Earlier in the week, I spoke about some verses which have been quite important to me, which started off on a hospital bed! “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2). Today I want to look at how that might work.

Something that’s helped me quite a lot is an incident that happened in David’s life. In 1 Samuel 13 the Amalekites have been along and kidnapped the wives and children of David and his men. When David got back to the camp, he found they’d all gone. Then, on top of that, David’s men got annoyed with David and started talking about stoning him. 

So what did David do? Well it just says he “strengthened himself in his God”. 

Notice how personal that is. He strengthened himself in his God. David was falling back on a long-standing relationship that he had with God.

And I wondered, how did he do that?

Earlier on in 1 Samuel 23, there’s a similar incident where David’s being chased by Saul, who is after his life. David meets up with Saul’s son, Jonathan, who is his best friend. And it says Jonathan “strengthened his hand in God”. He strengthened David’s hand in God – which he did by reminding David of the promises that God had made to him about becoming King. 

And that is the key.

There are some verses in 2 Peter which say this: “His (that is God’s) divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to his own glory and excellence and by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these, we may escape the corruption which is in the world, because of sinful desire”. 

It’s about knowing God and going back to his promises. It’s those promises, according to Peter, that help us to grow in godliness and put aside sinful desires. Those things that might come at us from other people, but also they can be from within. So if we start to be angry or get envious and so on, the Word of God is the place to go. 

And for David, he had his faithful friend who helped him in his walk with God. 

So what are God’s promises? 

I once was asked that when I went to a youth group (back in the day!), where the activity was all about God’s promises. The last question was to list them! 

O course, there’s too many to list here, but think about things like: peace and guidance and strength and truth meeting our needs. 

He promises His Spirit, eternal life, abundant life. Answered prayer, forgiveness of sins, his presence… this list could go on. 

The other thing to go back to is the Gospel. The Gospel itself. John 3:16 is a very well-known verse. And in John 5:24 Jesus says very simply, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word, and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life”. 

And there’s many other verses you could find that summarise the Gospel. 

The key thing is what promises are significant to you? 

Some perhaps some more so than others, but just go for the ones that mean something to you, that you can go back and rest on, and find the ones that help you. 

In closing, just three things: 

• Learn to strengthen yourself in God, 

• Find others – find a faithful friend who is able to encourage you in your walk with God. 

• Look out for others that you too can help and encourage. 

1 Peter 1:13 says this, “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”. 

If we were to paraphrase that in today’s language, it might be something like this:

Fasten your seat belt and press on!