Today’s Reading:
Isaiah 51:1-16
“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn.” (v. 1 NIV)
Once a Christian gets eaten-up with discouragement, it often leads to unbelief and it takes a great deal to shake him out of the negative emotional state. Those two emotions -discouragement and unbelief- are Satan’s masterstrokes. But so long as the Child of God is able to maintain an attitude of praise and trust in the Lord, then he is invincible- too powerful to be defeated or overcome. Sometimes we look at our situation and know we are in trouble. It happens with individuals, with Churches, with Communities and with Nations. What do you do when you are in trouble? Where do you look when you need hope and encouragement? In today’s reading , God is speaking to us and telling us where to find strength when we need hope and encouragement.
In verse 3, God assures and promises - His faithful- deliverance from this negative emotional trend.
Paradoxically, God tells us (whenever we are in such negative situation) to look forward to His promised deliverance by looking back to our original parental pair- ABRAHAM and SARAH (verse 2) – both of whom were our ancestors of great resolve and perseverance. They were a couple with no hope of ever having a biological child of their own when God visited them divinely and grew them from two people to many Nations. When we so look back, we shall find enough reasons to look forward to God’s promised deliverance – a deliverance that is surely coming.
BABALOLA IKOTUN
PRAYER:
O Lord, we thank you for being our God.
We praise you because you are the only God - as all other gods are man-made gods.
As long as your breadth keeps us alive, we will not stop praising you.
We thank you Lord for your promise to answer whenever we call upon you in time of trouble.
Father Lord, give us the courage and strength to call on you whenever we feel discouraged in Jesus’ name.
As you answered Hannah when she cried and prayed fervently unto you and you reversed her hopeless state of barrenness, answer us speedily whenever we cry and pray unto you in time of trouble in Jesus name.
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