THE BEAUTY OF DELIVERANCE

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Isaiah 51:11

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

I remember a couple many years ago who were beyond despondent because they had been trying and trying to have children but had not been successful. The matter had weighed down their hearts and minds so much that they had lost their joy and zest for life. Questions regarding why it was all happening went unanswered. They even felt that God may have been punishing them by not allowing conception to happen.

It was hard to minister to them because I cannot speak for what the Lord is doing nor the timing under which He works. All I could do is encourage them to not lose faith and hope but rather to trust that God knew what He was doing. I asked them to pray and give their stresses, worries, and anxieties to the Lord so that they might experience peace as well as displace the pressure they had placed on themselves.

They listened and vowed to give it a try, to simply let go and let God have their situation. Within the year, she became pregnant and would go on to not only deliver one beautiful child but a second one thereafter. The Lord had rescued them from their circumstances at His appointed time and I have to believe a lot of that had to do with the couple’s willingness to submit their situation to Him and then wait for Him to act with patience and a confidence that He was working things out for their good, even if it hadn’t been in the timeframe they wanted. The sorrow and despair the couple was feeling had given way to joy and gladness. God had granted them children, His children, to nurture and raise.

This is just one example of the beauty we find in God’s deliverance. There are plenty of others.

Take the case of two other people I have ministered to who had two very different health issues. One had been diagnosed with cancer; the other had kidney failure and was in need of a transplant. Both had long periods of affliction to persevere through. The cancer patient endured surgery and four rounds of chemotherapy. The woman in need of a kidney went through round after round of dialysis. It was tough but one thing I admired about them both was their resolve during extended times of illness and late last year, their faith was rewarded. The cancer patient was given the news he had longed to hear. He was in remission and cancer-free. And a transplant donor was identified for the woman and she underwent the surgery that allowed her to now have to continue dialysis. Both were delivered from illness into the joy and gladness that comes through the beauty of deliverance.

Well, the people of Israel, the central focus of our scripture verse from Isaiah, Chapter 51, knew a little something about needing and receiving deliverance. You may recall how God’s people were under the oppression of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, essentially used as slave labor. They cried out to God for help in the midst of their hardship and He answered their cries for help by raising up a leader in Moses who would lead the Israelites out of captivity to a land God was promising them, a land where they could live free from subjugation. Along the way, God was with them and as we saw in yesterday’s devotion, used His almighty power to split the sea and allow His people to escape on dry land. As a result, the Israelites sorrow and sighing gave way to the gladness and joy from the beauty of God’s deliverance.

Fast forward to the time of Isaiah and the Israelites were again in oppressive captivity, this time at the hands of the Babylonians. Their exile was instituted by God, a seventy-year penalty for the disobedient and disrespectful idolatry and worship of false gods the Israelites had practiced. It was a long time to have to persevere from and many who were taken from their homes in Judah and Jerusalem would never return again. For those who lived through the captivity period, they were able to revel and rejoice in the fulfillment of God’s promise, the promise that had assured the people of Israel that the exile would not last forever and that a day would come when they would be able to experience the beauty of deliverance, just as their ancestors had. Returning to their homeland of Zion, God’s people would enter with singing as an everlasting joy crowned their heads. Gladness and joy would once again be theirs and the sorrow and sighing of the exile would slip away to become just a distant memory.

Friends, we serve a God who consistently shows His people the beauty of deliverance, whether we are looking at the accounts of how He liberated His people from captivity in Old Testament times to the ways He is delivering His people today, people like the once childless couple who were blessed with two children, the cancer-stricken man who ended up in remission, or the transplant patient who was given a new organ and with it, a new lease on life.

The good news is that the best is yet to come. Because for those who place their belief in Jesus Christ as Savior, the most beautiful form of deliverance will come in the way of eternal life triumphing over death as we are set free from affliction and hardship and pain and suffering and hurt and sin, entering into a new existence with God the Father and Jesus His Son where there is only gladness and joy and light and love.

I don’t know about you but I look forward to that day and the beautiful experience it will be.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com