AWAITING THE DAWN

When shall I arise, and the night be gone? Job 7:4.


The bible records many long nights and sleepless saints watching for the morning (Psalms 130:6). While the world drinks and dances, souls hard pressed by many a foe ask, "Watchman, what of the night?" God gives His beloved sleep, but there are times when sleep gives way to prayer. Our Lord "continued all night in prayer to God" (Luke 6:12). But though weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning (Psalms 30:5), when He shall be as the light of the morning, even a morning without clouds (2 Samuel 23:4). And, best of all, we are headed for a city where there shall be no night (Revelation 21:25).

Vance Havner, All The Days, p. 98

"Strengthen Thy Stakes"

Lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. Isaiah 54:2.

If we are going to lengthen our cords we had better strengthen our stakes. The church today is intent on expanding borders and taking in more territory. That is good if along with it we strengthen what we have. Otherwise, we gain width at the expense of depth and become shallow.

The Christian and the church need an intensive as well as an extensive ministry. Vast ingatherings of believers bring peril if we do not teach, indoctrinate, build up in the faith. To use A. J. Gordon's illustration, the average church is often like a congested lung with only a few cells doing the breathing. There is usually a faithful nucleus surrounded by a mass of nominal Christians.

While we extend the borders of our tent, we had better check the center pole. We must fix the point of our compass properly before we describe our circles. We are in tremendous need of a ministry to strengthen our stakes that we may go further as we go deeper.

Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions. By Vance Havner

Little Pictures

God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8

An old widow was living in poverty and want. A young man, hearing she was in need, went to visit her to see if he could be of any help. The old lady complained bitterly of her condition and remarked that her son in Australia was doing very well. Her friend inquired, “Doesn’t he do anything to help you?” She replied, “No, nothing. He writes to me regularly once a month but he sends me only some little pictures with his letters.” The young man asked to see the pictures she had received. To his surprise, he found each of them to be twenty-pound notes. The poor old lady did not realize the value of this foreign currency, but had imagined them to be mere pretty pictures.

She had lived in poverty and want, whereas she could have had all the bodily comforts she desired and needed so much. We smile at the foolishness of the old woman, but how many of us are like her, living as though we were paupers instead of sons and daughters of the King?

- David Jeremiah. (2002). Sanctuary (59).

Higher Expectations

"The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes "lord" in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the prevailing conditions are accepted as normal. Anyone can predict next Sunday's service and what will happen. This seems to be the most deadly threat in the church today. When we come to the place where everything can be predicted and nobody expects anything unusual from God, we are in a rut. The routine dictates, and we can tell not only what will happen next Sunday, but what will occur next month and, if things do not improve, what will take place next year. Then we have reached the place where what has been determines what is, and what is determines what will be.

That would be perfectly all right and proper for a cemetery. Nobody expects a cemetery to do anything but conform.... But the church is not a cemetery and we should expect much from it, because what has been should not be lord to tell us what is, and what is should not be ruler to tell us what will be. God's people are supposed to grow."

Tozer on Christian Leadership: A 366-Day Devotional.

God's Promises Are Yes

For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in Him. Therefore the “Amen” is also through Him for God’s glory through us.—2 Corinthians 1:20

God keeps every promise He makes. When we walk in intimate fellowship with Christ, we have the assurance that every promise God has made in Scripture is available to us. This truth should motivate us to search the Scriptures for each promise in order to meditate upon its potential for our life.

Jesus promised that when you ask for something in His will, He will give you what you ask (John 16:23b). This promise is available to every Christian. If you ask God if this promise applies to your life, His answer is yes. If you are not now experiencing this promise, it does not change the fact that God has said it. You may need to seek God's answer for why His promise has not yet reached maturity in you.

Paul claimed he had tested each of these promises in his own life and found them all to be abundantly true. That's why he could speak of the “exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7b) and the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8b). Paul had found a wealth of God's promises and enjoyed them all in abundance.

Don't become discouraged or impatient if you are not experiencing to the fullest all of God's promises in your life. God may want to prepare you to receive some of the great truths He has made available to you. Walk closely with your Lord and, in time, you will see Him bring His promises to fruition in your life.

By Henry T. Blackaby and Richard Blackaby
Experiencing God Day by Day: A Devotional and Journal

Most People Who Have A Problem With God

Most people who have a problem with God handle Him in one of two ways:

· They pretend He does not exist:

Which solves the problem of accountability. If He doesn't exist, we are free to live our lives as we please. There remains, however, the thorny problem of explaining how we all got here. The trick is to concoct a fairy tale to the effect that everything around us just "happened." "Chance." TALK ABOUT LIVING BY FAITH!

Currently evolutionists are telling us it all started with amino acids. But where did they come from? Tough to explain away the gnarly issue of "First Cause."

Perhaps this is why God states "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" (Psalm 14:1).

· They re-invent Him:

Let's face it, His demand on us for all of our heart, soul, mind and strength is pretty steep, given the fact that we'd rather play than carry a cross. So we cope by:

Reducing God to a manageable size:

"Knowing God, they refused to honor Him as God… hence all their thinking ended in futility, and their misguided minds are plunged into darkness. They boast of their wisdom, but they have made fools of themselves… because they have bartered away the true God for a false one." (Romans 1:21, 22, 25 – neb)

Collecting around us religious leaders who tell us what we want to hear about God:

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers according to their own desires." (2 Timothy 4:2)

Romans 11:22 speaks about the kindness and severity of God. To those who acknowledge Him for who He is: Kindness. To the rest: Severity. As always, the choice is ours.

Facts of the Matter: Daily Devotionals by Dwight Hill

Glamor Instead of Glory

Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle. (2 Thessalonians 2:15)

I found today's meditation very thought provoking to say the least. Tell me what you think!

One ominous sign in the social structure that surrounds us is the false attitude toward anything that can be called "ordinary." There has grown up all around us an idea that the "commonplace" is old-fashioned and strictly for the birds!

This existing mania for glamor and contempt for the ordinary are signs and portents in American society. Even religion has gone glamorous!

In case you do not know what glamor is, I might explain that it is a compound of sex, paint, padding and artificial lights. It came to America by way of the honky-tonk and the movie lot; got accepted by the world first, and then strutted into the Church—vain, self-admiring and contemptuous. Instead of the Spirit of God in our midst, we now have the spirit of glamor, as artificial as painted death!

Say what you will, it is a new kind of Christianity, with new concepts that face us brazenly wherever we turn within the confines of evangelical Christianity. The new Christian no longer wants to be good or saintly or virtuous!

Renewed Day by Day: Volume Two – A.W. Tozer

Walls of Resistance

I have a devotional in my library authored by Warren W. Wiersbe, entitled “Pause for Power: A Year in the Word.” It is becoming more of an invaluable tool day by day with wholesome nuggets and provocative food for thought. My meditation for today was no exception, so I'm taking the time to share it with you, my fellow blogging constituents. This meditation is tailored to encourage us not to allow the stronghold of pride to rob us of a clear Word from God.

"The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We . . . take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" – 2 Cor. 10:4-5

“There are walls of resistance in the minds of people, and these walls must be pulled down. What are these "mental walls"? Reasonings that are opposed to the truth of God's Word. Pride of intelligence that exalts itself. Paul was not attacking intelligence, but intellectualism, the high-minded attitude that makes people think they know more than they really do. Paul faced this "wisdom of men" when he founded the church (1 Cor. 1:18ff), and it had surfaced again with the coming of the Judaizers.

Paul's attitude of humility was actually one of his strongest weapons, for pride plays right into the hands of Satan. The meek Son of God had far more power than Pilate (see John 19:11), and He proved it. Paul used spiritual weapons to tear down the opposition—prayer, the Word of God, love, the power of the Spirit at work in his life. He did not depend on personality, human abilities, or even the authority he had as an apostle. However, he was ready to punish the offenders, if necessary, once the congregation had submitted to the Lord.

Many believers today do not realize that the church is involved in warfare, and those who do understand the seriousness of the Christian battle do not always know how to fight the battle. They try to use human methods to defeat demonic forces, and these methods are doomed to fail.”

I needed this word because occasionally, I have to admonish those who because of stubborn pride have the unmitigated gall to reject clear biblical precepts. If we are not careful, we will wander aimlessly into the same trap. Don’t let it happen!!!!

The Name the 'King' Gave

I am currently reading Dr. David Jeremiah’s devotional entitled, Signs of Life: Back to the Basics of Authentic Christianity. In the meditation entitled “Turn on the Lights” he refers to a short story he found in a devotional by Kim P. Davis with Beth Moore, called, Voices of the Faithful: Inspiring Stories of Courage from Christians Serving Around the World (page 164). It stresses the importance of letting our light shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify the Father in heaven, Matthew 5:16. Let me share the inspiration I received today. It reads:

"A missionary named Gerri told of working in an African town. One day exciting news reached her. The Lozi king is coming to attend church services and to eat at her house. As far as Gerri knew, the king usually didn’t visit private homes, and word of his upcoming visit spread through the town like wildfire.

When the day finally arrived, the king entered Gerri’s house. She explained in the Lozi language that she was a missionary and that, in Lozi, the name Gerri sounded like “Jelly” because the “r” sound is hard for the people to pronounce. She boldly asked the king for a Lozi name. Though she didn’t know it at the time, such a request was against protocol, but the king smiled and said, “I’ll think about it.”

Later as he prepared to leave, the king said, “My wife and I have decided upon a name for you. It will be Liseli [pronounced lee-SHE-lee]. It means ‘light.’ Just as the sun gives light and life to plants, animals, and people, I want God’s Word to be life and light to the people of Western Province.”

Gerri later wrote,” I was stunned and pleased to receive this blessing. After the king left the room, a lady seated nearby privately said, ‘Ah, you are a very lucky woman to be given a name by a king.”

Well, the King of Kings has given you a name – and it’s LIGHT! (pp. 14-15).

May the glorious light of God's presence shine through our very lives so that there is no question as to who we are or Whose we are.