Just today Iraq names a new president which was followed with a double car bombing in Baghdad, Ukrainian prime minister announces his resignation, and Reuven Rivlin is appointed as Israel’s new president.

“He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him” (Dan 2:21-22).

Just today a passenger airplane is reported missing (only a week after MH17). Explosions hit a school that was sheltering civilians in northern Gaza. Norway is preparing for Islamist terrorism. An estimated 360k people will be born, 155k people will die, 52k thefts will occur, 18k burglaries, 11k assaults, over 1200 acts of sexual violence, over 200 kidnappings, nearly 400 sexual offenses on minors, and over 1k homicides. Just today!

May we turn our hearts to Christ and apply the gospel to this day of life:

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Gal 1:3-5)

So how does one live a God-centered life today from the heart, in this world of economical and political uncertainty, of increasing moral degradation, and of statistical ruin?

The biblical answer is faith. True, living, abiding faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in His provision that redefines every experience. Faith in His promise of future grace that transforms our outlook on all present circumstances. Faith in His substitutionary work that works in and through us. Daily we need this calibration.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Pro 3:5-6)

May the words of John Owen encourage your heart as they have mine:

[Faith] empties the soul of its own wisdom, understanding, and fulness, that it may act in the wisdom and fulness of Christ. The only advice for preservation in trials and temptations lies in that of the wise man, Prov. 3:5, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” This is the work of faith; it is faith; it is to live by faith. The great [cause of] falling of men in trials is their leaning to, or leaning upon, their own understanding and counsel. What is the issue of it? Job 18:7, “The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down.” First, he shall be entangled, and then cast down; and all by his own counsel, until he come to be ashamed of it, as Ephraim was, Hos. 10:6. Whenever in our trials we consult our own understandings, hearken to self-reasonings, though they seem to be good, and tending to our preservation, yet the principle of living by faith is stifled, and we shall in the issue be cast down by our own counsels. Now, nothing can empty the heart of this self-fulness but faith, but living by it, but not living to ourselves, but having Christ live in us by our living by faith on him.

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