FROM DAY TO DAY

FROM DAY TO DAY

Luke 11: 1-3; Isaiah 33: 3, 50: 4-8; Psalm 61: 5-8

My desire is to speak about God’s thought that we should live here one day at a time; day by day. God is behind all the difficulties in these times, when what is steady or reliable in the world is being broken down. He allows these things in order to help us to live by faith. We read “the just shall live by faith” (Hebrews 10: 38). Such faith should be active in us each day. The Lord refers to this in His prayer, “give us today our needed bread...” (Matthew 6: 9). We only possess today, tomorrow is not ours. The Lord Jesus was the only one who could speak about tomorrow. He said, “Behold, I cast out demons and accomplish cures today and tomorrow and the day following...” (Luke 13: 32). We, however, cannot speak like this because we do not know anything about tomorrow, we leave it with God.

God desires to help us, His people, to live by faith — one day at a time — praying this prayer, “Give us today our needed bread”. We can apply this, both naturally and spiritually. We need spiritual food for our souls but can also trust God for our bodily needs each day. We are prone to fear for tomorrow. God gave manna for each day to His people Israel. In the same way faith has confidence that God will give us the bread we need. If Israel had doubted that God would give them the manna, how would they not have worried about their needs for the next day?

Think of Elijah by the torrent Cherith. He had no food except what the ravens brought him. God commanded the ravens to bring bread to Elijah — bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening. Naturally, the ravens would have eaten the flesh themselves, but God had commanded them to give it to Elijah. How could Elijah be sure that ravens would come each day? If he had not trusted in God, life would have been a burden to him. It was only God who could command the ravens and I think they can represent the evil powers in our times, as, for example in Russia. In spite of their motives they must serve Gods people as long as we are here.

Therefore I desire that we should walk trusting in God each day. The psalmist could say that “I laid me down and slept; I awaked for Jehovah sustaineth me.” Psalm 3: 5. He woke up because the Lord sustained him. We read about Peter, that he slept peacefully in the prison although he was going to be beheaded the following day. He had such a sense of God´s protection that he did not care about tomorrow. The closer we get to the end the more we need to learn to walk in faith — that is what faith involves. Therefore we should pray, “give us today our needed bread”.

We read in Isaiah 33: 2 “be their arm every morning, yea, our salvation in the time of trouble.” We need His arm each morning, now more than ever. The Lord Jesus expressed this in prayer during his life as man here. I wish to encourage all, both young and old, to begin each day with prayer in this way. We cannot rely on the arm of the flesh for a single day but we can rely on God’s arm. His arms are eternal and we need them each morning. When we fail, it is because we rely on our own arm instead of God’s arm. The apostle Paul speaks about not trusting in flesh (Philippians 3: 3). Moses was in the desert 40 years without putting his foot in Egypt which is a type of the wicked world system. He sojourned in the desert in separation all that time, but when God commanded him to put his hand in his bosom, it was leprous. The flesh does not change, even after 40 years in the wilderness. Even for Moses it was only God´s arm that could be relied on.

Now in our time the great deceiver is soon to appear and therefore we need to learn every day to rely on the protection of God´s strong arms.

Then we read Isaiah 50: 4-8 about the Lord who said, “he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear...” Each morning the ear of the Lord Jesus was open to direction from God. He did not live a single day to himself but listened to hear what was God´s will for Him each day. Think of the days of the Lord Jesus here on earth, how wonderful they were!

One of His days was more valuable than a thousand years. Let us consider some of them. If God wanted Him to go to Samaria and be wearied by the way in order to secure one more worshipper for the Father’s heart and to fill an empty heart with living water, he went the same day. And when He received a message from Bethany that one He loved was ill, He still waited two days until He was commanded by His Father to go. We know that the Lord loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus because it says so, but He was here to do the will of God and therefore He waited for His direction. When He went to Judea, the disciples said to Him “...even but now the Jews sought to stone Thee, and goest Thou thither again?” (John 11: 8). He still went because His Father had commanded Him to go. He lived each day doing the will of God until the end.

Think of His last day here! It says that Judas went out and it was night (John 13: 30), and when the next day dawned He went to Gethsemane to get word from God for that last day. There the disciples were sleeping and the Lord Jesus was alone with His Father. He knew in his spirit what Golgotha involved and prayed that if it were possible this cup should be should be taken away from him. But He was willing to do the will of God whatever this would cost him, because He had said, “Behold I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me — to do Thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight...” (Psalm 40: 7-8). And He did this even that last day.

Dear brethren, how are our days? Can we see any similarity in them with the days of Jesus? Alas, we must admit how little our days are like His days. Are our ears open each morning to hear what our Lord and Master in heaven has to say?

Do we ask Him what is His will for us today? In whatever situation we may find ourselves in, as parents, children, employers or servants — if we only lived to do the will of God, then we would not need to fear for tomorrow. We could altogether rely on and rest in God’s mighty arm, both for food and all we need here.

In Psalm 61: 5-9 we read “For thou, O God, hast heard my vows... performing my vows from day to day.” The Lord Jesus performed His vows to God each day. He had said, I come do Thy will, and He presented the body, given to Him by God, to be at the disposal of the will of God. And now in our time He is waiting for us to perform our vows. I trust that we all have made at least one vow to God. We read about this in Romans 12: 1 “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God which is your intelligent service.” Let me ask, What do we do with our bodies? Do we perform this vow to God? May we do it every day! It would save us from many things — our eyes from looking around on everything in this world of vanity, our minds not to be occupied with all we hear around us, our hands preserved from unholy things, our feet from going to wrong places. We would then not sit “in the seat of scorners” and not walk “in the way of sinners” (Psalm 1: 1). I wish to commend this to you all here, and especially the young. God desires that we, under the influence of Christ, should perform our vow each day.

However, there is another side to the matter of vows. The believers in the beginning of the assembly period had all their possessions in common — no one said that something was their own. It was in devotion to the Lord that they brought what they had and laid it at the feet of the apostles. Peter did not ask for anything from anybody. No one asked Barnabas to sell his land. He did it voluntarily because he loved the Lord so much. Nor did anyone ask Ananias and Sapphira about it either. All who did it were moved by devotedness under the Lords influence, so that all did it voluntarily.

In principle, the Lord desires to bring us to this. Even if we cannot follow this example literally, His desire is that we should devote more of our time, our interest and our homes to Him and that we might perform this vow every day.

In Psalm 22: 22 the Lord speaks about His vows, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee” and in verse 25 “I will pay my vows before them that fear him”. When the Lord week by week comes to His saints, He leads their praise to God. In this way He performs His vows now and He will do so until the end. All through eternity He will bring our praise to God, and He will do so every day.

Indeed, we live in difficult times but the Lord desires to preserve us with His arm. He desires to open our ears each morning to hear what He says and He desires to make our days brighter and brighter. “The path of the righteous is as the shining light, going on and brightening until the day be fully come” (Proverbs 4: 18). He desires to make them happier and happier until the end, so that our last days are our brightest. Soon the days of the assembly here will be over. Perhaps we only have one day left, but if so God would desire to fill it as He filled the Lord’s last day here. It says of Him that “having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end” (John 13: 1).

God desires that we perform our vows each day of our lives and that we live here for His glory and for His Names sake.