I Am Not Going There Anymore

Psalm 139:7

Where shall I go from your Spirit?  Or where shall I flee from your presence?

There is no place that we can go to get away from God.  He chases us no matter where we go because He loves us so much.  He pursues us with an undeniable and unlimited fervor because He has so much invested in us.  He created us.  He has planned to derive value from us not only here on earth but in heaven for all eternity.

When we are at our lowest point and it seems that Satan is winning, God just laughs.  He is there with us.  He gives us the strength for another breath and another step.  He sets an unquenchable fire in us for Him.  He knows that the victory is His and ours through Jesus Christ.  

Yet He weeps at the same time because He knows we are falling short of our potential of who we are in Christ.  He weeps because He sees us allowing our flesh to pull us and tug us in the wrong direction.  All along though, He can smile because He knows His steadfast grasp on our lives will soon enough lead to our surrender to Him.  He is ready to build something enormous in us, something within the depths of our souls that will cause us to rise up and say, "I am not going there anymore for I am a new man in Christ."  

Thus through His constant presence and never ending love for us, we will reach a place where we seek Him and Him alone.  The world will become but a distant memory as we settle into our place of eternal comfort in the hands of Our Heavenly Father who has always been there for us. 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your relentless pursuit of our affection.  We thank You for loving us first so that we could love You.  We bless the name of Your Son, Jesus, who made it possible for us to live in the comfort of Your presence for all eternity.  We pray, Father, that You set the fire in our souls that sends us running to You in full and immediate surrender.  May every breath we take be used to turn our faces toward You and away from the world.  May the world around us know us by Your presence in our lives.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Omni-Present Lord, Jesus Christ.

Not As I Will, But As You Will

Matthew 26:39

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Jesus Christ, the only perfect man to ever walk the this earth, fell on His face, cried out to His Father in heaven and asked to be freed of His upcoming duty.  In the same overwhelming moment, Jesus fully surrendered everything to the will of His Father.  In this same moment, we saw the two wills of Christ, the human and the Divine.   Jesus could not turn from the supernatural plan that His Father had for Him, even though He knew how much it was going to cost Him in the flesh.  Jesus knew He was submitting to God's perfect plan for the salvation of all men.  

It is certain that we will find times in our lives when we are nearly overwhelmed by the thought of what is ahead.  Our flesh will be ready to give in to defeat.  It is precisely at these times that we must fall on our faces before Our Heavenly Father and surrender to His will for our lives.  At these times, there is no resource to us greater than our prayer for strength.  It is in these times that we receive the supernatural blessing that we need to obey God's calling on our lives. 

Our Father in heaven has given us life.  He sustains our lives everyday.  God, Himself, made the ultimate sacrifice by sending His Son to die for our sins, so that He could grant us eternal life with Him.  Our full surrender to the Father is the only appropriate response that we can offer to His calling on our lives.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us life in flesh, sustaining our every breath and granting us eternal supernatural life through the atoning sacrifice of Your Son, Jesus.  We rejoice in knowing that the obedience of the Son to Your will paid the complete price for our salvation.  We pray that we will find all the strength that we need to completely surrender to Your will.  May we bear the fruit of Your will as we walk in obedience every day of our lives.  We ask all these things in the name of the One without sin, Jesus Christ.

The Manifestation of Grace

2 Corinthians 12:9

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

The apostle Paul knew what it was to receive God's grace.  Through his great faith he delighted in his weaknesses, he delighted in the insults that were tossed his way, he delighted in his hardships and he delighted in his persecutions.  Paul knew the secret.  He rested on God's promises to perfect His strength in Paul's weaknesses, in Paul's trials and in Paul's tribulations.  

Our God in heaven is ready to do the same for us.  Our Heavenly Father promises to provide all that we need to overcome every hard thing that we face and to provide all that we need to gain victory over the evil that surrounds us.  He does not promise to take us out of the battle.  Just as He used Paul's thorn to keep him mindful of his needs in Christ, He will allow things in our lives to keep us mindful of how needy we are.

We will find victory when we learn to surrender like Paul did.  We will find peace in all circumstances when we recognize God's grace is sufficient.  We will become stronger than we ever imagined when we allow the grace of God to be manifested and magnified in our lives.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the all-sufficient grace that You promise us.  We bless the name of Jesus who insured our victory on the Cross.  We rejoice in the presence of the Holy Spirit, who guides us, instructs us and strengthens us through our trials.  We pray, Father, that we will learn to have faith in You as Paul had faith in You.  We ask for the courage to surrender to Your Holy Spirit through all the trials that we face.  We pray that world we see and be drawn to the manifestation and magnification of Your grace in our lives.  We ask all these things in the name of the Lord Mighty in Battle, Jesus Christ.

Victory Over Evil

Mark 9:29

And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Jesus taught us, "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."  He emphasized that this was the greatest commandment.  It is the highest order in the kingdom.  Our number one purpose on earth and in heaven is to love God, to praise Him and to bring glory to His name.  One of the foremost ways that we can meet the requirements of this commandment is through our prayers.

When we are engaged in work that we consider to be the work of the Lord, we can lose sight of the fact that the work is being done out of the loving relationship that we have with Our Lord.  If we let our relationship with God slip, He will withdraw the power that He gives us to do His good work.  He is far more interested in our relationship with Him than He is in the result of our work.  Our relationship with the Father is built and sustained through our prayer life.  

We may be able to manipulate some things in the flesh, but all the things that provide real kingdom value will not endure under the burden of broken fellowship with the Father.  Through regular prayer, we build on our relationship with Our Father and we insure that we are empowered to do the greatest works that He has called us to do, even to cast out evil.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your perfect love in our lives.  We thank You for allowing us the privilege of returning our love, our praise and our worship to You through our prayers.  We bless the name of Jesus, who dwells within us, for making it possible for us to have victory over evil.  Father, we pray that all that we do is born out of the intimacy of our relationship with You.  We humbly ask for the grace to stay in constant fellowship with You through our prayers.  We beseech You to grant us the power over the evil in our lives and the lives of those that surround us.  May it all be for Your glory.  We ask all these things in the name of the One who has has victory over all evil, Jesus Christ.

The Coming Consuming Fire

Isaiah 60:2

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.

This passage in Isaiah is regarded as prophetic in nature, speaking to the end of times.  It predicts the rise of Christianity out of the darkest of times.  The first part of this passage certainly defines our times and our society across the globe.  Oh, how sweet it will be when the Lord raises up the greatest revival known to mankind as He fulfills the latter portion of this prophecy.

Can things getting any darker?  The ignorance, idolatry, superstition, false doctrine and false worship that we see everyday are surely forms of a very thick darkness.  It seems as if light is unable to penetrate the darkness that continues to escalate and build around us.  The world has been shaken and people are broken.  We have all become victims of Satan's plans of destruction.

But rejoice, even though the evil one is ramping up his lies and deceiving ways, Our Lord has different plans.  He has promised to bring His glory to be seen by the world.  We will be covered by a consuming fire.  He will baptize us in a Holy Fire and everything will be different.  Even though we will be experiencing darkness around us and tribulation in our lives, we will also witness Almighty God's presence in our lives in the midst of it all.  It is His glorious plan for us to overcome everything that comes against us.  It is His glorious plan that His consuming fire will be a purifying fire.  It will be a fire that cannot be quenched.  It will be a fire without end.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the abundant life that You have prepared for us as we surrender to the divine fire of Your Holy Spirit. We lift Your name up above all names as we come before You to seek the consuming fire that You have promised us.  We pray that Your purifying fire will burn the darkness out of our lives.   May our transformed lives bring light to the darkness wherever we go.  We ask all these things in the name of the Living Flame, Jesus Christ.

Free Flowing Vessels of Salvation

John 7:38

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, "Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."

Once we accept Jesus Christ as Our Savior, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells within us.  The Lord begins using us as vessels that carry the Living Water.

Before the Living Water can flow, we must be free of those things in our lives which would hinder the flow.  We must get into fellowship with Jesus Himself.  Without His fellowship, we are of no use to God as vessels of salvation.

As we submit to the Lord, we can anticipate that there will be trials in our lives.  Jesus Himself told us that it would be so as we followed Him.  These trials that create brokenness in our lives will also create the cracks in the living vessel so that the Living Water can flow through unhindered.  If but one heart can be saved because of our brokenness, let us thank God for allowing our trials to occur.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for using us as Your vessels of Living Water.  We rejoice in knowing that through shed blood of Your Son, Jesus, and through the indwelling of Your Holy Spirit in our lives that You can use us, the sons of inequity, to be instruments of Your good work.  We pray for the aid of the Holy Spirit to build us up in Christ so that we can endure in faith all of our trials.  We ask, Father, that we may become free flowing vessels of Your redemptive work in those around us.  We ask all these things in the name of the Living Fount, Jesus Christ.