“Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not”   (Jeremiah 33:3).

We live in dark, difficult, and dangerous days and these tough times serve to remind us of our great need of God’s help. Is it not wonderful that He stands ready to assist? But it isn’t automatic. God has appointed a means whereby we can receive His aid. That means is prayer. Spurgeon sadi it well when he wrote the following:

“God encourages us to pray. They tell us that prayer is a pious exercise which has no influence except upon the mind engaged in it. We know better. Our experience gives the lie a thousand times over to this infidel assertion. Here Jehovah, the living God, distinctly promises to answer the prayer of His servant. Let us call upon Him again and admit no doubt upon the question of His hearing us and answering us. He that made the ear, shall He not hear? He that gave parents a love to their children, will He not listen to the cries of His own sons and daughters! God will answer His pleading people in their anguish. He has wonders in store for them. What they have never seen, heard of, or dreamed of, He will do for them. He will invent new blessings if needful. He will ransack sea and land to feed them: He will send every angel out of heaven to succor them if their distress requires it. He will astound us with His grace and make us feel that it was never before done in this fashion. All He asks of us is that we will call upon Him. He cannot ask less of us. Let us cheerfully render Him our prayers at once.”

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”–1 John 4:7–10

Love—true, godly, sacrificial love—is not a natural human response to others. Many “love” because of what they receive from someone else, yet that is a far cry from the kind of love the Bible commands us to have toward each other. In truth, loving people who are cranky, selfish, demanding, and stubborn (as all of us are from time to time) is not an easy thing. Yet it is what God commands us to do. Such love is not produced by our efforts to change the way we think or feel toward others. It is certainly not based on what they deserve or on what we feel. Love is produced by the Holy Spirit working in our hearts and lives.

Loving others starts with our love for God. He is the source from which our love flows. Just as the moon has no light of its own but reflects the sun’s light, when we love others we are simply expressing the nature and character of God to them. When we fail to demonstrate this kind of love to each other, we are missing the most powerful demonstration of our commitment to follow Him. Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).–Daily in the Word

If we had the attitude of David we would fear no enemy, lose no battle, boast of no victory, and lack no friends of the right kind. That sounds like an example we ought to follow. Regardless of what happens in your life today things will turn out better if you behave yourself wisely.