Bible Study:
Angels? Really Now
“But while he thought, the angel of the Lord appeared.”
(Matthew 1:20).
Read: Matthew 1:20; Psalm 19:14; Psalm 39:3; 104:34; 91:11; Acts 12:7; 1 Timothy 4:15 KJV; Acts 27:23; Hebrews 1:14.
What is God Saying?
Angels are for real. God sends them to help us. They are meant to “keep” us and to “guard” us in all our ways. Not here and there, not now and then, but always and in all our ways.
Peter was in prison. An angel of the Lord said, ‘Get up quickly,” and the chains fell off his hands. Belonging to God and serving God (Acts 27:23) mean that God has an angel standing by us. It comes with the territory. Joseph saw the angel of the Lord when he was in great perplexity. Guidance from that angel came in his deepest hour of need – another case of a man’s extremity is God’ opportunity.
God often sends a ministering angel when we reach the end of our rope or the end of our hope.
How Does This Apply To Us?
Psalm 91:11 reminds us that we cannot go along any way for God without the presence and help of a ministering angel from God. The world may scoff at this but believers draw strength from it. They trust and oftentimes prove that in true meditation the angels of God stand nearby.
When an angel of the Lord tells us to get up and get going, we are given the freedom to do it. Peter’s experience in prison demonstrates that when we are held in bondage to anything.
God can and will (if we believe) lift us up and set us free.
Pray With Me
O God, I thank You for all great and glowing thoughts. As every good and perfect gift comes from You, so all thought of pure love and unblemished beauty are Yours to give …. and ours to enjoy. Forgive me that too often …
-
- I have seen Your right and thought wrong.
- I have seen Your beauty and thought ugliness.
- I have seen Your faithful provision and thought anxiety.
- I have seen Your gift of a second chance and thought revenge.
Help me to see Your thoughts expressed in all that is good and true and beautiful, and beyond all this give me the grace of some ministering angel to turn my thoughts toward the right and to shield my thoughts from the wrong. Yes, with Joseph, even in times of perplexity and deep concerns, may my thoughts be so centered on Your unfailing goodness that meditation shall be a heavenly “ladder” down which angels of light and mercy may come. O God, keep my thoughts so holy and loving that the appearing of angels may not seem strange nor their message go unheard.
In the name of Jesus who also knew the grace of ministering angels. Amen.
Moving On In The Life Of Prayer
In Copley Square, Boston, stands a statue that give a silent but eloquent witness. It portrays Phillips Brooks, great preacher of the last century, looking out across the busy circle of traffic. In the shadows behind him there is a slightly elevated figure which can be easily identified as the Christ and one hand reaches out to rest gently on the shoulder of His faithful servant, Phillips Brooks.
In a similar fashion there is a nearby angel who ministers to us and guards us and sometimes, as with Peter, “strikes” us to get us up and get us going.
When things go well and life is at its exhilarating best, when things are very humdrum and life is painfully commonplace, when we have reached the end of our rope perplexed, bewildered and void of hope, think about this:
God has an angel for you, to keep you in all your ways.
Remember, “while he (Joseph) thought, the angel appeared.” Pray faithfully. Angels are nearer than we think and never too busy or too late.
Used with permission.
From the book:
First Light: Morning Conversations with God.