The 300 That Lapped

Judges 7:2, 7

Hollywood produced a big-budget film that told the story of the 300 Spartans that defended their homeland at the small bottleneck pass called Thermopylae in 480 B.C. History, mingled with legend, has it that these 300 warriors held off the army of Persian invaders for an entire day, eventually losing all but one man who lived to tell the tale. They supposedly killed thousands of the Persians, and though they did not defeat the entire army, they put enough fear into the invaders to reconsider the full-scale invasion.

We can’t be sure how much truth is wrapped up in the legend, but the number of Spartans and the story of their amazing bravery in the face of overwhelming odds could have come straight from the pages of the Bible. The book of Judges tells the story of Gideon, being chosen by God to lead the nation of Israel out from under the hand of the Midianites. When Gideon announces his plan, 32,000 men arrive, ready to take to the battlefield. Gideon then invokes Deuteronomy 20:8, which allows any man who is afraid, to return home, lest his fear rub off on his fellow-soldiers. Much to Gideon’s dismay, 22,000 men take him up on the offer!

God views the remaining 10,000 and still deems them too many, “lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me” (Judges 7:2). This prompts one of the most bizarre selection processes in military history as Gideon leads the 10,000 to the river to drink, keeping only those who lap the water from their hands. The number of those who kept their heads up, aware of their surroundings, drinking water from their cupped hands was only 300, and this constituted God’s deliverance army.

There is a lesson to be learned, not only from the number but from how God came to that number. In the battlefield of the Lord, there is no time to take our eyes off of our Savior. When we are face down at the river, we see only our own reflection. Christianity has become more about how we look and act than about seeing the priceless finished work of our Savior. “Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

In paring the army down to 300, God has provided himself with the choicest of warriors. These have no fear in their hearts and they keep their eyes focused on the prize. We might consider Gideon a failed leader in the church today, taking a congregation of 32,000 and shrinking it down to 300 in a matter of hours. However, God does not use the same system of accounting that we do.

There is not always success in great numbers. While there is certainly nothing wrong with drawing a crowd (Jesus drew consistently large crowds), there is also no holiness nor righteousness in a successfully large number. If the circle around you seems small, do not be dismayed. You may be in the circle of the 300.

While the church world forsakes the precious message of pure grace, keep your eyes leveled on His finished work. Know that the battle is large, but it belongs to the Lord. Perhaps the reason that 300 was better than 32,000 is that these are the only 300 who will let a miracle win the battle instead of themselves. Be the saint that lets Jesus win the battle while you get the victory.

Sweetness Out of the Strong

Judges 14:5-14

Samson is one of my favorite Old Testament characters because if there is ever a living example of the wonders of covenant and grace it is found in this man. Covenant must be kept by God, and grace is His free gift, completely undeserved. Samson is a living, breathing example of both of these things as his life was sealed by the covenant that God had made with his parents (“Don’t cut his hair and I will use him to deliver Israel”), and Samson received all good while earning none of it.

When I heard the story of Samson as a child I always saw him as a hulk of a man, with bulging biceps and muscles on top of muscles, but as I began to understand God’s grace and favor I began to view him quite differently. I don’t believe that Samson was very big at all. In fact, I am quite sure that Samson looked rather puny. If he were a massive man, all of his exploits could be attributed to his own personal strength and size, but we see that his enemies spent much time trying to ascertain how he did what he did. His strength was God given as a token of grace and covenant.

Samson and his parents were journeying to Timnath to take a wife for Samson from among the Philistines, the sworn enemies of Israel. His parents were very disapproving of his choice in taking a Philistine for his wife, but Samson did it to gain advantage over the enemy. On the road to Timnath, while temporarily separated from his parents, Samson was confronted by a lion. He killed the beast with his bare hands and did not tell his parents about the incident.

Some days later Samson journeyed back to Timnath to meet the woman again, this time turning aside to see the carcass of the lion that he had killed. Bees were swarming all about the body of the lion and there was honey in its body. Samson reached in and took some of the honey and ate it and then gave some to his parents, not telling them where it came from. Being Jews, they would not have eaten anything that came from the carcass of a lion. By law, Samson was not supposed to eat from the lion either, but as we have seen, Samson was operating under covenant.

Honey was a sign of all things sweet and good in the Lord. It is the food that God mentioned would flow in the Promised Land when He spoke from the burning bush to Moses (Exodus 3:8). It was also the food that Jonathan ate when he had won a great battle over the Philistines, breaking his father’s order to fast (1 Samuel 14:27); and it was the choice food of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:4).

The lion is a symbol of strength and royalty, but can also be a sign of the aggressor. Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, but we also see Satan as our adversary, “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). It is a lion that attacks the flocks of the shepherd David, and he grabs it by the beard and kills it. In the case of Samson, it is symbolic of another attack against God’s people.

Out of the belly of the aggressor came the sweetness of God’s grace. In the midst of great attack was a wonderful blessing. The story of the lion and Samson is a type of the enemy coming in like a flood to roar and frighten, only to have God bring a mighty miracle out of the midst of it, so that the believer can find nourishment.

Are you facing a lion today? Remember, all things work together for our good, for we are His Covenant children!

Led By a Lad

Judges 16

I include the entire 16th chapter of Judges because it would do us all good to read it a time or two. It encompasses the story of Samson and Delilah, which shows the sad fall of a great man of power. Samson was not a man of high morals, nor did he show a real heart for the things of God. He was raised up by God for a certain purpose of delivering Israel from the oppressive might of the Philistines. His strength did not lie in his ability to walk holy or live right, but in one single obedient act. He was to take a vow of a Nazarite, “from the womb to the day of his death” (Judges 13:7). He could neither drink liquor nor put a razor to his head. If he was faithful in this, God would use him mightily.

For this cause, Samson was probably no bigger or more intimidating than you or I, for had he been, no one would have questioned his strength. His power was a mystery to those around him, with the exception of his parents, and that is not unlike the believer under the New Covenant. We look no different than anyone around us, but the power that resides within us due to the finished work of the cross is so marvelous that words cannot explain it. There is no act of holiness or righteousness that we can perform to increase that power; it simply comes from hearing and knowing of the loveliness of our Jesus.

After Samson became infatuated with Delilah, she revealed her true colors and deceived him into telling her the secret of his strength. Somewhere along the way, Samson had forgotten how loved and favored that he was by the Lord. Had he kept his heart focused on God’s favor and covenant with him, he would not have turned for love and affection into the lap of the world (Judges 16:19). Believers that do not focus on the Father’s love for them usually end up trying to explain what happened to them and why they fell into sin.

When Samson’s seven locks of hair were cut off, he became as any other man, and the Philistines captured him and “put out his eyes” (Judges 16:21). The seven locks are representative of God’s perfect rest, for seven always indicates either rest or completion. Since Samson’s life was not complete, nor was his work, the hair had always indicated that he was at rest in the promise of God. When he lost the hair, he lost the rest, and the only place for us to go when we are not resting in the finished work of Christ is to the millhouse of our own works.

The time came when Samson was brought to a large gathering of Philistines for a sacrifice to their god. They rejoiced when they saw Samson in chains, and they all desired for him to come before them so that they could mock him. Samson spoke to a “lad that held him by the hand” to lead him to the main pillars that held up the house. The lad led him to the pillars and Samson, whose hair had begun to grow back while in the prison house, pushed the building down in one final, victorious act.

A new generation is going to take the church by the hand and lead her to the pillars of this world. The bride has lost her rest and her spiritual vision, but God is raising up voices to bring her back to her glory, where she takes her rightful place as the victor that she is. Will you be the restless, blind church, or the lad that leads?

Sweetness Out of the Strong

Judges 14:5-14

Samson is one of my favorite Old Testament characters because if there is ever a living example of the wonders of covenant and grace it is found in this man. Covenant must be kept by God, and grace is His free gift, completely undeserved. Samson is a living, breathing example of both of these things as his life was sealed by the covenant that God had made with his parents (“Don’t cut his hair and I will use him to deliver Israel”), and Samson received all good while earning none of it.

When I heard the story of Samson as a child I always saw him as a hulk of a man, with bulging biceps and muscles on top of muscles, but as I began to understand God’s grace and favor I began to view him quite differently. I don’t believe that Samson was very big at all. In fact, I am quite sure that Samson looked rather puny. If he were a massive man, all of his exploits could be attributed to his own personal strength and size, but we see that his enemies spent much time trying to ascertain how he did what he did. His strength was God given as a token of grace and covenant.

Samson and his parents were journeying to Timnath to take a wife for Samson from among the Philistines, the sworn enemies of Israel. His parents were very disapproving of his choice in taking a Philistine for his wife, but Samson did it to gain advantage over the enemy. On the road to Timnath, while temporarily separated from his parents, Samson was confronted by a lion. He killed the beast with his bare hands and did not tell his parents about the incident.

Some days later Samson journeyed back to Timnath to meet the woman again, this time turning aside to see the carcass of the lion that he had killed. Bees were swarming all about the body of the lion and there was honey in its body. Samson reached in and took some of the honey and ate it and then gave some to his parents, not telling them where it came from. Being Jews, they would not have eaten anything that came from the carcass of a lion. By law, Samson was not supposed to eat from the lion either, but as we have seen, Samson was operating under covenant.

Honey was a sign of all things sweet and good in the Lord. It is the food that God mentioned would flow in the Promised Land when He spoke from the burning bush to Moses (Exodus 3:8). It was also the food that Jonathan ate when he had won a great battle over the Philistines, breaking his father’s order to fast (1 Samuel 14:27); and it was the choice food of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:4).

The lion is a symbol of strength and royalty, but can also be a sign of the aggressor. Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, but we also see Satan as our adversary, “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). It is a lion that attacks the flocks of the shepherd David, and he grabs it by the beard and kills it. In the case of Samson, it is symbolic of another attack against God’s people.

Out of the belly of the aggressor came the sweetness of God’s grace. In the midst of great attack was a wonderful blessing. The story of the lion and Samson is a type of the enemy coming in like a flood to roar and frighten, only to have God bring a mighty miracle out of the midst of it, so that the believer can find nourishment.

Are you facing a lion today? Remember, all things work together for our good, for we are His Covenant children!

The 300 That Lapped

Judges 7:2, 7

Hollywood produced a big-budget film that told the story of the 300 Spartans that defended their homeland at the small bottleneck pass called Thermopylae in 480 B.C. History, mingled with legend, has it that these 300 warriors held off the army of Persian invaders for an entire day, eventually losing all but one man who lived to tell the tale. They supposedly killed thousands of the Persians, and though they did not defeat the entire army, they put enough fear into the invaders to reconsider the full-scale invasion.

We can’t be sure how much truth is wrapped up in the legend, but the number of Spartans and the story of their amazing bravery in the face of overwhelming odds could have come straight from the pages of the Bible. The book of Judges tells the story of Gideon, being chosen by God to lead the nation of Israel out from under the hand of the Midianites. When Gideon announces his plan, 32,000 men arrive, ready to take to the battlefield. Gideon then invokes Deuteronomy 20:8, which allows any man who is afraid, to return home, lest his fear rub off on his fellow-soldiers. Much to Gideon’s dismay, 22,000 men take him up on the offer!

God views the remaining 10,000 and still deems them too many, “lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me” (Judges 7:2). This prompts one of the most bizarre selection processes in military history as Gideon leads the 10,000 to the river to drink, keeping only those who lap the water from their hands. The number of those who kept their heads up, aware of their surroundings, drinking water from their cupped hands was only 300, and this constituted God’s deliverance army.

There is a lesson to be learned, not only from the number but from how God came to that number. In the battlefield of the Lord, there is no time to take our eyes off of our Savior. When we are face down at the river, we see only our own reflection. Christianity has become more about how we look and act than about seeing the priceless finished work of our Savior. “Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

In paring the army down to 300, God has provided himself with the choicest of warriors. These have no fear in their hearts and they keep their eyes focused on the prize. We might consider Gideon a failed leader in the church today, taking a congregation of 32,000 and shrinking it down to 300 in a matter of hours. However, God does not use the same system of accounting that we do.

There is not always success in great numbers. While there is certainly nothing wrong with drawing a crowd (Jesus drew consistently large crowds), there is also no holiness nor righteousness in a successfully large number. If the circle around you seems small, do not be dismayed. You may be in the circle of the 300.

While the church world forsakes the precious message of pure grace, keep your eyes leveled on His finished work. Know that the battle is large, but it belongs to the Lord. Perhaps the reason that 300 was better than 32,000 is that these are the only 300 who will let a miracle win the battle instead of themselves. Be the saint that lets Jesus win the battle while you get the victory.

Waiting For the Dead

Judges 5:24-28

Sisera was the captain of the army of Canaan, an army so strong that it contained 900 chariots of iron. However, his strength came to naught when the prophetess Deborah told General Barak to take the armies of the Lord into battle against the heathen general. He fled on foot into the tent of a supposed friend, who killed him by driving a spike through his skull (Judges 4:17-21).

The song of Deborah and Barak encompasses the fifth chapter of Judges, and Deborah sings of Sisera’s mother looking out a window in her home, waiting for him to return. She is waiting for someone who is not coming back, because unknown to her, Sisera is dead. Her want for “knowledge of the truth” has deceived her.

Paul told young Timothy that there would be many in these final hours that were, “ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). In many cases, people are waiting for things to come to pass or hoping for answers, but they have little knowledge of the truth. These things are like waiting for the dead; wait all you want, but they will never happen.

If you are waiting for peace without turning to the prince of peace, Jesus Christ, then you are waiting for the dead. No peace comes without the peace that Jesus gave to His disciples (John 14:27). Accept by faith that Jesus has made peace with the Father concerning your sins and trespasses (Romans 5:1) and then do as Jesus instructed the woman healed of the issue of blood, “Go in (into) peace” (Luke 8:48).

If you are waiting for salvation to come from your labor, then you are waiting for the dead (Galatians 2:21). Jesus said that salvation comes from believing on the Son, and that if your faith is not on the Son (Jesus), then you have God’s wrath abiding on you (John 3:36).

If you are waiting on promotion to leadership without first learning to follow, then you are waiting for the dead. Jesus spoke to His disciples, who twice could not resolve the issue of who would be the greatest among them (Luke 9:46 & Luke 22:24-27), telling them that if they wished to be great they must first learn to serve. Remember that the less is always blessed of the better (Hebrews 7:7), so be ready to be the blessing if you wish to be the truly blessed.

Finally, if you are waiting for Jesus to return, then you are NOT waiting for the dead; you are waiting for the living. “And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).

Wait with all patience on Christ to do His great work in you today. Go in His blessings and His kindness, with a full assurance that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Led by a Lad

Judges 16

I include the entire 16th chapter of Judges because it would do us all good to read it a time or two. It encompasses the story of Samson and Delilah, which shows the sad fall of a great man of power. Samson was not a man of high morals, nor did he show a real heart for the things of God. He was raised up by God for a certain purpose of delivering Israel from the oppressive might of the Philistines. His strength did not lie in his ability to walk holy or live right, but in one single obedient act. He was to take a vow of a Nazarite, “from the womb to the day of his death” (Judges 13:7). He could neither drink liquor nor put a razor to his head. If he was faithful in this, God would use him mightily.

For this cause, Samson was probably no bigger or more intimidating than you or I, for had he been, no one would have questioned his strength. His power was a mystery to those around him, with the exception of his parents, and that is not unlike the believer under the New Covenant. We look no different than anyone around us, but the power that resides within us due to the finished work of the cross is so marvelous that words cannot explain it. There is no act of holiness or righteousness that we can perform to increase that power; it simply comes from hearing and knowing of the loveliness of our Jesus.

After Samson became infatuated with Delilah, she revealed her true colors and deceived him into telling her the secret of his strength. Somewhere along the way, Samson had forgotten how loved and favored that he was by the Lord. Had he kept his heart focused on God’s favor and covenant with him, he would not have turned for love and affection into the lap of the world (Judges 16:19). Believers that do not focus on the Father’s love for them usually end up trying to explain what happened to them and why their fell into sin.

When Samson’s seven locks of hair were cut off, he became as any other man, and the Philistines captured him and “put out his eyes” (Judges 16:21). The seven locks are representative of God’s perfect rest, for seven always indicates either rest or completion. Since Samson’s life was not complete, nor was his work, the hair had always indicated that he was at rest in the promise of God. When he lost the hair, he lost the rest, and the only place for us to go when we are not resting in the finished work of Christ is to the millhouse of our own works.

The time came when Samson was brought to a large gathering of Philistines for a sacrifice to their god. They rejoiced when the saw Samson in chains, and they all desired for him to come before them so that they could mock him. Samson spoke to a “lad that held him by the hand” to lead him to the main pillars that held up the house. The lad led him to the pillars and Samson, whose hair had begun to grow back while in the prison house, pushed the building down in one final, victorious act.

A new generation is going to take the church by the hand and lead her to the pillars of this world. The bride has lost her rest and her spiritual vision, but God is raising up voices to bring her back to her glory, where she takes her rightful place as the victor that she is. Will you be the restless, blind church, or the lad that leads?

Sweetness Out of the Strong

Judges 14:5-14

Samson is one of my favorite Old Testament characters because if there is ever a living example of the wonders of covenant and grace it is found in this man. Covenant must be kept by God, and grace is His free gift, completely undeserved. Samson is a living, breathing example of both of these things as his life was sealed by the covenant that God had made with his parents (“Don’t cut his hair and I will use him to deliver Israel”), and Samson received all good while earning none of it.

When I heard the story of Samson as a child I always saw him as a hulk of a man, with bulging biceps and muscles on top of muscles, but as I began to understand God’s grace and favor I began to view him quite differently. I don’t believe that Samson was very big at all. In fact, I am quite sure that Samson looked rather puny. If he were a massive man, all of his exploits could be attributed to his own personal strength and size, but we see that his enemies spent much time trying to ascertain how he did what he did. His strength was God given as a token of grace and covenant.

Samson and his parents were journeying to Timnath to take a wife for Samson from among the Philistines, the sworn enemies of Israel. His parents were very disapproving of his choice in taking a Philistine for his wife, but Samson did it to gain advantage over the enemy. On the road to Timnath, while temporarily separated from his parents, Samson was confronted by a lion. He killed the beast with his bare hands and did not tell his parents about the incident.

Some days later Samson journeyed back to Timnath to meet the woman again, this time turning aside to see the carcass of the lion that he had killed. Bees were swarming all about the body of the lion and there was honey in its body. Samson reached in and took some of the honey and ate it and then gave some to his parents, not telling them where it came from. Being Jews, they would not have eaten anything that came from the carcass of a lion. By law, Samson was not supposed to eat from the lion either, but as we have seen, Samson was operating under covenant.

Honey was a sign of all things sweet and good in the Lord. It is the food that God mentioned would flow in the Promised Land when He spoke from the burning bush to Moses (Exodus 3:8). It was also the food that Jonathan ate when he had won a great battle over the Philistines, breaking his father’s order to fast (1 Samuel 14:27); and it was the choice food of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:4).

The lion is a symbol of strength and royalty, but can also be a sign of the aggressor. Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, but we also see Satan as our adversary, “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). It is a lion that attacks the flocks of the shepherd David, and he grabs it by the beard and kills it. In the case of Samson, it is symbolic of another attack against God’s people.

Out of the belly of the aggressor came the sweetness of God’s grace. In the midst of great attack was a wonderful blessing. The story of the lion and Samson is a type of the enemy coming in like a flood to roar and frighten, only to have God bring a mighty miracle out of the midst of it, so that the believer can find nourishment.

Are you facing a lion today? Remember, all things work together for our good, for we are His Covenant children!

The 300 That Lapped

Judges 7:2, 7

Hollywood recently produced a big-budget film that told the story of the 300 Spartans that defended their homeland at the small bottleneck pass called Thermopylae in 480 B.C. History, mingled with legend, has it that these 300 warriors held off the army of Persian invaders for an entire day, eventually losing all but one man who lived to tell the tale. They supposedly killed thousands of the Persians, and though they did not defeat the entire army, they put enough fear into the invaders to reconsider the full-scale invasion.

We can’t be sure how much truth is wrapped up in the legend, but the number of Spartans and the story of their amazing bravery in the face of overwhelming odds could have come straight from the pages of the Bible. The book of Judges tells the story of Gideon, being chosen by God to lead the nation of Israel out from under the hand of the Midianites. When Gideon announces his plan, 32,000 men arrive, ready to take to the battlefield. Gideon then invokes Deuteronomy 20:8, which allows any man who is afraid, to return home, lest his fear rub off on his fellow-soldiers. Much to Gideon’s dismay, 22,000 men take him up on the offer!

God views the remaining 10,000 and still deems them too many, “lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me” (Judges 7:2). This prompts one of the most bizarre selection processes in military history as Gideon leads the 10,000 to the river to drink, keeping only those who lap the water from their hands. The number of those who kept their heads up, aware of their surroundings, drinking water from their cupped hands was only 300, and this constituted God’s deliverance army.

There is a lesson to be learned, not only from the number but from how God came to that number. In the battlefield of the Lord, there is no time to take our eyes off of our Savior. When we are face down at the river, we see only our own reflection. Christianity has become more about how we look and act than about seeing the priceless finished work of our Savior. “Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

In paring the army down to 300, God has provided himself with the choicest of warriors. These have no fear in their hearts and they keep their eyes focused on the prize. We might consider Gideon a failed leader in the church today, taking a congregation of 32,000 and shrinking it down to 300 in a matter of hours. However, God does not use the same system of accounting that we do.

There is not always success in great numbers. While there is certainly nothing wrong with drawing a crowd (Jesus drew consistently large crowds), there is also no holiness nor righteousness in a successfully large number. If the circle around you seems small, do not be dismayed. You may be in the circle of the 300.

While the church world forsakes the precious message of pure grace, keep your eyes leveled on His finished work. Know that the battle is large, but it belongs to the Lord. Perhaps the reason that 300 was better than 32,000 is that these are the only 300 who will let a miracle win the battle instead of themselves. Be the saint that lets Jesus win the battle while you get the victory.

Waiting For the Dead

Judges 5:24-28

Sisera was the captain of the army of Canaan, an army so strong that he had amassed 900 chariots of iron. However, his strength came to naught when the prophetess Deborah told General Barak to take the armies of the Lord into battle against the heathen general. He fled on foot into the tent of a supposed friend, who killed him by driving a spike through his skull (Judges 4:17-21).

The song of Deborah and Barak encompasses the fifth chapter of Judges, and Deborah sings of Sisera’s mother looking out a window in her home, waiting for him to return. She is waiting for someone who is not coming back, because unknown to her, Sisera is dead. Her want for “knowledge of the truth” has deceived her.

Paul told young Timothy that there would be many in these final hours that were, “ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). In many cases, people are waiting for things to come to pass or hoping for answers, but they have little knowledge of the truth. These things are like waiting for the dead; wait all you want, but they will never happen.

If you are waiting for peace without turning to the prince of peace, Jesus Christ, then you are waiting for the dead. No peace comes without the peace that Jesus gave to His disciples (John 14:27). Accept by faith that Jesus has made peace with the Father concerning your sins and trespasses (Romans 5:1).

If you are waiting for salvation to come from your labor, then you are waiting for the dead (Galatians 2:21). Jesus said that salvation comes from believing on the Son, and that if your faith is not on the Son (Jesus), then you have God’s wrath abiding on you (John 3:36).

If you are waiting on promotion to leadership without first learning to follow, then you are waiting for the dead. Jesus spoke to His disciples, who twice could not resolve the issue of who would be the greatest among them (Luke 9:46 & Luke 22:24-27), telling them that if they wished to be great they must first learn to serve. Remember that the less is always blessed of the better (Hebrews 7:7), so be ready to be the blessing if you wish to be the truly blessed.

Finally, if you are waiting for Jesus to return, then you are NOT waiting for the dead; you are waiting for the living. “And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).

Wait with all patience on Christ to do His great work in you today. Go in His blessings and His kindness, with a full assurance that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.