Lately, in my spirit, I’ve been sensing that the church needs a steady influx of hope. My level of faith and love has been off the charts, but my sense of hope is very flimsy.
I asked the Lord, “How can that be? Don’t faith and hope go hand in hand? How can you have strong faith and weak hope?”
Then, I heard the Lord say faith and love dwell in your heart, but hope is a mindset. The state of your hope is governed by your pattern of thinking. Faith is like the pulsating electric current running through a home, but if you never flip the switch, you’ll never see the manifestation of light. Hope is the light switch. Without hope, your faith has nothing to give substance to—for faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen (Hebrews 11:1).
Zechariah 9:12 states “Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even today do I declare that I will render double unto thee.” Our minds are like a battlefield, and we can build strongholds by the way we think. This can work both ways—good or bad.
If you are constantly watching the news and listening to negative reports, you can build a stronghold of fear in your mind. In the same way, when we immerse ourselves in the Word and always look to the good things God is doing in our lives, we build a stronghold of hope and literally become “prisoners of hope.”
That means even when trouble comes and things are looking bad, we can’t escape this fortified city of hope and are fully persuaded God will work it out for our good (Romans 8:28).
That’s why God used the sand in the desert and stars in the sky to illustrate to Abraham how many descendants he would have. This way, Abraham would have a constant reminder of God’s promise.
Every time Abraham cleaned sand out of his toes, he would be reminded of what God said “And I will give you so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted!” (Gen 13: 16). Every time Abraham pitched his tent at night to rest, he could look up at the sky and remember what God said: “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!” (Gen 15:5).
In a lot of ways, the enemy has usurped our imagination to distract us from the Truth and cause us to take our eyes off Jesus. This is causing our faith to stagnate and hope to die. It’s time we take it back!
I pray Ephesians 1:17-23 over us:
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,
Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Freedom from Self
For [the Spirit which] you have now received [is] not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption [the Spirit producing sonship] in [the bliss of] which we cry, Abba (Father)! Father!
The truest kind of freedom you can experience is when you can be totally free from the grip of self. Letting go of our own wants and needs seems like the most reckless thing one can do. After all, if we’re not looking after ourselves, who will? It’s a tricky decision to make because it requires going against the grain of everything we’ve ever known.
We were born in bondage to ourselves. The driving force embedded in sinful man and this crumbling world system is the consuming desire to fulfill the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). This mindset cheapens life and ultimately spells out emptiness, misery, and destruction. We were never meant to satisfy ourselves.
Loving the world’s way sets us at odds with God. But how can we break free? We’ve got to go deeper. Deep within every human being is a God-shaped void. Our desire to know and have fellowship with God is our deepest, most urgent desire, our reason for being. Without Him, we’re all just on a road to nowhere, looking for ways to mask our misery, a walking tomb, slowly dying, and fading away in obscurity—hopeless.
In comes Jesus Christ, and with Him, a whole new world of hope and light. Now, we’ve got a chance. The only way to have freedom from self and experience real and lasting life is to completely give ourselves to God by way of Jesus Christ. If we give of ourselves to anything else, it will mean our bondage. But if we give God our hearts in their entirety, seeking nothing of our own, then God will give Himself freely to us.
When He comes pouring into our lives, in comes purpose, in comes meaning, in comes our brand new identity in Christ. We can live the way we were always meant to—walking hand-in-hand with our loving Father.
He takes on all the burdens and demands of self, and guess what? He does a far better job of meeting our needs than we ever could. He does it right! He satisfies us to the core.
When we are walking in this kind of supreme satisfaction, knowing God will back us up in every situation, then all we’ve got to do is seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. Find out what He would have us do—not to earn His approval or strive for His acceptance, but out of a beautiful love relationship that He’s won for us.
“The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that’s who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him.” –John 14:21 (MSG)
When we are free from self, we are free to obey God to the Nth degree. Fulfillment is finally realized in a true and authentic relationship with God that operates out of faith, hope, and love.
“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.” –John 12:24-25 (MSG)
Take the plunge, go for it! Declare emancipation from yourself and submit to God. He’ll transform you from the inside out.
God made my life complete
when I placed all the pieces before him.
When I got my act together,
he gave me a fresh start.
Now I’m alert to God’s ways;
I don’t take God for granted.
Every day I review the ways he works;
I try not to miss a trick.
I feel put back together,
and I’m watching my step.
God rewrote the text of my life
when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes. (Psalm 18:20-24 MSG)
--Romans 8:15 (AMP)
We were born in bondage to ourselves. The driving force embedded in sinful man and this crumbling world system is the consuming desire to fulfill the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). This mindset cheapens life and ultimately spells out emptiness, misery, and destruction. We were never meant to satisfy ourselves.
Loving the world’s way sets us at odds with God. But how can we break free? We’ve got to go deeper. Deep within every human being is a God-shaped void. Our desire to know and have fellowship with God is our deepest, most urgent desire, our reason for being. Without Him, we’re all just on a road to nowhere, looking for ways to mask our misery, a walking tomb, slowly dying, and fading away in obscurity—hopeless.
In comes Jesus Christ, and with Him, a whole new world of hope and light. Now, we’ve got a chance. The only way to have freedom from self and experience real and lasting life is to completely give ourselves to God by way of Jesus Christ. If we give of ourselves to anything else, it will mean our bondage. But if we give God our hearts in their entirety, seeking nothing of our own, then God will give Himself freely to us.
When He comes pouring into our lives, in comes purpose, in comes meaning, in comes our brand new identity in Christ. We can live the way we were always meant to—walking hand-in-hand with our loving Father.
He takes on all the burdens and demands of self, and guess what? He does a far better job of meeting our needs than we ever could. He does it right! He satisfies us to the core.
When we are walking in this kind of supreme satisfaction, knowing God will back us up in every situation, then all we’ve got to do is seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. Find out what He would have us do—not to earn His approval or strive for His acceptance, but out of a beautiful love relationship that He’s won for us.
“The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that’s who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him.” –John 14:21 (MSG)
When we are free from self, we are free to obey God to the Nth degree. Fulfillment is finally realized in a true and authentic relationship with God that operates out of faith, hope, and love.
“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.” –John 12:24-25 (MSG)
Take the plunge, go for it! Declare emancipation from yourself and submit to God. He’ll transform you from the inside out.
God made my life complete
when I placed all the pieces before him.
When I got my act together,
he gave me a fresh start.
Now I’m alert to God’s ways;
I don’t take God for granted.
Every day I review the ways he works;
I try not to miss a trick.
I feel put back together,
and I’m watching my step.
God rewrote the text of my life
when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes. (Psalm 18:20-24 MSG)
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Wisdom: Knowledge and Insight Applied
I asked God for a practical definition of wisdom, and this is what He said:
“Wisdom is knowing what to do and say in any given situation.”
Sounds simple enough, but when actually put into practice, this concept is revolutionary. Can you imagine what life could be like where no matter what problem arises, no matter what someone does to you, no matter what situation you may find yourself in, you can know with the sharpest clarity and absolute certainty exactly what to do and say?
That would take all the guesswork out of life, all the sleepless nights trying to figure things out, all the senseless worrying. What’s more, it would totally free our minds up to think in ways we never thought possible. We could think so much higher than ourselves because we’d no longer be thinking of ourselves.
Walking in wisdom has monumental payoffs:
24 There are four things which are little on the earth, but they are exceedingly wise:
25 The ants are a people not strong, yet they lay up their food in the summer;
26 The conies are but a feeble folk, yet they make their houses in the rocks;
27 The locusts have no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands;
28 The lizard you can seize with your hands, yet it is in kings’ palaces. –Proverbs 30:24-28 AMP
We see from the above scriptures that wisdom causes us to walk in abundance, favor, order, and influence.
Even if you’re on the very bottom of the totem pole, as small as ant, you can live in abundance and always have more than enough in every season.
Even if you are not strong, God’s favor can make you at home in the most inhospitable of places. God can make a place for you that’s all your own and further will use it to shield and protect you from all of life’s storms.
Even if you don’t have a supervisor breathing down your neck, you will operate in divine order, always on
task and never dilly-dallying.
Even if you are in a very vulnerable position and easy to catch, nobody will be able to pluck you up from your place of prominence. Your influence can take you all the way to the top in style!
God doesn’t want any of His children to live a defeated life. He has made this heavenly wisdom available to us, and it all starts with having a personal relationship with Him: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10 KJV).
Fear of the Lord drives out fear of everything else. When we make decisions with God in mind, taking into consideration what He has to say about it, you can believe our decisions will be dripping with wisdom and truth.
You won’t have to waste time making wrong turns or running into dead-ends; His wisdom will be your ultimate path-finder. We don’t have to understand everything; we just have to trust Him. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
“Wisdom is knowing what to do and say in any given situation.”
Sounds simple enough, but when actually put into practice, this concept is revolutionary. Can you imagine what life could be like where no matter what problem arises, no matter what someone does to you, no matter what situation you may find yourself in, you can know with the sharpest clarity and absolute certainty exactly what to do and say?
That would take all the guesswork out of life, all the sleepless nights trying to figure things out, all the senseless worrying. What’s more, it would totally free our minds up to think in ways we never thought possible. We could think so much higher than ourselves because we’d no longer be thinking of ourselves.
Walking in wisdom has monumental payoffs:
24 There are four things which are little on the earth, but they are exceedingly wise:
25 The ants are a people not strong, yet they lay up their food in the summer;
26 The conies are but a feeble folk, yet they make their houses in the rocks;
27 The locusts have no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands;
28 The lizard you can seize with your hands, yet it is in kings’ palaces. –Proverbs 30:24-28 AMP
We see from the above scriptures that wisdom causes us to walk in abundance, favor, order, and influence.
Even if you’re on the very bottom of the totem pole, as small as ant, you can live in abundance and always have more than enough in every season.
Even if you are not strong, God’s favor can make you at home in the most inhospitable of places. God can make a place for you that’s all your own and further will use it to shield and protect you from all of life’s storms.
Even if you don’t have a supervisor breathing down your neck, you will operate in divine order, always on
task and never dilly-dallying.
Even if you are in a very vulnerable position and easy to catch, nobody will be able to pluck you up from your place of prominence. Your influence can take you all the way to the top in style!
God doesn’t want any of His children to live a defeated life. He has made this heavenly wisdom available to us, and it all starts with having a personal relationship with Him: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10 KJV).
Fear of the Lord drives out fear of everything else. When we make decisions with God in mind, taking into consideration what He has to say about it, you can believe our decisions will be dripping with wisdom and truth.
You won’t have to waste time making wrong turns or running into dead-ends; His wisdom will be your ultimate path-finder. We don’t have to understand everything; we just have to trust Him. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
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