Topic: Encountering God’s Love in Adversity [Wednesday January 6, 2016]
Text: Lamentations 3:55-58
Key Verse: “Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not” – (Lamentations 3:57).
When Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 5 that the tree of hope is watered by tribulation, patience and experience, he was being taught by God to restate the truth He revealed to Prophet Jeremiah some 660 years earlier.
Like Paul whose experience of hardship in the course of faithfully serving the Lord drove him further to love and trust God, Jeremiah’s similar persecution led him to hope in God Who did not disappoint him. As he wrote the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah recalled his celebrated encounter with the faithfulness of God when he was thrown into the pit by the princes of Judah. Left alone to die in the dungeon, the prophet cried unto the Almighty for deliverance from the hands of his enemies. God rescued him in his hour of need. Following his experience, Jeremiah was emboldened to plead for Jerusalem when the Babylonian army invaded Judah and wasted the land.
A Christian’s challenges in his day-to-day activities and how the Lord helps him overcome them must form the basis of his hope in Him. The believer in the Lord is allowed to pass through some trials and temptations in order to strengthen and enable him bear his cross. When testimonies of such deliverances are shared among the brethren, they serve to edify the saints as well as win souls for the Lord. The moments of persecution and affliction are no moments to flinch from God. They are times to be grateful to Him for the salvation He has wrought for us and for preparing heaven for the redeemed. It is a moment to praise God in anticipation of deliverance; they are moments to remember what He did for us in the past.
We must believe in the God “Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:10).
Thought for the day: God’s compassions fail not; they are new every morning.
Bible Reading in one Year: Genesis 17-20
DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.
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