Author: Brian Burdett

“And Samuel said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.’” – 1 Samuel 12:20

Failure is going to happen from time-to-time in our battle for holiness. Once we put our faith in Jesus Christ, He calls and empowers us to change and become increasingly like Him. That’s a lifelong journey with many ups and downs. It doesn’t generally look like instant victory over every sin that plagues or tempts us. Indeed, along that journey to holiness we’ll likely discover new sins that tempt us. There will be times in which we experience great spiritual success. Then there will be times we once again sin and fall short of the glory of God.

The battle for sanctification – consistently living up to the holiness which God already credits to us in Christ – lasts a lifetime. We should experience upward progress throughout our lives, but there will be plenty of setbacks along the way. After those setbacks the enemy will try to discourage us, to convince us that we’re unworthy, that we’ll never get past our besetting sin, that we’re failures, that God can’t possibly still love us after yet another betrayal of His love.

Those are lies! While we must never be satisfied with our spiritual weaknesses and failures, we must be satisfied in God’s grace and mercy. This satisfaction enables us to keep battling, confident in God’s redeeming love. We must ask forgiveness for our sins and rest in God’s abundant forgiveness. The apostle John expresses our situation perfectly in 1 John 2:1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” These words come shortly after John wrote, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” There is ALWAYS forgiveness available when we ask, even we ask through tears of frustration and failure for the millionth time.

So when you sin, don’t give up – either on pursuing God or on pursuing holiness. Confess your failure to God and receive His forgiveness afresh. Let that failure deepen your love and whole-hearted worship of the Lord.

“You visit the earth and water it;
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide their grain,
for so you have prepared it.”
– Psalm 65:9

Writing in a dry land that was completely dependent on rainfall to survive, David praises God as the source of the life-giving, fruit-bearing, nourishing, renewing, blessing water enjoyed by all, believers and unbeliever alike. Indeed, God is the source of all blessings, the creator of all life, and the giver of hope and for that we give thanks. God enriches the earth He created, providing the precious water needed to bring forth abundant life.

Let us give thanks for each and every blessing we enjoy – large and small – each day, for God is the source of all these blessings and good gifts (James 1:17). We celebrate God’s common blessing on all life – those who love Him and those who don’t yet know Him. He is merciful and gracious in ways we cannot begin to truly understand!

God’s gift of water also points to God’s greatest gift. We praise and celebrate God’s gift of Living Water to those who believe in Jesus the Christ: eternal life, forgiveness of sins, union with Christ, and the presence of His Holy Spirit in our daily life. Thank you Lord for your abundant kindness, grace, mercy, and love!

“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, ‘Till now the Lord has helped us.’” – 1 Samuel 7:12

Ebenezer means “Stone of Help”. Why would Samuel set up and name a stone right after God’s miraculous intervention to not only protect Israel from surprise attack, but turn that attack into a crushing defeat for the Philistines? Because we have short memories!

We can quickly move from a mountaintop high rejoicing God’s visible work in our lives to a valley low in which we feel like we’re all alone day after day. We spend most of our lives in the valley and our thoughts can quickly move from “God is great” to “woe is me.” Thus we see leaders throughout the Old Testament setting up monuments to remind the people of God’s faithfulness, power, presence, and promises.

What do we have to help us in the valley? What helps us remember God’s steadfast faithfulness and love during difficult times like the present? The cross should certainly be an Ebenezer for all who follow Jesus. There is no greater symbol of God’s faithfulness, love, mercy, kindness, righteousness, justice, and grace than the cross on which Jesus died for our sins.

But do you also have a personal Ebenezer? What memories, pictures, stories, or monuments help you remember God’s faithfulness in difficult times? It’s good to rehearse and remember God’s faithfulness in our lives, because dark seasons eventually come that can lead to doubt. It’s then that we need an Ebenezer. What in your past could serve as your personal reminder of God’s tender care for you?

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” – John 11:5-6

There will be times when we pray that we’ll struggle to understand why God doesn’t answer immediately, doesn’t answer in the way we desire, or doesn’t seem to answer at all. Here we can learn from the story of Lazarus and his sisters. Hearing that His beloved friend Lazarus was sick, Jesus waited to go to him. He waited until Lazarus died and Mary and Martha mourned for their brother.

Jesus waited, because He had something better and more important planned for everyone involved and the entire world. He waited and permitted Lazarus to die so that He could bring Him back to life and prove to the world the truth of John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”. Because Jesus waited, we who believe in Him have confidence that after we die we will indeed live forever!

The delay was brutally painful for this family to bear, just as the tragedy and suffering we see around us in this fallen world is often painful to bear. And so we wonder why Christ delays and God seems not to hear our pleas. In truth, Christ’s Spirit is here with us at all times and God hears every request. But they know that the best is yet to come and they answer our prayers in light of an eternal perspective and in the way that is best for us and the world. That’s can be hard to understand but we must trust that God knows far better than we what is truly best.

“Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” – John 9:32-33

There are some in the modern era who struggle with the idea of miracles. However, if there’s even the slightest possibility of an all-powerful God, then miracles are really no issue. If such a God wishes to act in ways that go against the usual patterns He has established for the world, He can. The question then becomes, what do you do when presented with an unprecedented miracle?

John’s gospel is clear about what you should do: believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Son of God. The miracles he describes reveal Jesus’s all-encompassing power over nature, sickness, disability, and death. They demonstrate that Jesus possesses the full power of God. Jesus performed miracles to demonstrate the truth of His words and claims, that He is the way, the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father except Him.

Of course, there will always be those who refuse to believe, either in the miracles or especially in the implications of those miracles. John 9 is the story of some who stubbornly refuse to accept the evidence of their fully-functioning eyes. They are spiritually blind, though they see quite well physically. We pray that God grants everyone eyes to see Jesus for Who He is, lifting the veil of spiritual blindness.