In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.
Proverbs 16:9 (Life Application Study Bible)
Jesus Tells Us; I have a plan for your life, a perfect plan. But I will show you only a piece of it at a time. If I showed you the whole plan, it might overwhelm you, or you might decide to run off ahead of Me. It would be like learning that you’re going to grow up to be a teacher, so today you decide to take over the class. That wouldn’t work at all. Sometimes I will give you a glimpse of your wonderful future, to encourage you to keep going. But I want you to focus on staying close to Me today. We will travel toward your future together, step by step. I will decide how fast or how slow we go, according to your needs. After all, you can’t be a brain surgeon before you pass basic biology. So don’t crane your neck, trying to see what’s around the next corner.
Jesus Concludes; Trust me enough to relax and enjoy your walk with me today.
Romans 8:6; Isaiah 12:2 Study Notes
Footnotes Proverbs 16:1; This verse can be understood to mean that God controls the final outcomes of the plans we make. So why should we even make plans? In doing God’s will, we must coordinate our efforts with God’s control. In much of what we do, God gives us free will to plan and work out the details. He wants us to use our minds, to seek the advice of others, and to plan. Nevertheless, he delivers the final results. Good planning seeks God’s desires and leads to our acting his way. Live for him, asking him for guidance while you plan and then trusting him when you act on your plan.
Passage Ephesians 1:4; For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Footnotes Ephesians 1:4; Paul emphasizes that God chose us to make the point that salvation depends totally on God. We are saved not because we deserve it, but because God graciously and freely gives us salvation. Our wisdom or good behavior does not influence God’s decision to save us; in his mercy, he has saved us according to his plan. Thus, we cannot take credit for our salvation or take pride in making the right decision. The mystery of salvation originated in the timeless mind of God, long before we existed. It baffles us why God would accept us. But Christ, by his sacrifice, makes us holy and blameless in his sight. If we are in Christ, God looks at us as if we have never sinned. All we can do is express our thanks for his wonderful love.
Passage Jeremiah 29:11; For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Footnotes Jeremiah 29:11; Everyone is encouraged by leaders who stir us to move ahead, who believe we can do the tasks they have given us, and who will be with us all the way. God was that kind of leader for these captives and is also that kind of leader for us. He knows the future, and his plans fur us are good and full of hope. As long as God, who knows the future, directs our agendas and goes with us as we fulfill his mission, we can have boundless hope. This does not mean that we will be spared pain, suffering, or hardship. That is a guaranteed part of life in this sinful world. But it does mean that God will see us through to a glorious conclusion.
Passage Ephesians 1:13-14; 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing your inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession, to the praise of his glory.
Footnotes Ephesians 1:13-14; God gives the Holy Spirit to us as a seal confirming that we belong to him and his deposit guaranteeing that he will do what he has promised. The presence of the Holy Spirit is like a down payment, a deposit, a validating signature on God’s contract. The Holy Spirit working in us demonstrates the genuineness of our faith, proves that we are God’s children, and secures eternal life for us. His power transforms us now, and what we experience today gives us a first taste of the total change we will experience in eternity.
Jesus Tells Us is from the Jesus Calling 365 devotions for kids.
THE WORLD…we see history
Samuel Webster
“Enough, O princes! Remove violence and plundering,
execute justice and righteousness, and stop dispossessing My people,”
says the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 45:9
George Washington and his Army’s escape from long Island.
Samuel Webster graduated from Harvard in 1737, and enjoyed a ministry of nearly fifty-five years, dying on July 18th, 1796, at age seventy-eight. It was said of him, “In his preaching he was remarkably clear and plain. There was an earnestness in his manner which convinced his hearers that he himself felt what he delivered. He possessed a happy talent in visiting his people, and could adapt himself to their circumstances, and, in a pleasing manner, give them instruction.” Webster was among the Revolutionary War Preachers whose pulpit ministry did much to strengthen the hearts of Americans before, and during the drive for independence. Joel Headley, in his 1864 book about the chaplains and clergy of the Revolution, lamented (even in his day) the failure of historians to recognize the role of Scripture in the success of the conflict, writing, “Notwithstanding the numberless books that have been written on the American Revolution, there is one feature of it which has been sadly overlooked. I mean the religious element. He who forgets, or underestimates the moral forces that uphold or bear on a great struggle, lacks the chief qualities of a historian.” Headley described the clergy of America, as being like Aaron and Hur on the mountaintop, holding up the hands of Moses as he prayed for Joshua’s battle in the valley below. Samuel Webster provides a prime example. In the spring of 1777, after a series of disasters for the colonial forces, the defeat at Long Island, the fall of New York and Fort Washington, and the disorganized retreat of Washington’s troops through New Jersey, Webster preached a sermon on May 28th, 1777, before the Massachusetts House of Representatives. His text was Ezekiel 45:8-9, and he appealed to the lawmakers to trust in One greater than Washington, the Lord of hosts “who was always able to deliver Israel in the most discouraging circumstances,” and, he said, would deliver America if she leaned on more than “the arm of flesh.” His message centered Ezekiels’s thundering words against the kind of enemy that plundered and dispossessed people from their houses and places of worship, as the occupying British troops had done. British leaders knew the role sermons had played in the American Revolution, and they often seized church buildings and turned them into barns for their horses or depots for their ammunitions. Webster decried this desecration, and then he offered a prayer, the kind of plainspoken prayer that turned the tide of the Revolution. Speaking to God about the invading British forces who, while occupying Boston, destroyed church buildings or turned them into armories and horse stables, Webster Prayed:
They have vented a particular spite against the houses of God, defaced and defiled Thy holy and beautiful sanctuaries where our fathers worshipped Thee, turning them into houses of merchandise and receptacles of beasts, and some of them they have torn in pieces and burned with fire. Therefore, we humbly pray that Thou wilt hedge up their way and not suffer them to proceed and prosper. But put them to flight speedily, if it be Thine holy will, and make them run fast as a wheel downward, or as fast as stubble and chaff is driven before the furious whirlwind. As a fire consumes wood, and sometimes lays waste whole forests on the mountains, so let them be laid waste and consumed if they obstinately persist in their bloody designs against us. Webster continued on with his prayer, heaping metaphor after metaphor, asking God to raise up a “dreadful tempest” against the enemy, to “pursue them with Thine arrow, till they are brought to see that God is with us.” He prayed the British would return to their own land “covered with shame and confusion” to humble themselves before God and seek repentance for their plundering ways. Then he ended on a high note, bringing his entire congregation into the final Amen:
That so all nations, seeing Thy mighty power and Thy marvelous works, may no more call themselves supreme, but know and acknowledge that Thou are God alone, the only supreme Governor among men, doing whatsoever pleaseth Thee. And so let Thy glorious name be magnified in all the earth, till time shall be no more. And let all the people say Amen and Amen.
Source: : https://www.robertjmorgan.com/shop/100-bible-verses-that-made-america/ Page 90