Wednesday, September 6, 2006
There's bad plaque and there's good plaque. The bad kind is that substance you hear about in toothpaste commercials that builds up on your teeth. Then there's good plaque - that's the kind we have hanging on our walls all over the house. Those are good plaques because they have different promises on them from God's Word. For example, one of the first things people have seen over the years as they've entered our home has been a plaque with Isaiah 54:13 on it. It says, "All your children will be taught of the Lord; and great will be the peace of your children." Now, that's meant an awful lot to us; we've hung onto it. Most Christian homes and churches have verses like that on display in various places. But plaques like that are meant to do more than hang on walls. They're meant to float!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Plaques Turn Into Life Preservers."
In our word for today from the Word of God in Psalm 119:50, King David talks about those times when those promises on the wall become literally all we have. He says to the Lord, "My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life."
We have some dear friends who lost a loved one in a terrible auto accident. The grief and the pain were almost unbearable - almost. They told me, "We began to remember some of those promises from God's Word that make good wall plaques, like "underneath are the everlasting arms" ( Deuteronomy 33:27). And they became the only thing that was our source of strength. Those promises, they said, were the difference.
All those Bible promises we quote and hang up are what we need to hang onto. When a storm hits and you're sinking, the promise of God suddenly becomes a life preserver. It's all you've got to hang onto. And the more you hold onto it, the more you live as if the promise really is true, and then the more you can handle. You may be in one of those turbulent moments right now when all you have to hang onto is what you know about God. And, yes, that is enough.
We've got to take those promises into our heart so we can have them when a sudden storm hits. Like a Christian leader I talked to who is struggling with burnout. He's staying afloat on a promise from Psalm 23, "He restores my soul" ( Psalm 23:2). A family hit by five medical blows in as many weeks tells me that they're holding onto God's promise from Deuteronomy 33:25, "As your days are, so shall your strength be." It was frankly that promise that kept me from sinking years ago when my wife was leveled by a serious illness for months and everything fell on my shoulders. The promise - daily strength to match each day's demands. And God always delivered.
So learn God's promises! Life preservers like "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want" - that's Psalm 23:1. Or Philippians 4:19, "My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." 1 Corinthians 10:13, "...He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear." Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." Jeremiah 33:3, "Call on me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things you don't know." Or Galatians 6:9, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."
Learn the promises. Learn to lean on the promises. When your feelings are lying to you and your world is upside down, grab a promise off the wall of your heart and rest all your weight on it. The promises of God are His life preservers!