Living Longer!

Living longer is the dream of most men and women, but few there be who discover one of the most precious keys to a long life, which is found in our Scripture for today! And the reason they don’t find it is because they are ignorant of what God says in His Word. Holy fear of a holy God is the first pillar of truth from these verses, which is critical for life. If we live in awe and reverence for the God, who loves us so much, then we are living in holy fear and we will not want to do those things that grieve Him or step off His pathway for our life.

But the second pillar – knowledge of the Holy One – is equally important. Knowing everything we can discover from His Word about His nature and character will give us an understanding of God and His ways which will help us fulfil His purposes for our life.

Because the leaders of our Ellel centres know me well, they understand how I think and what I would do in many different circumstances. As a result I have complete confidence and trust in them and the way they run their Centres. If they didn’t know me they wouldn’t know what to do and would either constantly have to get in touch with me to ask for an opinion or they would make many mistakes, because they would be acting without an understanding of my heart. In just the same way we need to get to know the heart of God – and once we have His heart and He has ours, we can move forward in faith and trust confident that He will lead us.

And when we are doing those things that please Him, we can be confident also that we won’t be doing those things that could have the effect of shortening our lives. This is easy to understand when you see the medical statistics about the shortened life expectancy, for example, of those who drink too much, or are addicted to drugs, or catch sexually transmitted diseases through promiscuous sexual relationships.
Living a holy life in the fear of God is not living a dull life – and God promises to add years to our life when we understand and walk in His ways!

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for the promises in Your Word. Help me to get to know You better and I ask that the Holy Spirit will fill me day by day with His power to strengthen me against temptation and be a blessing to You and to others. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.