For thought and meditation

[rl69]

Because you have kept My command to persevere… REVELATION 3:10
Perseverance means more than endurance— more than simply holding on until the end. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, “I can’t take any more.” Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. Entrust yourself to God’s hands. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him. Disaster occurs in your life when you lack the mental composure that comes from establishing yourself on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the supreme effort of your life— throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.
God ventured His all in Jesus Christ to save us, and now He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him. There are areas in our lives where that faith has not worked in us as yet— places still untouched by the life of God. There were none of those places in Jesus Christ’s life, and there are to be none in ours. Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You…” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.

[USMC87]

Amen and thank you for a great lesson and start of the day.

[Blackwater]

"Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him." Amen. This reminds me of that old song, "I am weak, but thou art strong; Jesus keep me from all wrong." It ends with "Let it be, dear Lord, let it be." And that's exactly what we fail to do sometimes - just "let it be." What right do we, a very error prone creature, have to expect everything that befalls us to be just what we wanted? The answer to that is "None!" The wages of sin is death, and a faltering faith will often lead us to serious and consequential error, or sin. We can't stop knowing right from wrong. But all too often, we try to do what WE want to do, rather than what we know is right, by "explaining" it away via various deceptive statements that we KNOW in our hearts are false. But we are so wedded to doing things OUR way, that we'll do just about anything at times to justify our mis-deeds. What willful creatures we are! And being Christian doesn't stop that completely, either. That's why God created continuing forgiveness, when we've come to our senses and become honest with ourselves and with God again. What a wonderful and full of grace and mercy God we serve! At some point, we all must reach a point where we realize that, and more fully and completely internalize it, and this winds up being our "full armor of God," when we face various temptations. We'll never be perfect. Only one who walked this earth can claim that! But we CAN get a whole lot better than we are now, and MUCH better than we HAVE been! And don't we owe that to our Lord, considering what all He has done for so very, very long for us?