The Coming PromiseSample

Day 7: God Protects 

God doesn’t just provide all our needs, He protects us. 

Have you ever had an idea you held close? I did this a lot. God would give me an idea and I would clasp my hands tightly around it. I didn’t want someone to steal my idea. It was my dream, not theirs. God gave the idea to me, so obviously I needed to do it all on my own to make sure it’s done right. God has shown me there are two reasons why I’ve been doing this:

1. I don’t fully trust that He will protect me or His idea. 

2. There is part of me that wants the applause. 

Yikes. Straight to the heart. But God and I have a blunt relationship like that.

Have you experienced God's correction that cuts to the core? You want to be frustrated for being called out, but eventually you realize it’s the truth. 

God doesn’t give us a promise for ourselves. He gives us a promise to glorify himself within your community. It’s from Him and for Him. 

King Herod wanted to kill Jesus because he felt his kingdom was threatened by this promised king. He asked the wise men to come back to him and tell him Jesus' location. But God gave the wise men a dream to not go back.

Matthew 2:12 says, “And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.”

God also gave a dream to Joseph to leave. Get up. Take your child. Go. 

Matthew 2:13-15 says, “When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So, he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

After Herod died, God came to Joseph in a dream and told him the next steps to protect Jesus. 

Matthew 2:19-23 says, “After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” So, he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

God will fight for you. God will speak directly to you. God will be your protector. 

What do you have a death grip on because you are afraid God won’t protect you? 

What is the fear that is causing you not to fully trust God?