Grace and Truth

…all the words of this life…

Tag Archives: hope


by 3 Comments

The Way to Get Through This

My husband was on a business trip in the
USA when the World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus a Pandemic.

Things had already started to become strange up until that point but on that day everything turned and people went crazy here in Australia.

Just like that, toilet paper, pasta, hand sanitizer was stripped from the shelves and by the time I got there I couldn’t find any.  I remember the anxiety as I walked into the shops to find bare shelves, three children to look after and my husband far away.

The burden of responsibility to look after my family lay heavily on my shoulders. At heart I am a homemaker, and when I couldn’t get the basics for my family it struck me much more forcibly than anything else. I wasn’t afraid of the actual virus, I still am not. But those bare shelves brought some fear up in me I never expected.

The Lord was so very kind to me. He began to wake me up every night in the middle of the night, in fact He is still doing it to this day. I would get up and go into my prayer closet.

just me and Him.

I would cry, sometimes just sob at His feet. It wasn’t just about the toilet paper. I felt something had shifted in the spiritual realm. I felt everything was different now. And boy did I want my husband home.

I’ve always been a pray-er but those times with the Lord at night became my lifeline, literally. Without them I would not have coped. He gave me the strength to meet each day. He taught me to trust Him in a way I never have before and He turned my mourning in to dancing.

I would go in with a heavy and burdened heart. And I would come out of my prayer closet rejoicing.

Truly in the presence of the Lord there is fullness of joy. Really .

The joy that Christ gave me in those times became my strength for the day ahead.

Now we are in lockdown here in Australia, have been for two weeks. All the churches are shut, even the small ones. We are not allowed to meet in groups of more than 2, apart from our own household.

What do we do in such a situation? How do we get through with faith intact, with hope and peace?

It’s only in the Lords presence – and I can testify to it.

Every night He, in His grace, wakes me up still. It’s the only time I am alone now with a husband working from home and 3 kids locked out of school.

”where else would I go but to the Lord”

He is our strength, He is our hope and deliverer. Our shield and the horn of our salvation. Trust in Him, He never fails.

 

Bless you my brothers and sisters in this difficult season.

Belinda

Advertisement


by 4 Comments

New Covenant Hope : Jesus our Priest

The New Covenant promises are there to be a foundation for our hope in the Lord.  This is the reason I would like to share below the comfort I have Heaven 4found in Jesus, Him being the High Priest of the New Covenant.  When “darkness hides His lovely face”, when we go through hard times, when we feel lost or lonely, then it is that this hope must be “the anchor of our soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 8:19, 20

The difference we have in the New Covenant with Jesus as our High Priest:

Old Covenant New Covenant
Moses was the mediator of the Old covenant Jesus Christ is the Mediator of the New covenant
No oath was made to human priests by God.“for they have become priests without an oath, but He with an oath…” Hebrews 7:21 Jesus was made a priest by an oath:“God has sworn and will not relentYou are a priest forever, according to the

Order of Melchizedek” Psalm 110:4
The law appoints as priests men who have weakness. Jesus is the guarantee of a better covenant because of the oath. The oath appoints Jesus as Priest, who has been perfected forever.
The priests were human. As such they were sinners themselves, bound to the earthly realm. Jesus is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners and is not earth-bound, but rather He is higher than the heavens.
The priests needed to daily offer up sacrifices for both their own sins as well as the sins of the people. Jesus is sinless so does not need to offer up a sacrifice for Himself. At the cross He offered up a once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of mankind.
The priests offered animals as sacrifices for sin Jesus offered up Himself as the sacrifice for sin.
The priests each eventually died, and so there were many different priests at different times. Jesus never dies so His priesthood is unchangeable. (What a comfort!)
The priests could only intercede for the people whilst they were alive, therefore their priesthood was LIMITED. Therefore, because our Priest never changes, because He always lives and is always interceding for us, He will save to the UTTERMOST those who come to God through Him. His Priesthood is UNLIMITED and NEVER-ENDING.

“His oath, His covenant, His blood

Support me in the ‘whelming flood

When all around my soul gives way

He then is all my hope and stay”

(lyrics from “On Christ the Solid Rock I stand”)

(This table is by no means exhaustive. There are so many more eternal truths about Jesus as our High priest. I have compiled this table from a study of Hebrews 6 & 7)

Blessings!


by 2 Comments

Comforting Quotations: Corrie Ten Boom

From Corrie Ten Boom’s book “Tramp for the Lord” when she and her sister Betsie were incarcerated in Ravensbruck concentration camp by the Nazi’s:

“Betsie and I walked to the square where roll call was being held in the concentration camp.  It was still early, before dawn.  The head of our barracks was so cruel that she had sent us out into the very cold outdoors a full hour too early.

Betsie’s hand was in mine.  We went to the square by a different way from the rest of our barracks-mates.  We were three as we walked with the Lord and talked with Him.  Betsie spoke.  Then I talked.  Then the Lord spoke.  How?  I don’t know.  But both of us understood.  It was the same Presence I had felt years before in the old cathedral in Haarlem.

The brilliant early morning stars were our only light.  The cold winter air was so clear.  We could faintly see the outlines of the barracks, the crematorium, the gas chamber, and the towers where the guards were standing with loaded machine guns.

“Isn’t this a bit of heaven!” Betsie had said. “And Lord, this is a small foretaste.  One day we will see You face-to-face, but thank You that even now You are giving us the joy of walking and talking with You.”

Heaven in the midst of hell.  Light in the midst of darkness.  What a security! “