I so love 1 Peter 5:10 and pray someone finds comfort & expectancy in it this morning.
“And, after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen & establish you.”
God HIMSELF.
God himself will restore you.
God himself will confirm you.
God himself will strengthen you.
God himself will establish you.
If it’s God himself, I want it.
If it’s God himself, I trust it.
If it’s God himself, I’ll be helped by it. Built up & blessed by it. Prospered in spirit.
Because of Jesus Christ, we have access to God himself. No man or woman can save us. No man or woman can deliver us. No man or woman is incapable of misleading, exploiting, seducing, abusing, abandoning or deceiving us. God is faithful. Be patient in suffering. In just a little,
“The God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To him belongs the power forever. Amen.”
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You know the old adage, “It’ll probably get worse before it gets better”? Oh, and this one: “It’s always darkest before the dawn” and, meanwhile, that coal-black night seems to go on for eons? Exodus 5 in my morning reading. If you didn’t know God was faithful, you might think
He liked getting you into trouble. Moses has returned to Egypt. Aaron’s reintroduced the former prince to the Israelite elders. Told them God has seen their misery. Moses performed a few signs. They’re bought in and bowed low in worship by the end of Exodus 4. Then Moses & Aaron
go to Pharaoh with the Lord’s message: “Let my people go.”
No. “Please.” Nope. Can’t lose my labor force. So Pharaoh commands overseers to drastically increase the Israelites’ workload without changing their daily quota. When they can’t fill it, the Israelite foremen are beaten.
In Exodus now in my daily Bible reading. Chapters 3-4. God finds Moses on the far side of the wilderness. Calls to him from a burning shrub that attracts his attention—not because it’s on fire but—because the fire is not destroying it. That’s a lesson right there. There’s fire
that lights up, fire that heats, fire that draws forth the worship of God. Then there’s unholy fire that utterly destroys. The difference is obvious in its wake. God tells Moses to say to the Israelites, “I have paid close attention to you & to what has been done to you.” Always.
God is faithful. He sees. He knows. He will act. God tells Moses his name to authorize him then performs wonders to prove he’ll empower him. The former prince of Egypt replies with a line that makes me want to laugh every time I read it: “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent
It’ll be a little cheesy for some tastes but I reckon I’m nothing at all if not cheesy. You may have caught my tweet 2 days ago where I shared that my daughter @MelissaMoore77 who lives in the PNW is home for December. So happy. Been nearly a year.
I was getting ready for work in my room yesterday AM & walked through the house to grab something from the kitchen & saw her having her morning devotions. She was absorbed in what she was reading so I left her to it. But that sight, that very simple sight, stayed with me all day.
All families go through a lot. Keith and I were not emotionally healthy people when we married so we especially went through a lot. More to the point of this thread, ministry families go through a lot. And, what makes ministry difficulties particularly complex is the impact they
“And the second son [Joseph] named Ephraim and said, ‘God has made me fruitful in the land of affliction.’” Gen 41:52
Fruitfulness. I grow more and more convinced this is the aim. This IS the blessing. This side of the veil in this land of thorn and thistle, this IS the point.
“My Father,” Jesus said, “is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.”
Increasingly through the years this has become my primary prayer for my kids, grandkids, my husband, for my extended family, loved ones, friends & for Living Proof:
“Lord, make us immensely fruitful for Your great glory.” You may be yawning. Nothing new to see here. But I ask you to appreciate with me what this kind of outlook toward the goal of our earthly lives does for us. Fruitfulness is not dependent on things going well.
Keith & I scheduled today to spend together getting a Christmas tree, bringing it home & decorating it. We drag the tree in from his pick up, stand it up & I start rummaging through my boxes of decorations & no lights. Then I remembered. I threw them out with the tree last year.
I don’t know exactly how to say this but I love love love getting ready for Christmas, love the house all lit up & decorated. Love Christmas Day. Love it all. But by the 26th (I’d prefer 10 PM on the 25th), I’m like, get that tree outta my house. Keith flees to the deer lease.
There’s 2 inches of dead pine needles on the floor by then, limbs sagging, ornaments falling. I get myself good & worked up in a fury & drag that thing to the curb like it’s done me wrong. So today I remember I didn’t bother taking the lights off of it last year & maybe I repent.
Genesis 40:23 “Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.”
Joseph’s falsely accused, imprisoned. Pharaoh’s cupbearer gets thrown into the same dungeon. Has a dream. God gives Joseph the interpretation: Pharaoh will reinstate the cupbearer in 3 days. Happens.
An unforgettable turn of events. Only, ironically, it’s exactly that: forgotten. After interpreting the cupbearer’s dream, Joseph had said, “When all goes well for you, remember I was with you. Please show kindness to me by mentioning me to Pharaoh & get me out of this prison.”
Two years pass. By our reckoning, that’s 730 days. 730 unseen sunrises & sunsets. 17520 hours to toss in the night & brood in the day, cells of bitterness multiplying like cancer in your bones.
Genesis 40:14 is careful to tell us Joseph wanted out. We often imagine that those