Raising an Ebenezer – August 10, 2010

I found myself singing Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing...tune my heart to sing Thy grace: streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the Mount! I'm fixed upon it. Mount of Thy Redeeming love...then I got to the part "Here I raise my Ebenezer: Here by Thy great help I've come." And I stopped and thought what really is an Ebenezer? An Ebenezer represents a stone of help...In 1 Samuel 7:12 Samuel set up a rock as a reminder to all who passed by that it was God who brought them thus far. It is a public statement that God is always faithful to bring us through. In a sense an Ebenezer represents a fresh start. We need to set up stones of rememberance in our lives because as humans when things get tough we need that reminder that the Lord's mercy never fails you. We need to keep walking forth in confidence. But what does it mean to have FULL confidence in God? To rest secure in His arms and to walk boldly in His strength...Proverbs 3:26 tells us, "for the Lord will be your confidence". Everything and everyone will fail you at some point or another - a hard fact - but we as Christians have the hope that He will NEVER fail you! This should drive us to put our full confidence in Him and in Him alone. Jeremiah 17:7 Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. Hebrews 10:35 DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR CONFIDENCE, it will be richly rewarded. Over and over we are promised that we will receive blessing and an inheritance if we place our everything in Christ. He never promised us that it would be easy, but He did make a way for us that "this is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." Friend whatever is on your heart right now that is causing heaviness or anxiousness and you feel overwhelmed cling to that Rock that is higher than you, that Ebenezer, which tells the testimony of His faithfulness in your life. Walk confidently even though you may not see what He is doing right now, but know He is still working, and using this to strengthen and grow your trust and faith in Him. He has brought you this far "be confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will COMPLETE it until the day of Jesus Christ." Phil. 1:6