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CONSTANT HELP
In this article we will remind ourselves of the help and care that God gives to His people. Let me begin with a short poem.
"Yesterday God helped me, Today He'll do the same. How long will this continue? Forever - praise His name!"
Yes, the same God who helped us yesterday and who is helping us today will go on helping us throughout all our tomorrows and into eternity. David wrote in Psalm 54:4 (first part) "Behold, God is my helper!"
One problem that we face as human beings is the malfunctioning of the memory. Too often we remember what we are supposed to forget, and we forget what we should remember! Not so with God. Notice Hebrews 8:12. "Your sins and your iniquities will I remember no more."
Yet many Christians go through life shackled with the memory of sins they have already repented of which God has forgiven and forgotten. Paul wrote, "Forgetting those things which are behind," (Phil 3:13). Paul could have easily written "Forgetting those sins which are behind."
We need to ask God to give us a poor memory when it comes to the sins of the past that God has already forgiven, buried and forgotten, but to give us a good memory when it comes to the help He has given us in the past years of our life. For some reason, we tend to forget the MERCIES and BLESSINGS of the past; and for that reason we get discouraged in the present and become fearful about the future. God has taken care of his people up to this hour, and He is never going to forsake them.
One might ask the question. "Is it wrong to remember?" The answer is NO. But what is it that God wants his people to remember?
The central theme of the book of Deuteronomy is God's help and care for His people. Moses is preparing the nation of Israel to go into the Promised Land. How does he do it? Moses reminded the people that for forty years God had taken care of them.
Let's notice what God told the Israelites through Moses they should remember and the reasons why. Deuteronomy 8:2, "thou shall remember all the way in which the Lord led you ". You were hungry, and God gave you food. You were thirsty, and God gave you water. Your Enemy attacked you, and God gave you victory. You sinned, and God gave you forgiveness. There is no situation too hard for God.
Deuteronomy 8:2-3, " And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything (ever word) that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothing did not wear out upon you, and your foot did not swell, these forty years.
The physical things did wear out eventually, but spiritual things will never wear out.
The prophet Samuel acknowledged that God took care of him and his people. To signify this Samuel erected a memorial to God, and called the memorial, "Ebenezer - thus far the lord has helped us" (1 Sam 7:12).
And like Abraham, we can look to the future and know that God will continue to help us. Abraham called the name of the memorial he made, "Jehovah-Jireh - The Lord Will See To It. (Gen 22:14).
God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God is helping his people today in a far greater way than He did for the Israelites. God's care for His own is not an occasional thing; it is constant. He is constantly walking with us and watching over us - (Hebrews 13:8). "I will never leave thee or forsake thee."
When we go through the fire He is there, as He was with the three Hebrew children in Babylon. When we go through the water, He is there, as He was with the disciples in the storm on Galilee. Yes, even when we go through the valley of the shadow of death, He will be with us!
Satan wants us to think that God doesn't care, or that God has forsaken us. When the going gets tough, he says, " If God really cares, this wouldn't have to happen." It is human beings who forsake God and stop caring, not God.
How many times in pain or sorrow has Satan cast doubts in our minds on the love and faithfulness of God. Somehow we have the idea that when life is easy, God is caring for us; but when life is hard, God has forsaken us and stop caring.
It has been said, "Never doubt in the darkness what God has told you in the light."
The Bible makes it clear that God cares for His people. But why does God care for us? Is it because we deserve it? Of course not! If God gave us what we deserved we would all perish.
God cares for us, because He loves us.
Those times when we thought God had failed or stop caring turned out to be times when He was working in a wonderful way on our behalf. Jacob thought that Joseph was dead, when all the time Joseph was preparing him a home in Egypt" All these things are against me!" mourned Jacob, when really every thing was working Together for his good. God was taking care of him. God was helping him.
"Yesterday God helped me, Today He'll do the same. How long will this continue? Forever - praise His name!"
Dennis Payne © 2002
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