Jan 18, 2023
Most of us are still dumb creatures looking to the future for fulfillment. We think some future event or change in our circumstances will bring us peace and joy. We say, “Just wait; my day is coming. Somehow, someday, somewhere…I don’t know what is out there for me, but it will happen.” We are like children waiting for Christmas and counting the days.
David once wrote during a mournful, introspective season in his life that he felt the time was going too fast. He had accomplished so little, he thought. Everything at the time seemed to be in vain. “Surely every man walks about like a shadow; Surely they busy themselves in vain; he heaps up riches, and does not know who will gather them. And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you” (Psalm 39:6-7 NKJV). David was depressed, down. His present situation appeared so useless. Out of a perplexed heart, he cried out, “Lord, what am I waiting for?”
God spoke to me with this same question one day when I was walking alone in the hills of Pennsylvania. “David, what is it you’re waiting for? Why isn’t this the best day of your life? Why can’t you now be full and joyous? There is nothing out there that you don’t already have in Jesus.”
I ask you: What are you waiting for? “Oh, for Mr. or Ms. Right,” you may answer. You’re waiting for that godly person you think is going to rescue you from loneliness and fill your soul with unspeakable joy. Some are bored with their mates and waiting for them to go to glory because they’re looking for romance to come into their lives and drive away their emptiness. No! There is nothing out there that will change or save you from who and what you are already. If you think someone else is going to solve your loneliness problem, you’re badly mistaken. You must find deliverance, peace, hope and joy for yourself.
Jesus is the only one who can fill the void. Wake up and live!
Jan 17, 2023
Those who truly know God have learned how to recognize his voice above all others. He wants you to be convinced that he desires to talk to you and tell you things you’ve never heard before.
The Lord recently showed me that I was still wavering about hearing his voice. Oh, I know that he speaks, but I doubted my ability to hear him. I kept “checking” the voice I heard, and when it seemed too mysterious, I thought, “This can’t be God. Besides, the devil and lying spirits and the flesh speak, too. Voices come at us all the time. How can I know it’s him?”
I believe three things are required of those who would hear God’s voice:
1. An unshakable confidence that God wants to speak to you and wants you to know his voice. What he tells you will never go beyond the boundaries of scripture, and you don’t need a Ph.D. to recognize his voice. You only need a heart that says, “I believe God desires to talk to me.”
2. Quality time and quietness. We must shut ourselves in with God and let all other voices hush away. True, God speaks to us all day long. But whenever he has wanted to build something into my life, his voice has come only after I have shut out every other voice but his.
3. Ask in faith. We do not obtain anything from God unless we truly believe that he can convey his mind and will to us.
Jesus says, “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?” (Luke 11:11-12 NKJV). If you ask your heavenly Father for a word—a clear direction, a godly correction, a particular need—do you think for a moment he would let the devil come and deceive you?
God is not a tease. He will not allow the devil to deceive you. When God speaks, peace follows, and Satan cannot counterfeit that peace. If you are in a place of quiet and rest, you have an assurance that never changes. You can go back to God a thousand times, and you will receive the same word every time. Trust in him!
Jan 16, 2023
Does doubt make us stronger? Is it ‘Christian’ to have doubts? There is very little I don’t doubt. Throughout my life and its many twists and turns, I have often been filled with doubts. The good news is that doubt isn’t going to rob you of the goodness of God. He won’t withhold himself from you just because your faith is mixed in with questions and uncertainties. Jesus still healed the child of the father who cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (see Mark 9:17-27).
God is a holy God, and we should always approach him with reverence; but doubt is not irreverence, and God understands our questions. He doesn’t diminish his relationship with us or his miracle-working power in us if our faith is sometimes mixed with doubt.
Believe it or not, doubt can promote a greater revelation of God within us. We can see more of God’s glory when we are willing to wrestle with our conflicts and get to the other side of our questions with a more solid faith and deeper knowledge of him.
There are three steps to working through doubt. First, approach your doubt with an honest heart. If we say, “I want truth and life,” we will find truth and life. If we’re trying to simply prove a point or avoid obedience to God, we aren’t being honest.
Next, take time to meditate and study the scriptures. We live such busy lives that many of us are holding on to doubts that we have simply ignored for years. We don’t take the time to quietly contemplate and enter those doubts. I use a notepad and write down things that I’m wrestling with. I reach for my Bible and seek out the harmony of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.
Finally, find a good Christian friend to talk to. If you’re in a church environment where you can’t express your doubts, you need to find a person of faith who will listen with an open heart. Even pastors face doubts, and they especially need a trustworthy friend or counselor.
Jan 13, 2023
Scripture says of Israel, “Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel” (Psalm 78:41 NKJV).Israel turned away from God in unbelief. Likewise, I believe we limit God today with our doubts and unbelief.
We trust God in most areas of our lives, but our faith always has boundaries and limits. We all have at least one small area that we block off where we don’t really believe God will take care of us.
For example, many people will pray for the healing of a well-known person who is a perfect stranger to them. But often, when it comes to healing for their own loved one, they limit God. I limit God most in the area of healing. I have prayed for physical healing for many, and I have seen God perform many miracles. When it comes to my own body, though, I limit God. I am afraid to let him be God to me. I douse myself with medicine or run to a doctor before I ever pray for myself. I’m not saying it’s wrong to go to the doctor, but sometimes I fit the description of those who “did not seek the Lord, but the physicians” (see 2 Chronicles 16:12).
Do you pray for God to bring down walls of oppression in other countries, but when it comes to the salvation of your own family you don’t have an ounce of faith? You think, “God must not want to do this. He doesn’t seem to be hearing me.”
If this is true, you are not seeing him as God. You are ignorant of his ways. God desires to “do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Ephesians 3:20).
Israel asked constantly, “Can God…? Sure, he made a way for us through the Red Sea, but can he give bread?” God spread a table for them in the wilderness. “But can he give us water?” He gave them water from a rock. “But can he give meat?” He gave them meat from the sky. “But can he deliver us from our enemies?” Time after time, God provided in every area, yet they spent forty years saying, “Can God…? Can God…?”
Beloved, we ought to be saying, “God can! God can!” God can and will do all that we ask and believe him to do.
Jan 10, 2023
For anyone to enjoy settled peace, he must cease from self and harken to God’s Word and rest without a single question on its pure, precious and everlasting record. God’s Word never changes. I change; my frame, my feelings, my experience, my circumstances change continually, but God’s Word is the same yesterday and today and forever.
It is a grand and essential point for the soul to apprehend that Christ is the only definition of the believer’s place before God. This gives immense power, liberty and blessing. “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17 NKJV). This is something perfectly wonderful!
Let us ponder it; let us think of a poor wretched, guilty slave of sin, a bondslave of Satan, a votary of the world, exposed to an eternal hell. Such an one is taken up by sovereign grace and delivered completely from the grasp of Satan. He is freed from the dominion of sin, the power of this present evil. He is pardoned, washed, justified, brought nigh to God, accepted in Christ and perfectly and forever identified with him so that the Holy Ghost can say, “As Christ is, so is he in this world!”
All this seems too good to be true. Most assuredly, it is too good for us to get, but blessed be the God of all grace and blessed be the Christ of God, it is not too good for him to give. God gives like himself. He will be God in spite of our unworthiness and Satan’s opposition. He will act in a way worthy of himself and worthy of the Son of his love.
