Psalm 90:15

Make us rejoice for as many days as You have humbled us, for as many years as we have seen adversity.

This is my prayer for us all today. May God grant us joy to compensate for every day of adversity we have faced. The greater the trial, the greater our joy should be when Christ is revealed in God’s purpose for it all.  In a time when all the economic predictions for our future look dismal and enemy nations seek to take advantage of us, we must remember that we serve a God who blesses, restores, and shines His favor upon us. May we experience this favor today and every day as we move forward in faith that God hears our prayers and gives us reason to rejoice. The adversity will serve only to strengthen us in the long run, which will make our victory even sweeter.

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 145:14

The LORD helps all who fall; He raises up all who are oppressed.

The most comforting word in this verse to me is the little word, “all.” When I see that word, I know it includes me, too. We sometimes mistakenly think God only helps people who have not stumbled in their way, but in reality, we all fall. When we do, God is right there to help us. He doesn’t leave us there to figure a way out of our predicament on our own. Hallelujah!

God also raises up all who are oppressed, and Satan makes sure he includes us all in his tactics, too. When we do face his evil oppression, God raises us up out of it when we turn to Him. Greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world!

If you feel you have fallen and can’t get up, God is there to help you. Call upon Him. If all hope seems lost and the enemy has won, the God of all hope is there to lift you out of the oppression. Put your hope in Him. You are not alone. The LORD who helps all who fall is there with you, too.

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 147:5

Our Lord is great, vast in power; His understanding is infinite.

Our struggles and cares may confine us at times, but Our God is not confined. Only He is able to comprehend the end from the beginning to orchestrate and intervene in ways we could never imagine or ask. When life seems dark and uncertain, we can always find hope in our Lord, who is great, vast in power, and infinite in His understanding.

Verse 19 of this chapter tells us: “He declares His word to Jacob, His statutes and judgments to Israel.” In matters too great for us to control, we must simply focus on His word and allow Him to do what we cannot. When we see no way, His is able to make a way. While we wait, prayer and praise make us effective for His kingdom and in battle against the enemy.

Verse 11 of the same chapter assures us that “The LORD values those who fear Him, those who put their hope in His faithful love.” If you have placed your hope firmly in His love for you and are trusting Him to work all things out for your good and His glory, you are of great value to Him! He has not failed you yet, and He won’t start now. This battle is His, and He always wins!

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 146:5-6

Happy is the one whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them. He remains faithful forever, …

God is often mentioned in Scripture as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, which meant “Father of many nations.” When Scripture refers to Abraham, it indicates the changed man after his encounter with God. His son, Isaac, was the son of promise. Jacob, however, means, “deceiver, supplanter, heel catcher.” Jacob was a manipulator, a liar, and a schemer. His name was later changed to “Israel,” which means Prince of God.

While we might prefer to think of God as the God of Israel, the changed man, we see Him listed here and in other places as the God of Jacob. Indeed, He is the God of the worst part of us that still needs to be transformed, as well as the changed part of us. Hallelujah! Even when we are at our worst as manipulators, liars, and schemers, God still chooses to identify with us because we are His! When we get a revelation of this grace, our hearts truly change.

Happy is the one who has put her hope in the God of Jacob! Even when she acts according to her old nature, He still claims her as His own and helps her in her desperate situation because He is faithful. Faithfulness is a part of God’s nature, and He does not change. He remains true to His word and true to His children. We have no greater identity than to be called, “His.” And as His child through faith in His Son, we are continually being transformed into the image of Christ.

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 149:4

For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He adorns the humble with salvation.

We delight in our children, especially when they are happy and performing well. Even when they are not so happy and misbehaving, we still love them and nurture them as they go. God delights in us much the same way. We are made in His image, and just as we love our own children and want the best for them, so our heavenly Father wants the best for us.

God adorns – or dresses – the humble with salvation. The word, “salvation,” here means “deliverance, victory, prosperity.” Wherever we may stumble, encounter attack, or fall prey to the enemy’s scheming our humble submission, God grants us deliverance, victory, and prosperity because He delights in us! He takes pleasure in seeing us win, not in our defeat.

On this Father’s Day, rejoice in knowing that God delights in you. He is not angry with you, nor is He punishing you. He has not rejected you nor left you to fend for yourself. He delights in calling you His own, and He adorns you with deliverance, victory, and prosperity. Hallelujah!

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 6:8-9

You Yourself have recorded my wanderings. Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your records? Then my enemies will retreat on the day when I call. This I know: God is for me.

God sees exactly where you are hurting, and it matters to Him. You matter to Him. He loves you so much that He records every place you wander and every wrong done to you. When you call on Him, He will go to work on your behalf to vindicate you in front of your enemies and to make them retreat in their efforts to hurt you any longer. When it seems like the whole world is against you, know for sure that God is for you, and He will fight your battle for you.

We can’t avoid heartache or disappointment in this life, but we can turn to God, who loves us with great compassion. Our tears and our pain matter to Him, and we can trust that when we call on Him out of our great heartache, He will answer for us and not against us. Trust God with your pain because you matter to Him.

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 33:14-15

He gazes on all the inhabitants of the earth from His dwelling place. He alone crafts their hearts; He considers all their works.

Have you ever considered the fact that God crafted your heart? He cares deeply about the things you hold dear because He created your heart to care about them. For this reason, He hears us when we pray from the heart and take everything that delights us and hurts us before His throne.

God’s purpose is to transform us into the image of Christ, and that change begins with the heart. Our behavior does not change until our heart does. When we yield it to Him, we allow Him to craft what He wants to accomplish in the earth through us.

God considers all our works. He sees all our ways – both good and bad. In the places where we are sinful, He promises to heal us, indicating that a hurt in our heart has caused us to stray. He has the power to heal and lead us to the path where we need to be to fulfill our purpose. Psalm 37:4 tells us that when we delight in Him, He gives us the desires of our hearts. Without doubt, our heart is the very tool God uses to speak to us, guide us, and use us to do great things that He has created us to do. 

Don’t ignore the feeling you have in your heart today. Take it to the throne. If you are excited and feeling a time of praise, then praise Him with all your might and give Him thanks for the great things He has done. If you are broken, hurting, and lonely, take your pain before the throne and ask Him to heal you. He has the answer for every need, and He crafts your heart to desire and to act according to the plan He has for you. Trust your heart to Him, and watch Him do immeasurably more that you could ask or think.

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 91:9-10

Because he is lovingly devoted to Me, I will deliver him. I will exalt him because he knows My name. When he calls out to Me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and give him honor. I will satisfy him with a long life and show him My salvation.

When I have faced times of uncertainty, these words have provided me great comfort in knowing that I have the safety net of God’s great love to catch me should I fall along the path to which I’m called. When we have an intimate relationship with our heavenly Father, He is there to rescue us and give us honor. Our life is in His hands, and we can trust Him to answer us and deliver us from whatever trouble may try to destroy our faith in Him.

Devotion to God makes Him our refuge- our dwelling place. God honors and protects that relationship. He knows our faith is in Him, and He will not disappoint. His desire is to build our faith, not to tear it down. 

Psalm 92:4

For you have made me rejoice, LORD, by what You have done; I will shout for joy because of the works of Your hands. 

Our purpose is to declare the works of God. Therefore, we should expect to see Him work in our life. He responds to faith, and He dwells in our praises. 

Don’t let the Devil steal your joy today. God has your back; you belong to Him. He will answer you. He will deliver you. He will rescue you. He will honor you. He will satisfy you. In these times of great uncertainty, we must remember that our God will answer because we are His!

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 18:6-7

I called to the LORD in my distress, and I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice, and my cry to Him reached His ears. Then the earth shook and quaked; the foundations of the mountains trembled; they shook because He burned with anger.

When we are in trouble, we often feel as if God is angry with us, and our instinct is to hide from Him as Adam and Eve did in the garden. From this passage, however, we see that God is angry FOR us and with anything that threatens to harm us, and when we cry out to Him, He moves heaven and earth to rescue us from danger.

Verse 11 of this chapter explains even more:

He made darkness His hiding place, dark storm clouds His canopy around Him.

In the midst of life’s storms that rage around us, we may often ask, “Where is God in all this?” We must remember that He hides Himself in darkness. He is not only in the midst of the storm, He IS the storm! We need not fear its devastation because God has a purpose in it.

Verses 16-17 give us assurance of God’s faithful love toward us during life’s storms:

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He pulled me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy and from those who hated me.

There is no place too deep or too dark that the hand of God cannot reach us if we are in trouble – even trouble of our own making. When we cry out to God with a sincere and repentant heart, He is ready to save. Verse 19 gives us even more hope and reason to rejoice:

He brought me out to a wide-open place; He rescued me because He delighted in me.

As His child, God delights in you. He will rescue you from the grip of the enemy and position you in a wide-open place, where you are free to expand and be who He has called you to be. Reaching our God-given destiny, however, will not come without storms or battles. When we face such difficult times, we can trust that God is in the midst of them, and His ultimate purpose in it all is to move us from the depths of a pit to a wide-open place. Cling to Him while the storm rages. He’s not angry with you. He is angry FOR you!

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 51:12-13

Restore the joy of Your salvation to me, and give me a willing spirit. Then I will teach the rebellious Your ways, and sinners will return to you.

Please notice an important order mentioned in this passage of Scripture – restore, then. We pray for change when troubled times hit. We pray for loved ones to return to God. We pray for revival and for our nation to once again honor God. Expect to see God answer those prayers in an order of restore, then. We see this pattern repeated throughout Isaiah, where God promises restoration to His people, then they would be a testimony of His grace, His favor, and His glory.

When we have been taken captive by tragedy, loss, and even our own sin, we need to be restored for our words to be effective to those around us. If those who have rebelled look at our difficult circumstances and see only pain and loss, they see no reason to trust God. When God restores us, makes us whole again, and returns joy to us, the rebellious see a people who have survived the harshness of life and prevailed through faith to find victory that could have only come from God, our Creator. They see what God has done in our life, then our words become powerful and effective through the anointing God places upon us through His blessings. The joy of our salvation becomes our strength.

God does the restoring, then we respond in faith. Our response teaches the rebellious God’s ways, and sinners return to Him. For us to be effective in ministry, we must first be restored from the vile attacks that have left us diminished, discouraged, and depleted. Surrender to His restoration process in your life, then respond in faith and power to those who seek an explanation for the hope that you have in Christ. God will restore you, then He will use you mightily for His kingdom as you tell the great things He has done for you.

Have a blessed day!