Strength for the Wilderness - by Peggy Little

Numbers 21:4 – “Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way.

            The Israelites had been traveling through the desert wilderness to the land of promise. But we do not know if they went around the south of Edom or to the north, between Edom and Moab. As they traveled it was hot, and there was little water. But God promised them He would guide them and provide for them. Like many of us they became discouraged. If only they had trusted God’s promise that He who had led would continue to lead, if only they had believed that he who had supplied would continue to supply, instead of being discouraged they would have been encouraged. When we get down to discouragement it turns into encouragement when we look away from our circumstances and focus our eyes on the Lord.

            So let’s all keep our eyes on Christ as David did in 1 Samuel 30:6 which says: “And David was greatly distressed fort the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God”. When in the midst of trouble, there is where he got his strength. Today things may not look to good and you [personally] and especially our nation may be in the wilderness and it may be easy for us to get discouraged. You need to remember discouragement is a tool of Satan. But victory comes from our Lord Jesus Christ and his finished work at the Cross of Calvary.

            Will our distress drive us to despair and discouragement or to God? May we, like David find strength in the Lord!

            Someone has said, “To look around is to be distressed; to look within is to be depressed; to look up is to be blessed.”

            I pray that the Lord will bless each of you as you walk with him daily. Walk as Christ walked.

Bent Hearts

Romans 8:28-30 - (28) "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. (29) 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. (30) 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".

     Before modernization and machines, the techniques of furniture craftsmen were simple but efficient.

     For example, to bend pieces of wood for chairs, the wood was cut while still green. It was then bent around an object and tied together, often with grapevines, or placed in a crude mold.

     There is a similar scenario of God’s exercise of sovereignty, particularly as it relates to affliction. The craftsmen did not haphazardly misshape the wood. They had a purpose, a finished product, in mind.

     Likewise, God never exercises His sovereignty capriciously. He is never the author of evil, but always uses the vile and the virtuous for His ultimate design – to conform men and women to the image of Jesus Christ.

     This is what He died for, to redeem us from sin’s curse – death – and work unceasingly in our souls to restore us to our original image – His image, stamped in the Garden and distorted by sin.

     As you turn to God and cry out to Him in your affliction, the providence of God is mysteriously at work, accomplishing His intent. Absolutely nothing can thwart that purpose when your heart is bent toward Him. The pressures of life, severe as they may be, drive you only deeper into His divine mold.

Perscription

          The only prescription for curing America’s grave ills is the spiritual awakening of its inhabitants. Only men rightly related to God and committed to His ways can deal decisively with the moral, financial, social, and intellectual woes afflicting our nation.

Listen to some of the voices from the past: (Notice especially the many references to morality as a vital foundation for lasting liberty. And there are many more quotes!

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” – George Washington

"I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessing on this House (Congress) and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof?" – John Adams

"It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains." – Patrick Henry

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.  Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." – John Adams

“If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering.” – Theodore Roosevelt (Comment: Mr. Roosevelt should have practiced more of what he espoused with those comments).

“The sum of the whole matter is this that our civilization cannot survive materially, unless it is redeemed spiritually. It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the Spirit of Christ.” – Woodrow Wilson (Comment: Mr. Wilson was a pure socialist and in my opinion would have destroyed the United States. He probably didn’t completely understand the comment he made. If he had, he would have understood that the finished work of Jesus Christ and Him crucified at the Cross is the only HOPE for civilization (mankind). Meaning there is no collective salvation, only individual salvation with each person making a decision to accept the finished work of Jesus at the cross and accepting Him as Savior and Lord.)

"My concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” – Abraham Lincoln

Our nation’s problems are complex to say the least, but the solution begins with recognition of man’s need for God, his estrangement for Him, and the reconciliation provided by faith in Jesus Christ. A redeemed society is possible only through the actions of redeemed men.

PRAY FOR OUR NATION AND ITS LEADERS