Category: Devotion of the Day

But If Not…

Our God is able to deliver us…But if not…
Daniel 3:17, 18

The Hebrew children did not doubt that God could save them from the furnace, but if He did not they would be faithful, anyway. It is well to be prepared for the “if nots.” God is always able, but sometimes it is not His will to deliver us from the fiery furnace. But He will save us in the furnace. He does not always spare us trouble, but He does succour us in trouble.

If you are facing a furnace, make provision for the “if not.” If you are not healed, if the dear one is taken, if that friend fails you, be faithful, anyway. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” If things do not turn out the way you had hoped and prayed they would, do not bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s image of doubt or fear or discouragement. That is what the devil wants, as when he put Job in his furnace.

“God can do it, but if He doesn’t, He is still my God. I will bow to no idol.”…Blessed are the saints of the If Nots!

The daily devotions are from Day by Day by Vance Havner. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1953.

Nothing Wavering

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.
James 1:6

The man who lacks wisdom is promised it, but he must ask in faith and not be like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. Our Lord said we could move mountains if we commanded them to move and did not doubt in our hearts (Mk. 11:23). The positive side of that is in the next verse, which says, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

Abraham “staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith.” There we have the negative and positive again (Rom. 4:20). Some are saved from sin but not from staggering.

“Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” Positive and negative! Are you walking by faith or wobbling in doubt? “We lie to God in prayer when we do not rely on God after prayer.” James is very clear: “Let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord.”

Asking without believing marks a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

The daily devotions are from Day by Day by Vance Havner. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1953.