His anger is but for a moment, His favour is for life

We don’t seem to want to talk about the wrath of God anymore, and I suppose in times past, we spoke about it too much! But if we are to take the whole counsel of God, we should not forget that we all needed to flee to God for refuge (Hebrews 6:18). And for the believer, the contrast between the momentary nature of His anger, and the eternal duration of His favour is more clearly brought out in John 3:36, where we are told “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.” The rest of the verse tells me “He who does not believe the Son shall not see life.” And I am reminded this morning, of the need to pray for my unsaved loved ones!

But it was concerning His favour, to which the Lord brought my attention this morning from Psalm 30:5a. I am fond of saying that I am His favourite son! But then so are you (favourite daughter if you are female). But how can we all be favourites? Well I explain it by using a false etymology (derivation) of the word favourite. I see favourite as “favour – right.” In other words the believer is given the right to His favour! So what does His favour look like? Well it’s all over the Word. First and foremost we are given the right to be called the sons of God (John 1:12). He daily loads is down with benefits (Psalms 68:19), He calls us His friends (John 15:15), He tells us that if we abide in Him, and His words abide in us, we will ask what we desire, and it will be given (John 15:7) etc., etc.

I suspect that most of us don’t really believe this! I am reminded of a prophetic word that was given to Kris Vallotton and was followed by another which said “History will tell us if you believed me.” This slowness to believe was characteristic even of the first disciples (Luke 24:25). I cannot condemn them, because after having seen literally hundreds of miracles on a short-term mission trip with Randy Clark (see the testimonies in on the Global Awakening webpage), I still had far from fully entered into faith to believe for more. But I knew and know what to do! In particular, the Scriptures tell me “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17), and since “Man does not live by bread alone every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4), then I need to daily feed on His Word.

Father, the prayer “I believe, help my unbelief” comes to mind again this morning. Your word tells us Lord, that faith is not of ourselves, even this is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8). So Lord please increase my faith this morning, and help me to do my part by being consistent in reading and meditating on Your Word. I thank You this morning Lord for Your many favours, I thank You for Your patience with me, and I thank You that You who have begun a good work in me, will keep right on working until You come (Philippians 1:6). And I pray these things in Jesus Name Amen