Praise and Power
While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have my being. (Psalm 146:2)


Are You Tired Of The Fight
by Milford Bowen - Praise and Power Website

Did you ever have a day when it seemed like you just could not get through to God? The sky seems as though it was made of brass. Your river has run dry. You are caught in a dead end street. The mountains are too high and the river is too wide. You are discouraged and almost defeated. Satan is sitting there
rubbing his hands together in glee, thinking, "I've got him right where I want him now, and he isconsidering throwing in the towel."

What happens next? Where do I go now? The children of Israel, God's chosen people, never had it so good as when they escaped their land of bondage and suffering. Yet, when they came to some seemingly insurmountable obstacle they saw it only with their five-senses eyes and cried out in self pity and fear,"let's go back to where we had food to eat and a place to live."

They had taken their eyes off of the goal that God had placed before them and focused on the obstacle. One of those obstacles was coming up to the Red Sea. What they saw was an obstacle so great that they forgot the promise of God. How could they ever get these hundreds of thousands of people across this
body of water? Should they build boats or maybe a pontoon bridge? Or should they go around? But their former captors were hot on their trail to bring them back into bondage.

Do you get the picture? Satan is hot on our trail to bring us back into the bondage of fear, doubt and worry. Our obstacle is so great we may say, "I'm tired of the fight, I might just as well as give in."

Right there is part of the problem. We are tired of the fight because we have been conducting our own battle instead of quietly and steadfastly resting in God and letting Him do our fighting for us. If we would quit the battle and just stand for God and give praise to Him we wouldn't be so tired, and the battle would be over and done with.

God's promise to His people was that there was a land that was theirs for the taking. Joshua 1:13 tellsus ". . . The LORD your God hath given you rest, and hath given you this land." Even before the time of captivity in Egypt God had spoken to Abram, later known as Abraham, "In the same day the LORD made
a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, . . ."(Genesis 15:18). It was a promise of God that was more sure than if it had been written in stone. This land was already given -- the promised land. All they had to do was to go in and claim it.

His promises are sure and steadfast. "Blessed be the LORD, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant" (I Kings 8:56).

Doesn't that make you think of the promises that God has made to us, His born-again children? The Lord has given rest to his people, according to all that He promised and not one word of all He has promised has failed.

God hasn't ever failed us. Why should we fail Him now? We are so close to becoming the overcomers that He promised we are, we should not give up now. Just "hang in there" one more step, and then another, and you know, just over that mountain top it's all down hill, the victory is won. It's like the continental divide. We continue our walk, not looking at the obstacle in front of us, but at the goal, and on the other side of the divide we can flow with the rivers and streams all the way to the ocean without looking back, or even remembering the struggle we went through to endure and to stand and to continue faithfully to walk with God.

You are the victor, more than a conqueror. It just takes one moment of standing for God, and then another moment, and pretty soon you will have stood faithfully for one hour. A few more hours and it will have been a day, then a week, then a year. Such victory brings peace and rest to your soul. You become stronger and more courageous in your stand with God.

Several times in Joshua, chapter one, we read how God tells His people to "be strong and courageous (bold)." The results are that things we call impossible are possible, because God specializes in things we call impossible. God is powerful and He can do mighty works in our lives as we don't back down, but
stand fast on His Word.