To Encourage You

Psalm 20:1 “May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!”

To whom do you turn in a time of need?  What do you do when the chips are down but you don’t know what to do?  Do you turn to a parent, a friend, a psychiatrist, the government?  Whomever or whatever you turn to, are you confident that they can help you?  Well, in the verse above, God reveals to us that it’s His will that we would turn to Him.  And He wants us to turn to Him because He loves us and knows He can do for us so much more than anything or anyone else can.   It’s as if He’s saying to us “If only you would turn to me.  Look at how much I can do for you if you would only turn towards me rather than away from me.  If only you could realize Who I really am and the blessing that knowing Me would provide to you.” 

Jesus expressed the following thoughts as He looked over the people of the city of Jerusalem, knowing better than they did their bondage to Rome, sin, the evil religious system that Judaism had become, and even death.  He came to His own as a mighty Savior, “but His own received Him not (John 1:11).”  Knowing that He was their only hope, yet knowing that they were soon to turn against Him in hatred and murder Him, He said these words “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate (Matthew 23:37-38).” 

How His heart surely ached with the realization that He was everything they needed for all eternity, but they just wouldn’t have Him.  From the beginning of His ministry, His message to them was that “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19).” Yet they sought to throw Him off a cliff for saying this.  Oh, what could have been if they had just received Him.  And oh, what could be today if we would receive Him as well.  As Isaiah said “May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!” And why would He say this? Because it is the Lord, and only the Lord, that HAS all the answers.  Furthermore, when Isaiah said “May the name of the God of Jacob protect you” it was because it is only this God who can protect us forever, so that “not even a hair of your head will perish (Luke 21:18).”  What blessings of joy and peace await those who turn to the Lord rather than away from Him in times of trouble. What hope and love await those who would turn to Him each and every day, no matter if they are in times of trouble or not.  No one else cares for us like Jesus.  No one else can do for us what He can, as the words of this great old hymn say:

I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus,
Since I found in Him a friend so strong and true;
I would tell you how He changed my life completely,
He did something that no other friend could do.

No one ever cared for me like Jesus,
There’s no other friend so kind as He;
No one else could take the sin and darkness from me,
O how much He cared for me.

All my life was full of sin when Jesus found me,
All my heart was full of misery and woe;
Jesus placed His strong and loving arms about me,
And He led me in the way I ought to go.

No one ever cared for me like Jesus,
There’s no other friend so kind as He;
No one else could take the sin and darkness from me,
O how much He cared for me.

Ev’ry day He comes to me with new assurance,
More and more I understand His words of love;
But I’ll never know just why He came to save me,
Till some day I see His blessed face above.

No one ever cared for me like Jesus,
There’s no other friend so kind as He;
No one else could take the sin and darkness from me,
O how much He cared for me.

Does anyone else care for you like that?  Can anyone or anything else give you the hope that He can, the help, the peace, or the joy? I can tell you that I’ve learned that no one ever cared for me like Jesus – and I am absolutely certain in the depths of my heart that no one ever cared for you like Jesus, just as well.