What are some encouraging Bible verses?

The second thing that lies in this scripture is, that even now God is working towards this end. In all His present dealings with us, in all our varied experiences, in all the trials, sorrows, dangers, and persecutions that attend our path, God is leading us, and using all these seeming adversities, as the sculptor employs his chisel, to produce conformity to the image of His Son. The full result, as will hereafter be seen, is never attained here, but this is the end God has always in view. Knowing this, for He reveals it in His own word, we can with confidence adopt this language, and say, "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." What an unspeakable consolation to our souls! All things — not one is excepted, but all things, the bitter and the sweet, adversity and prosperity, sickness and health, yea, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword — all are but instruments in the hands of our God to work out His purposed end. How calmly then we may repose in Him and in His love! Like Jacob, we may often be tempted to say, "All these things are against us;" but no, they are for us, working together for good. We may not see the need of this trial, or the reason of that sorrow; but God is watching, noting everything — what we require, and what the effect produced upon us. Our future condition is before Him, and He leads us by a right way to secure the blessing for us.

Verses 116 and 117 carry the theme of this section of eight verses: “Uphold me,” “Hold… me up.” The Word of God gives us the support we need day by day to live the Christian life. “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness” (Isa. 41:10). What a wonderful promise for us to lay hold of! He who gives life, also sustains it. We are “kept by the power of God” (1 Peter 1:5). Indeed, all our springs are in Him. Our sufficiency is of God. If we trust in His precious Word we will never be put to shame.

There may be difficulties, trials, weariness and dangers, and dependence upon the Lord with prayerfulness will be needed every day, but Isaiah 40:31 cheers us on: “They, that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” None need be discouraged! Beginning with mounting above the trials, we may grow stronger still and run through them; and, finally, so learn of Him who “fainteth not, neither is weary” (v. 28), that we, too, may walk and not faint, as we tread the heavenly road with steady steps!

For our comfort and assurance this unconditional promise comes to us with all the absolute authority of His own word. It is no prophet or apostle who speaks the word; no messenger from the Lord that brings it. No angel or archangel is equal to breathe such words of comfort into forlorn and sorrowing hearts. It is none other than the Lord Himself who draws near to us in our desolation, and with infinite tenderness, we hear Him say, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." The binding of broken hearts shall not be in other hands than His. No hands so tender, so gentle, so skilful, to bind a broken heart as the hands once bruised and pierced in love upon the tree. And seeing the Lord 'has said', faith, rising above a world of sin and sorrow and death, can 'boldly say': "The Lord is my helper, I will not fear."

David hd his ups and downs as most of us have, but they are strange words that he uses at the opening of this 6oth Psalm:—“O God, Thou hast cast us off.” Is that true? Does God not cast off those who are His? Not one of us who have believed could say that. Cast down we may be, and often are, and good for us too, for “God comforteth those that are cast down” (2 Cor. 7:6), but cast off, never; God cannot deny Himself. He cannot be false to His word. There are wonderful words in the Old Testament which assure us that that could never be. They are meant in the first place for Israel , but we may appropriate them. Take this:—“Hearken unto Me, O house of Jacob, Even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you” (Isa. 46). And again:—“Can a woman forget her sucking child? . . . Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee upon the Palms of My hands” (Isa. 49). But the New Testament makes assurance more assured, for there we are in our own sphere, and we read, “He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee”. So that we may boldly say, “The Lord is my Helper, and I will not fear what man shall do to me” (Heb. 13); and most wonderful of all, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8). It is as clear as can be that we shall never be cast off.

The Psalmist now waxes more bold. He has told us what Jehovah is, and what He does. This gives him confidence, and he is consequently able to say, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me" (Ps. 23:4). The valley of the shadow of death is not so much passing through death, as the character of our pathway through this scene. We are passing through a judged world. Death hangs over it like a pall; and hence to the believer, who enters into God's thoughts about it, it is the valley of the shadow of death. But what is his antidote against fear? It is that "Thou art with me." This indeed is the source of all our security and blessing — the Lord is with us. And being with us, we have His rod and His staff to comfort us — His rod to direct, and His staff to support. Do we sufficiently enter into this? Is it as constantly present to our souls as it should be — that the Lord is with us? and that His rod and His staff comfort us? The scene may be never so dark and desolate, and we may be never so weak and weary, but we have boundless resources in the One who is our Shepherd — His own presence to cheer our souls, and His rod and His staff to guide in perplexity, and to support in weakness. Blessed be His name!

"I-have-strength-for all-(things) in the-(One) empowering me." (Phil. 4:13). What wonderful words to come from a man in prison, one who was apparently in most abject circumstances, and in no small danger: one who was unable to do anything, as men would say. But faith speaks according to God, and the one who could do nothing, in the judgment of others, is the very one who could say he had strength for all things: — not in himself, truly, but, — in the One empowering him. The word translated 'empowering' is the word from which we get dynamite and dynamo; what mighty power is expressed in each of those words: but the One who empowered Paul was mightier than all dynamite and all dynamos. He is the One who could say: "All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth." And therefore we are to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. And it is because all power is given unto Christ that we may take up Paul's language (for we have the very same One to empower us) and say: "I have strength for all things in the One empowering me." Our Lord Jesus said truly: "Without Me ye can do nothing." (John 15:5). But here we have the other side: "In the One empowering" us, we can do all things.

How then can we find relief? How is it possible to "Be careful for nothing"? Very blessedly the Apostle unfolds the way to be free, not necessarily of the trial, but of the burden of the trial, so that it no longer weighs the spirit down with care and anxiety. He says, "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." Thus only shall we find relief. "In everything," whatever the trial may be, small or great, make it known to God in prayer; and tell God exactly what you wish, "let your requests be made known to Him." The requests may not be for our good, they may not be according to the mind of God; they may even be foolish, but we are to make them known to God.

What will be the result? Will He answer the requests? Will He remove the trial? He may see that to answer the request, or remove the trial would not be for our good. So far as the immediate trial is concerned, He will act in perfect wisdom for our good, according to His perfect love. But this God will do; He will relieve our hearts from the burden of the trial. If we pour out our hearts before Him, He will pour in His peace into our hearts — that peace of God which passes all understanding.

God is “the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1), and it is His will that His people should be comforted and not distracted; this is the commission He has given to His servants. This comfort is not exactly that which a mother gives her sick or tired child, soothing it to forgetful slumber: it is more than that, it is encouragement for the discouraged, strength for the weak, and restoration for the fainting, it fills the soul with the buoyancy of hope, for it flows from the knowledge of God who is “the God of hope” and “the God of patience and consolation” (Rom. 15).

But to return to our prophet, for we must not miss the great message that he has for us at the opening of this New Year. He remembered the wormwood and the gall, but another cup had been put to his lips that, in his misery, he had almost forgotten — a cup of mercies. "It is of the Lord's mercies," he says, "that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not." "Therefore we have hope." What was it that sustained our souls in the past when they were all but overwhelmed? The Lord's mercies! Therefore we have hope. When other helpers failed and comforts fled, what was it that failed not? His compassions. For "His compassions are new every morning and great is His faithfulness." Aye, the sorrows did not come alone, the mercies followed hard upon their heels. Therefore we have hope! And suppose there were neither mercies nor compassions, What then? Then, "The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in Him." It is good to hear the song that hope sings break in upon the prophet's dirge, and to learn that the Lord was greater than his greatest sorrow, and it carries us into the New Testament, where hope not only sings her song, but sings it with a great confidence. "And not only so," says the Apostle, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation works patience; and patience, experience, and experience, hope; and hope makes not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given to us" (Rom. 5:3-5).