Daily Devotion

Thank God For What He Did Not Allow

 

He said, "If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping all his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the LORD who heals you." Exodus 15:26 NLT

 

This was another one of those topics that stuck with me.  I had to go back through my memory bank Sunday morning in church because I think this is something I myself need to be reminded of.  A lot of times when a person is feeling down, the typical form of "encouragement" is to tell that person to count their blessings.  I think there is nothing wrong with counting your blessings, but when you are depressed or sad, who really wants to count their blessings?  If you are in a foul mood, you don't have the heart half of the time to thank God for what He has done for you primarily because of your mood.

As I sat reading a devotion I think, this stuck in my mind.  Where would I be had God allowed some things His angels and He himself interceded on my behalf to prevent?  The first and only thing I could think of was–DEAD.  I would be dead had the Holy Spirit not urged me to get off the freeway in San Francisco.  I would be dead had my plane not stopped sliding on the dry runway.  I would be dead had I not gone to the health center my junior year.  I would be dead if I had not gotten a kidney before I did.  I would be dead if I did not see the 18-wheeler getting over in front of me when I first got my license.

God is a great God…the only God and through His Son's sacrifice, we are now His sons and daughters.  If you are a parent, wouldn't you go to great lengths to preserve the life of your child?  What would have happened had you not kept their tiny hands from the outlet, the iron, those pain killers??

The scripture above is God telling the children of Israel what He would protect them from if they were obedient to Him.  Deuteronomy 28 denotes the blessings and curses that they would fall subject to if they were obedient to God.  Because they could not be obedient and were not obedient, God sent His precious Son Jesus to redeem and rescue from that curse.  Moreover, God protects us and prevents things far worse from happening to us.  So while you complain about that pain in your back, remember that God kept you from paralysis, or while you look at that surgery scar, remember how God blessed you with the doctor that caught whatever it was before it multiplied.

But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."  Galatians 3:13 NLT