Lamentations 3:22-24

"Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 'The LORD is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore I hope in Him!'"

“So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever”

2 Corinthians 4:18

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are going through a crisis, and those who will go through a crisis. These days, it seems you’ll encounter more of the former.

Jesus, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, talked about two men who built houses. One built his on a solid foundation of rock, while the other built his on an unstable foundation of sand.

Then Jesus said this about both houses: “And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house” (Matthew 7:25, 27 nkjv). It is not a matter of if the rain descends; it’s a matter of when.

I wish I could say that we’ll reach a point in our lives when all our problems go away. In reality, some problems simply replace other ones. If we’re not pulling into or out of a storm, we’ll face one eventually.

Worse yet, storms can seemingly come out of nowhere. It might be a hardship. It might be anxiety. It might be a tragedy. But it’s something that came up pretty quickly, and it’s had a major impact on you.

Sometimes those trials and hardships in our lives seem random, but they never are. Matthew 5:45 tells us, “For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike” (nlt).

The apostle Paul wrote, “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! (2 Corinthians 4:17–18 nlt).

Storms have a beginning, middle, and end. And something will come out of them: an immeasurably great glory.

We cannot control circumstances. Nor can we control what people say to us or about us. We cannot control everything that comes our way, but we can control our reaction to it.

Greg Laurie

COVID-19 Crisis Prayer - Pastor Mike

Today's Prayer
Psalm 67

Today’s Subject: Listen and Incline Your Ear 

The prophet Isaiah extended an invitation of abundant life to the people who had all but rejected the Lord their God and would go into captivity for that rejection(Isaiah 55).  And even though the judgment had been passed against the people for their idolatry, the Lord God was promising them life in Him after their captivity.  We start yet another week of quarantine and uncertainty under the direction of our local government.  Let us listen to what God is telling us in our crisis.  Let us incline our ear.  Let us hear and our soul shall live. 

Pray that we would come to the waters of life in Jesus and quench our thirst.  That we would spend even what we don’t have in coming to the Lord in our crisis to all Him to satisfy.  Pray we would not spend our time and resources on those things which cannot satisfy.  Pray we would listen carefully to the Lord.  Pray we would incline our ear and come to Him. Pray that in our coming to Him we would hear and our souls shall live. 

Pray that we would seek the Lord while He may be found.  That we would call upon Him while He is near.  Surely He is near!  Pray that we would return to the Lord if we have strayed and He will have mercy upon us.  Pray that we would deny our unrighteous thoughts in this land.   

Praise the Lord that His thoughts are not our thoughts.  That His way us are not our ways.   Thank the Lord that His ways are as the heavens are higher than the earth compared to our ways.  Give thanksgiving that the word that goes forth from the mouth of the Lord will not return to Him void.  But it will accomplish what He pleases and it shall prosper in the thing for which He sent it out.   

Thank the Lord for His promise that we shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before us.  And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands 

“God be merciful to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us, that Your Way may be known on earth, Your Salvation among the nations.  Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You” Psalm 67: 1-3