God fashions the hearts of everyone on the planet and He understands all of our desperate attempts to extract meaning out of our daily struggles (Psalm 33:15). God does not judge us like people do. Human beings look at the outward appearance and we form our opinion of people, but the Lord looks at our heart (1 Samuel 16:7). He knows our thoughts and He knew all of our choices before time ever began (2 Timothy 1:9). He also knew whether or not we would strive for holiness and perfection in His sight (Ephesians 1:4).
God knew before the creation
of the world if we would accept or reject Christ. He predestined those who
accept His Son as their Savior to be conformed to His image (Romans
8:29). Our salvation does not depend
upon our personal works, but on us accepting Christ’s righteousness in place of
our sin (Ephesians 2:9-10; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Titus 3:5). He saves us, not because of our goodness or self-effort, but
because of His mercy (Ephesians 2:8-10). He saves us by the cleansing of His rebirth and He
renews us by His Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5).
We are buried with Christ
through baptism into His death, so that we can rise from the death caused by
our sinful life to a new life in Him (Romans 6:4). We receive the Holy Spirit as the down payment of our
inheritance with Christ (Romans 8:17).
The Spirit leads us throughout our day in the will of God for our individual
life (John 6:63). Now we can draw near
to God with a clean heart, full of the assurance, which is given to us by
faith. Our conscience is clean and our hearts are renewed (Hebrews
10:22). We are born of God and we
overcome the world by our faith in His faithfulness (1 John
5:4).
God’s unfailing love and
abundant redemption belong to anyone willing to trust only in Him. Therefore, our whole being waits for the Lord. Our
soul – our mind, will and emotions - waits and hopes in His Word. We put our
expectation only in Him and not on any person, job, goal or ambition (Psalm
130:5, 7). In the morning we lay our
requests before Him and wait expectantly for Him to respond, because we know
that He hears our prayers (Psalm 5:3).
No matter how long it takes for Him to answer us, we strongly and courageously
wait on Him (Psalm 27:14).
Even when He hides His face
from us, we wait expectantly for Him to answer us (Isaiah
8:17). He is our only source of
salvation. He is our fortress and we cannot be shaken (Psalm
62:2). He strengthens us and our joy is
in His great victories on our behalf (Psalm 21:1). Our heart leaps for joy and bursts forth in songs of
praise for Him, because we rely only on Him (Psalm 28:7, 59:17). We rest in Him all day long (Psalm
62:5).
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, the Israelites
drank water from the rock. You are our Rock and You give us living water (1
Corinthians 10:4; John 4:10). Remind us
not to forsake Your precepts, because You are our spring of living water. Our
broken cisterns cannot hold water, but if we believe in You, then rivers of
Your living water will flow from within us (Jeremiah 2:13; John 7:38). As we rest in You and follow the leading of Your
Spirit, Whom You gave to us (John 7:39),
then we will accomplish all of Your works in the earth (Philippians
2:12-13).
Thought for the Day:
“We
will shine like stars in the sky as we hold firmly to the word of life.” - Philippians 2:12-13
