FBC Daily Devotional – November 23, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good Tuesday morning to you, second day of our Thanksgiving week, and focus on some things to be thankful for.

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So we're looking at Psalm 103 as we begin these devotionals each day this week, and this list of things, this list of benefits that we need to remember, benefits for which we can be thankful.

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So yesterday we mentioned that one of the things we can be thankful for is that God forgives, the

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Lord forgives all the iniquities of His people. When we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us all of our unrighteousness and cleanse us from all that unrighteousness.

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Then the next verse here in Psalm 103, after verse two says forget not all his benefits, verse three, the last part of the verse says,

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He heals all of your diseases. One of the benefits that accrue to God's people is that our

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God heals all of our diseases. And you say, well, you know, wait a minute now, um, how does that work?

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Because, uh, I've got this problem and I've got this problem and I've got this problem. You know, there are some people who suffer with some of God's people who suffer from chronic disease.

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Some even right now are dealing with cancer and this is a disease that they are struggling with even right now.

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So how is it that He heals all of our diseases? All right. Well, a couple of things to note about that.

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One of them is that, uh, God's people get diseases. They get diseases.

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If they didn't get diseases, there would be nothing to be healed of, right? So the fact that you may be suffering from some kind of disease right now in the present doesn't negate the truth of this verse.

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It just means that the healing hasn't come yet. A second thing to keep in mind is that really the verse is focusing on the past.

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In other words, those diseases of which you've suffered in the past and from which you've been healed, what, to what can you attribute that healing?

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And I know the natural, um, natural thought these days is, well, you know, I went to the doctor, uh, he gave me a prescription.

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I took some, uh, took an antibiotic and I got better. Yes. Have you ever known anybody who didn't get better and, um, take after taking an antibiotic?

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I took it and then, you know, maybe some kind of sepsis kicked in or some other complication arose from it.

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And there, there've been people I've known who actually didn't survive an infection after they went to the doctor and got medication.

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What can you, to what can you attribute your healing? You can, you can attribute it to your God. So when you look in the past and you think of things from which you've been healed, whether they've been minor sicknesses or major diseases and illnesses, then thank the

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Lord that he has healed you from your diseases. And then you can look to the future and, uh, in the sense that for the

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Christian, for God's people, there comes a day in, in eternity future when there will be no more sickness, there will be no more disease, there will be no more pestilence, there will be no more suffering, no more sadness, no more sorrow.

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And of course, I'm talking about when we enter into eternity and for God's people, we enter into a disease less eternity.

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God in his grace and in his kindness, uh, he heals all of our diseases.

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Even as, uh, the promise comes in the atonement, um,

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Christ and dying for our sins and dying, he, he, he heals us. He heals us of our diseases.

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Some of that we get now, some of that we experience in eternity. That time will come.

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And you, you who are God's people, uh, give thanks today that God in his power, his grace and his kindness heals the diseases of his people.

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All right? So that's the thing to be thankful for. Now, just a thought on, uh, one of our passages that we read in Acts chapter, uh, 8.

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What struck me is this, uh, a couple of verses in Acts 8, verses 29 and 30.

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Verse 29 says, so the spirit said to Philip, go near and overtake his chariot.

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Now this is a, if you remember the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, uh, Philip comes across this

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Ethiopian eunuch out in the wilderness. And the spirit of God tells him, go and overtake his chariot.

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Now, how did the spirit of God tell him that? How did he tell him that?

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Was that an audible voice? Did he hear a voice from heaven? Well, it was the spirit of God who told him that.

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And the spirit of God dwells within the believer. So I think it is reasonable to conclude that the

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Holy Spirit ministered to Philip's heart and mind in such a way that, that thought, that idea entered into Philip's head.

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I need to go take, I need to go to that guy's chariot. I need to go to him and, and that he understood to be the prompting of the spirit, the speaking of the spirit to his, to his mind.

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And he did so. Philip went and he met with the Ethiopian eunuch, he explained to the

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Ethiopian eunuch that passage from Isaiah 53, the Ethiopian eunuch trusted Christ as his savior, followed him in baptism and so forth.

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So what struck me about that is that I need to, and I think we as God's people need to be very attentive to and obedient to the

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Holy Spirit's directives. Again, we don't have, we can't claim infallibility when we sense that the spirit of God is directing us to do something.

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In other words, you know, sometimes thoughts and ideas enter into our mind that we should go do something or we ought to say something and it turns out to be an utter disaster.

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And it wasn't the spirit of God who was leading us, it was our own, it was our own crazy concocted ideas.

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So we have to have discernment here. And one of the things that the spirit of God will do is he will use the word of God to direct us, our scripture reading or whatever, he will use the principles of God's word that we have known and learned, and he will use those to come to mind and direct us.

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But when he does, we need to be sensitive to it. We need to be attentive to those things, to those, those promptings and obey and obey.

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I know I can do a better job at that and I need to. And I'm sure that, you know, most of us would agree that we need to as well.

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So let's take the challenge. All right. So we have something to be thankful for today. Our God in his kindness forgives all of the diseases of his people.

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And then we have something to challenge us to be sensitive to and listen to the promptings of the spirit as he uses the word of God and the truths of God and the principles of God's word to direct our steps, direct our activities.

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So all right, Father, we do thank you today. We thank you for the ways you've worked in our lives and you have healed us in the past.

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There are some maybe listening right now in the sound of my voice who are suffering from some kind of sickness or illness, disease.

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I pray that by your grace and kindness, you would heal them of that sickness.

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And if it is your providential will for them to endure long in that illness, give them patience and grace to be able to endure that and for all of us to look forward to that glorious eternity when indeed all diseases of this life are conquered forever, forever and ever.

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So Father, thank you for that great promise. And then Lord, help us to listen to and be sensitive to your spirit as he uses your word to direct our ways.

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We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Have a good rest of your Tuesday and the