HE Wants You To BELIEVE HIS WORD!

 As you consider the struggles Israel went through, you might be tempted to say, “God, aren’t You expecting too much? They’re scared, and rightly so. How could they be tempting You when they’re just crying out of their need?”

Yet, remember that these people had been well fed and well taught, immersed in signs and miracles. They were not spiritual novices nor were they without a caring shepherd. Every day they had a visible, sheltering cloud as evidence that God was present with them. And every night they had the comforting glow of a fire in the sky. Each morning they found manna on the ground, faithfully sent from heaven. God had provided Israel with everything they needed to build their faith!

Our Lord is not making small talk when He warns, “Without faith you cannot please Me. You must truly believe that I AM and that I will always reward faith. Therefore, I expect my well-fed, well-trained children to trust in Me!”

What about the test you have been facing? What does God want from you in your difficult time?

He wants you to believe His word—His promises! He wants you to fully trust that He is with you in your struggle. It does not matter if all hell is coming at you, His presence will never be taken from you, even in the midst of your fears and tears. No dart of the devil—no powerful attack against you—will destroy you. Your Father already has a plan of deliverance in place.

God is waiting for you to cling to Him in blind trust. He wants you to be able to face all your ferocious temptations, and say, “I may not understand this but I know my Lord will not forsake me. I am trusting Him to see me through!”

Your battle will end only when you come to full trust in the Lord, believing He is with you in power and in love. So put aside every thought that God has shut His eyes to your circumstances. That is tempting Him and putting Him to a test to prove His faithfulness. Yet He has already proven it many times over!

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it
(1 Corinthians 10:13).

God is saying, “You're not going down. I am with you through all of this! If you will just seek My face and trust Me, I will bring you through—because I am always with you!”

~David Wilkerson~

The King's Daughter Is All Glorious Within

Psa 45:13 The King's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.

Not circumstances but character is glorious in His sight. Not to the seen but to the unseen, He is calling our attention.

When the disciples were taken up in thought with outward glory, He said to them: "The kingdom is within you."

There is great need in our day that this truth should be emphasized.

We are in imminent danger of being carried away with the outward, with shows-religious as well as otherwise. 

The King's daughter is the church of Jesus Christ the bride-and it is "within;" she is to be "spotless" without "wrinkle" or any such thing.

The King's daughter's first and last business is to be holy in heart and in life, and in all manner of conduct.

~Margaret Bottome~

Blessings Through Trials

I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children, because he hath wholly followed the LORD.

Every difficult task that comes across your path—every one that you would rather not do, that will take the most effort, cause the most pain, and be the greatest struggle—brings a blessing with it.

And refusing to do it regardless of the personal cost is to miss the blessing.
 
Every difficult stretch of road on which you see the Master’s
footprints and along which He calls you to follow Him leads unquestionably to blessings.

And they are blessings you will never receive unless you travel the steep and thorny path.
 
Every battlefield you encounter, where you are required to draw your sword and fight the enemy, has the possibility of victory that will prove to be a rich blessing to your life.

And every heavy burden you are called upon to lift hides within itself a miraculous secret of strength.

~J. R. Miller~

Discerning Love

                                                                               
Ephesians 1:18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened so that you may know what is the hope which His call to you inspires, what the wealth of the glory of His inheritance in God's people,  

The eyes of your heart enlightened...discerning love.

Love is as far removed from blindness as heaven from earth. Love is blind? No – not true love.

The fact is that true love sees everything, but transcends everything.

The love of Christ for His disciples was not blind love that did not know His men, love that was duped, deceived, misled, but eventually found out that they were not the men He thought they were. No,"He... knew what was in man" 

John 2:24.

His love saw everything and could tell them beforehand exactly what they would do; but love persisted in face of it all.

Love is a great seeing thing.

If you are consumed with a burning love for the Lord, you will be very quick of scent as to what is doubtful and questionable.

You will not need to be frequently and continuously told when a thing is not right. No, love for the Lord will bring you quickly to see and to sense there is something that needs to be adjusted. You may not know what it is at the time, but you have a sense that all is not well. Love will do it.

All the instruction in the world will not bring you to it. You may have the Word of God brought to you on all such points, and you might even say, "All right, because you say so, because it is in the Bible, I will do it, I will be obedient." Do you think that is good enough? 

Such a thing has never come to you through the eyes of your heart. But, mark you, if this love, this discerning love, has really filled your heart by all the intelligence of the Holy Spirit indwelling you, you will sense it without being told;

Or if it should be brought to you from the Word, that within you will say, "Yes, I know that is right, the Lord tells me that is right." Do you not think that is the kind of Christian that is needed, and what the Lord needs at the end? 

That is what He has had in mind from the beginning and He calls that first love that is quick of scent to see what needs to be cut off or added, what adjustments are necessary, and does accordingly.

You do not have to follow round and say, Please do this; have you never taken note that you might be helpful in this way?

You do not have to do that where there is devotion, love watchful all the time, aliveness, alertness, perception, readiness to do without being all the time told to do it.

Real devotion to the Lord is something that far outreaches legality.

First love is discerning love.

~T. Austin Sparks~

"Call Back"

Luke 21:13  And it shall turn to you for a testimony.   
Life is a steep climb, and it is always encouraging to have those ahead of us “call back” and cheerfully summon us to higher ground.

We all climb together, so we should help one another. 

The mountain climbing of life is serious, but glorious, business; it takes strength and steadiness to reach the summit.

And as our view becomes better as we gain altitude, and as we discover things of importance,we should “call back” our encouragement to others.
 
If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back—
It will cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track; And if, perhaps, Faith’s light is dim, because the oil is low, Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.
 
Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;
 
Call back, and say He kept you when the forest’s roots were torn; That, when the heavens thunder and the earthquake shook the hill, He bore you up and held you where the lofty air was still.
 
O friend, call back, and tell me for I cannot see your face; They say it glows with triumph, and your feet sprint in the race; But there are mists between us and my spirit eyes are dim, And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.
 
But if you’ll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
 
And if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s sin-darkened sky—
 
If you have gone a little way ahead, O friend, call back—
 
It will cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track. 

~Selected~

Dimming The Pure Gold

 

This has been done in the first place, as we have seen, by doctrine. 

If the enemy can introduce any suggestion of false doctrine, if he can but insinuate the slightest degree of error, he will cause it to work like an evil leaven till a development of that kind has become the occasion for the Holy Spirit's drawing back, the Lord being unable to go on where that is, and a state of compromise, and paralysis, and weakness obtains.

The pure gold, the fine gold, has become dimmed. 

Not only along the line of doctrine has this been done, but along the line of life.

The same method, and the same object, governs the enemy's activities.

It is possible to stand very strongly upon what is absolutely orthodox as to doctrine, and to be in a very doubtful state in your own life, your own spiritual life, your own moral life; to be very faithful to the letter of the Word of God, and yet to be compromised in your own spiritual life and testimony.

This may be in business dealings, in other relationships, or in your own life before God; something not clear, something not pure, something not clean, something not straight, something doubtful, maybe a secret habit.

Oh, it may be one of a multitude of things which takes out of the life that certainty, that definiteness, that positiveness, that clearness, and creates, sometimes almost unconsciously in the one concerned, a fear of being confronted with something, of having to own up to being found out.

There is something in the background of the life which is causing an arrest.

It is taking the real drive out of testimony, the real impact out of life, and the real fruitfulness and value out of fellowship.

There is something there, though very often intangible. You cannot put your hand upon it, but you know there is something there in that life which is not right, which is not clear; and then there develops a secretiveness, an evasiveness, a detachment, or many other kinds of evil symptoms may develop.

It is all because there is something there which is not absolutely clear before God.

The enemy has got in an element which has destroyed the pure light, and there is a shadow, a film about that life. 

The enemy's purpose is to destroy that perfect crystal clearness of a life in God, and so paralyze the whole life. The outward form may still be the same, the profession may be just as ever it was, but there is a check.

This is said, not by way of accusation, but by way of indicating one of the favorite lines along which the enemy works to destroy what God has in view for His people, for Jerusalem; namely, that she should eventually come out of heaven having the glory of God, her light like unto a stone most precious, as a jasper stone, and that everything about her should be pure gold, as transparent glass, clear as crystal.

Oh, the spiritual value and weight of words and phrases like those!

All this is indisputable and patent. We have to recognize this, that the enemy is continuously seeking to get us into some place where, in spite of ourselves, we feel that we are under a cloud. 

Sometimes he sets up a false position, and makes us feel that we are false. We may not be false, but he seeks to make us feel that we are false, to get us into that realm where we have lost our confidence, our assurance, our certainty, our standing, our position, where we are weakened by some element which has crept in. 

The enemy is out to bring God's People under clouds, under suspicion, and to bring them in their own hearts under doubts and questions, so that the clearness, the certainty, the strength is destroyed and they are a big question to everyone, even to themselves. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

I'm NOT Quitting!

I am sure that in the early days of his walk with Christ, Paul endured terrible times. And, like most of us, he probably hoped that if he just trusted the Lord enough, he would be protected from all trouble.

The first time Paul was thrown into jail, for example, he might have cried out for deliverance: “Lord, open these prison doors. Get me out of here for the sake of the gospel!”

Likewise, his first shipwreck probably tested his faith severely. 

And his first beating might have caused him to question God’s
ability to keep His word: “Lord, You promised to protect me. I don't understand why I'm enduring this horrible trial.”

But things just kept getting worse for Paul. Scripture gives little evidence that the apostle ever saw much relief from his troubles.
 
I believe that by his second shipwreck, Paul must have thought, I know the Lord abides in me and so He must have a reason for this trial. He has told me that all things work together for those who love God and are called according to His purposes.
[see Romans 8:28].

If this is His way of bringing forth a greater manifestation of Christ's life in me, so be it. Sink or swim, my life is in His hands.”

By the third shipwreck, Paul probably said, “Look at me, all you angels in glory! Look at me, all you vile demons of hell. Look at me, all you brothers and sinners. I’m going down once again into deep, dark waters and I want you all to know that death can’t hold me!

God has told me I’m not finished—and I’m not quitting. I will not question my Lord about why I am being tested this way. I just know that this death situation is going to end up in great glory to Him. So, watch how my faith will come forth as pure as gold!”

Simply put, our death situations are meant to be the end of certain personal struggles.

Our Father brings us to a place where we realize we have to depend on Christ completely, or we will never get through. He wants us to say, “Jesus, unless You deliver me, it’s hopeless. I put my trust in You to do it all!”

~David Wilkerson~