Walking With Jesus

Experiencing God

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.” (Romans 5:3-5 NLT)

If you’ve been a Christ follower for very long, you’re likely familiar with the book by the same title as this article – Experiencing God, by Henry Blackaby. If you haven’t read it and worked through the accompanying study guide, I highly recommend it. One of the primary takeaways that I gleaned from reading and studying Blackaby’s material is that God speaks personally and will guide us in discerning what He wants to do in and through us.

Saying a sinner’s prayer and attending church will not in and of themselves necessarily lead to intimacy with our Savior. Studying God’s Word, the Bible, and spending time in devoted prayer will. But here’s something else He’s teaching me: knowledge is not to be absorbed and sat on, it’s to be shared. Most of the time when the Lord speaks, He has an intended audience. Of course, it can be for just us, but often he has a larger audience in mind.

Recently the Lord laid on my heart to write someone I know who follows the doctrines of Mormonism. On some levels, what He shared startled and frightened me. Upon further investigation I learned that Mormonism, while using familiar terminology and even using Christ’s name in their church title, IS NOT CHRISTIAN! They use similar language, but many of their terms mean something entirely different. Don’t take my word for it, do your own research, but your Mormon friends are LOST and are going to be separated from the Lord for all eternity unless and until they cry out to the God and Christ of the Bible.

That relates to what Timothy Keller wrote: “When you experience God it is deeply personal, but it’s not at all private.” Most of what we learn as Jesus followers isn’t intended simply to make us smarter, better equipped, or even more able to live a holy life, it’s intended to be shared with specific people whom the Lord will identify, who need to hear what the Lord is saying to us.

It may be another believer who is struggling with the very issue with which we’re finding clarification. For example, the subject of suffering, dying, death and related issues can really hang us up, especially as a new believer. Perhaps the Lord has given you an insight as you were reading and studying the Scriptures that brought clarity to your heart and mind. Be aware that very often He will guide you to a specific audience to share that new information.

It may be a close friend, neighbor, co-worker, classmate, or someone with whom you do recreational activities. Perhaps you lead a small group or Sunday School class who could benefit from your insights. But additionally, He may lay a specific person on your heart, as He often does with me, with whom He desires you to share.

Just be open to His still, small voice, which over time, becomes more and more clear and easier to discern. The Lord’s love is personal and so are His messages. He guides, guards, corrects, instructs, chastens, enlightens, and expresses His deep love for us in very personal ways, but often with the express intent to have us share our experiences with others.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

True Happiness

“Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from Him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God – truly righteous and holy.” (Ephesians 4:21-24 NLT)

Happiness is a fleeting emotion we seek to attach to moments of endearing pleasure that bring us some measure of satisfaction. We’re “happy” when our children behave, when we do well at work, when our spouse compliments us, or our old car lasts another year. While these moments encourage and sometimes inspire us, they don’t last, thus, the reason we can’t build our life on them.

In this season of my life, I place very little credence in moments of “happiness.” I’ve learned that what sustains and truly encourages me are moments of activated faith. What does that mean? It means I can’t trust my emotions to bring true and lasting peace and satisfaction. I’ve learned to trust that which endures, not only the test of time, but the test of rising and falling emotion.

Faith builds and sustains our life on a foundation that will prove true in the test of time. Faith centered and anchored in Jesus doesn’t quit when pain is intense, outlooks are bleak and the future unsure. It doesn’t tear us down when we fail and doesn’t expire when we don’t know the right answer or the right way to respond to a given situation.

Faith centers our hope on Jesus and HIS ability, not ours. We relax in the knowledge and full confidence that maybe we can’t, but He can! He is our focus and source of confidence; He is our strength in the face of ongoing weakness; He is our assurance when all the doors seem to be closing.

I’ve learned that contentment long term is found only in Jesus and a growing, thriving, maturing relationship with Him. That’s why Tony Reinke’s words caught my attention when he wrote: “The soul’s true happiness is no incidental byproduct of holiness. True happiness is true holiness.”

There’s a sense in which we could legitimately ask the question: “What is true holiness?” or “true” anything for that matter?” The word Paul used in Ephesians 4:24 in speaking of “true holiness,” means: “what is true in any matter under consideration; of a truth, in reality, in fact, certainly.” It means “true” holiness is what the Bible says about it.

It means to be set apart for sacred use by God, devoted and dedicated to living for godly purposes, to find our hope and well being in our love for and service to our Master, the Lord Jesus. Holiness as the Bible describes it means putting what the Lord wants for us ahead of what we think we want for ourselves.

At it’s core holiness means to allow the Lord Jesus to live His life in and through us without restriction or reservation. He’s Lord, we are not; He’s in charge, we are not; He calls the shots in our life, we do not: whatever He wants is okay with us because we trust His judgment more than we trust our own.

And, just so we’re clear, true holiness IS true happiness.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Yes, God Sees!

“People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through Him, as you well know. But God knew what would happen, and His prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed Him to a cross and killed Him. But God released Him from the horrors of death and raised Him back to life, for death could not keep Him in its grip.” (Acts 2:22-24 NLT)

We understand intellectually that God knows everything, thus, enabling Him to see, interpret accurately, and respond to every detail of our lives. He sees what we physically do, of course, but He also sees more clearly than we ever will, WHY we do what we do – the true motivation behind every decision we make, every word we speak, and every thought that crosses our mind.

There are certainly positive and negative ways to respond to that knowledge. We can cower in fear and conclude: “He knows everything about me. What’s the use of trying to be good or serve Him faithfully? He already knows I’m going to mess up, I might as well just go ahead and do whatever I feel like doing!”

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That’s certainly an option, but it’s a fatalistic disaster. It’s essentially to sentence ourselves to death and hell based on our inability to save ourselves. Here’s the truth – we’ll NEVER be good enough to satisfy the strict law of God, only Jesus, the only perfect Man who ever lived, could do that. That’s why we put our trust in Him and His righteousness, not in our own ability or goodness.

When we correctly understand and respond to the Lord’s ability to see every detail of our lives, it results in encouragement, not discouragement. Why? Because He knows our heart! He knows our strong desire to always and only walk in harmony with His will and purposes for our life. When we fail to live up to the standard of holiness to which He calls us, it should enable us to see Him more clearly, trust Him more implicitly, and depend on Him more fully to protect us from what caused us to fail in the first place.

Failure is not final when we see our fallenness in its proper context. We’re growing, maturing, developing as a child of God and that progress never stops until our heart stops. As long as we’re on this earth we’ll be under the Holy Spirit’s supervision, and we’ll be subject to His correction. Yes, He sees us when we fall and fail, but He also sees us when we’re struggling and in pain, and when, by His grace, we rise triumphantly in Him.

Dr. Tony Evans gives us insight when he writes: “God sees every time you are wronged. Leave it in His hands. He will vindicate or restore you when you put your trust in Him.” The appropriate response whether we’re hurt or the one doing the hurting, is trust. Trust in the Lord grounds us in the reality that we are fallen and capable of hurting others, while at the same time capable of being hurt by someone else.

It’s part of the deal of being a human being, but to brush either scenario off as irrelevant is to misunderstand God’s investment in us and His observations of us. He watches us, not to catch us in a moment of weakness, though He does see that, He keeps a close eye on us to protect, nurture, and express His love for us.

Not unlike a loving parent keeps a close eye on their toddler (or teen for that matter), we do it ideally out of love, to help prevent a danger or mistake that could be tragic. Yes, God sees everything, but always with an eye for comfort, healing, and restoration when necessary.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

The Price We Pay

“The Lord hears His people when they call to Him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” (Psalm 34:17-18 NLT)

If you’re walking faithfully with the Lord, have you ever stopped to consider just how valuable that relationship is? The verses above give us insight into our special “status” with the Lord. You may have a heart for children, especially those who are suffering or hungry, but that level of concern doesn’t compare with how you think of your own child or children.

God doesn’t see us as a collection of people who love Him, He sees each one of us as if we were His only child. The intimacy we can have with God, the closeness, the freedom we enjoy knowing our every concern is on our Heavenly Father’s heart and mind is beyond description and is of incalculable worth.

Each day we face new challenges, pains, heartaches, and avenues of suffering due to our inability to grasp the weight of all we face from all the sources that demand our attention. What a comfort to know our dear, loving, kind and caring heavenly Father has them all sorted out. On the days when I’m struggling physically and emotionally, I don’t have to explain anything to my Abba, my heavenly Papa, He knows every detail and has more clarity than I, not only about what I’m feeling and experiencing, but about what needs to happen to correct the problem.

Oh, the price we pay when we don’t take our every care to our Heavenly Father! The burdens we bare, the emotional torment and strain we suffer trying to carry the weight of our burdens alone. I’m reminded of the poor widow in 2 Kings 4 whose sons were at risk of being taken from her if she couldn’t pay her debt. Rather than worry and fret, she immediately went to the man of God, Elisha, and God miraculously supplied her needs.

Over and over throughout the Old and New Testaments God provides in miraculous ways, many times for people who don’t even profess faith in Him. Think of the feeding of the 5,000 men, plus women and children in Matthew 14 and the feeding of 4,000 men, plus women and children in Matthew 15. Jesus didn’t fret or “send them away,” as His disciples had suggested, He simply ask His heavenly Abba to provide what was needed, and He did!

When we’re exercising confidence in God through faith and trust, our worry, anxiety and stress are eliminated, but if we choose to nurture them instead, they become the price we pay for not placing our full confidence in our Father who has never failed. “Yeh, but I prayed for a new car, and I didn’t get one.” I also didn’t pray first, bought a new car and lived to regret it. Often times God’s “NO” is a gift we couldn’t have anticipated.

Another common question is: “Why should I consult God about something I can easily afford?” Just because we can afford something doesn’t make it right for us to purchase it. What if rather than purchase something that’s a luxury or non-necessity for us, we bought something for someone else that is a necessity for them?

In our lack of trust in God, evidenced by our moving forward with decisions that should be presented to the Lord, we miss opportunities to be a blessing for another person, and to put a smile on our Father’s holy face. It becomes another in a long line of ways we pay a price for our lack of trust in our Father.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Our Pardon

“But the other criminal protested, ‘Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom.’ And Jesus replied, ‘I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” (Luke 23:40-43 NLT)

As we grow older, having followed the Lord Jesus for many years, while we would never admit this publicly (you won’t tell anyone will you? 😊), our hormones are on their last leg, our mind wavers between puddy and cement, the only real rise we get about anything is when someone mentions dessert, so the devil gets frustrated and leaves us alone much of the time. As a result, we get comfortable in what we deem to be our safe spiritual position and are too often tempted to think more highly of ourselves than we ought.

A frightening byproduct of that is our tendency to be critical of others who aren’t as far along on their journey as we are. It’s easy to see a young person struggling with perhaps the very same sin that nearly killed us spiritually, but rather than have compassion, come along side and walk with them, we forget how much we wrestled and what a path of carnage we left in our wake. It’s frightening because it’s wrong and disappoints our Savior and highlights how easy it is to slide into a state of self-sufficiency, believing we’ve arrived when we clearly have not.

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It’s as if we’re just waiting to die, wrongly believing the Lord is finished with us, that He has no more spiritual mountains for us to climb or sins for us to overcome. News flash: Satan NEVER stops tempting; thus, God is NEVER finished with us until we draw our last breath.

As a young Pastor I was excited when Dr. D. James Kennedy published his Evangelism Explosion material. It was straightforward, easy to remember, and very helpful in engaging people in listening to the Gospel. A simple question that we would ask was: “If you were to die today and stand before the God of heaven, and He would ask you: ‘Why should I let you into My perfect heaven?’ what would you say?”

Most of the answers I heard started with some version of: “Because I…” “Because I’m a good person.” “Because I was baptized, belong to a church, serve, give, or a thousand other things,” all of which miss the point and stray from the truth of the Gospel. Anytime we begin our defense with a personal pronoun we display our misunderstanding of the Gospel. “I,” “me,” “mine,” etc. places the weight of responsibility of our salvation on our shoulders, and we can never be enough, give enough, serve enough, be good enough to earn a place in heaven.

Think of the conversation with the angel when the man who died on the cross beside Jesus arrived at the gates of Paradise just hours from his conversation with the Savior. The angel asks him who he is and why he’s there? The man is baffled by the angel’s questions. “I’m a thief and I know I don’t deserve to be here.”

The angel continues: “Have you been baptized? Did you repent? Did you say the sinner’s prayer?” All met with a blank stare. Finally, the man says, “I don’t understand any of what you’re asking me. All I know is I’m here because the man on the cross beside me told me I could be.”

Let me leave you with these powerful words from Charitie Lees Smith’s hymn “Before the Throne of God Above” a verse of which says: “Because the sinless Savior died my sinful soul is counted free, for God the just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me.” HALLELUJAH! WHAT A SAVIOR!

Blessings, Ed 😊

What Are You Sowing?

“Don’t be misled – you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.” (Galatians 6:7-9 NLT)

To believe we can live an offensive, self-focused life, yet still “reap” eternal life in heaven is like planting corn and expecting a harvest of wheat? What we sow we reap, but that’s not the only implication. We’re so blind to believe because “no one else knows about my sin,” it won’t really “hurt anyone.”

At least two fallacies exist in that thinking. One is to ignore the fact that our sin hurts the heart of God and He knows every detail of our lives, even our thoughts. Purity of heart, mind, soul, and body recognizes that our goal is to please and honor the Lord, not break His heart with our thoughtless sin. As God’s child we want to put a smile on His holy face, not bring Him sadness.

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But the second, often neglected or ignored implication of our sin is the effect it has on our “body,” the Church. When we’re sick or suffer physically, our whole-body aches and is weakened. It’s like our whole system is disoriented and malfunctioning. It’s not unlike that in the Body of Christ. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 12:26 “If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.”

Pastor Corky Calhoun sheds light on this when he wrote: “The church always reaps collectively what we sow personally.” We’re naïve to believe we can live as we please and it not hurt our corporate effect as a body of believers. Where do you think the common criticism of Christians is derived that says: “Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites!” or “The church is just filled with fakes and liars!”

It breaks my heart when I hear those kinds of comments, and I do my best, as I’m confident many of you do, to stop that kind of “negative press” in its tracks, but words are cheap. I would hope that what people watch is our life, not simply hearing our words in a heated or unguarded moment, but, unfortunately, opinions are derived from moments, not years.

What we “sow” day after day, week after week will hopefully render such a strong “crop” of evidence that we’re real, caring, hopeful, joyful, and radiate the love of Jesus that those who have had negative experiences with Christians can rethink their position. Yet, we all have weak moments or even seasons when we’re ashamed and regretful for what we’ve said or done. However, too often the “seeds” have been sown, and the hurt has been inflicted. We can only pray for forgiveness and ask the Lord to send someone to help heal the hearts of those we’ve hurt.

It would be wrong of me to project these negative things onto you or others, because I’ve been as guilty as anyone in not living up to God’s standards, especially in my early years of walking with the Lord. When appropriate, I’ve begged forgiveness of those I know I wronged and asked the Lord’s forgiveness and for His help in making things right, but His instructions have always been the same – “You can’t undo what is done, you can only live in a way that shows it wasn’t representative of the person you’re becoming in Me.”

Each of us has “sown” some rotten “crops,” but our prayer is that the Lord God would enable us to change and to bear the fruit representative of true repentance and a heart being formed by our Savior.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Temporal Ownership

“But what if the servant is evil and thinks, ‘My master won’t be back for a while,’ and he begins beating the other servants, partying, and getting drunk? The master will return unannounced and unexpected, and he will cut the servant to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24:48-51 NLT)

Have you ever loaned something to someone and it was either never returned or returned in such bad condition it was unusable? Early in my marriage I did almost everything myself. My kids, as they got older, asked me, “Dad, how’d you learn to do all this stuff?” My answer was simple: “Poverty!” When you can’t afford to hire someone, you learn to do it yourself or it doesn’t get done.

I remember loaning a set of jack stands to a friend, jack stands, I might add, I couldn’t afford at the time to replace. He brought them back, but one of them was so bent out of shape it was unusable. Did he offer to replace it? Nope, just returned it as though nothing was wrong. That’s a very sad story (yeh, I can hear you giggling😊), but unfortunately, that’s how we too often treat what belongs to our Savior, namely, our own bodies.

The very graphic example Jesus gave above of end times should be a wake-up call for those of us who profess the holy name of Jesus as our Lord. What are the implications for us? We too often forget Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.”

We wrongly believe that because we use “our” money to buy things: cars, houses, clothes, food, etc. that they belong to us, failing to realize, as James taught us, “So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father…” (James 1:16-17a) Every penny we “earn” is a gift from God.

Who gives us breath? Life? Energy? The ability to think, work, move, have our being? We’re nothing without the Lord, yet, we think we’ve done our duty when we give to the church “our” tithe. It’s ALL HIS! – 100%! We just give 10% and beyond in recognition that it’s all His. As His children He owns us and everything we have, including our families, belong to Him.

Pastor Corky Calhoun nails it when he writes: “When it comes to our stuff we confuse temporal stewardship with eternal ownership.” A steward is a manager, not an owner. Another word for steward is servant. When we’re born again of God’s Spirit, we bring nothing to the relationship and whatever we receive in the process of serving Him is a gift for which we can take no credit.

When we treat our bodies, the very bodies that now house the Spirit of the living God, anyway we choose without thought of their “Owner,” we violate God’s right to us and treat something holy, sacred, and on loan from God as if it were our own. We cheapen, not only our own bodies in how we treat them, but our relationship with Almighty God.

We will one day stand before the Lord to give account for how we’ve used and abused our bodies with food, sex, drugs, and in other ways violated our commitment to treat our bodies as God’s sacred temple. We do not own our bodies; they are on loan from God. We’re their stewards, not their owners.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Important?

“So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God.” (Hebrews 6:1 NLT)

What does the Christian Faith mean to you? If you know Jesus as your Friend and Savior, there is nothing in your life that means more to you. If, on the other hand, you have no use for God, faith, the Bible or any other such “nonsense,” the Christian Faith is obviously of no importance to you. What about those caught in the middle?

You may not have a personal love relationship with the Lord Jesus, but you haven’t completely written off the possibility of one day becoming a believer. Where do you fit? C. S. Lewis gives us a clue when he writes: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

The frightening reality of Lewis’ words is there is no “in between”; we’re either all in or completely disconnected from the living God. Otherwise, it’s like trying to stand in the doorway of a departing airplane – you either need to get strapped in or you’re going to get sucked out.

Faith in Christ is an either/or proposition: either commit or be lost, there is no middle ground. Heaven or hell is at stake, and the decision we make has eternal implications. It’s THAT vitally important. “Yeh, but I’m young, I have my whole life to make up my mind?” Have you never heard of an accidental death? Do young people not contract terminal illnesses? Do you believe Satan will EVER make that decision easy for you?

When will we learn Satan’s favorite tactic is “not now”? Satan’s very content to let you “ponder” your decision to come to the Lord, he just doesn’t ever want you to get serious and actually make that commitment. As a child of God, we must never let down our guard or get slack in our prayers for those who are lost. Every day 10’s of thousands of people die, many of whom are lost for all eternity.

Is that not of vital importance to those of us who bear our Savior’s name? Are we not responsible to pray for and seek those in our spheres of influence daily, sometimes moment by moment? Knowing Jesus is never a “one and done” proposition. We don’t say a prayer of confession, accept the Lord’s forgiveness and never change.

Knowing Jesus is a life-long friendship that has eternal implications in every other relationship we have or will ever have. The Lord doesn’t put us in touch with others by accident, there are always opportunities for us to speak hope, truth, and love into their lives. Our attitude when in another person’s presence may point them to the Savior or push them away, that’s why we must always have our “ears” tuned to the voice of the Spirit.

My hunger for Jesus began through a friendship with one of His children – through how he lived his life, through our conversations, through our interactions as friends. Friendship with those who have yet to come to the Lord is among the most effective evangelistic “tools” the Lord has given us, we must treat it with utmost respect, dignity and prayerful consideration.

Is our life in Christ important? Nothing else compares!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

A Prayer For Help And Praise For The Answer

*As I do the 15^th of each month, I’m offering you the privilege and opportunity to share in the vital ministry of Sylvia Gunter. Please read slowly and carefully, listening to the Spirit as He informs your mind and fills and restores your spirit. Blessings, Ed 😊

Praying Psalm 28

Has there been a time when it seemed that God was not listening to you? Did you feel as if He was far away? Be encouraged that God sees and hears you. He will renew your sense of intimacy with Him, for He has not moved. Take your eyes off the problems and raise them to praise Him for His loving care. The psalmist said, “It is pleasant and fitting to praise the Lord” (Psalm 147:1).

1 To you I call, O LORD my Rock; do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone down to the pit.

I run to you when things get tough. I desperately need help. Hear me, and don’t be silent. Don’t turn me away. I am crying from an honest heart. I am struggling and in pain. My trust is fractured, and my feelings are hanging by a thread. I want with all my being to trust that You are my Lord and my Rock of safety.

2 Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place.

I earnestly throw myself on Your mercy. I call to You as desperately as I ever have in all my life. By faith I lift my hands to Your holy throne of grace. Answer me and let me hear Your voice. I need You to be there for me. I need to know You are close. I need Your answer to be clear and tailor-made for my desperation.

3 Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil, who speak cordially with their neighbors but harbor malice in their hearts.

Don’t let me be ignorant of the enemy’s devices. The people I see are not the real adversary. Don’t let me fight according to flesh and blood. The workers of iniquity hide themselves behind smooth words. Don’t let their destructive intent have its way against me.

4 Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work; repay them for what their hands have done and bring back upon them what they deserve. 5 Since they show no regard for the works of the LORD and what his hands have done, he will tear them down and never build them up again.

I choose to bless the people who are being used to come against me, and I beg You to take Your rightful authority over the invisible powers behind their visible actions. They have set themselves primarily against You and secondarily against me, the work of Your hands. Lord, it’s Your battle.

6 Praise be to the LORD, for he has heard my cry for mercy.

I praise You for who You are. Thank You for Your work in my life. Because of Your character as a committed covenant Father, You are gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, desiring to bless me. I thank You that in Your mercy You hear the cry of my heart when I plead Your promises.

7 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to Him in song.

You are my strength, or I have no strength. I hide myself and still my soul in Your impenetrable shield. The habit structures of self-protection do not serve me. You are my refuge, my fortress, my protector, my help, my hope, my high tower to which I run and am safe. Renew my broken trust in the inner parts of my heart. Enable me to lean confidently into You and shout for joy because of Your joy. I will choose now to give You an offering of songs of thanksgiving.

8 The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.

Abba, I belong to You. You committed Yourself to protecting me. You alone are my unyielding strength and my sure salvation. On Christ the solid Rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. I stand in Your fortress to see Your salvation. I will hide my soul deep in the Rock. I am Your special treasure, chosen, anointed, appointed, sealed by Your Holy Spirit.

9 Save your people and bless your inheritance; be their shepherd and carry them forever.

Save me and nurture me and let me enter into all my inheritance of Your blessings. You are my good Shepherd. You will lift me up onto Your shoulders and carry me all the days of my life. So, Lord, for today give me this day the Bread of life that is my rightful portion. You alone are my Victory! Write your own personal paraphrase of Psalm 28, as aspects of God’s character and works exactly fit your need: He is your rock, mercy, holiness, justice, strength, shield from every danger, faithfulness, help, saving refuge, protection, and shepherding presence. Does your heart fill with joy and thanksgiving over who He is? Do you see how you can turn dire circumstances into a showcase for our praise-worthy God? Always “It is pleasant and fitting to praise the Lord” (Psalm 147:1).

Taken from Prayer Essentials For Living In His Presence, Vol 2, © Sylvia Gunter 2002. An archive of our devotionals is available at on our website.

Feeling Powerless?

“Jesus knew what they were thinking, so He asked them, ‘Why do you have such evil thoughts in your hearts? Is it easier to say “Your sins are forgiven,” or “Stand up and walk”? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!’” (Matthew 9:4-6 NLT)

There are two words in the Greek language that are translated “power” in our English translations. One is the word from which comes our English word “dynamite” and the other, used above, is the word that means “authority.” This isn’t the manager at Walmart who is given “authority” by those who hire him, it’s the God of the universe who is in and of Himself inherent power. It’s power that resides in Him by virtue of His nature; it’s who He is. He has power and authority because He IS power and authority.

When you’re feeling weak, powerless in and of yourself; when what looms before you is clearly too much to handle in your own strength, who will you call? Yeh, I get it, you can call “Ghostbusters” if you’d like, or you can call the manager at Walmart or your boss, your mother or any other human being, but you won’t find the help you need until you focus your attention on the God of the Bible.

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Thom Rainer points us to the right source when he writes: “We are powerless when we are prayerless.” As weakness seems to be my new “normal,” my primary recourse is to run to my Father’s arms. There I find comfort, peace, hope, strength, relaxation, assurance and everything else I need to push forward with hope and confidence.

Putting on a veneer of strength isn’t what will solve our problems or sustain us through our trials. The Holy God alone is enough because He not only IS power, He IS authority! How does that translate? It means nothing or no one touches my life without His express permission. It means if the Lord allows it, it has purpose, not to cripple or destroy me, but to make me more like Him.

In my weakness, my powerlessness, is my strength. I’m never more like Jesus than when I’m cradled in the arms of my heavenly Father. His voice will never be more clear, His power more evident than when He’s holding me, protecting me, teaching me, loving me. There is no greater security than being in the shelter of the most High God.

Satan is powerless in the presence of our Savior and Lord. The demons quake in fear at the mention of His holy Name. If we’re feeling powerless it’s because we’re choosing to be prayerless. Prayer is our lifeline to the Father; the anchor for our soul; our shelter in times of trouble. To not run to the Father with our every need is to display an arrogance that is like a slap in His holy Face. It’s to essentially say, “never mind, Holy, all-powerful Father, I’ve got this!” when clearly we do not!

Feeling powerless is for non-believers, those who haven’t yet learned that we have a heavenly Father who loves us and who has our backs. The weaker my body gets, the stronger my spirit grows and the more determined I am to see Him more clearly, love Him more dearly, and walk with Him more nearly!

I love these words Overheard in an Orchard, by Elizabeth Cheney (1859) “Said the Robin to the Sparrow, ‘I should really like to know Why these anxious human beings Rush about and worry so!’ Said the Sparrow to the Robin, ‘Friend, I think that it must be That they have no heavenly Father Such as cares for you and me!’”

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊