Daily Devotion

March 13, 2006

Psa 119:83 KJV  For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.

Bottles were made of skins.  When not in use anymore, they were hung in a tent.  Smoke tanned them so that they grew black and sooty.  Heat dried the moisture out of them so that it gave them wrinkles and an old worn-out look. The dried wrinkled worn-out face of a man is testimony of his acquaintance with sorrow, suffering, pain, and to his familiarity with emotional turmoil.  

A spy caught in enemy territory suffers torture.  His enemy will stop at nothing in his attempt to get the man to yield the precious information.  Because of this, spies-to-be go through intense training that includes torture, in order to raise their threshold of pain.  

In like manner, God allows the Devil to throw his fiery darts in the form of trials and tribulations in order to try and test us.  He allows hurt, emotional pain such as deaths, sicknesses, loss and disappointment, to try to make us forget the statutes of the Lord, say “uncle” , and yield up our precious saved soul to rebellion, disobedience and sin.  But, all in all, he hangs himself, as turmoil tends to strengthen the Christian as he clings all the closer to his Lord.

How much does it take for you to yield to the one who tests your soul to the limits, to the threshold of pain, of hurt and disappointment, until you reject the statutes of the Lord in disgust?   So many, so many martyrs throughout time have suffered in order to preserve the precious name and the precious doctrine; they have suffered until they became like a bottle in the smoke, but they have not forgotten His statutes.

2Ti 2:12  If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:

Patrick Lumbroso
For all past issues of Daily Surrender devotional go to my blog at:
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