Category: Hope

The Saturday Song – King of the World

Posted on by Dorci

Hello friends.  I hope you’re having a great Saturday and preparing your heart for what the Lord desires to speak into your heart this weekend.  

I heard this song again recently and with all that’s going on in our world, and in my own life, it really touched my heart, and I wanted to share it with you. 

The God we serve – the great I AM, the creator of the universe and of you and me, the One who sent His own Son to purchase our souls, and has made a way for our eternity at home with Him – is, always has been, and always will be the King of the world. 

No matter what we’re facing today or will face tomorrow, He’s got this, if we’ll just hold it out to Him and ask Him. 

May He bless your day, your weekend, and may you see His strong and loving hand in all the things that concern you. 


King of the World
by Natalie Grant

I try to fit you in the walls inside my mind
I try to keep you safely in between the lines
I try to put you in the box that I’ve designed
I try to pull you down so we are eye to eye

When did I forget that you’ve always been
The King of the world?
I try to take life back right out of the hands
Of the King of the world

How could I make you so small
When you’re the one who holds it all
When did I forget that you’ve always been
The King of the world?

Just a whisper of your voice can tame the seas
So who am I to try to take the lead
Still I run ahead and think I’m strong enough
When you’re the one who made me from the dust

When did I forget that you’ve always been
The King of the world?
I try to take life back right out of the hands
Of the King of the world

How could I make you so small
When you’re the one who holds it all
When did I forget that you’ve always been
The King of the world

Oh, you set it all in motion
Every single moment
You brought it all to me
And you’re holding on to me

When did I forget that you’ve always been
The King of the world?
I try to take life back right out of the hands
Of the King of the world

How could I make you so small
When you’re the one who holds it all
When did I forget you’ve always been
The King of the world

You will always be the King of the world

Remain Steadfast

Posted on by Dorci

 

STEADFAST


The Lord has been putting this word on my heart lately. 

Remain steadfast. 

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.” 
1 Peter 5:8-9

This is Peter telling us this.

Peter, the one who told Jesus he would never deny Him – even if he had to die with Him.

Peter, one of the apostles whom Jesus took and asked him to pray the night before He was arrested, and then fell asleep.

Peter, the one who impetuously drew his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. 

Peter, the one who vehemently denied Christ three times. 

But all that doesn’t make him less credible; it makes him more. 

He’s saying don’t do what I did! He learned what the devil had been up to and he wanted to warn his brothers and sisters in Christ to be aware. 

To remain steadfast in the faith – steadfast in our convictions, steadfast in the truth, steadfast in our reliance upon Christ and Christ alone, now and forever. 

The devil’s ways are the same as ever. he’s looking for people who are at a weak place, who aren’t being alert and vigilant to the devil’s ways, who aren’t steadfastly trusting in the power and righteousness of Jesus Christ. 

Right now, when the world seems like a raging sea, is an opportune time for the enemy to try to discourage us, to trip us up, to question Jesus, and maybe even walk away from Him, even a step. 

But we who are in Christ can confidently “lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the 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…” 
Hebrews 6:18b-20

No matter what happens in this life, we don’t have to give in to fear and be tossed around in the waves of confusion. We have an anchor of hope.

We have the promises of God, all of which in Christ are yes and amen. His promises are for this life and extend all the way behind the veil that lies between this life and the next.

Our sure hope, our anchor in rough seas, is that Christ is with us now, and He will surely call us to live with Him in His home where we’ve laid up treasures beyond comprehension, and where love and peace and joy are the way of life.     

And we’re reminded of this hope every time we pray, every time we read God’s Word, and every time we enter into fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

Our steadfast anchor of hope will keep us steadfast, too.

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
1 Cor 15:58

Hope

Posted on by Dorci

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
And moan within me?
Hope in God; for I shall praise Him
For the salvation of His face.
Psalm 42:5MKJV

Anyone who’s been through even a moment of depression understands the heart who wrote those words. 

No one knows for sure who wrote this psalm, but I find it interesting that the phrase “cast down” is used to describe the deep depression of his soul.

It’s a term used by shepherds to describe a sheep that, for whatever reason, has fallen upside down, all four legs in the air, helpless and unable to right itself.  If the shepherd doesn’t watch carefully and come to help the sheep, it can suffocate in a short period of time. 

If David was the author, he knows from experience that a good shepherd watches his flock carefully, and comes quickly at the first sign of trouble.

So, he encourages himself to hope. That word hope means to wait, to be patient, to trust.

And of course our hope is only as good as the one we put our hope in. 

The psalmist knows he has a perfect Shepherd who constantly watches His flock. He knows his salvation is coming.  He knows he will be delivered again, and again, and again, as many times as it takes. 

Our hope is a sure hope.  Not an “I hope…”  But a hope that knows God is faithful. His rescue is coming, and we must simply wait for it. A hope that knows God sees us, He hears us, and He’s working on our behalf…

A hope that knows a day is coming soon when we will look back and praise our Good Shepherd for all He’s done. 

I know God’s in the midst of us, doing great things.  And the day will come when all of us who have put our hope in Him will share story after story of His goodness and grace and mercy. 

Keep hoping. 

 

 

 

 

There Is a River

Posted on by Dorci

“God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.
                                                                                    Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy place where the Most High dwells.

He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.’
                                                                                    Selah”

Psalm 46:1-3, 4, 10

No matter what we face, God is our refuge and strength. I love that the Hebrew word for God used here is Elohiym, the plural form of God.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  

The entirety of His character – His goodness, His faithfulness, His ever-presence, and more than I could ever list here – is available to us in times of trouble. 

The streams of His grace and love and peace continually and eternally flow through the kingdom of God and sustain us.

“Be still…

Stop

and know…

Acknowledge

that I am Elohiym…”

that He is the I Am, the All-Encompassing, All-Sufficient, Triune God. 

Selah.

Selah indicates a pause in the music. In the entire Psalm, there are 3 selahs.

Yes, they may be instructions for the music, instructions for the singers, but I believe they’re also instructions for us.  

Pause…   and contemplate what’s been said. 

Pause…   and let it take hold inside the heart and mind. 

Pause…   and believe. 

This is a song a dear friend introduced me to years ago, and it never fails to bring tears to my eyes. The precious Holy Spirit of our God is a joyful, quenching constant for every need we will ever have.  We can go to the river and be satisfied.  

 

 

There Is a River
by Rita Springer

 

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God (repeat)
And I will rejoice
I will rejoice
And be glad
There is a fountain full of grace and it flows from Emanual’s veins
It came and it healed me
It came and refreshed me
It came and it washed my sins away!
And I will rejoice
I will rejoice
And be glad
I rejoice in the Lord always
And again I say I will rejoice!
Rejoice in the Lord always
And again I say rejoice.

The Two Wolves

Posted on by Dorci

 

That’s a scene from the movie Tomorrowland. Of course that metaphor has probably been told a thousand different ways for a thousand different scenarios.  But first and foremost, it’s a spiritual truth:

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” Galatians 5:16

Our flesh is always pulling at our shirts, jumping in our faces, snarling in our ears. It doesn’t like to hear no for an answer. And saying no is good, but if we don’t say yes to the Spirit, that vacuum will beg to be filled with something.  

That word walk in Galatians means “…to live, follow (as a companion), go, be occupied with…”

We are privileged to have as our Companion, sun up to sun up, 24/7/365 (or 366 as the case may be), the Holy Spirit. When we walk with Him, follow Him, obey Him, the vacuum will be filled with all things pure, and good, and holy. 

When we feed the spirit inside us with prayer and reading God’s Word, we will starve that beady-eyed, snarling flesh. We’ll start noticing the fear and anxiety has silenced, and in its place is divine fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

Light and hope in place of darkness and despair.  Seems like a pretty good deal to me. 

Not only do we need that right now (as always), but that’s what the world needs us to have. It needs to see there’s another, better way.  It needs to see Jesus.