Friday, December 2, 2016
Do not borrow anxiety for the future. It is today that we are in need.... The Lord is our helper, our God, and our strength in every time of need...
I thank the Lord for the assurance of His grace, that is for His people now, today.... The promise is not that we will have strength today for a future emergency, that anticipated future trouble will be provided for beforehand, before it comes to us. We may, if we walk by faith, expect strength and provision for us as fast as our circumstances demand it. We live by faith, not by sight. The Lord’s arrangement is for us to ask Him for the very things that we need. The grace of tomorrow will not be given today. Men’s necessity is God’s opportunity.... The grace of God is never given to be squandered, to be misapplied or perverted, or to be left to rust with disuse....
While you are bearing daily responsibilities in the love and fear of God, as obedient children walking in all humility of mind, strength and wisdom from God will be given to meet every trying circumstance.
We will not be able to meet the trials of this time without God. We are not to have the courage and fortitude of martyrs of old until brought into the position they were in.... We are to receive daily supplies of grace for each daily emergency. Thus we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and if persecution comes upon us, if we must be enclosed in prison walls for the faith of Jesus and the keeping of God’s holy law, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Should there be a return of persecution there would be grace given to arouse every energy of the soul to show a true heroism....
We are to keep close to the Source of our strength day by day, and when the enemy comes in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard for us against the enemy. The promise of God is sure, that strength shall be proportioned to our day. We may be confident for the future only in the strength that is given for the present necessities. The experience in God is daily becoming more precious.... Do not borrow anxiety for the future. It is today that we are in need.... The Lord is our helper, our God, and our strength in every time of need. OHC 125
If Lot himself had manifested no hesitancy to obey the angels’ warning, but had earnestly fled toward the mountains, without one word of pleading or remonstrance, his wife also would have made her escape. The influence of his example would have saved her from the sin that sealed her doom. But his hesitancy and delay caused her to lightly regard the divine warning. While her body was upon the plain, her heart clung to Sodom, and she perished with it. She rebelled against God because His judgments involved her possessions and her children in the ruin. Although so greatly favored in being called out from the wicked city, she felt that she was severely dealt with, because the wealth that it had taken years to accumulate must be left to destruction. Instead of thankfully accepting deliverance, she presumptuously looked back to desire the life of those who had rejected the divine warning. Her sin showed her to be unworthy of life, for the preservation of which she felt so little gratitude.—Patriarchs and Prophets, 161, 162. Hvn 106
"Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be." Deuteronomy 33:25 (King James Version)