LifeLink Devotional

Monday, January 25, 2021

On Sunday, the people who make up the local church of Jesus Christ called Calvary will celebrate their annual Jubilee. It’s a time to look back at the year 2020 and remember how faithful God has been. Our theme this year is “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” This week’s devotionals will focus on the faithfulness of God.

My paternal grandmother was an amazing woman. She was a lifelong student of the Scriptures. She graduated seminary and became the wife of a professor at Moody Bible Institute, and after the Great Depression she followed my grandpa into full time pastoral and evangelistic crusade ministry. She was a cancer survivor who lost a leg and lived with an artificial one for the last several years of her life. She was a living testimony to me of the faithfulness of God.

When my grandparents lived in Wheaton, Illinois, they had a young woman living with them as a boarder while she attended college. One night a young man showed up at the door to take the girl on a date. After hearing the curfew rules from my grandpa, the young man named Billy left with the girl named Ruth. Later, after they were married, they entered ministry. One of the men they invited to join them in ministry was a singer named George. Billy had heard him singing a new hymn on the Moody radio station. He wanted that hymn sung at his crusade. So George Beverly Shea began singing the song “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” at the Billy Graham crusades. 

That song became my grandma’s favorite song.  Let its words speak to you as we begin this week of celebrating the faithfulness of God.

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be
Great is Thy faithfulness, great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside

Great is Thy faithfulness, great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me