07202024 Divine Help

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings in the name of the God who enables us to serve and live for Him. There is no greater occupation for us than that, but we cannot do it on our own. We need divine help.

The psalmist wrote, “Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight” (Psalm 119:34). He wanted to walk in God’s ways. This was neither a casual nor a convenient desire. No, this man delighted in God’s ways. Yet he asked God to help him walk aright. He didn’t ask merely for assistance, for a little extra push, but rather that God would make him do it. In fact, the entire stanza of vs. 33-40 is packed with prayers for divine actions that would keep the psalmist in God’s ways.

I wonder if Paul was thinking of Psalm 119:34 when he wrote the following words. “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (Romans 7:22-23). If he was not thinking of those words, the common Christian experience caused him to write an almost identical thought. Paul also delighted in God’s law, and he also recognized the impossibility of following it on his own. He needed divine help to walk in God’s ways, and he expected to find this help only “through Jesus Christ our Lord” (v. 25).

When we examine ourselves honestly, we know that it in the practical outworking of life and ministry, it often becomes very difficult for us to do the good that deep in our hearts we sincerely want to do. Paul recognized that even the desire comes with God’s help. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). Both the willing and the doing are infused into us divinely.

This is good news! It is good news, because both things can be battles for us. Sometimes we struggle to will the right thing, and sometimes even when we do will it, we struggle to do it. In both cases, God helps our weakness. He takes these fragile vessels of clay, and He makes them more useful than anyone would ever think they could be. He does that by inspiring us to walk with Him, by fanning every smoldering ember of desire that is in our hearts. He does it also by enabling us to do what that desire puts before us. We are weak, unworthy servants, but with His help, we can effectively and faithfully serve Him. Glory to God!

Dear Father, give us this divine help, so that our desire to serve You will endure and even expand. Give us divine help also to follow through with all that You ask us to do. Truly, all things are possible with You.

“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt

member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA