MORNING MANNA            6-26-23

Things around us are changing at breakneck speed. It’s happening so fast and drastically that it makes your head swim. Nothing seems to be safe and secure. It makes you wonder,”What’s next?” Hope has becomes a rarity and fear grows by leaps and bounds. 

But in the middle of this mess our text gives us a promise that produces peace. Amid all our adversities we are given blessed assurance. In Christ we have an anchor of hope that is steadfast and sure. He is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever”.

Whatever hardships and heart-aches lie ahead we can have hope and help.The same Jesus who fulfilled numerous prophecies, expressed great compassion, displayed remarkable wisdom, met needs, and worked miracles while here on earth is still able to do as He did and so shall He ever be. Although we can’t hear or see Him we have God’s promise that He shall never leave, nor forsake us!( Heb.13:5).

That’s a fact, but without faith we fail. You can read all the precious promises in God’s Word, but to have peace you must trust Christ and believe that they are true. Only then can we can reap the blessings that come by believing. – HDS

David Stone

Lakeway Baptist Church  

Humble, Tx. 

MORNING MANNA            6-25-23

GRACE

Grace is God drawing sinners closer and closer to him. How does God in grace prosecute this purpose? Not by shielding us from assault by the work, the flesh, and the devil, nor by protecting us from burdensome and frustrating circumstance, not yet by shielding us from troubles created by our own temperament and psychology, but rather by exposing us to all these things, so as to overwhelm us with a sense of our own inadequacy, and to drive us to cling to him more closely.

This is the ultimate reason, from our standpoint, why God fills our lives with troubles and perplexities of one sort and another — it is to ensure that we shall learn to hold him fast. The reason why the Bible spends so much of its time reiterating that God is a strong rock, a firm defense, and a sure refuge and help for the weak is that God spends so much of his time showing us that we are weak, both mentally and morally, and dare not trust ourselves to find or follow the right road. When we walk along a clear road feeling fine, and someone takes our arm to help us, likely we would impatiently shake him off; but when we are caught in rough country in the dark, with a storm brewing and our strength spent, and someone takes our arm to help us, we would thankfully lean on him. And God wants us to feel that our way through life is rough and perplexing, so that we may learn to lean on him thankfully. Therefore he takes steps to drive us out of self-confidence to trust in himself, to — in the classic scriptural phrase for the secret of the godly man’s life — “wait on the Lord.”- James Packer

David Stone

Lakeway Baptist Church

5801 FM 1960 E

Humble, TX. 77346

MORNING MANNA            6-24-23

GLORY OF GOD

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”- Romans 3:23-26

When we think about the death of Jesus on the cross, we may think about the intense physical suffering that He endured. We may consider the wonder of His precious blood being shed to pay the price for our sins. We may contemplate the vast love of God that put that plan in place. All of that is part of the story of the cross. But there is another part that sometimes we overlook: the cross shows the glory of Jesus Christ and His sinless nature. The cross declares that He was perfectly and completely righteous. Otherwise His death could not have atoned for our sins, for He would have had to pay for His own. Robert Murray McCheyne said, “The wounds of Christ were the greatest outlets of His glory that ever were. The divine glory shone more out of His wounds than out of all His life before.”

One of the purposes for which we are left in this world after we are saved is so that we can bring honor and glory to Jesus. Peter wrote, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen” (2 Peter 3:18). The best way that we can bring glory to God is to live in the righteousness which He credits to our account because of what Jesus did. We declare His righteousness when we imitate it. We live in a holy way not to earn salvation or bring credit to ourselves, but to honor and glorify our Savior. We bring glory to Jesus when we live in the righteousness His death made possible for us.(author unknown)

David Stone

Lakeway Baptist Church

Humble, Tx.