Daily Devotionals
Daily Devotional: Psalms 103:1-6
Ps 103:1-6
Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits — who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
1 Peter 1:3a, 6-7
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
One of the greatest blessings we have while living in this life is knowing that God is with us, no matter what we face. Not only is he always near to us, but he guards us and will never allow us to be tempted with more than we can overcome. Along with each temptation, he makes sure we have an emergency exit so we can make it through that trial. Each heartache, every ounce of suffering, all of the hardships, sickness, disease, that comes to us, he uses for our own good.
We may not see it. We often do not understand it. We are left asking why these things are happening to us. We feel like we have been deserted. But when we put our trust in the Lord and rest on his grace, we find ourselves making it, one day at a time, until one day we awake to find out that we are closer to the Lord because of what we have endured. Praise the Lord for his wisdom and his grace.
Trials build faith. Faith is how we endure. Each step we take toward Jesus, he takes two toward us. Every time we hold out our hand, reaching for his help, he holds us securely and guides us through. There is no pain that we ever feel that he has not felt while living as one of us. There is no temptation that we face that he has not already faced and overcome. He understands. He wants to help us. He wants to bless us. It is up to us to trust him in the darkness and storms of life.
O Lord God, praise be to your holy name and to the name of Jesus my Lord! You have blessed me so many times with your grace and carried me through so many storms in my life. Even though I do not understand why so many things that have come into my life did so, I do know that you have always been with me. As I reach out and take your hand, I feel your presence in my heart. Thank you for the peace this gives to me. Help me use each experience in my past to help others in the struggles they are facing today. I humbly pray in the name of Jesus.
Robert
