Tempered Steel

“Then he {God} chose David, his servant, handpicked him from his work in the sheep pens. One day he was caring for the ewes and their lambs, the next God had him shepherding Jacob, his people, Israel, his prize possession” (Psalm 78:70-71).

Financial reversals, betrayal, depression, family difficulties, and the consequences of poor personal decisions can wreck a person’s life.  David left tracks for us to follow. Just read the book of Psalms and you will see that David encountered being knocked out of the saddle many times. But David found God to be faithful. The dismal swamps were also seen and David was weighed down, but he also felt the fresh, exhilarating winds on the mountaintops of accomplishment.

God works strangely. He often enriches by impoverishing. King David was a man taken from the pasture tending sheep to the palace leading a nation. How did God get David in the place of shepherding a nation? He used trapdoors and pit stops. He used transition. God used anointing by the hand of Samuel in secret, of course, but God used anguish by the hand of Saul in public to train and teach David the leadership God had for him.

You don’t ascend to the status of an All-Star overnight without difficulties and obstacles. Many of us have forgotten that many people go through trials and difficulties, fall through trap doors, and face many pit stops in their lives. We forget that God is working for them and in them.

Look around and see if you are caring and carrying these “misfortunates” in your prayers and actions. See if the Lord is first place in your hearts for them? Ask yourself do you really care? Sometimes we spend so much more time in other pursuits that we forget how good God has been to us. There is a trail. There is a path God has designed for them and for us. And it would be great if we recognized them as the hand of a merciful and good God.

 

 

 

 

Similar Posts

  • Want to be Great? Learn to be Small…

    “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…” (Phil. 2:5a).

    Think of how the Lord Jesus let go of all–status, position, respect. He
    gave up his rights to be respected, waited on, and adored.

    Jesus walked and lived in “Glory Town.” He gave up the praise of angels, who
    prostrated themselves and covered their faces with their wings when he
    walked by, and they sang harmoniously that reached the furtherest star when
    they found him near. Jesus humbled himself and became small for us.

    Dress yourself in modesty. Fall off the pedestal others and maybe you have
    placed yourself upon. There are a lot more important things to think of than
    to think of yourself subconsciously.

    Look at others. Look at the poverty around you–not just financial poverty,
    but also marital poverty–broken families and families abused. Dress for
    success by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. Even next to you in church
    there are hurts and pains. Do you see them?

  • A New Creature

    “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:7).

     

    Whenever the Holy Spirit enters any person, He brings His holy nature with Him. The result is that all those in whom the Spirit of God dwells have new holy hungers and holy loves they did not have prior to having His indwelling presence.
    There are new created things that take place. They hunger for His holy Word, which they used to find boring or irrelevant. They love fellowship with the people of God, finding it unimaginable to live apart from meaningful interaction with them. Hearts and minds find new desires of holy longings. They long to live in a body without sin. They groan for a holy world filled with holy people, and long to see at last the face of the one that angels call “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Rev. 4:8).
    This is the heartbeat of 100 percent of the hearts where the Spirit of God lives. A person may be nine years of age, yet where the Spirit of God has come to him or her, then these hungers are planted there.
    According to the Word of God, of course, there is a desire to pray. The Spirit of God creates an inward desire to cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). All those who are born again, born of God, want to pray.
    It does not matter if the one who says he is born again is nine or ninety, there is the ever-fresh, evergreen work of the Holy Spirit manifested in every person in whom He dwells.

  • Lane Change

    “But he saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid” (John 6:20).

    One can be driving on the interstate and before becoming aware, the driver could be swooped into a direction they never intended to go. Uninitiated drivers, flying along faster than they really want to go in the farthest right-hand lane, can suddenly look up in dismay to see the interstate dividing into two. Just in a blink or two, one is swept along in another direction, toward another destination.

    Could this be…her time, her release? Could this be the EXIT she had longed for all those years? Was this the one exit sign that read “HEAVEN”? Was this God’s plan? Is this God’s itinerary of being taken to a destination that calls out to Heaven? This is what Joni Eareckson Tada wondered when she realized she had breast cancer.

    Friend, all of us are on a plane that is loading and unloading passengers. We might get off of one plane in this city or in that destination, but eventually, for those who know the Lord Jesus there is Destination Heaven. Twenty-four hours before you are humming down the interstate and you miss the turn, for there is no going back, you find out for sure this is your destination–Heaven. This is it; life on earth is about to end from the way you used to know.

    I will never forget what a gentleman said to me some years ago. I was asked to come by and visit for his days were numbered. He said to me, “Joking about death is funny until it’s about me.” You see, the speedway had split, and he was heading at a different destination than what he thought he would be on for that day just twenty-four hours ago. There was no going back, no turning around, the destination was set.

    Remember what Alan Redpath, a British pastor and author, had written. “There is no circumstance, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with great purpose.”

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Third Day

    The Offerings

     

    “But the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice [peace offering] on the third day shall be burned with fire” (Leviticus 7:17).

     

    God spoke to Moses out of the Tabernacle of the congregation (Leviticus 1:1). The offerings were now of worship and witness of Himself. Five offerings were given to Moses as God called out to him, not from Mount Sinai but from the Tabernacle.

     

    The first three offerings were “Dedicatory Offerings.” It spoke of the value of Christ’s death. They are called the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the peace offering. The offerings prefigured Christ as a “sweet smelling savor” to God, rather than as a sin offering.

     

    The burnt offering speaks of the value of Christ’s death in terms of his “devotion.” The meal offering speaks of the value of the death of Christ in terms of its “perfection.” The peace offering speaks of the value of Christ’s death in terms of His “communion” (Leviticus 3; 7:11-13; Romans 5:1; Colossians 1:20). This was not an offering to make peace, but celebrated and rejoiced in the peace already made.

     

    The power of the third day is that you and I are to experience communion in the Lord Jesus Christ daily, the same day the offering is made. Our communion in Christ ought to take us to tomorrow and then we start over again. To become stale is to lose our freshness and reality in our communion with Christ, and is meant to be cut off from fellowship. This applies not only to our quiet times, but to the holy celebration when we come together for the remembrance of the Lord in His death, until He comes.

     

  • Today Matters

    “And Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel, Inquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord today” (2 Chronicles 18:4).

     

    In a day of rush and hurry up, with a mindset to have plenty of leisure so that we may do what we desire, it is good to learn a great lesson. That reminder from the Lord Himself is to “Inquire at the word of the Lord today.”

     

    The Lord Jesus said that we are to learn to lean heavily upon Him. And we lean hard upon Him by relying upon His Word so that we may learn to pray His heart and will. Today is the day of salvation. We need Him to save us and dismantle us from our sin and ourselves.

     

    “The glory of the Father must be the aim and end, the very soul and life of our prayer”, said Andrew Murray. God wants us to be in on what He is up to. Prayer becomes transformational when we embrace the enduring context for all praying.

     

    As we fix our eyes upon Him we will be transformed by the majesty of our great God, the person of Christ, the purity of His Word – and will excite within us an appetite for Him. Oh may we be renewed with a longing for His glory! Inquire of Him.

     

  • Christian Tours of Delight

    “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

    Today as I have traveled around, several things have taken place. I want to share them with you. Is that okay?

    A lady that I have prayed for, been in her home and prayed with both her husband and family, a lady in whom you have helped financially, told me some exciting news: she and her husband have been born again, and that just recently! Whoa, Nellie!  Someone hold my mule while I shout!

    Also, another gentleman came up to me and sat down with me while I had a quick breakfast with the Lord while reading a chapter in a book. This fifty-eight year old man spoke to me of his pain–physical and emotionally. We will get together soon. We spoke briefly and I had prayer with him. He was encouraged as I was. I heard and saw the inward grief and pain.

    Then I met a couple. I began to inquire of where they were from, what church they belonged to, and where they are at this time in their life. It was a good ten-minute fellowship. I felt God had used me as a link in the chain to bring them closer to the cross. Mind you, it was not me, it was Christ in me. I was just the body He was using.

    This morning, also, I had the opportunity to speak to someone by phone. He called me and we talked, and we prayed, and we encouraged each other. You will hear some of his testimony Sunday morning. I was glad for God’s saving grace in this fellow laborer.

    Isn’t God good? He is the invisible God who makes Himself visible through His people. The lady that I spoke of in the first paragraph told me, “This is the greatest adventure I have ever been on.” Friend, being in Christ is the greatest adventure. It is life and having abundance of grace all thrown in.

    No matter the difficulties you are having, you have a God who can. Read the Bible, pray through the Scriptures, and allow God to give you His mind and His will. You will find peace in the middle of a storm. When we praise God we are revealing God’s glory to the world around us and below us and above us. Let the angels see us praising God. Verbalized praise from a heart overflowing is wonderful and freeing. And it brings a walk with God that is lasting.