Dec 15, 2021
Because God loves you, he will work to cleanse you, but it is a loving chastening upon those who repent and return to him. You may feel God’s arrows in your soul because of your past and present sins, but if you have a repentant heart and want to turn from error, you can call upon his chastening love. You will not feel his wrath as the heathens do but rather the rod of his discipline, applied by his loving hand.
When you know you have arrived at your lowest point, it is time to seek the Lord in brokenness, repentance and faith.
When you cry out to God, he pours his strength into you. “In the day when I cried out, you answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul…. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me; you will stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand will save me. The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; do not forsake the works of your hands” (Psalm 138:3, 7–8, NKJV).
One of the most difficult things for Christians to accept is the suffering of the righteous. There is an erroneous doctrine that says if you are in agreement with God, you will never suffer. It claims, “Just call out to God, and he will come running and solve everything immediately.” This is not the gospel! The heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11 all had close relationships with God, and they suffered mocking, torture and violent deaths (see Hebrews 11:36–38). Paul himself, who walked closely with God, was shipwrecked, stoned, whipped, left for dead, robbed, jailed and persecuted. He suffered the loss of all things.
God wants to plant something in our hearts through our trials. He wants us to be able to say, “Lord Jesus, I believe you rule over the events of my life. If anything happens to me, it’s only because you allowed it, and I trust your purpose in doing it. Help me understand the lesson you want me to learn from it. If I walk in righteousness and have your joy in my heart, my living and dying will bring glory to you. I will say, ‘Jesus, whether I live or die, I am yours!’”
Dec 14, 2021
One night I watched Trevor Loudens film “Enemies From Within” and God told me something about the church I was not expecting to hear. The Lord whispered to me, “The church needs shock treatment! Too many have grown satisfied and complacent. You feel safe and secure from all the winds and waves of false doctrines sweeping over the land, but you are not prepared for what is coming!”
Beloved, having the Spirit’s witness functioning in you is a matter of life and death. If you don’t have the witness of the Holy Ghost in these last days, you’re not going to make it. You’ll give in to the coming spirit of the Antichrist.
You need the Holy Spirit’s power every day on the job, at school, in your family. This is what Jesus was trying to tell us about the foolish virgins who ran out of oil for their lamps. They had a supply of the Holy Ghost, but they didn’t have his witness at the final moment. Don’t end up a foolish virgin! If you are running out of oil—trusting your church or your pastor to keep your soul—then repent.
Humble yourself and search your heart; cry out to God to rid your soul of all anger and bitterness. Confess your sins and forsake them. Depend on God once again for everything. Get the peace of God in your heart, so you can have a Holy Ghost witness. Ask the Father for a greater indwelling of the Spirit. Invite him to be your witness and guide in everything.
We face a cost of going all the way with Jesus, but we also will receive great rewards. First and foremost, we will have the blessing of having Christ stand with us. There are many other rewards as well, which Christ pointed to when he said, “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29, NKJV).
The cost of following Christ was clear in the lives of the men of God in the Bible, and if we are going to be like our master, we must embrace this cost as well. Enduring it becomes a joy because Jesus promises to stand with us in every situation.
We can face anything or anyone when we know the Lord stands with us. Count the cost and know that your reward is the precious presence of Jesus Christ.
Dec 9, 2021
Have you ever had a friend or loved one say to you, out of the blue: “Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?”
You may simply be quiet, deep in thought, so you answer, “No, I’m not mad. You didn’t do anything to hurt me. I’m just quiet right now.”
They press you, saying, “Was it something I said?”
“No, you didn’t say anything. Everything is all right.”
Finally, to convince that person, you have to hug them. “Look, I love you! I’m not upset. But if you keep this up, you’re going to get me upset!”
Beloved, this is often how we treat our heavenly Father. At the end of the day, we go to our secret closet and say, “Let’s see now, how did I grieve Jesus today? What did I do wrong? What did I forget to do? I’m such a mess that I don’t know how he can love me. Lord, forgive me one more time. Someday I’ll be so obedient that you’ll find it easy to love me.”
God is there all the time, waiting to embrace you. He wants to show you how much he loves you, and he wants you to lie back and rest in his love. When the prodigal son came home, he was welcomed back into his father’s house. He received a new robe, ate at his father’s table and had full forgiveness. The one thing this son knew was that he was secure in his father’s love. He knew his father would bear with him, work with him, love him. That’s how our heavenly Father is with us.
No matter how far we may stray from our Father, we continually have the ability to return. We must believe these words: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he made us accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:3-6, NKJV).
God waits with outstretched arms to embrace all who accept his love and return to his presence.
Dec 7, 2021
Those who truly know God have learned how to recognize his voice. I believe that three things are required of those who would hear God’s voice:
1. Unshakable confidence that God is wanting to speak to you. You have to be fully persuaded and convinced of this. Indeed, he wants you to know his voice so you can do his will. What God tells you will never go beyond the boundaries of scripture.
2. Quality time and quietness. You need to be willing to shut yourself in with God and let all other voices fall 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 had shut out every other voice but his.
3. Asking in faith. We do not obtain anything from God, including hearing his voice, unless we truly believe that he is able to convey his mind to us and enable us to understand his perfect will. We also must believe that the Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t know how to pray for ourselves or a certain situation (see Romans 8:26-27).
God is not a tease. He wants you to be convinced that he desires to talk to you and tell you things you’ve never heard before. He will not allow the enemy to deceive you. “He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10:2-5, NKJV). When God speaks, peace follows, and Satan cannot counterfeit that peace!
God saw what your hurts and needs would be. He knew ahead of time what you would need to solve all your problems. He did not wrap up and hide away his answers.
Dec 6, 2021
One of God’s names in scripture is Jehovah-Nissi. It means the God who provides, who is a banner, who lifts ups, who exalts. It’s an interesting combination of meanings all together in one word.
This Hebrew word nissi was used in Jewish weddings. When the bride and groom were at the wedding party, all of the guests would make the couple sit in two chairs; then they would lift the chairs up and walk around the room, carrying the bride and groom. That action of lifting up was called nissi.
I think it’s a powerful picture because marriage is a kind of lifting up and great exaltation. I’ve been married for many years, and it’s a wonderful blessing, but it’s also a test.
We don’t really want God to test us; we don’t want to go through dry seasons where we feel alone and away from his presence. We don’t want to go through the test of having to move to difficult places, the test of friends hurting our hearts, the test of family difficulties, the test of financial difficulties, the tests in church or ministry.
When Paul was talking about some of the tests in his life, he said, “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles…danger from false brothers. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:24-26,28, ESV).
Why is he saying this? What’s the point of this?
Paul provides the answer in very next chapter. “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
There’s a reason for God’s tests. He tests us in the area we love most. Every test you’re going through is not God’s desire to push you back or keep you in your place; it’s God’s desire to bring you nissi, to bring you to a new place, to elevate your faith and have you worship him as the Lord who lifts us up.
