Category: Memory Verse

“Show us wonderful signs.” –Micah 7:15 The Lord is all-powerful and all-knowing. Therefore, He is never at a loss, never surprised, and never on the defensive. Logically, the all-powerful, all-knowing Lord must always be on the offensive. Therefore, events opposed to God’s will are necessarily defensive maneuvers by Satan and those he is using. For example, the terrorists’ attacks on September 11, 2001, were in opposition to the Lord’s work of salvation. We naturally wonder what the Lord was and is doing that would be such a threat to the evil one. Why did Satan react so violently? Of course,...

“You gave Your sons good ground for hope.” —Wisdom 12:19 Before we totally committed our lives to Jesus, we walked in the valley of hopelessness. Life in general seemed hopeless. To cope with this, we would retreat to what we thought were bastions of hope — our children, work, marriages, or a special activity. These rays of hope usually dimmed. So we tried to constantly distract ourselves or alter our consciousness to ignore the gnawing and sometimes savage hopelessness within us. When we saw someone hopeful, we were either cynical or wanted to ask him to defend his hope (1...

“When the Pharisees were outside they began to plot against [Jesus] to find a way to destroy Him. Jesus was aware of this, and so He withdrew from that place.” —Matthew 12:14-15 The popular poem, “Footsteps,” expresses the anguish of the psalmist: “Why, O Lord, do You stand aloof? Why hide in times of distress?” (Ps 10:1) We look to God for help, and He seems to withdraw from us (see Mt 12:15). We are oppressed and in dire straits, and cry out to God for aid. Yet instead of strong action, God seems to do nothing and things get...

“See, I will make the shadow cast by the sun on the stairway to the terrace of Ahaz go back the ten steps it has advanced.” —Isaiah 38:8 God by definition is infinite and therefore can and will go beyond the laws of the natural world, which He created. He certainly will go far beyond humanity’s very limited understanding of nature. When the Lord goes beyond the laws of nature, we call this a miracle. For example, the Lord healed King Hezekiah of a terminal illness (Is 38:5) and combined this with an awesome miracle of making the “shadow cast...