Friday Photos

 

Friday Photos

 

The Battle is Not Yours

 "Then upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah...came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation; and he said, 

'Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, thus saith the Lord unto you, 

Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; 
for the battle is not yours, but God's.' " 

(2 Chronicles 20: 14, 15)

In this passage, we see the children of Israel and their King Jehoshaphat facing a "great multitude" coming against them.  This multitude included the children of Moab and the children of Ammon and "others beside."

The impending battle struck fear into the hearts of the Israelites. "We have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do," stated Jehoshaphat in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem.  But he did not finish his sentence there; he went on to say, "...but our eyes are upon Thee."

We all have moments in our lives when we feel like there's no way to win the battle we are currently facing.  Those feelings are perhaps true, but there is a greater truth, the truth spoken by Jahaziel to all the congregation of Israel, "the battle is not yours, but God's."

These two men show us the path when we are faced with battle, turmoil, troubles, or temptations.  "Our eyes are upon Thee" and "The battle is not yours (or ours), but God's." These are bedrock truths to cast all our cares, fears, worries, and woes upon. The Lord Jesus has already conquered every enemy that can try to melt our hearts with fear.   So often, as He walked this earth, He encouraged His believers to "Fear not."  He is still saying that to us today.  

In his discourse to the Israelites, Jahaziel also said, "Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still and see the salvation of the Lord with you," (2 Chronicles 20:17.

What enemy are we facing today, in this very minute?  What fear is he using to try to wrestle away our peace and joy in the Lord Jesus?  Is any enemy we face greater than our Savior? If we have trusted in the Lord Jesus, we can follow Jahaziel's admonition and stand still to see the salvation of the Lord in our lives, wherever we see the enemy.  

And we can be sure of one thing, our battles are not ours, but His, and the Lord Jesus always triumphs.

Friday Photos

 

Friday Photos

 This is one of my favorite kayaking photos.  We had a nice trip and were just about to pull our boats out of the water.  I turned around and knew I had to snap this photo.  I think it was the reflections that so struck me.

How Marvelous is Our God!

"I will speak of the glorious honour of Thy majesty, 

and of Thy wondrous works."

"His work is honourable and glorious: 

and His righteousness endureth for ever."

Psalms 145:5, 111:3

This was our sunrise this morning as Ellie and I took our morning walk.

Caps on the Keys

Picture courtesy of Canva.com

Our family has recently been taking online typing tests to judge our accuracy and speed. (This is just for fun.) Our children grew up on computer keyboards and never experienced the joys of typing on a manual typewriter in a typing class.

Glen and I both shared stories with them about the old manual typewriters and the strength required to press down those keys, especially the ones that used the little finger.  We also told them how the teacher would often make the class put metal caps over the keys, so we couldn’t see what letter we were typing.  We were supposed to have already memorized the keyboard, but this helped give us incentive if we had not.

As we were having this discussion with our daughters, I was struck by the similarity of the parenthetical statement in 2 Corinthians 5:7, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

Paul also addresses this in Romans 1:17, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith’ ". Paul is referring to Habakkuk 2:4, “Behold, his souls which is lifted up in not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.”

The Lord expects His children to live by faith.  Faith in what?  No, faith in Whom.  Faith in Him.  He wants us to experience  His life, in and through us, by faith.  This is a lesson we can only learn in this world, in these bodies of flesh.  Our world screams at us things that are contrary to the will and way of the Lord.  Our bodies tell us things that are not true, for they only respond and react to what the senses tell them.  Our flesh shouts to us that there is never enough…never enough supply, never enough strength, never enough…anything.  The world tells us our God is not real, He does not supply abundantly, He can’t love us because He doesn’t exist.

When our teacher put the caps on our typewriter keys, we had to type, believing which finger should and could type which letter or symbol.  The more we did the exercise, the more confident we became that we could type without looking at the keys.  The more confident we were, the better we typed.

In this world, the Lord often has the “caps on our keys,” as it were.  He wants us to believe what He says is true without having to see it with our eyes, hear it with our ears, or touch it with our hands.  Faith is how our relationship with God works, and He wants us to be well-schooled in its use. 

Then the day will come when our bodies, “this corruptible, shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:54.)

So let us look forward to those opportunities the Lord places in our path to type a perfect letter, even with steel caps on.  The lessons learned here, which can only be learned in this setting, will reap great rewards.

 

“But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory 

through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 15:57

 

Friday Photos