Some Rain for Weary Children

Psalm 68:9—You, O God, sent a plentiful rain, whereby You confirmed Your inheritance, when it was weary.

           

            It is no secret that we get beat up along this journey walking with God.  As life becomes difficult and we fall into various trials weariness begins to set in.  Time and again we come to places where it becomes very tough to take another step.  Sometimes it even feels like our feet are stuck in the sand or that we are just spinning our wheels.  During these times it may even begin to feel like God is a million miles away.  The devil will come in and begin to tell you to quit, that God has abandoned you, that He doesn’t care, that you are wasting your time, and a thousand other lies.  You may even begin to ponder giving up.

            But let me tell you my brothers and sisters that we serve a God of perfect timing.  God knows just when to step in and show His face to let us know that He is still with us.  He knows just when to send a little rain on the desert wildernesses that we may be in at the time.  He will send that rain it says in Psalm 68:9 to “confirm His inheritance when it was weary.”  This word confirm means to make firm or more firm; add strength to; to settle or establish firmly.  God knows that His people get weary walking the path He has called them to.  He knows that we often come to the end of ourselves where, apart from His strength, it would be impossible for us to take another step.  God knows that discouragement and depression will try to pry their ways into our lives.  So He sends that rain at just the right time to lift us up and give us a shot of strength.  He lets us know that He is still with us and to keep pressing on and fighting the good fight of faith.

            The rain can come in many forms.  God may send you a word or give you a sign as only He can.  He may send someone to speak to you.  He may have your pastor preach a specific sermon that hits directly home to your situation.  You may hear a song on the radio.  Someone may bless you with money out of nowhere or you may get a check you were not expecting.  You may have one of your prayers answered. 

            God sent rain to me the other day to confirm to me that He was still with me.  I would like to share that story with all of you as it demonstrates Psalm 68:9.  I have been in a major battle for the last year and a half.  A few weeks ago, because I kept trusting in Him and didn’t abandon ship, God brought me a victory.  As soon as the battle was won, however, the enemy attacked and started about 3 or 4 other battles on different fronts.  To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about, picture me climbing a flight of stairs.  I was making steady but slow progress up that flight and then the devil hit me and knocked me back down to the bottom of the stairs.  I was very discouraged and, as the passage says, very weary.  It was hard for me to get back up and start back up that flight of stairs.  I couldn’t pray.  I couldn’t read my Word.  It was hard to function and the devil started coming in with his lies, trying to place temptation in front of me.  He was telling me to give up and that I was wasting my time.

            As I was going to work the other day I stopped at McDonald’s to buy my 4-year old son a cheeseburger on the way to dropping him off at my mother-in-law’s house.  I ordered a cheeseburger, paid for it, and drove up to the next window to pick it up.  When I got to the window the lady asked me if my order was a large tea and a Big Mac.  I told her that I only ordered a cheeseburger.  She looked confused and then told me to pull up to the parking lot and wait and that they would bring it to me in a few minutes.  I got all mad and irritated as I pulled up.  A few minutes later the worker brings me a bag and asks me if I ordered 4 cheeseburgers and 4 fries.  I replied that I only ordered a cheeseburger.  She told me that today was my lucky day and gave me the bag of 4 cheeseburgers and 4 fries and told me not to worry about it. 

            As I pulled away from the parking lot I felt God speak to me so clearly that I began to get choked up.  He told me the following: “I am still here my Son.  My favor is still upon your life.  I know it is difficult right know and I know that you just got knocked down, but I am with you.  I am not disappointed in you.  You have made so much progress these last 2 years.  Don’t throw it away.  You keep pressing on.  You keep fighting that good fight of faith.  You keep serving me no matter how difficult it gets. No matter how many times you get knocked down you get back up.  You don’t stay down.  You go face these battles in My power and in My strength and you watch me move.”  It totally lifted me up and immediately gave strength to my bones.  Proverbs 12:25 says, “Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.”  This good word from god sure made me glad.

            Some of you may wonder how I heard all of that from God by getting some free cheeseburgers and fries.  Let me tell you that God speaks to us all in different ways.  This was God’s way of sending rain upon my life to, as the definition of confirm says, to make more firm, add strength, and establish firmly.  God was confirming His inheritance to one of His weary sons by sending a little rain on his life.

            God does the same for all of His children.  Some of you may me weary along your journey right now.  Let me end by telling you that God sees your struggles.  Keep moving forward even if it is only one step at a time.  God knows how much you can handle and He will send you that rain to confirm His inheritance when it is weary.  God bless.

Just Enough Light To Take The Next Step

Acts 22:10--So I said, 'What shall I do, Lord?' And the Lord said to me, 'Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to.

            In my last post I started a series called Modus Operandi in which I am examining the ways and manners in which God operates.  That was Part 1 and I want to continue that series today in Part 2 and talk about another way God operates in the area of guidance. All throughout Scripture God promises to guide us in all aspects of our lives.  Passages such as Psalm 32:8- I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye; Psalm 48:14- For this is God, our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even to death; and Psalm 73:24 -You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory are just a few of the promises God has given to us in the area of guidance.  Yes, God has promised to guide us but He guides us in His way not ours.  We serve a God who guides one step at a time.

Throughout our lives we will all come to points where we really need the LORD to guide us and order our steps.  We will come to forks in the road where we need Him to show us which direction to take.  God will give us that direction but won’t allow us to see the big picture.  Our walk with God is a walk of faith, not a walk of sight.  He wants us to trust Him and be obedient in the little steps He is calling us to take.  He wants us to trust Him without knowing all of the details.  There is a saying that says, “Just Enough Light for the Step I’m on.”  The way God operates in the way of guidance is to give us just enough light and revelation to know what step to take next.  It is like as if you were in a dark underground cave system trying to find your way out and all you had was a candle.  This candle would give you just enough light to know which way to go but not enough light to see the entire layout of the cave.  You would be able to only see a few feet in front of you, not hundreds of yards down the tunnel.  It is the same with God.  God is that candle and the cave system is our life.  He will give you a flicker to only see a few feet into your future.  Most of the time He will not allow you to see beyond the next step and will not allow you to know what comes next.  We must simply trust Him and follow where He is leading us.  When we get to the destination He is guiding us to, He will reveal a little more and show us where to go from there.

Of course anything I say means nothing so let’s look at God’s Word to see this principle in action.  I want to examine Acts 22:10, a passage where the apostle Paul is giving his testimony to his Jewish brothers at the temple when they tried to kill him.  At this point Paul is describing how he was converted.  In verse 10 he asks the Lord what to do.  God simply responds by giving Saul one command, “Arise and go to Damascus.”  God gave Paul just enough light to know what step to take next –go to Damascus.  God didn’t tell him anything else, didn’t give him any more information.  God didn’t tell him when you get to Damascus a brother named Ananias will pray over you and you will receive your sight and be baptized.  Then, you will try to preach but the Jews will try to kill you, and you will have to escape for your life in a basket.  Next, you will go to the wilderness of Arabia where I will personally disciple you for 3 years.  After that you are going to go all over the world on missionary journeys and plant many churches.  You will be stoned, left for dead, beaten, flogged, shipwrecked, arrested, thrown in prison, put in stocks, and finally executed in Rome.  No, God didn’t tell Paul any of this.  God simply told him to go to Damascus.  Notice how God also told Paul that once he was in Damascus he would be given more information. The second part of Acts 22:10 says, “…and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do.” 

I believe God only shows us a little bit at a time for two reasons.  We would either become prideful or we would run.  In either case we would not be able to handle the revelation.  If God had showed Paul how mightily He was going to use him, Paul’s head would have probably become too big and pride would have prevented it all.  No, God chose to keep it secret that Paul was going to be the greatest missionary in history and that he would write over half of the New Testament.  Similarly, if God had shown Paul how much he was going to suffer for the sake of the Gospel Paul might have told God no thank you and ran from His calling.

We are no different.  God knows what He is doing in our lives.  We need to just walk toward the light He has given us.  He will give us more light once we get there.  I encourage you to follow the light God has given you.  It will get brighter as you follow it.  God bless.

God Takes Away, and God Gives

John 7:39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

            I have recently been doing a series of Bible studies with my wife called “Modus Operandi” and I would like to share something I got from that series.  In that series I have been examining the way that God operates.  According to Wikipedia, Modus operandi is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "method of operation". The term is used to describe someone's habits or manner of working, their method of operating or functioning.  God has given to us the way He operates throughout the whole of Scripture.  As we get to know His Word, we can see the way He operates and grow closer in our relationship to Him.

            As I was reading the John 7:39 passage above I felt God speak to me.  In this life we often have stuff or things taken from us, sometimes things very dear to us.  Perhaps our car was stolen or we even lost a job.  We may have even begun to question God in our hearts as to why He was allowing this to happen to us.  I would like to bring a new perspective to situations like these.  What we may think of as bad luck or life just happening to us may in fact be the hand of God beginning to move over and in our lives.  Let me try to allow God’s Word to explain.

In John 7:39 it says that the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.  There is a wealth of information in just this small verse.  One principle I got from this is that in order for God to bring new blessings into our lives or to take us to that next level, He must first remove something from our lives.  To sum it up, in order for God to give, he first takes away.  Usually the something that is removed is hindering what God is trying to do, and usually it is something very dear and important to us. 

In John 16 Jesus was this something that was hindering the work of God and was also the something very important and dear to the 12 disciples.  God was about to build his church and he was about to use these 11 men to do it.  But before He could do that Jesus had to be taken up in order that God could send the Holy Spirit.  As long as Jesus remained on earth, the Holy Spirit could not come.  In John 16:5-7 Jesus told the disciples, “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, 'Where are You going?' But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”

Did you see that?  Let us look at it from the disciples’ eyes. Sorrow filled their hearts.  How often does sorrow fill our hearts when we lose things or have things taken from us.  I am not saying it is wrong to feel sorrow.  I too have felt sorrow.  What I am saying is that there is much more to the loss than just a loss.  Here was their leader, their Lord telling Him He was leaving them.  This was the man who they followed for 3 years, who taught them and loved them.  Jesus was the most important thing to them.  They loved Him with all of their hearts.  But God had a church to build and He was going to use these 11 men as its pillars, Jesus being the chief cornerstone of course.  Although these 11 men couldn’t understand it at the time, in the years to come God was about to take these men from being simple fishermen, tax collectors, and other tradesmen to being world missionaries, church planters, and powerful men of God.  God was about to take these men to that next level, but they would need the Holy Spirit and His power.  Acts 1:8 says you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.  No Holy Spirit meant no power.  Jesus Himself told the disciples that if He didn’t go away the Spirit would not come.  Jesus, the Head of the church, was actually a hindrance to it as long as He remained on earth.  Jesus had to go for God to begin His next work in these men. 

And in order for God to begin that next work in our lives, or to bring us the blessings he wants to bring, or to take us to that next level, He must do the same in our lives.  He must remove something from us or something in our lives that is hindering what He is trying to do.  And more times than not it is something dear to us.  I would like to share a testimony in the life of my Pastor to demonstrate this principle.  My pastor has been pastoring for 8 years.  About 5 or 6 years ago he was renting from a Spanish church to have services on Sundays and Wednesdays.  One Sunday he showed up to have service only to learn that he had been kicked out and locked out by the Spanish church.  All of his worship equipment and other equipment were outside on the front lawn and the pastor wouldn’t let him in.  So he took his congregation down the street and had service at the park.  During that service he told his congregation, “God has something better for us.”  He saw God at work in having his building taken away from him.  Something like this would have killed many ministries.  But my pastor knew how God operated and knew this only meant that God had something better for him.  He didn’t give up, didn’t get depressed, didn’t get mad at God or blame God, and he kept pressing on. Within a month he was blessed and had a building given to him debt free.  You see God wanted to bless my pastor with his very own debt free building, but before he could he had to remove the old building.  That is how God operates.

            So the next time something is taken from you I challenge you to have the same perspective.  I challenge you to find God in the situation and circumstances.  I challenge you to have the same perspective that God has something better for me.  Don’t look at it as something being taken from you.  Look at it as God’s about to do something awesome.  God bless.

Persevering in the Fire

Isaiah 8:9 If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."  Faith is the gasoline that runs the engine of the Christian life.  Without gas a car will not run, and as the Scripture says, without faith we cannot please God.  God wants to manifest power and blessings in the life of the follower of Christ, but He needs a measure of faith the same way a car needs gas.

I once heard a preacher say, “God has some great plans for us.  But He also has some plans to get us ready for the great plans.”  He was referring to trials and tribulations as the plans to get us ready for the plans.  Throughout the Bible we can see the people of God enduring some very dark periods in their lives right before God stepped in to use these people in a mighty way.  For instance, the children of Israel endured 400 years of affliction right before God stepped in and performed miracles, signs, and wonders to bring them out of Egypt.  Exodus 4:31 says,  “So the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel and that He had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.”  David ran for his life for many years from King Saul.  Here was a man who had been anointed king but for decades found himself alone, isolated in the wilderness, and hunted down.  Daniel was carried captive to a foreign pagan land.  Yes, God’s people usually go through a refining process prior to the blessings of God.  They will face hardship, dry seasons, and valleys so that God can show us what we are made of and show us our true motives. 

Is it at these times where we must press forward and keep serving and praising God.  We must pass through the storm, not get stuck in it.  We must stand on the promises of God no matter what we see, no matter what the circumstances are.  The prophet Isaiah here says, “If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.”  God wants to establish us, but our unbelief often rises up to oppose that establishment.  Sadly, many Christians give up or give in right before their breakthrough, just prior to the windows of Heaven being opened up.  They allow what they see to take their eyes off of God.  They allow a little rain to rain on their parade.  Believe God so that He can establish you.  Believe Him in the good times as well as the bad.  Believe Him when you have money and when you are flat broke.  Believe Him on the mountaintops and in the low valleys.  Believe Him when all hell breaks loose against you.  God’s promises are God’s promises and He will fulfill them in His timing.