Devotions

I have a short message for those who are experiencing a painful, overwhelming situation. I am not speaking to those who now enjoy a time of rest from suffering, who are not in any kind of pain or sorrow. Thank God for those times of quiet rest.

Rather, I receive many letters from precious followers of Jesus who are living with incredible inner sorrow and crisis situations: divorce, children on drugs or in jail, the death of a spouse. A woman deeply in love with the Lord grieves over the death of her children, who suffocated in a fire. A pastor grieves for his wife, who left him and his children for a lesbian lover.

I have a message for you godly people who are suffering. In Psalm 40, David cried, “Innumerable evils have surrounded me. . . Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me!” (Psalm 40:12-13). “Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You. . . But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God” (40:16-17). 

I have been so blessed and comforted by this one line in verse 17: “The Lord thinks upon me.” Imagine that! The Lord who created all things, the God of this universe, thinks about me. Even now, in your hour of need, His thoughts are about you.

When Israel was captive in Babylon, mourning over the loss of homes and families, God sent word to them through Jeremiah: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). God said to His people, “Your nightmare is going to end. I have only good, loving thoughts toward you, and if you seek Me with all your heart, you will find Me.”

Pour out your heart to the Lord. He is thinking of you!

The Holy Spirit prompted me to read Exodus 12, which contains the account of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt.

On the door of every Israelite home, the blood of a lamb was stricken on the two side-posts and lintel. This was to protect God’s people from the passing angel of death. When the day came, a multitude of Israelites marched out of captivity, including 600,000 men plus women and children. “On that very same day . . . all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt” (Exodus 12:41).

In the next chapter, I stopped at verse 3, which reads: “For by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place” (13:3). God’s people were delivered by the Lord’s strength alone, not by human means.

David declares, “God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect. . . He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me; for they were too strong for me. . . He is a shield to all who trust in Him” (2 Samuel 22:33, 17, 18, 31).

Our faith and strength may grow weak, but in our times of weakness God has given us marvelous promises to renew and strengthen us.

Beloved, do you believe our God is strong? If He is strong, no power can stand before Him. Therefore, commit everything into His mighty hand of strength and power. He will make a way. Most of all, believe this word: “In the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul” (Psalm 138:3).

God love and bless you!

Jesus said to His disciples, “The fields are white, ready to harvest.” The harvest is an ingathering of souls in the last days and the law of the harvest is that the darker the days, the whiter the harvest. Right now, many souls are ripe for harvest all over the world.

But there is another harvest in these last days. The Lord was speaking prophetically about what He foresaw coming in our time: a harvest of golden-ripe faith in the hearts of His people. Our Lord wants a tested, suffering people who will rise up in the midst of distress and trouble and proclaim, “I trust my God!”

Jesus does not expect faith from the worldly crowd. When He wondered aloud, “Will I find faith on the earth when I return?” He was not speaking of sinners. But we who love Him are also told, “He who trusts in the Lord, mercy shall surround him” (Psalm 32:10). God promises that His goodness is “laid up . . . for those who trust in You in the presence of the sons of men” (31:19).

I can say with the Psalmist David, “I have known trouble, much suffering, financial need, the sorrow of the death of loved ones, the slander of those I loved who turned against me. I have known personal pain. There were times I thought things were hopeless. Times of temptation. Times of weeping until no tears were left.”

Some of my suffering was self-imposed, caused by ignorance or foolishness. But now I can boldly testify: God has never failed me. Through all the trouble, pain and sufferings, I have come through with joy and a strong trust in the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord. Here is the testimony He desires to hear from all of His tested children: “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice . . . and shout for joy, all you upright in heart” (32:11).

We rejoice in the faithfulness of our Lord. 

Growing numbers of Christians are no longer fully satisfied with Christ. The Lord is being dethroned by what He Himself called thorns — which He defined as the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lusts of other things entering into the heart. Christ said these are the thorns that choke the Word and cause it to become unfruitful (see Mark 4:7).

Is the Lord more on your mind today than a year ago? Do you spend more time in His presence today than a year ago? Is your passion for Him growing or withering?

Many of those who were once passionately in love with Christ now run about pursuing their own interests. They’re burdened down with stress and problems, chasing after riches and the things of this world. They have grown cold or lukewarm, and they have less and less time for Jesus. The Lord and His church now get only an hour of their time — on Sunday mornings.

Jesus said, “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered” (John 15:6). In other words, that person is drying up, no longer drawing life from the true vine. He is deceived by thinking all is well, because he still speaks the language of the intimacy he once enjoyed with Christ.

The Holy Spirit is calling people back to their first love. Back to hungering and thirsting for more of Christ. Back to spending quality time in His presence; loving His Word; casting all cares upon Him; depending on Him for guidance.

Christ yearns for His beloved to return to Him with love and obedience. The Holy Spirit is stirring our hearts to draw us closer to Himself. 

God told the prophet Amos, “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. . . Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:21, 23-24). God is saying to every generation, “It’s not the song or the sound that I seek from you. It’s the righteousness that flows from your worship and the deeds it stirs you to do in My name.”

We can no longer measure a song’s power by its entertainment value or any other manmade standard. We measure it by whether it calls forth what the Holy Spirit wants for His Body in that moment. Our worship is to be an everflowing stream of His righteous presence. Thus, we dare not allow on stage those “who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp . . . who . . . anoint themselves with the finest oils” (Amos 6:5-6). This speaks of leaders we anoint based solely on their talent, skill, and cleverness. God is calling us to clear the stage of any standard other than this: “Surely you are in this place, O God!”

I speak to myself when I say to all pastors, “Do we place more confidence in strategies, structures and programs than in God’s leading? If so, we need to clear the stage of such things.”

Churches may have all the makings of a dynamic body. We may make sure every sermon is tightly articulated, every song perfectly tuned, every espresso machine filling people’s cups — but it’s all worthless if God’s presence is nowhere to be found.

It is time to discard surveys that ask people what they want from church rather than asking what God wants. If surveys dictate our direction, we may as well take down our sign that reads CHURCH because we won’t be one. We’ll be a professional organization that seeks success based on market demands. And that’s not the gospel!