You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. John 19:11
Nothing that is not part of God’s will is allowed to come into the life of someone who trusts and obeys Him.
This truth should be enough to make our life one of ceaseless thanksgiving and joy,because God’s will is the most hopeful, pleasant,and glorious thing in the world. It is the continuous working of His omnipotent power for our benefit, with nothing to prevent it, if we remain surrendered and believing.
Someone who was passing through the deep water of affliction
wrote a friend: Isn’t it glorious to know that no matter how unjust something may be, even when it seems to have come from Satan himself, by the time it reaches us it is God’s will for us and will ultimately work to our good?
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Rom. 8:28). Think of what Christ said even as He was betrayed: “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” (John 18:11).
We live fascinating lives if we are living in the center of God’s
will. All the attacks that Satan hurls at us through the sins of
others are not only powerless to harm us but are transformed
into blessings along the way.
~Hannah Whitall Smith~
We are not at liberty to pray randomly for whatever our selfish minds conceive nor are we permitted to come into His presence and vent our silly notions and mindless ramblings. If God signed all our petitions without discretion, He would end up giving away His glory.
There is a law of prayer, a law meant to weed out self-centered prayers, while at the same time making it possible for honest seekers to ask in confidence. In other words, we can pray for whatever we will, as long as it is His will.
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him" (1 John 5:14).
The disciples were not praying according to God's will when they prayed with vindictiveness. They petitioned God thusly, Do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? But He turned and rebuked them, and said, You do not know what manner of spirit you are of (Luke9:54-55)
Job, in his sorrow, begged God to take his life away. What if God had answered his prayer? Such praying was contrary to the will of God. The Word warns, "Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God” Ecclesiastes 5:2.
Daniel prayed the right way. First, he went to the Scriptures and searched out the mind of God. Then, after receiving clear direction, and sure of God's will, he ran to God's throne with a mighty assurance. “And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer” (Daniel 9:3).
We know too much about what we want and too little about what God wants. Our prayers are aborted when they are not according to His will.
~David Wilkerson~
Isa 40:1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
Store up comfort.This was the prophet Isaiah’s mission.The
world is full of hurting and comfortless hearts. But before you will be competent for this lofty ministry, you must be trained.
And your training is extremely costly, for to make it complete, you too must endure the same afflictions that are wringing countless hearts of tears and blood.
Consequently, your own life becomes the hospital ward where you are taught the divine art of comfort.
You will be wounded so that in the binding up of your wounds by the Great Physician, you may learn how to render first aid to the wounded everywhere.
Do you wonder why you are having to experience some great sorrow?
Over the next ten years you will find many others afflicted in the same way.
You will tell them how you suffered and were comforted.
As the story unfolds, God will apply the anesthetic He once used on you to them.Then in the eager look followed by the gleam of hope that chases the shadow of despair from the soul, you will know why you were afflicted.
And you will bless God for the discipline that filled your life with such a treasure of experience and helpfulness.
~Select~
His afflictions are no arbitrary appointments. There is righteous necessity in all that He does.
As He lays His chastening hand upon you, and leads you by ways you know not, and which you never would have chosen He whispers the gentle accents in your ear, "Beloved I wish above all things that you would prosper even as your soul prospers."
Rest in the quiet consciousness that all is well.
Murmur at nothing which brings you nearer to His own loving Presence.
Be thankful for your very cares, because you can confidently cast them all upon Him.
He has both your temporal and eternal "prosperity" too much at heart to appoint one superfluous pang, one needless stroke.
Commit therefore, all that concerns you to His safe keeping, and leave it there!
~John MacDuff~
Isa 30:18 And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
We should not only understand the importance of our waiting on God but also realize something even more wonderful—the Lord waits on us.
And the very thought of His waiting on us will give us renewed motivation and inspiration to “wait for him.” It will also provide inexpressible confidence that our waiting will never be in vain.
Therefore, in the spirit of waiting on God, let us seek to discover exactly what it means right now.
The Lord has an inconceivably glorious purpose for each of His children.“If this is true,” you ask,“why is it that He continues
to wait longer and longer to offer His grace and to provide the help I seek, even after I have come and waited on Him?”
He does so because He is a wise gardener who “waits for the land to yield its valuable crop” and is “patient . . . for the autumn and spring rains” (James 5:7). God knows He cannot gather the fruit until it is ripe, and He knows precisely when we are spiritually ready to receive blessings for our gain and His glory.
And waiting in the sunshine of His love is what will ripen our soul for His blessings. Also,waiting under the clouds of trials is as important, for they will ultimately produce showers of blessings.
Rest assured that if God waits longer than we desire, it is simply to make the blessings doubly precious.
Remember,He waited four thousand years, “but when the time had fully come,God sent his Son” (Gal. 4:4).
Our time is in His hands, and He will quickly avenge those He has chosen, swiftly coming to our support without ever delaying even one hour too long.
~Andrew Murray~
Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky because you have obeyed me. (Genesis 22:16–18)
From the time of Abraham, people have been learning that
when they obey God’s voice and surrender to Him whatever they hold most precious, He multiplies it thousands of times.
Abraham gave up his one and only son at the Lord’s command, and in doing so, all his desires and dreams for Isaac’s life, as well as his own hope for a notable heritage, disappeared.
Yet God restored Isaac to his father, and Abraham’s family became “as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore” (v. 17). And through his descendants, “when the time had fully come, God sent his Son” (Gal. 4:4).
This is exactly how God deals with every child of His when we truly sacrifice.
We surrender everything we own and accept poverty—then He sends wealth.
We leave a growing area of ministry at His command—then He provides one better than we had ever dreamed.We surrender all our cherished hopes and die to self—then He sends overflowing joy and His “life . . . that [we] might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10 KJV).
The greatest gift of all was Jesus Christ Himself, and we can never fully comprehend the enormity of His sacrifice.
Abraham, as the earthly father of the family of Christ, had to begin by surrendering himself and his only son, just as our heavenly Father sacrificed His only Son, Jesus.
We could never have come to enjoy the privileges and joys as members of God’s family through any other way.
~Charles Gallaudet Trumbull~
We sometimes seem to forget that what God takes from us, He takes with fire, and that the only road to a life of resurrection and ascension power leads us first to Gethsemane, the cross, and the tomb.
Dear soul, do you believe that Abraham’s experience was unique and isolated? It is only an example and a pattern of how God deals with those who are prepared to obey Him whatever the cost.
After waiting patiently,Abraham received what was promised”(Heb. 6:15), and so will you.
The moment of your greatest sacrifice will also be the precise moment of your greatest and most miraculous blessing.God’s river, which never runs dry, will overflow its banks, bringing you a flood of wealth and grace.
Indeed, there is nothing God will not do for those who will dare to step out in faith onto what appears to be only a mist.
As they take their first step, they will find a rock beneath their feet.
~F. B. Meyer~
I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. (Isaiah 48:10 KJV)
Doesn’t God’s Word come to us like a soft rain shower, dispelling the fury of the flames? Isn’t it like fireproof armor, against which the heat is powerless?
Then let afflictions come, for God has chosen me.Poverty,you may walk through my door,but God is already in my house, and He has chosen me. Sickness, you may intrude into my life, but I have a cure standing ready—God has chosen me.
Whatever occurs in the valley of tears, I know He has chosen me.
Dear Christian, do not be afraid, for Jesus is with you.
Through all your fiery trials, His presence is both your comfort and safety. He will never forsake those He has chosen for His own.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you Gen. 26:24
is His unfailing word of promise to His chosen ones who are experiencing “the furnace of affliction.
~Charles H. Spurgeon
Pain’s furnace heat within me quivers,
God’s breath upon the flame does blow;
And all my heart in anguish shivers
And trembles at the fiery glow;
And yet I whisper,“As God will!”
And in the hottest fire hold still.
He comes and lays my heart, all heated,
On the hard anvil, minded so
Into His own fair shape to beat it
With His great hammer, blow on blow;
And yet I whisper,“As God will!”
And at His heaviest blows hold still.
He takes my softened heart and beats it;
The sparks fly off at every blow;
He turns it o’er and o’er and heats it,
And lets it cool, and makes it glow;
And yet I whisper,“As God will!”
And in His mighty hand hold still.
Why should I complain? for the sorrow
Then only longer-lived would be;
So I say trusting,“As God will!”
And, trusting to the end, hold still.
~Julius Sturm
1Ch 17:23 Therefore now, LORD, let the thing that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house be established for ever, and do as thou hast said.
1Ch 17:24 Let it even be established, that thy name may be magnified for ever, saying, The LORD of hosts is the God of Israel, even a God to Israel: and let the house of David thy servant be established before thee.
This is one of the most blessed aspects of genuine prayer. Often
we ask for things that God has not specifically promised. Therefore we are not sure if our petitions are in line with His purpose, until we have persevered for some time in prayer.Yet on
some occasions, and this was one in the life of David, we are
fully persuaded that what we are asking is in accordance with
God’s will.We feel led to select and plead a promise from the
pages of Scripture, having been specially impressed that it contains a message for us. At these times, we may say with confident faith,“Do as you promised.”
Hardly any stance could be more completely beautiful, strong, or safe than that of putting your finger on a promise of God’s divine Word and then claiming it. Doing so requires no anguish, struggle, or wrestling but simply presenting the check and asking for cash. It is as simple as producing the promise and claiming its fulfillment. Nor will there be any doubt or cloudiness about the request. If all requests were this definitive,there would be much more interest in prayer. It is much better to claim a few specific things than to make twenty vague requests.
~F. B. Meyer~
Every promise of Scripture is a letter from God, which we may plead before Him with this reasonable request: “Do as you promised.” Our Creator will never cheat those of us of His creation who depend upon His truth.And even more, our heavenly Father will never break His word to His own child.
Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope”(Ps.119:49).This is a very common plea and is a double argument,for it is “your word.”Will You not keep it? Why have You spoken it, if You will not make it good? “You have given me hope.”Will You now disappoint the hope that You Yourself have
brought forth within me?
~Charles H. Spurgeon~
The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever
2 Timothy 4:18.
The word preserve here means "to guard, protect, keep, make safe, hedge about."
God is saying, "I'm going to guard you, protect you, keep you, make you safe, hedge you about so the devil cannot touch you. I Myself will deliver you into My heavenly kingdom.
Do you see what a liar the devil is? He says he is going to get you but all the while, God has promised to keep you!
Not long ago, I had an incredible experience. I had risen early to pray and was sitting in my living room with my Bible. Suddenly Satan began to intrude into my mind. He screamed vile, threatening curses at me: "You are going to be destroyed! You've spent a lifetime serving God for nothing and now I'm going to get you and cast you down in your final years."
I saw before me all the evangelists Satan had brought down in recent years. The devil shouted, "I got all of them and they loved Jesus just as you do. Why do you think you're so special? You're no good, nothing but a liar and a cheat, and I'm going to shut you and your ministry down for good!"
It was the most devastating attack I have ever felt in my life. I was overwhelmed—the attack literally took my breath away! But then the Spirit of the Lord came upon me and I stood up in a holy anger, bound Satan and cast him out of my presence.
Devil, you're a liar and the father of all lies! I rebuked him with God's Word—and God's Word delivered me from all fear!
Beloved, God wants to do the same for you. Will you let Him? Listen again to God's Word to you: "He preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked"
Psalm 97:10.
The Lord will guard you, protect you, keep you, put a hedge all about you—until the day Jesus returns!
~David Wilkerson~
GOD BEING WHO HE is must always be sought for Himself, never as a means toward something else.
Whoever seeks other objects and not God is on his own; he may obtain
those objects if he is able, but he will never have God.
God is never
found accidentally. "Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search
for me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13) .
Whoever seeks God as a means toward desired ends will not find God.
The mighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, will not be one of many
treasures, not even the chief of all treasures.
He will be all in all or
He will be nothing. God will not be used.
His mercy and grace are
infinite and His patient understanding is beyond measure, but He will
not aid men in their selfish striving after personal gain.
He will not
help men to attain ends which, when attained, usurp the place He by
every right should hold in their interest and affection.
Yet popular Christianity has as one of its most effective talking
points the idea that God exists to help people to get ahead in this
world. The God of the poor has become the God of an affluent society.
Christ no longer refuses to be a judge or a divider between money hungry
brothers. He can now be persuaded to assist the brother that has
accepted Him to get the better of the brother who has not.
A crass example of the modern effort to use God for selfish purposes
is the well-known comedian who, after repeated failures, promised
someone he called God that if He would help him to make good in the
entertainment world he would repay Him by giving generously to the care
of sick children. Shortly afterward he hit the big time in the night
clubs and on television. He has kept his word and is raising large sums
of money to build children's hospitals. These contributions to charity,
he feels, are a small price to pay for a success in one of the sleaziest
fields of human endeavor.
One might excuse the act of this entertainer as something to be
expected of a twentieth century pagan; but that multitudes of
evangelicals in North America should actually believe that God had
anything to do with the whole business is not so easily overlooked.
This
low and false view of Deity is one major reason for the immense
popularity God enjoys these days among well-fed Westerners.
The teaching of the Bible is that God is Himself the end for which
man was created. Whom have I in heaven but thee? cried the psalmist, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee
Psa. 73: 25.
The first and greatest commandment is to love God with every power of
our entire being.
Where love like that exists there can be no place for a
second object.
If we love God as much as we should surely we cannot
dream of a loved object beyond Him which He might help us to obtain.
Bernard of Clairvaux begins his radiant little treatise on the love
of God with a question and an answer. The question, Why should we love
God? The answer, Because He is God.
He develops the idea further, but
for the enlightened heart little more need be said. We should love God
because He is God. Beyond this the angels cannot think.
Being who He is, God is to be loved for His own sake.
He is the
reason for our loving Him, just as He is the reason for His loving us
and for every other act He has performed, is performing and will perform
world without end.
God's primary reason for everything is His own good
pleasure.
The search for secondary reasons is gratuitous and mostly
futile. It affords occupation for theologians and adds pages to books on
doctrine, but that it ever turns up any true explanations is doubtful.
But it is the nature of God to share.
His mighty acts of creation and
redemption were done for His good pleasure, but His pleasure extends to
all created things.
One has but to look at a healthy child at play or
listen to the song of a bird at sundown and he will know that God meant
His universe to be a joyful one.
Those who have been spiritually enabled to love God for Himself will
find a thousand fountains springing up from the rainbow circled throne
and bringing countless treasures which are to be received with reverent
thanksgiving as being the overflow of God's love for His children.
Each
gift is a bonus of grace which because it was not sought for itself may
be enjoyed without injury to the soul.
These include the simple
blessings of life, such as health, a home, a family, congenial friends,
food, shelter, the pure joys of nature or the more artificial pleasures
of music and art.
The effort to find these treasures by direct search apart from God
has been the major activity of mankind through the centuries; and this
has been man's burden and man's woe.
The effort to gain them as the
ulterior motive back of accepting Christ may be something new under the
sun; but new or old it is an evil that can only bring judgment at last.
God wills that we should love Him for Himself alone with no hidden
reasons, trusting Him to be to us all our natures require.
Our Lord said
all this much better: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you"
Matt.
6:33.
~A. W. Tozer~
The Bible says that in the last days scoffers will appear, mocking the message that Jesus Christ is going to return to set up a new kingdom.
Mockers are saying, "Where is Jesus? I don't see any evidence that He is coming. Everything continues as it has from the beginning!"
If you were to try to convince these scoffers that Jesus is coming to purge the earth with fire and set up a kingdom of eternal righteousness, they would call you insane.
Many ridicule the very idea of a second coming of Christ. Yet, without batting an eye, these same mockers turn around and claim that a "new world order" is coming!
Such scoffers have bought into a lie from hell.
Satan always manufactures a counterfeit just before the real thing comes. You see, he knows King Jesus is about to return and that His new world is at the door.
The devil wants to keep his own children deceived by promoting a fantasy world, with every false hope.
So now he has concocted a new, demonic doctrine of a coming New Age to keep people from accepting the reality of the coming Christ!
This most recent New Age counterfeit first appeared as the Age of Aquarius. The eleventh constellation was to move into a final, New Age kingdom, which would be known as the new world order.
New Agers say this new world order is just about to dawn.
They predict a catastrophic calamity will occur and a new world order will arise out of the chaos, ushering in a society of love, understanding and world peace. All diseases will be cured. Wars will cease. Poverty will be no more. And the only Christ that will exist will be a Christ-consciousness—a worldwide mindset of brotherhood. Self-love will be king, and pleasure will be the focus of all.
I have bad news for all such New Age scoffers. I am sorry but you have been hoodwinked by the devil. There is no such thing as the fantasy world he is pushing on humankind in these last days.
Oh, there is a new world coming, all right, but it isn't a new world order or a New Age. Rather, every kingdom of this world is soon to become our Lord's and
all His enemies will become His footstool.
Christ is coming back to establish His holy kingdom, and scoffers will not have any part in it:
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness (2 Peter 3:13).
~David Wilkerson~
A key message for believers today is that God has the future all preprogrammed.
He knows the exact moment Christ will return, and the final Tribulation, the Judgment and the Battle of Armageddon are all on His calendar.
The God who controls all of heaven and earth said, "The nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. . . . All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing"
Isaiah 40:15, 17.
God wants us to keep working until the return of Christ. That simply means that we are to work as though the end will never come, and live as though it were coming tomorrow.
God is still keeping count of the hairs on our heads. He is still counting the sparrows that fall, still hearing petitions before they are asked, and still answering before being called. He is still giving abundantly more than we can ask or think. So why be afraid? (See Matthew 6:25-34.)
Prepared Christians, wake up!
Everything is under control, and God is at work!
He is saving, healing, baptizing, and getting His house in order.
To fear is to blaspheme. We are commanded to encourage ourselves in the Lord and to begin to sing and rejoice as we see the final hour approaching.
Someone may ask, "But how can I rejoice when I see this old sin-cursed world falling apart?"
My answer is the Bible answer: "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain . . . waiting for the adoption . . . the redemption"
(Romans 8:22-23).
A woman in labor may scream because of pain, yet in her heart she rejoices because of the new birth taking place.
The kingdom of God is coming. The kingdom of Satan is falling.
So the Christian can say with confidence, “God has everything under control!”
~David Wilkerson~
You know that those who are not the Lord's
people are not alive to the fact that they are dead.
Death is not the great
reality to them until they come to their body dying. But in their ordinary life
when things are going on and there is health and provision, death is no reality
to them.
But death is brought home to the child of God. Immediately we get into
God's hands this thing begins to be brought home to us - that we are not much
good, we cannot stand up to things, we cannot go through. Our natural life and
resources do not count here.
The course of a true Christian life in the hands of
God is that of being more and more brought to the experience of helplessness. Is
that not true? Yes, of helplessness, of the impossibility of everything.
Do not
think things have gone wrong if that is becoming your consciousness.
You may
take it that you are in an immature spiritual stage if you have not come to that realization that in the realm into which you have been introduced in your
relationship with God, you have no resource. You are as a dead man. The death
fact is brought home to you, is made real.
Ah, but on the other side, resurrection is
taking a certain form over against that. With that background and with that
basis, more and more the child of God is being brought to the position where he
or she has to say: 'That was the Lord, it is the Lord; I cannot account for
that, I am not the one who accounts for that, it is all of God', and you know
quite well that resurrection is all of God.
You can go a long way in many clever
things and inventions, but you have not got as far as raising the dead yet. That
is God's prerogative. That is only God.
And so in the hands of God the child of
God is being brought progressively more and more, and still more, to the place
where they have to say, 'It is of God, it is all of God' and that is the
testimony coming out. The Lord did that, the Lord is doing this.
Is that not in
Israel's history in the wilderness? See how again and again they were brought to
an end, which did seem to be an end... nothing beyond this, and then they had to
come out with a new song - "The Lord did it!"
It is victory over death, it is the
power of resurrection Life.
~T. Austin Sparks~
The
importance and value of seeing and accepting things into
God's light.This applied both to
Paul and to those who were brought into touch with him.
For the Apostle the settling in to the sovereign ordering
of God in his imprisonment issued in increasing
illumination leading to spiritual emancipation.
No one can fail to
recognize the tremendous enrichment of ministry as
contained in what are called "the Prison
Epistles". If he had been restive, piqued,
rebellious, or bitter, there would have been no open
heaven, and a spirit of controversy with the Lord would
have closed and bolted the door to the fuller Divine
unveilings and clarifyings.
When all was accepted
according to the mind of the Lord, then "the
heavenly places" became the eternal expanses of his
walking about, and earthly bondage gave place to heavenly
freedom. So it must be with every instrument set apart in
relation to the higher interests of the Lord's testimony.
Then the reading of certain passages in his letters and
the record of his imprisonment shows how this applied to
others. Take the following:-
"Be not
ashamed therefore of the testimony of the Lord, nor
of me his prisoner" (2 Tim. 1:8).
"And he
abode two whole years in his own hired dwelling, and
received all that went in unto him. ...teaching the
things concerning the Lord Jesus" (Acts 28:30).
"The Lord
grant mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus: for oft he
refreshed me, and he was not ashamed of my chain;
but, when he was in Rome, he sought me diligently,
and found me" (2 Tim. 1:6).
Clearly the effect of
these passages is that there had to be a Divine
apprehension and not merely a human appraisal of Paul's
position.
Human levels of mentality would have produced
an atmosphere of doubt, suspicion, question, and would
have let in elements of false imputation.
Regarded on
merely natural lines, association with the prisoner would
have involved such associates in the suspicion and prejudice.
Doubt of the Lord's servant was very
widespread, and even many of the Lord's people were not
sure of him.
But the Lord was shutting up a very vital
revelation to this channel, and for such as were really
in spiritual need, and such as were to stand in a living
relation to fullness of testimony from identification
with Christ in death and resurrection, on to throne-union
with Him, power over "Principalities, Powers"
etc., and on to the ministry "in the ages to
come", there had to be a putting aside of all human,
personal, and diplomatic considerations and a standing
right in there with the instrument where God put it in
honorable imprisonment.
For possession of which is to
come through the vessel, there has to be a coming where
the vessel is, without consideration for reputation,
influence, or popularity.
In this way the Lord
sifts His people and finds out who really is wholly for
Himself and His testimony, and who is actuated in any
measure by other considerations and interests.
The
instrument in this position of popular rejection is thus
the Lord's means of searching, and it will thus meet
their need.
~T. Austin Sparks~
