Devotions

David instructs us, “Those who trust in You in the presence of the sons of men! You shall hide them in the secret place of Your presence” (Psalm 31:19–20). It is time to shut ourselves in with Christ and pour out our hearts to Him.

When the fury of the storm strikes, we will need our own individual supply of strength. When we are in the midst of the storm, none of us will be able to make it on the strength of anyone else. We won’t be able to draw on our mate, our pastor, our friend, even a prophet of God.

We see this truth illustrated in Jesus’ parable of the foolish virgins. When the virgins tried to borrow oil from their wise counterparts, they were told, “Go and buy oil for yourselves. We don’t have enough for both us and you” (see Matthew 25:9).

Do you hear what Jesus is saying in this parable? He is warning all His children: “No one else has enough faith to carry you. You must have your own supply of belief and trust in Me.”

It is so very simple: You need your own supply of strength. Yet you can’t get this by merely reading books or listening to sermons and/or teaching tapes. Neither can you get it by just being involved in corporate worship or doing good works. This strength comes from being alone with the Lord in His presence.

I speak now to every Christian: The time has come for you to draw near to Jesus. You need His presence more than ever!

The Psalmist says of those who appear before the Lord in Zion: “They go from strength to strength” (Psalm 84:7). We are being told, “The praying believer will not faint in hard times. He is going to grow stronger and stronger because he trusts in God.”

The writer of Hebrews praises the testimony of those believers who were strengthened through faithful prayer: “You endured a great struggle with sufferings: partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations . . . and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods” (Hebrews 10:32–34).

Think about it: The people being described here had lost their homes, their livelihoods, everything. And yet they could testify along with their pastor, Paul, “In spite of every trial that came our way, the Lord stood with us. He came daily to give us all the strength we needed to overcome.”

Beloved, have you come to this place? I trust you can say, “In spite of it all, I know Jesus will keep me in hard times. And He will give me everything I need because He is my source of strength.”

Paul learned this secret of strength at his conversion. After being blinded on the road to Damascus, he spent three days fasting and praying, determined to experience the actual presence of this Lord who had revealed Himself to him.

It was then that the Lord directed a believer named Ananias to go and minister to Paul. “For, behold, he is praying” (Acts 9:11). Scripture next says of Paul, “[He] increased all the more in strength” (9:22).

We see this truth illustrated in a parable Jesus told regarding the man who sought bread from his friend at midnight. The man had no bread himself, but he knew that his friend had all the bread he needed. So he kept pounding and knocking on the door until his friend got up, opened the door and gave him bread.

Beloved, that friend with the bread is Jesus. He sticks closer than a brother, and He will supply us with everything we need. This includes not only food, clothing and shelter (see Matthew 6), but also encouragement, strength and peace.

“At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. [Notwithstanding] the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me … And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever” (2 Timothy 4:16-18, my italics).

When Paul uses the word notwithstanding in this passage, He means simply, “in spite of.” He is telling us, “The Lord stood with me and strengthened me in spite of all the troublesome times I faced.” Paul knew that if he drew near to the Lord, Christ would honor him by standing with him.

The apostle declared, in effect: “Everywhere I turned, there was trouble and distress. Yet, when others let me down — when I was alone and all I could see were hard times — the Lord came to me and poured His strength into me. He delivered me from my fears. He gave me an assurance that He would keep me from every evil work, and He will continue to keep me until I get to heaven.”

Paul thrilled to see his spiritual children grasping this idea of notwithstanding in their lives. Year after year, he saw the Lord strengthening them and enabling them to stand steadfast in the midst of even the most difficult times.

Beloved, you can’t obtain this kind of assurance and strength anywhere but in the presence of the Lord Himself. We know Paul was in constant communion with Christ through prayer, and that is why evil news or trials could not shake him. Every time Paul faced another terrible trial, he escaped to prayer, running to Jesus to unburden his heart.

“Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2, my italics).

This message is meant for all who have fallen away or turned away from the Lord. According to the apostle Paul, who wrote the verse above, “Today is the day of mercy and grace.” In other words, if you ever plan to believe, that time is now.

This statement by Paul is both an invitation and a warning. The warning is as follows: “Do not receive the grace of God in vain. Do not ignore, neglect or cast aside God’s offer of mercy. Respond to it now, as it is offered to you.”

Jesus warned that many believers would turn away and grow cold: “Because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). His message is clear: Many who have been on fire for the things of God are going to fall away. They will drift into a spiritual coldness and some will return to their old fleshly ways.

All the backsliding we see today — the turning away from faith to unbelief — comes at a time when you would least expect it. Rather, you would expect people to be drawing nearer to God. We are at the beginning of those days of “sorrows” that Jesus referred to (see Matthew 24:8). Even prominent voices in the world agree that these are days of unspeakable wickedness, marked by uncontrollable greed, rampant sexual perversions. Multitudes are giving themselves over to addictions of all kinds, from drugs to alcohol to pornography.

I ask you: Is this the time to neglect the day of salvation? Absolutely not! If you ever truly loved and followed Jesus but now are cold and indifferent, the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. He is inviting you to come back to the merciful arms of Christ. With compassion, I urge you to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying. 

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24, my emphasis). Jesus prayed this for His disciples — and that includes us. He asked the Father that we may see His glory, meaning to know Him.

There were certain times in the Old Testament when Jesus revealed Himself in human or angelic form. You know what happened in those times. When Isaiah saw God’s glory in the temple, his body quaked and he fell on his face. Jacob’s hip was broken when he tried wrestling with the Lord. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, the Lord told him, “Okay, but first I have to cover your face. Then I have to hide you behind a rock. Then I can only let you see the trailing afterglow behind Me.” In short, He had to protect Moses from the full revelation of Himself. It wasn’t an easy thing to be in the glorious presence of the Holy One!

This didn’t happen just in the Old Testament, however. When Peter first met Jesus, he fell on his face, suddenly aware of his unworthiness, and declared, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). It was true also of the apostle John, exiled on Patmos, when he received the Revelation. When the Lord’s voice first spoke to him, John fell on his face in terror. There was no frivolity about encountering the Lord.

We know from Scripture that this is the normal response that men and women have when they see Jesus. It begs the question: Have we seen Jesus? Are we transformed by the merest glimmer of His presence in our lives? What would happen if we saw Him as Moses or Isaiah or John or Peter did?