It’s only in the Lord that there is righteousness and strength. We’re not going to get it anywhere else. Christ alone is our righteousness. We’re not going to do right unless Christ is in us. I hope you know you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, but what about His strength?

If you can see that you have no goodness on your own, can you see that you have no strength of your own? Can you see that you have no power to act, to make happen, to accomplish? It comes from God’s hand. His strength accomplishes. His strength brings about His word.

Cyrus will send God’s people to rebuild in Jerusalem. He will defeat nations. It’s God’s accomplishment. It will happen in the strength of God’s hand. Do you see your greatest accomplishments as being the result of God’s strength and not your own efforts?

The Lord used Cyrus even though he was a pagan king. God chose him to fulfill a purpose. God can bring about his purposes. Sometimes it can be hard to trust God when there are other people involved, when another person’s decision is going to affect you. But God can turn the heart of a king. He has control and can act when He decides to. No one can stop Him.

God equipped Cyrus for the tasks He chose for him to accomplish. It didn’t matter that Cyrus didn’t know Him. He is God.

He is God over all things. God says He forms the light and creates the darkness, makes well-being and creates calamity.

I found it interesting that different words were used there for the positive and negative. He creates the dark things, but makes the light things. Yes, nothing is going to take place without God’s sovereignty allowing it, but His hands are on the good. Those are the things He has planned from the beginning. The rest He will give His go ahead on when needful.

Trust Him to save. He showers down salvation on His people and causes it to sprout and bear fruit.