We Still Have God

"But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal" (Matthew 6:20)

As Christians we look at everything differently.

People of the world, for instance, hope for life, health, financial prosperity, international peace and a set of favorable circumstances. There are their resources - upon them they rest. They look to them as a child looks to its nursing mother.

Christians do not despise these temporal blessings, and if they came to them, they sanctify them by receiving them with prayers of gratitude to God. But they know their everlasting welfare is not dependent upon them. These blessings may come or go, but true Christians abide in God where no evil can touch them and where they are rich beyond all the power of their minds to conceive - an this altogether apart from earthly circumstances.

The world's resources are good in their way, but they have this fatal defect - they are uncertain and transitory. Today we have them, tomorrow they are gone. It is this way with all earthly things since sin came to upset the beautiful order of nature and made the human race victims of chance and change.

If the world's foundations crumble we still have God, and in Him we have everything essential to our ransomed beings forever.

Thank You, Father, for the eternal treasures that can be mine when I serve You. Keep me from the lure of transitory treasure and focused on that which is eternal. Amen

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Peace Is God's Word

"Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me, and save me. Be thou my strong habitation; whereunto I may continually resort" (Psalm 71:2-3)

David did well to seek God's help in his troubles. When he faced confusion, he prayed, "Deliver me ... and cause me to escape" (Psalm 71:2). God can deliver from confusion by establishing moral order within the life. When the eye becomes single, when the life becomes all one piece, inward antagonisms are abolished and internal harmony is restored.

It is not a wonder that there is so little of true joy among the sons of men. With the will at a perpetual stalemate, with the heart's purposes constantly at an irritating impasse, with the mind at wit's end and the whole life in a state of almost constant frustration, how can joy abide?

There is no way out of the woods except through full and quick surrender to the will of God. When such a surrender is made, God will soon bring order out of confusion. Peace is God's word, and it follows faith and obedience as the harvest follows the seed. But the whole will of God is necessary to peace; half measures will only increase the confusion.

In the midst of  confusing world, help me to find peace, Father, in full surrender to Your whole will. Amen

~A. W. Tozer~