For some of you who are reading this post today, it has been the most difficult and trying year of your life! If you were honest about your feelings you would admit that 2019 can’t end and pass soon enough! It may be death you are facing, disease, unremitting pain, a crisis, significant loss or grief you are experiencing. You have confessed your faith in God’s providence, steadfast love, and purposes for you believe to be good (Jeremiah 29:11), but right now the realities of your life seem awfully dark, difficult and foreboding.
This post is for you! (And I hope its message becomes “God’s word” through the Holy Spirit to you as you approach 2020 and the future lying ahead!)
First of all, I want to give you the greeting – the blessing – I have shared with my Facebook friends on their birthday this past year… It is how Jude, in the New Testament, opened his little letter to troubled Christians…
“To all of those who are called, wrapped in the love of God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ… May mercy, peace, and love be lavished upon you! (from Jude 1-2 the NET Bible)
Then I want to share with you a brief quote from a letter written by Gorge Muller, the great English Christian, to his friend, Hudson Taylor, the founder of China Inland Mission, in his hour of deepest trial and despair (it is recorded in the wonderful Christian classic I’ve been reading, HUDSON TAYLOR’S SPIRITUAL SECRET) May George Muller’s words to Hudson Taylor become God’s message to you! …
“On Him then reckon [calculate] – to Him look – on Him depend! And be assured that if you walk with Him, look to Him, and expect help from Him, He will never fail you! I’ve known the Lord for forty-four years, and say for your encouragement that He has never failed me! In the greatest difficulties, in the heaviest trials, in the deepest poverty and necessities, He has never failed me! I have been enabled by His grace to trust in Him and He has always appeared for my help! I delight in speaking well of His Name!”
I know a bit about what some of you are facing (you’ve shared those things with me!) On the other hand I am not aware of the challenges others of you are going through. Regardless, I lifted your needs and situation to the Lord and have allowed Him to direct my prayers on your behalf! May you, by His wonderful grace, have a better (and God-blessed) new year!
Coffee With The Lord 