“What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” Psalms 56:3

It is no unusual thing for the Lord’s people to be cast down, and filled with tormenting fears. They fear their faith is presumption, their hope delusion, and that they shall one day disgrace that holy name by which they are called. They fear to rely on a naked promise, and want comfortable feeling to underprop their faith. But they should take up the Psalmist’s resolution, ” What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” Jehovah in Jesus is the only proper object of trust, and He should be trusted at all times. Beloved, it is well when we can say, “I will depend upon the faithful promise of my gracious God; I will rely on the free grace of my adorable Saviour; I will hope in covenant mercy for evermore; I will fly to my Father’s bosom and venture all in my Saviour’s hands.” Let us trust in God, in opposition to frames and feelings. Let us trust in covenant love, though providence appears to frown. Our God has said, “Trust ye in the Lord forever.” Here is our warrant, let us seek grace to say with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him.”

Oh, let me then at length be taught
What I am still so slow to learn,
That God is love, and changes not,
Nor knows the shadow of a turn:
To cast on Him my anxious cares,
And triumph o’er my doubts and fears. —James Smith, 1840

The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord–  Isaiah 29:19

Meekness is not a momentary decision, but a way of life. Someone has described biblical meekness as “putting the bit in your own mouth and handing the reigns over to God.” It is an humble attention, and receptivity, to the will of God.

The meek are often mistaken in our day as being weak. But meekness is actually great strength, under control — God’s control. Great faith, great commitment, and great determination are required on a daily basis to live a meek life before God. When He requires sacrifice, meekness trusts completely and gives willingly. When He demands obedience, meekness constrains selfish desires, crucifies personal ambition, and performs joyfully the good will of God.

It is for this reason that the joy of the meek is continually increasing. Their pleasure is not found in personal circumstances; their happiness is not derived from fleeting popularity; their fulfillment does not come from public success.

The meek find their joy in the Lord. Therefore, the more they have of Him, the more they experience of Him, the more they know of Him, the more their joy is increased. And the more their joy is increased, the more they desire to plant their joy in the Lord and not in this world.

What about you? Have you found the dependable and lasting and ever-increasing joy that comes from a life of complete submission to our good and wise and glorious God?—Baptist Bible Hour

Several years ago I heard about a woman who had complained to her pastor that she couldn’t understand the Bible and was confused about God’s will for her life. The wise pastor responded by asking her if she could think of any areas of her life where she was failing to do as she should. When she confessed that she could think of some, the preacher said, “Then why should God Almighty reveal anything else to you?” Have you ever thought about that?

Adrian Rogers wrote, “People sometimes can’t understand why they don’t understand the Bible. Well, the way to understand the Bible is to obey the Bible. And the way to understand the verses you don’t understand is to obey the verses you do understand. 

Keep God’s Word, and through it God will reveal His truth. Some of you know what God wants you to do, but you’re not doing it. And you wonder why you’ve come up against a roadblock when you try to read the Bible.”

We are not called to fellowship with nonexistence. We are called to things that exist in truth, to positive things, and it is as we become occupied with these that health comes to the soul. Spiritual life cannot feed on negatives. The man who is constantly reciting the evils of his unconverted days is looking in the wrong direction. He is like a man trying to run a race while looking back over his shoulder. What the Christian used to be is altogether the least important thing about him. What he is yet to be is all that should concern him. He may occasionally, as Paul sometimes did, remember to his own shame the life he once lived; but that should be only a quick glance; it is never to be a fixed gaze. Our long permanent look is on God and the glory that shall be revealed. What we are saved from and what we are saved to bear the same relation to each other as a serious illness and recovered health. The physician should stand between these two opposites to save from one and restore to the other. Once the great sickness is cured the memory of it should be thrust out onto the margin of the mind to grow fainter and weaker as it retreats farther away; and the fortunate man whose health has been restored should go on to use his new strength to accomplish something useful for mankind. Yet many persons permit their sick bodies to condition their mental stuff so that after the body has gotten well they still retain the old feeling of chronic invalidism they had before. They are recovered, true enough, but not to anything. We have but to imagine a group of such persons testifying every Sunday about their late illnesses and singing plaintive songs about them and we have a pretty fair picture of many gatherings among Christians today.–A W Tozer

“The Lord will give strength unto His people.” Psalms 29:11

HOWEVER hot the war, or sore the trial, we may be sure of this, that “as our day, so shall our strength be.” God has promised, and He will give. He gives because they are His people, as the father to His children, because He has covenanted to do so, and He is faithful; lest their foes should triumph over them, whereas He has said, “They shall overcome at the last.” He has raised their expectations, and He will not disappoint them; He has commanded them to pray, and He will not refuse. He will give strength sufficient enough, but perhaps none to spare suitable to their circumstances and wants. Has the Lord pledged Himself to give strength to His people; yea, to be Himself their strength? Then let us fight courageously, look forward joyfully, bear every cross patiently, pray fervently, praise daily, and believe confidently. God hath spoken, saints in every age have found Him a truth-telling, promise-performing God. Satan is a liar, a deceiver, a false witness against God. Let us therefore resist him, and he will flee from us. The strong God will be our support in every trial.

Give me Thy strength, O God of power;
Then let winds blow, or thunders roar,
Thy faithful witness will I be:
‘Tis fix’d: I can do all through Thee:
Fulfil Thy sovereign counsel, Lord,
Thy will be done. Thy name adored! — James Smith