Devotions

Here is the promise of all promises: “I will never leave you and I will never forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). The promise is just simply J-E-S-U-S. Jesus is my promise and the core of all my promises.

It’s like that old song, I’D RATHER HAVE JESUS.

     I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold;
     I’d rather be His than have riches untold;
     I’d rather have Jesus than houses or land;
     I’d rather be led by His nail-pierced hand.

I’d rather have Jesus! If we will comprehend the central, singular, soul-conviction that the promises of God are encapsulated in Jesus, then everything else is diminished. Nothing can compare with this one promise! If you have Jesus, then the response to all His other promises will be, “That’s good! I believe that. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for letting me drink from this cup.” Everything pales in comparison to the fact that I get to know Him. I get to walk with Him. I get to love Him. Jesus’ presence is central, better than any other promise any of us could possibly have and He is free for the asking. He is saying, “Just call on My name and I will come.”

If you will just come to Jesus, He will become illuminated in your life. He will become first and be your everything. People who have that centrality of focus on Jesus Christ are the people I see walking in the fullness of their promises. And people who lose sight of Jesus and begin to emphasize the promises more than Jesus begin to struggle. They start to drift and their journey stops because they are not finding the fullness of life that is found in Jesus Christ.

I covet a lot of things for you because I love you. I covet ministries for you that go beyond your wildest dreams.

As the Bible says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be added unto you” (see Matthew 6:33).
 

In Genesis 12:1, God called Abraham to “come out of his father’s house.” It is only by reading carefully and understanding the previous chapter and its contextual specific narrative nature that we are able to get the full significance and momentous depth of the call. Genesis 11 reveals to us that Abraham, his father and their entire clan had left Ur in Chaldea for Canaan. Canaan represents, symbolizes and typifies the land of promise, destiny, fulfillment, and the accomplishment of the fullness of blessing God had intended. In fact, it speaks of all God is and wanted to be in their lives—and in ours. The journey was harsh, long and exhausting. They were hit with tragedies, threats and traumatizing experiences. Loved ones passed away, and as they walked through these valleys of grief, the Promised Land seemed far away.

They stopped in a place called Haran, a city located approximately 600 miles west of the Euphrates River in Northern Syria. They had traveled over two thirds of their journey when they stopped there, physically exhausted, but also weary spiritually. The word “Haran” means “a dry place, a place of little fruit.”

Abraham and his father were on their way to Canaan, the place of blessing and fullness. Jesus makes the same promise to us: “I have come that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). It is interesting to consider the Greek word “zoe” that is used when speaking of the life Christ offers and has in mind for us. The word expresses the notion of “being complete, being fulfilled, bearing abundant fruit, true happiness and fulfillment.”

Please understand the correlation. Abraham, his father and family were on a journey to Canaan, but they tragically stopped in the place of little fruit. They should have been pressing forth, moving forward, persevering to fullness and abundance, but they settled for mediocrity.

Faith cries out, “I refuse to die in the place of small fruit! I refuse this small existence with small worship, small sanctification, small change, small transformation and small faith.” I have heard the fierce and passionate cry of men and women, leaders and pastors of every color from many nations declaring, “We refuse to die in Haran!” God calls us to “come out of our father’s house.” That is what He did with Abraham and that is what He is doing with you and me.

Claude Houde, lead pastor of Eglise Nouvelle Vie (New Life Church) in Montreal, Canada, is a frequent speaker at the Expect Church Leadership Conferences conducted by World Challenge throughout the world. Under his leadership New Life Church has grown from a handful of people to more than 3500 in a part of Canada with few successful Protestant churches.
 

A grieving father named Jairus came to Jesus to ask for the healing of his dying daughter: “There cometh . . . one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet, and besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live. And Jesus went with him” (Mark 5:22-24).

This man Jairus represents most of Christianity. We know Christ is our only hope, and in our crisis we run to Him, fall at His feet and seek His mercy and help. Jairus had a good measure of faith. He asked Jesus to “come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live” (verse 23). This was an affirmation of true faith: “Lord, all she needs is You. You have all power! You can keep her from dying!”

Responding to this man's faith, “Jesus went with him” (verse 24). Jesus permitted time to run out because He wanted His followers to have faith in His resurrection power—faith that goes beyond hopelessness, beyond even death! The nominal believers who stood at the little girl’s bedside had this limited faith: As long as there was a little life left, a little hope, Jesus was wanted and needed.

Most likely, these people said to themselves, “Yes, Jesus, we believe You are the great physician, the great healer. Nothing is impossible with You. We know You have all power. But please hurry—because she may die at any minute! Then we won’t need You!”

What kind of faith is this? It is faith only to the point of death, only to the grave. When circumstances look as if all is lost, this faith dies.

As it turned out, the little girl did die. I can see the people taking her pulse and pronouncing her dead. What little faith they had possessed was now gone. Their first order of funeral business was to notify the healer that He no longer was needed. They sent a messenger saying, “Thy daughter is dead; why troublest thou the Master any further?” (Mark 5:35).

These words seemed so final: “Thy daughter is dead!” These words may be ringing in your ears: “Your marriage is dead—don’t bother Jesus!” “Your ministry is dead—don’t bother the Lord!” “Your child is dead in sin!” “Your relationship to that loved one is dead!”

These dreaded words meant absolutely nothing to Jesus. He never gives up on the dead because He is resurrection life! In Greek, the best rendition of verse 36 is, “Jesus, as if He did not hear what was spoken, said to the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.”
 

He who conquers death has all power—and there was no greater evidence of Christ’s power on earth than those He raised from the dead. “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth (gives life to) them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will” (John 5:21). Jesus clearly claimed to have power over death. He even said of Himself, “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25), and He proved it!

Do we truly believe Jesus’ words? He says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself” (John 5:25-26).

Jesus is not speaking just of the final resurrection; He is describing His present power to raise up all that has died—His present power to flood us with His life. You see, we all have a secret graveyard in our lives, someone or something we gave up on a long time ago. We've buried it and inscribed on its tombstone the date of its death!

A dear acquaintance of ours told us of going to her child’s graduation. Along with all the relatives who attended, her former husband (who had left her years ago for another woman) was going to be there. The marriage itself was beyond resurrection since another woman was now his wife. Yet God made our friend go back to the grave site of that marriage and pray for his salvation—and the salvation of his wife! This woman did not give up on the spiritually dead.

Another dear sister in Christ has a husband who left her years ago. The man is now lost in deep sin. Where once there was a good marriage, a tombstone now stands. She too has had to learn that Jesus never gives up on the dead. It’s not that she wants the man back (indeed, he may never come back); rather, she wants him resurrected from the death of sin. She is not giving up on the dead because we serve a God with present-day resurrection power!
 

“Making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:16-20).

Paul’s prayer for the Church was simply this: “May God reveal to you not just the past greatness but the present greatness of Christ.”

The Church has great reverence for the Christ who walked on earth, the Galilean Jesus, the teacher and miracle worker, the son of Mary. We never grow weary of hearing about and telling of the greatness of Jesus of Nazareth—how He chased demons; stood strong against all temptations; opened blind eyes; unstopped deaf ears; caused paralytics to leap; restored withered arms; healed leprosy; turned water into wine; fed multitudes with a few loaves and fishes; and raised the dead!

Yet at some point in history, we put limits on this great, mighty, miracle-working Savior! We developed a theology that makes Him Lord over the spiritual but not the natural. For example, we believe He can forgive our sins; calm our nerves; relieve our guilt; give us peace and joy; offer us eternal life—all in the unseen, invisible world. But not many of us know Him as God of the natural, God of everyday affairs: God of our kids, our jobs, our bills, our homes and our marriages.

Paul says we need a revelation of the power that Christ has had since the time He was raised from the dead. Even now, Jesus sits at the right hand of God, possessing all power in heaven and earth: “And hath put all things under his feet” (Ephesians 1:22).