Morning Devotional

October  9, 2005
"A Good Race" (Part 9)     
    by Don Emmitte

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For I know that as you pray for me and as the Spirit of Jesus Christ helps me, this will all turn out for my deliverance (Philippians 1:19 NLT).

As we close this week in our series about running “a good race,” I want to focus your attention on Paul’s hope in the midst of a great challenge. Paul understood that as the work of Christ was being done, regardless of the motivation, that God was going to work a plan to bring about his deliverance. Paul was basically restating his more famous verse which tells us “God works all things together for good”. Paul knew that as long as people did the work of Christ, Christ’s work would be done. Pretty profound, huh?

Paul was in prison as he wrote this letter to the Philippians. He couldn’t have been in much more horrible conditions. Paul knew that in spite of all that he was enduring, the greatest days of his life were still to come. Are you conscious of the fact that God is working His plan? Regardless of your situation, how bad it is, how desperate you feel, God is in control. He knows the future and to Him it looks wonderful.

I am not a connoisseur of great art, but from time to time a painting or picture will really speak a clear, strong message to me. Some time ago I saw a picture of an old burned-out mountain shack. All that remained was the chimney...the charred debris of what had been that family’s sole possession. In front of this destroyed home stood an old grandfather-looking man dressed only in his long johns with a small boy clutching a pair of patched overalls. It was evident that the child was crying. Beneath the picture were the words, which the artist felt the old man was speaking to the boy. They were simple words, yet they presented a profound theology and philosophy of life. Those words were, “Hush child, God ain’t dead!”

That vivid picture of that burned-out mountain shack that old man, the weeping child, and those words “God ain’t dead” keep returning to my mind. Instead of it being a reminder of the despair of life, it has come to be a reminder of hope! I need reminders that there is hope in this world. In the midst of all of life’s troubles and failures, I need mental pictures to remind me that all is not lost as long as God is alive and in control of His world.

If you are a Christian, you can have the same assurance as Paul. Say to yourself right now a truth from God’s Word, “I KNOW this will all turn out for my deliverance.” To God be the glory! G. K. Chesterton wrote: “Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all... As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.” Have hope… God surely ain’t dead!