Daily Devotional

Lord, people today are very fearful. As I listen they are concerned about where they will live, their job, their health, etc. They think the best thing to do is to escape and not think about it.

 

Son, the key to overcoming fear and worry is to know Me personally and then trust what I have said in My word to My children. Don’t be afraid; for you are more valuable to Me than a whole flock of sparrows. Don’t worry about everyday life issues, where you will live, a job, or your health. If I care so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, won’t I care for you? These worries and fears dominate the thoughts of unbelievers all over the world, but I already know the needs of My children. So, seek Me above everything else, and I will give you everything you need. Believe and act upon what I have said, and watch what happens!

 

Giving Me thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors Me; for it shows that you know Me and trust Me. Keep to My path that I have laid out for you. I am with you, so what is there to be afraid or worried about?  I have given you a promise; that if you lose your job, have no place to call your home, and have just been told that you have a incurable sickness; no matter what happens – from this day onward I will bless you. Now, be dressed for service and prepared for Me.

 

Those of Mine who are ready and waiting for My return will be rewarded, so be ready all the time; for I will come when least expected. A child on Mine who knows what I want, but isn’t prepared and doesn’t carry out My instructions, will be full of fear and at a loss.

 

Remember that when you have been given much, much will be required of you in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required of them because of it.

Needed: Reformation – Chapter 19

The Word of God – Part 4

 

2 Timothy 2:16-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

 

In every society we have what I call the ‘opinion makers.’ These are people who use words to make a living like the journalists, anchormen/women, lawyers, politicians, educators, etc. Often we find that they create the opinions that we all accept and live by.

 

Some years ago I was in Denmark and stopped at a little kiosk to buy a English magazine. When the owners saw that I spoke English they started to speak to me. They told me that they had lived in Canada for many years and had just recently moved back to Denmark having been gone for almost 25 years. They went on to tell me how they were scared with what they saw taking place on how people were being brainwashed. They were being told what to buy, where to buy it, what to wear, etc. In other words, what they were telling me was that their opinions were being formed for them.

 

I believe that we, as God’s people and especially those in leadership positions, should be the opinion makers. We should know the Word of God and make God’s opinion known in our society. Francis Schaeffer said: “The culture is to be constantly judged by the Bible, rather than the Bible being bent to conform to the surrounding culture. The early church did this in regard to the Roman-Greek culture of its day. The Reformation did this in its day in relation to the culture coming at the end of the Middle Ages. And we must never forget that all the great revivalists did this concerning the surrounding culture of their day. And the Christian church did this at every one of its great points of history.”

 

Isn’t this a problem that we have in the Western world today in that the Bible is looked down upon and is discredited and irrelevant to what we are faced with today? However, it doesn’t matter what the ungodly say about the Bible, but for those who profess a faith in Jesus Christ and believe that the Bible is the Word of God, we need to allow the Word of God to be the one guiding us in this world. This is what happened with the early church as well as the reformation during Luther’s day. Luther’s great statement should be the statement of each one of us who claims to be a Christian: “I stand on the Word of God.” 

 

What is happening in our society is that all things are relative. The final value is what makes me, the individual, happy, feel good, etc. Nothing is fixed; there are no standards except what makes the individual happy.

 

I would like to bring home two things in this regard. First, in most of our states we have the no-fault divorce laws. They are based on the view that there is no right or wrong and consequently what gives them happiness at the moment is the only way to go. Today, divorce among God’s people is just as high as among the unsaved. 

 

Secondly, we need to see the promiscuity that is taking place today in the light of the Word of God. In our generation people are asking why promiscuous sex is wrong. I can think of three reasons why.

 

First: Because God says it is wrong. For those of us who profess to follow Christ that should be enough right there. Second: We need to understand how the Lord made us in regards to our relationships with one another and to fulfill the way in which He made us for. Promiscuity tries to force something into a form which God never made us for and which cannot be fulfilled. Third: Promiscuous sex is wrong because it destroys the picture of what God means of marriage, the relationship between a man and woman.

 

We need reformation to see things set right in our society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Needed: Reformation – Chapter 18

 Word of God – Part 3

 

Psalms 119:98-100 “Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.”

 

When we look back into Western history and we see the importance of the Word of God – we are astounded. However, in many of our schools and homes people are ignorant of the important role that the Word of God has played in our lives and societies.

 

The Bible Literacy Project states: “Scripture begins with God creating the world, but there is something these verses don’t tell you: The Bible has itself created worlds. Wherever you stand on the spectrum from devout to atheist, you must acknowledge that the Bible has been a creative force without parallel in history.”

 

If one was to go to the apotheosis of the French Middle Ages – Sainte Chapelle – one will see that the walls are made almost entirely of stained glass. Writer Shalom Spiegel said: “It has been rightly called the most wonderful of pictured Bibles.”

 

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch said: “The King James Bible has influenced our literature more deeply than any other book – more deeply even than all the writings of Shakespeare  – far more deeply.”  The poet and painter William Blake calls the Old and New Testaments “The Great Codes of Art.”

 

Abraham Lincoln, one of our great Presidents said in his inaugural address: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.” The historian William Wolf said this about Lincoln’s address “with its fourteen references to God, four direct quotations from Genesis, Psalms, and Matthew, and other allusions to Scriptural teachings it reads like a supplement to the Bible.” Lincoln’s comment about the Bible: “The best gift God has given to man. But for it we could not know right from wrong.” Isn’t this one of the problems that we have today? We do not know right from wrong. We are now calling good evil and evil good.

 

Ronald Reagan called America “a great shining city on a hill,” three-and-a-half centuries after John Winthrop (sailing for Boston in 1630) anticipated a new community that would be “as a City upon a Hill” invoking the famous verse in Matthew, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid,” (Matthew 5:14) which harks back in turn to the prophets (Isaiah 2:2-3, Micah 4:2) and the book of Proverbs 4:18. John Livingstone Lowe called the King James Bible “the noblest monument of English prose” (1936); George Saintsbury called it “probably the greatest prose work in any language” (1887). Nearly two millennia earlier, the great Pharisee rabbi Hillel described the ideal life: “loving peace and pursuing peace; loving humanity and bringing it close to the Torah.”

 

A survey was done by two professors to see who had made the greatest impact upon our nation. They went through thousands of speeches, essays, etc. to find who was quoted the most. To their surprise they discovered that the Bible was the one that was quoted the most. What an impact the Bible made upon our nation in its early developing years.

 

Some of our founding fathers like Winthrop, Adams, Lincoln, and thousands of other ordinary citizens found a good destiny in the Bible and made it their own, but today the Bible is fast becoming a book that just sits on the book shelf and gathers dust.

 

Historian G.M. Trevelyan said: “We aren’t discussing a merely ‘popular’ or ‘influential’ book. We are talking revolution. In 16th and 17th-century Britain, the English Bible was capable of affecting the first thoughts people had on waking, their last thoughts before sleeping, their dreams, and their nightmares. British homes were decorated biblically – with Bible quotations or pictures painted or papered on the walls or printed on cloth wall-hangings. British life grew and flourished on a biblical trellis. Centuries later, Quiller-Couch wrote of the Bible in Britain that the Bible is in everything we see, hear, feel, because it is in us, in our blood.”

 

Reformation brings us back to the Word of God. My prayer is that God will give His people a hunger for the Word of God. Like Job said: “I have esteemed your word more than my necessary food.”

Daily Devotional

Son, I am looking for men who will no longer trust the worldly systems when they are in need, in trouble, in debt, or discontented with their lives. I’m looking for men who want to change so that I can use them fully; men who are willing to listen to My word and then do what it says; men who do not proudly think they are righteous, but who know how to come to Me with their sin ready for My Spirit to change them. I need men who will say to Me, “Lord if You say so, I will.”

 

When men come to Me ready to do what I say – their lives will be strong and secure just like the foundations you build for your buildings. When storms of life come they will be able to stand firm because their foundation was built on the solid ground of My Word. But, when men come to Me and refuse to obey Me they are like a building with no foundation. When the issues of life sweep down on them they will collapse into a heap of ruins.

 

How can you know the difference between these two types of men? It’s how they come to Me in prayer. The one with faith will say, “Lord, if you are willing, you can.” And My response will always be to them, “I am willing.” But the other one will come to Me and say, “Lord if You can?” And My respond will always be, “If I can?”

 

Lord, this is why so many men are discouraged and fearful today; they have no solid foundation under them to take confidence in, and therefore they have no hope when they are hit with trouble and persecution.

Daily Devotional

Son, what have I done to My children to make them tired of Me? Don’t they realize or remember that I have blessed them, and how I have done everything I could to teach them My faithfulness. They really don’t believe that I am coming soon and that is why My children are so discouraged and sad about what is happening today.

 

Lord, if we are wise then we will listen for Your voice, for it calls to everyone. I will put my hope in You! I will praise You everyday. For You pour Your unfailing love upon me, and on anyone who will turn to You. It is when I put my hope in You and Your promise to me that I can live out these days with joy and encourage others with the same encouragement I have received from You. I can see beyond the here and now with certainty that You will be faithful to fulfill every promise and prophecy.

 

Son, prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to Me wholeheartedly. Don’t just think or say, “I am good person,” for that means nothing to Me. Listen to My voice and follow that instruction. Don’t let tradition prevent you from speaking what needs to be said today, and from doing what must be done now.

 

Lord, who is like You that can pardon the guilty, overlooking our sins, and showing Your unfailing love in so many ways? Therefore, I will ever praise You my Savior and my God!

 

Needed: Reformation – Chapter 17

Word of God – Part 2

 

Psalms119:11 “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

 

When John the Baptist, forerunner of the Lord, appeared on the scene he had some choice words to say to the religious leaders of his day.

 

Matthew 3:7-10 “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.”

 
One of the things that the religious leaders were doing was relying upon tradition. Tradition was taking over the Word of God. Later Jesus told them: Matthew 15:3  “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?”

 
Some years ago I was speaking in a church on the subject: WHAT IS REAL SPIRITUALITY?  After the message a number of people came forward and I sensed that they had come into a real freedom. However, I learned later that the pastor was very upset with me, for what I did not know. I felt that I should go and see what the problem was, so I went the next day.

 
When I spoke to the pastor I first mentioned that if I was saying something that was not biblical that I needed to know so that I might correct it. What he did was he pushed the Bible aside and said: “Let us not get into that right now.” He said the real problem was that in my preaching I had gone against seventy years of tradition. Ah! That was the real problem: I had gone against tradition! This made me wonder how much of our work today is based on tradition and not the Word of God, and how this could be the major problem today in some of our churches.

 
When I think of our denominations today most of them were started by men and women of vision and some of the things that they did were right on for their time, culture, etc. However, today is a different situation and yet we carry on with many of these things not because we are obligated by the Word of God, but because of tradition. As a matter of fact our tradition has begun to take the place of Scripture.

 
Why do we do some of the things that we do? Are they biblical? Do they fit in the culture that we live in today? I was preaching in a church in Europe where the pastor had a real desire to go back to the Word and make sure that what they were doing as a church was really based on Scripture, and not tradition.

 

Later when he wrote to me he told me that there were many blessings and they were praising the Lord for all that He was doing. The only thing that was negative, he said, was that they were kicked out of the denomination they were in. Interesting! But perhaps that is not so negative after all.

 

Perhaps the biggest issue facing us in the Western world is the rejection of ultimate truth. People say today that we make our own truth. What is true for me might not be true for you. Or, those who have the places of power are telling us what truth is. (Like the U.S. Supreme Court telling us that the Ten Commandments are not ‘constitutional’ and cannot be hung up in our court rooms throughout the land.)

 

Reformation brings us back to the ultimate truth: the WORD OF GOD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Devotional

Samuel said of King David that he was dark and handsome, and with beautiful eyes. So what made David’s eyes stand out? And, what do people see in my eyes?

 

Son, beautiful eyes are those that shine out with what is on the inside of a person; eyes that radiate the inner man; that of inner truth from listening for Me in order to obey Me. The light of My life inside you – makes your eyes stand out, bright and beautiful.  When your inner desire is to obey all that I ask of you – your eyes will reveal it, as do your actions and lifestyle.

 

Remember that obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offerings. To have Me reflecting in your eyes is far more pleasing to Me than your offerings. To have My inner radiance will outlast everything else you pursue and gain in this life.  So, commit everything you have and do to Me, and wait patiently for Me to direct you. I will take care of all your needs and the concerns you have; I care about every little detail in the life of those who entrust it all to Me.

 

People judge people by outward appearance, but I look at the heart: the inner man. So, don’t worry about what evil people can do, or have done to you; for that will only cause you to become an angry person on the inside. They will fall and lose everything, but I will not let the light in you go out. I will not abandon you. I will direct your steps so you can prosper and do My will.

 

Trust Me and do good, and commit everything you do and have – to Me. Be still, and wait patiently for Me. Remain hopeful in Me!

 

So what do people see in My children’s eyes? The light of the HOPE I give to them!

Daily Devotional

Lord, I entrust my life into Your hands, for You see all my troubles and You care about the anguish of my soul.

 

Son, for those that trust Me with their life on earth – there is great goodness ahead for them. I will give them My goodness generously. When My children come to Me for protection, I will bless them before the watching world. They will live in My shelter, for I protect those who are loyal to Me.

 

In the coming days people will be terrified of what they see and hear. People will speak out of fear and cry out to Me,  “Have mercy on me and help me if you can.” What do they mean, “If I can?” Everything is possible when you believe that I am the One and only Savior for the world. 

 

Lord, I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief! For, I desire a place of honor next to You in Your Kingdom. Help me to be willing to drink from the bitter cup of suffering that Your servants each have had to drink from. You have not hidden from us – what is yet to come. Help me not to be deceived by my own pride, but make this new heart that You’ve given me even more sensitive to You and Your word. Lord, I don’t want to fall away from You when persecution comes like You  told me about.

 

Son, it is a noble desire to have a place of honor in My Kingdom; therefore, be My servant and follow Me!

Daily Devotional

Lord, I’m not a professional prophet, and I was never trained to be one, I’m just a builder. But you have told me, “Tell America that it is ripe for punishment. The leaders no longer ask Me for guidance. They are planning to be like Europe. Therefore, I will not delay giving them what they deserve.”

 

Tell My children to listen to My message, and if they want to return Me, they must get rid of their false worship of Me. For it is a farce, nothing more than man-made ideas. If they really want to be My followers they must turn from their selfish ways, take up their cross, and follow Me. I require them to turn their hearts to Me and obey only Me and then I will rescue them in the coming days.

 

I will test My children to see if they will truly follow Me. For, a time is coming when I will send a famine on the land, but not a famine of bread or water but that of hearing from Me. Today people proudly honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. These people will suffer in the coming days; for what they thought would hold them up and keep them going – will fail them.

 

My children must listen for My voice; for it is powerful and majestic. My voice can split the mighty cedars. My voice strikes with bolts of lightning. My voice can make the earth shake. My voice can twist mighty oaks and strip the forests bare. So it is very important in the coming days to listen to Me and follow My voice!

 

Daily Devotional

Son, I never do anything until I reveal My plans to My prophets. Therefore, My children should have understanding about what is coming. So why would some of My chidlren not be prepared? Will they say we heard, but did not understand what we were being told. Those children of Mine who do not understand will fall away in the coming days when they are persecuted for believing My Word. Why? The message to remain faithful is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth and the desire for worldly things – and so they have no fruit. But, when My children hear and accept My message they will be prepared and produce more than they think can be done. 

 

So My children, pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given. Faith comes by listening to Me and then acting upon on what I say. Don’t be suprised that when you act upon what I say there will come a wall of oppostion to try and stop you. Remember that when you take your eyes off My promises and put them on the wall of oppostion you will doubt that I care about you and then make bad choices. You need to ask yourself why you are afraid? Could it be that your faith is too small and that you do not believe what I said I would do for you?

 

Lord, help me not to be afraid, for my heart has heard You say, “Come and talk with Me.” You have always been my helper, and You will not leave me now, or abandon me at any time. Teach me how to live, and lead me along the right path. Help me to wait patiently for You to fullfill Your promises. Help me to be brave and courageous, for You are my strength and shield. I trust You with all my heart, and my heart is filled with Your joy. You will give me the wisdom and strength to walk through the wall of oppostion.