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Zephaniah 3:17

The Lord your God is with you. The Mighty One shall save you. He shall bring gladness upon you and will renew you with His love. He will delight over you with joy as in a day of feasting.

Encouraging Words

As Christians, we believe that we are never alone. We believe that God is with us always and everywhere we go. He is not only our savior but He is also our sustainer. He brings His gladness, not the world’s, into our lives and renews us with His love for us. Not only does He bestow all of this upon us but He even delights in us. This is our hope. Glory be to God!

Habakkuk 3:18-19

Yet I will glory in the Lord;
I will rejoice in God my Savior.
The Lord God is my strength;
He will direct my feet to the end;
He will set me upon high places,
So to conquer by His song.

Encouraging Words

Our God is great! All glory belongs to Him for He has created us and blessed us with His love, mercy, and grace. We can rejoice in Him for He is our Savior. He is the source of any and all strength that we have. He promises to direct our feet in our journey through life. He will set us in the high places so that we can sing to Him of His Majesty. Glory be to God!

Habakkuk 2:4

If any man should shrink back, My soul will not be well pleased in him; but the righteous shall live by My faith.

Personal Challenge

This verse is quoted by Paul when he is proclaiming that we are saved by God’s grace and not works. The works that Paul was referring to are the works that the Judaizers imposed on Gentiles in order to be proselytized, or in Pauls’ day, to become Christians. Clearly, the argument that Paul makes is that there is no work that we can do to earn God’s grace because then it would no longer be grace. It does not, however, preclude us from doing good works for our Lord out of our love and appreciation for Him and His grace bestowed upon us. This is how we live by His faith indwelling within us. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Nahum 1:7

The Lord is merciful to those who wait on Him in the day of affliction, and He knows those who reverence Him.

Personal Challenge

God knows if our worship of Him is sincere. Do we just go through the motions of worship because it is what we have always done? Are we truly giving all reverence to Him or are we seeking an experience that makes us feel good? Do we choose to wait on Him at all costs believing that He will be merciful to us knowing that we do not deserve that mercy? God is merciful regardless of our behavior. He is worthy of worship and reverence no matter what we think or do. And through all this, He still loves us. Glory be to God!

Jonah 2:2-3

And from the belly of the sea creature, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God, and said:
“I cried out in my affliction to the Lord, my God,
And He heard my voice;
Out of the belly of Hades, You heard the cry of my voice.”

Encouraging Words

God is everywhere, even in the belly of Hades. He is in the midst of our trials and tribulations. He is in the midst of our joys. He is in the midst of our questionings and our understandings. There is no place or state that we can be in where He will not hear our voice when we call out to Him. And when He hears our voice, we are with Him. Glory be to God!

Joel 2:17-18

Between the porch and the altar, the priests of the altar, ministering to the Lord, will each be weeping and will say, “O Lord, spare Your people; do not give Your inheritance to reproach, that the Gentiles should rule over them, lest they should say among the Gentiles, ‘Where is their God?’ ”

But the Lord was zealous for His land and spared His people.

Encouraging Words

We have a great High Priest who is standing on the porch between death and life. It is the death of this earthly, temporal life that we are all bound by and the eternal life that is made manifest by our Lord Jesus Christ that He is standing between. It is through Him that we receive life. It is also Him that is the great Intercessor for us. Glory be to God!

Joel 2:12-13

Now says the Lord your God, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting and wailing and with mourning; rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is merciful and compassionate. He is longsuffering and plenteous in mercy and repents of evils.

Personal Challenge

It is the state of our hearts that is important to God. Even though our faith practice calls upon us to fast, pray, worship, and do other things in our lives in order to develop godly habits and disciplines, it is most important to discipline our hearts. God has told us through the scriptures and through the Living Word, Jesus, that God looks at the hearts of men and not their outward appearances and actions. God wants us to turn to Him with our whole heart and to have our actions, all of them, flow from that heart that belongs to Him. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!