Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a video of lyrics and poignant images with Steve Green singing Find Us Faithful, … with a Christian commitment to run the race of life faithful to the heritage of great Christians who’ve gone before.
Highlight Passage: Psalm 22: 1-2 [NKJV] …
1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? … Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning? 2 O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; and in the night season and am not silent.
… David singing of his own forlorn spirit but also prophesying what Jesus would say from the Cross (see Matthew 27: 46).
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Highlight Context – Psalm 22: 1-21 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… David’s forlorn song of anguish, feeling that God was far away.
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Reference Passage #1 - Deuteronomy 31: 8 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… God will not only never forsake us; but He will go ahead and lead us; … but we must follow Him faithfully, following the example of the faithful who’ve gone before us.
Reference Passage #2 - Proverbs 3: 5-6 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… At times we must trust in our God Who may seem not to be listening.
Reference Passage #3 - Hebrews 12: 1-2 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Running the race as faithful followers of those who’ve gone before us.
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Dennis Fisher, uses an illustration from C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters to point to a great truth. Fisher writes: [In The Screwtape Letters] … an imaginary conversation between a senior devil and a junior devil as they discuss how to properly tempt a Christian. The two devils desired to destroy the believer’s faith in God. “Be not deceived,” the senior devil says to the junior. “Our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human . . . looks round upon a universe in which every trace of [God] seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”
Oh, … would Lewis’ supposition be true? And there are many great biblical witnesses of faith who’ve gone before us who remained obedient and trusted God in spite of great hardship and forlorn feelings. David in today’s highlight song (from Psalm 22) felt terribly forlorn, just as Jesus did on the cross when He quoted Psalm 22 just before He died. Job certainly felt forlorn and even abandoned as we read in his journal (i.e., the book of Job). Abram at one time felt that God’s promise was not forthcoming. And one of my OT favorites, Habakkuk had a crisis of faith when, in His poetic book, the prophet came to God with confused feelings that God was so far away.
But in all these biblical instances, the forlorn feelings of these believers, and most certainly those of our Savior on the cross, turned to faith and trust in God to save them from their feelings of emptiness. And they can be - and should be - the models for us, especially that of Jesus, … that we must go forward when God feels distant; and we must, as the author of Hebrews wrote (see Hebrews 12: 1-2 linked above), run the race of life, following those great witnesses who’ve gone before us.
So, … today, … if God feels far away, let us do as Steve Green sings and run the course of life following the faith in God of those who’ve gone before us.
My Prayer Today: Oh, my Lord, … show me THE way, … Your way … from the light of Your word; and even when I feel distant from You, help me to pursue the path of those who’ve come before me in faith. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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