Reading your Bible for today March 4

March 4: Isaiah 51:17-23

KJV Key Verse: Isaiah 51:22
22 Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again :

Devotion:
How many of you have been on the receiving end of some sort of bullying? How many of you have been forced into doing something you did not want to? How many of you have been on the receiving end of violence?

I hope that not too many of you have had to endure anything which has caused harm, but as we hear in the news, we are surrounded by many people who live in fear of their lives each and every day. We hear the news about car bombs going off in places crowded with people. We hear about terrible natural disasters which take the lives of many thousands of people.

We only have to look back in history to find out what the Lord does when faced with people that are abusing His people. If we go back to the days when many people from Israel fled to Egypt for food, we find how they managed to flourish in Egypt. But we also see how they were treated because they flourished. We see how they were put to slavery, how they were made to be the lowest of the low just because the local people took offence!

Then we see how they turned back to God and finally asked fervently for help. That is when Moses was sent in to show the awesome power of God. Through his hands, the Egyptians experienced God's power and might. As if plagues of frogs, flies and locusts were not bad enough, they had to deal with boils covering their bodies from their heads to the soles of their feet. They had to deal with hail and fire, days of darkness and finally the death of all the first-born! When God steps in to make a difference, you had better be ready for a reply you had not expected. If He can make our planet fly around in the universe at amazing speeds without bumping into anything, just imagine what He can do with a few small physical things here!

Points to Ponder:
Have you ever got more help from friends than you asked for?

How much more can God give?