Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in YouTube song and lyrics from Lincoln Brewster singing his song … No One Like Our God … powerfully singing of how we, as Christians, can bring all our cares to a God Who always listens and cares for our needs.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Isaiah 64:1, … 4 [NLT] … 1 Oh, that you would burst from the heavens and come down! How the mountains would quake in your presence!
… 4 For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you,
… The Prophet in a dire time of trouble declares the greatness of His Go.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Isaiah 64:1-8 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Isaiah’s prayer when God had allowed the Babylonians to consume His people.
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Reference Passage : … Isaiah 63:11-15 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Isaiah, after God had allowed the Babylonians to consume Judah, takes his faith challenges directly to God … just as we should when we have doubts.
Reference Passage : … Habakkuk 1:2-3, … 3:17-18 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Habakkuk takes his questions/concerns to God (see Chapt. 1); and God belays his fears and even allows the Prophet to find joy in the midst of calamity (see Chapt. 3).
Reference Passage : … Romans 8:28, 37-38 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… If we have a faith in the reality of these truths, then we will ALWAYS be able to - in faith - take our trials and troubles to our God.
Reference Passage : … Hebrews 13:5-6 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Our God, … no matter what we face, … promises He will never leave us or forsake us. But do we trust Him?
Reference Passage : … 1Peter 5:7 [NLT] … 7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.
… Peter exhorts us to bring our cares to God … with the faith that He hears and will do what is right.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Winn Collier, uses a personal memory to illustrate how our faith in the presence and power of God can be challenged by our dire circumstances. The ODB author writes … In a recent conversation, where a friend shared with me that she’d abandoned her faith, I heard a familiar complaint: How can I believe in a God who doesn’t ever seem to do anything? This gut-wrenching question appears for most of us at one point or another, as we read of violence in the news and as we carry our own heartbreak. My friend’s distress revealed her intense need for God to act on her behalf, a longing we’ve all likely felt.
And the ODB author makes reference to the faith questions Isaiah had when God allowed the Babylonians to take over Judah - God’s people (see the Isaiah 63 passage). But in reaction to this disappointment and quandary, the Prophet (in the highlight passage) takes his prayers of concern directly to God and prays for God to come down and show the Lord’s power as He had down in times past with God’s people.
And it was the same for another Prophet of God, Habakkuk, to whom I made reference in my journal entry yesterday. And each of us have likely “been there” and worn that kind of t-shirt, haven’t we; … doubting God’s presence or power when things go awry? And yes, it’s in those times that we need to muster up even a mustard-seed sized faith and take our issues to our God [see reference passages], believing that God will never forsake us.
I pray today that all reading here believe what is sung in the linked song today … that we serve a God who always listens and is not like anyone or anything that can create our trials in life. He is the God Who parted the Red Sea! He is the God Who went to the cross for us! And He is the God Who is listening right now when we take any trial or trouble to Him.
So, I pray we do just that!!!
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Abba Father, … thank You, Lord, … for being there to hear my cries today.
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, … King Jesus, … I pray, Lord, that all reading here can, and will, join me today to humbly take our trials to a God Who hears our concerns and will NEVER forsake us. … 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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