Making the Shadows Flee Away….

 

"Now, therefore," says the LORD,

"Turn to Me with all your heart,

With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning."

So rend your heart, and not your garments;

Return to the LORD your God,

For He is gracious and merciful,

Slow to anger, and of great kindness;

And He relents from doing harm.—Joel 2:12-13

It is good for me to think on the Lord’s steadfast love. 

I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD

And the praises of the LORD,—Isaiah 63:7

Focusing here chases away my dark thoughts, strengthens my heart and enables me to trust God more in the here and now. 

These inspired words of the prophet Joel, that speak of the lovingkindness of our God, did just that for my heart this morning. Beloved…God desires us near Him. It doesn’t matter where we may have wandered or what we may have done. God wants us to return to Him with a humbled heart broken over our sin. He wants us with Him.  He seeks our sincere repentance.  He loves us with an everlasting loyal love. 

The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart,

And saves such as have a contrite spirit.—Psalm 34:18

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

A broken and a contrite heart—

These, O God, You will not despise.—Psalm 51:7

The prophet Joel also reminds us in these verses that the Lord is gentle and kind…slow to anger and quick to forgive.  He is waiting to forgive us…waiting perhaps to bless us.  I really loved that last thought. Truly, our God’s gracious nature, should be a strong motivation for our repentance. Beloved…let it be the goodness of God that leads you to repentance. 

When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice (for the LORD your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.—Deuteronomy 4:30-31

"Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God drives you, and you return to the LORD your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, that the LORD your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you. If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. Then the LORD your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.— Deuteronomy 30:1-2

The LORD is merciful and gracious,

Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.

He will not always strive with us,

Nor will He keep His anger forever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins,

Nor punished us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

As a father pities his children,

So the LORD pities those who fear Him.

For He knows our frame;

He remembers that we are dust.—Psalm 103:8-14

Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning,

For in You do I trust;

Cause me to know the way in which I should walk,

For I lift up my soul to You.—Psalm 143:8

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing…

1 Come, thou Fount of every blessing;

tune my heart to sing thy grace;

streams of mercy, never ceasing,

call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

sung by flaming tongues above;

praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,

mount of God’s unchanging love!

2 Here I raise my Ebenezer;

hither by thy help I’m come;

and I hope, by thy good pleasure,

safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

wandering from the fold of God;

he, to rescue me from danger,

interposed his precious blood.

3 O to grace how great a debtor

daily I’m constrained to be!

Let that grace now, like a fetter,

bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

prone to leave the God I love;

here’s my heart; O take and seal it;

seal it for thy courts above.