Author: admin

The world will loudly claim that its ways are best. It will flaunt those who seemingly have disregarded God’s word and yet experienced success and prosperity. The media is filled with stories of those who are enjoying the best that the world has to offer. The airwaves are filled with deceptive and misleading messages.

If you want to know the truth of your circumstances, or the situation in the world around you, you need to go to God. In an instant, God can open your understanding so you recognize the truth.

The psalmist had begun to believe the world’s advertising. Then he went to the to sanctuary of God. Away from the noise and mayhem of daily life, he finally saw the truth. He experienced a spiritual breakthrough. Everything became clear. The psalmist might have continued going to work each day for weeks or months longer and never have seen the truth. But as he pulled away into the sanctuary, he was finally in a position for God to help him see the truth. Truth sets you free.

Do you need a fresh spiritual breakthrough in your life?

At times we can be one step away from a major catastrophe. One more step and we will stumble headlong into failure. We can unknowingly approach the edge of a crevasse.

We don’t intend to stumble. We aren’t looking for problems. But we get busy, and distracted. Our focus is everywhere else but on our Lord. It may be that He has tried to warn us of impending danger, but we missed His signals. He may have alerted us through His word or through our friends, but we did not take the warnings seriously. Until we almost stumbled.

Suddenly we begin to fall. We are alarmed at the crisis we narrowly miss. We were unprepared and it almost cost us severely.

The psalmist found himself envying the wicked. Suddenly his focus was turned from God to the wicked who were wealthy. Envy filled his heart. He began to discount God’s word. The psalmist might never have believed that he could be enticed by the words and lifestyle of the wicked. Such a temptation caught him unprepared.

Have you been guarding your heart so you are not vulnerable to the next temptation that surely is coming?

We generally like to take comfort in the fact that God loves us and is intent on providing for our needs. But the psalmist was well aware that God was not obligated to do so. He owes us nothing. He has His standards. God is always good, but He does not bless indiscriminately.

One of the most sobering realities is that God blesses us based on what He finds in our heart. We desperately want to believe that we fool Him with outward appearances just as we think we mislead others. We hope that God somehow overlooks our shortcomings and sins, as if He chose to use a lesser standard for us than He applies to others. But that is wishful thinking.

God looks to our heart before He dispenses a blessing. The single greatest thing we can do to ensure our well-being is to guard our heart.

We can be confident that God is good. We cannot be as sure of our own heart.

Sometimes we pray casually. Our mind wanders and we even have trouble staying focused on the God of the universe, with Whom we’re speaking. Yet there are other times when our prayers carry a sense of desperation. We know how urgently we need God to intervene on our behalf. We cannot afford to be left out in the lobby waiting for an appointment! We must rush in to His holy presence immediately in order to consult with our Lord. In those urgent moments, we need to know that He is listening to our every prayer and is already marshaling His resources to deliver us.

“Hear me speedily” is an interesting phrase! How do you “hear” speedily? Of course, for God to hear is for God to act. We can have no doubt that when God hears; He responds. However, Scripture is clear that there may be times when God turns His face away from us. Because of our sin, God can refuse to listen to our plea. That can be a terrifying predicament. For if God is not listening, then He is not intervening. There is no more desperate place to be than in a position where God is not listening to our prayers.

That is why the psalmist did not take for granted that God would hear him. He pled that God would hear him “speedily.” The psalmist could not afford to be found out of favor with his King.

How speedily does God hear your prayers?

There are times in our lives where we find ourselves bogged down in the “mire.” Sometimes it’s our own fault. We may have been careless in our decisions and relationships. We might have forged ahead without seeking God’s guidance along the way. Suddenly we find ourselves bogged down in the “mire” and wondering how we got there.

But sometimes the mire is not our doing. We may have been diligently obeying what God told us to do. Suddenly we find that life has grown exceedingly complicated. Enemies are working against us. Other people’s issues are becoming our problem as well. We can find our life losing its focus as we attempt to extricate ourselves from the complications that have developed.

At times our lives can become so complicated that we are unsure how we will ever resolve the multitudinous issues we are facing. That is when we cry out to God: “Deliver me out of this mire!” People have been praying that prayer for millennia! And you will not be the last. Aren’t you glad you can lift up such a request to someone who hears, and will respond?

At times it can be baffling how we can be so foolish! We say something stupid. Or we neglect to do something important. Or we make a costly mistake when we knew better. Then we look in the mirror and shake our head in disbelief. How could we have been so foolish? As we consider the cost for our carelessness, or as we try to repair the damage from our thoughtlessness, we wonder why it is that we do things that are so hurtful to ourselves and to others.

At times it’s hard to admit our failure, especially if it was a foolish mistake. Yet there is one person to whom you never need hesitate to approach. For God knows our foolishness even better than we do. He is completely aware of our every shortcoming. He sees mistakes in us that we are not yet aware of ourselves. And yet, God is also infinitely patient, and gracious. He knows that we are but dust. And, He loves us with an infinite love.

The best way to overcome your foolish actions and words is to take them to God. Let Him address them. He will not simply beat you over the head with a club. Rather, He will help you view your life and actions from His perspective. But take heart. The sooner you take your problems to God, the sooner He can set you free from them.

We all enter deep waters at some point in our life. Often it is only for a season, but those waters will come.

We may have been doing great, only a few days or weeks before. But suddenly the waters come in a flood. They seem to overwhelm us and take our feet out from under us. We can’t seem to get any traction. There seems to be no escape.

At that moment we cry out in desperation: “Save me Oh God!”

The next moments can be some of the most precious in our life. For in that instant, we are in a position to have our greatest experience of God’s presence. It is when we are most desperate for God that we are in a place to experience Him most fully.

Do you currently feel overwhelmed by problems you are facing? Are you fearful? Are you having difficulty getting traction to stand up to a challenge? Cry out to God! He will not delay. He will not ignore you. He will not be at a loss to know what to do to help. He awaits your desperate cry today.

God is good! He loves us with an infinite love. He cares about our destiny. He desires us to be holy, like Him. He enjoys having fellowship with us.

As a result, God is continually giving things to us. He is the great cosmic gift giver! He delights in loading us up with benefits.

Like a parents who keeps finding one more gift they want to give their beloved child at Christmas, so God keeps finding one more blessing He wants to grant to His children.

If we were to stop and recount the blessings God has given us, even recently, we might be surprised how many there are. For besides the large gifts He has granted are countless smaller ones that we tend to overlook or take for granted. God does not merely sprinkle us with benefits, He loads us with them!

You may think you have a heavy load of problems to deal with. But the truth us, your blessings far outweigh them! Take time to consider some of what God has done for you, even today. How are you bearing up under the load of God’s blessings?

Those who are righteous have every reason to be glad. They are children of the King! Their sins, though despicable, have been washed clean and forgotten. They are heirs of the King and joint heirs with Christ. There is no one, and no thing, that can prevent them from obeying God’s will. Your eternal destiny is secure. Your future is glorious. Victory is assured. No problem can overcome you. No obstacle is impossible. The righteous have so much to be glad about!

Take an inventory of your joy. Are you filled with gladness? Do you regularly recount the numerous reasons for you to be joyful? Do you have a sense of joy that continually rises up within your soul like a fresh spring in the desert?

Being glad is a choice. It stems from our viewpoint. If we gaze upon our God, we cannot help but be glad. If, instead, we choose to focus on people and problems, our joy dissipates like the morning dew.

When you are troubled and sad, it is not necessarily that you have more problems than usual. It may simply be that you have begun to focus more on them than on your God. Your joy is not based on an absence of difficulty, but on the presence of your God.

Today, let the righteous be glad!

We do not set the terms for our relationship with God. He does! In this life, we can become careless. We don’t see God with our physical eyes. So, often we transform Him into the image we are comfortable with. We are pleased to have a God who is “always there for us.” We like a God who never condemns us but who is simply glad we took time to “stop by!” We imagine that God is relieved that we chose to pray to Him at all, what with our busy schedule and all.

However, a day will come when we will see God with our eyes. We will understand then, how awesome it is that we can address God in prayer at all. When we see the multitude of heavenly hosts and saints from all time gathered before His glorious throne, then it will amaze us that every time we whispered a prayer, He heard us. That the God, who is the center of the universe gave us His attention.

Yet it is critical for us to understand that God listens to us on His terms, not ours. He has declared that if we regard iniquity in our heart, He will not hear us. It is not that He cannot. It is that He will not. He is holy. He will not be treated lightly. He will not allow you to make a mockery of His holiness and His hatred of sin.

Before you try and pray to God the next time, ask yourself this question: “Have I regarded iniquity in my heart?”