Devotions

I take great comfort in knowing that my Savior understands my feelings. He relates to all I am experiencing. He truly understands every feeling and never condemns me for suffering attacks from the enemy. Instead, he tells me to hold on and not to be afraid. He lets me know he too is familiar with this kind of struggle, then he offers me a gracious audience at his throne with a promise of mercy and grace in my hour of need. Whether my negative feelings have been a result of a physical or spiritual battle, our Lord offers comfort and help when most needed.

Scripture declares, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16, NKJV).

What does our Lord mean by this? He is encouraging all his dear children to quit fretting when under the influence of negative thoughts. No more accusing yourself of failure and wickedness. Despair and fear can be caused by sin, but not always. Don't just lie down and take it! Don't go to bed at night until you shut yourself in with him, approach his throne boldly and claim the help he has so clearly promised. Claim mercy, forgiveness and grace to expel all negative feelings. That is Christ's formula, not mine.

Having claimed victory, having used the authority of his name, having come to him with faith to lay hold of forgiveness and the promises, ride out your storm in a state of rest. Let God dissipate the negative feelings at his own pace.

“For in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).

“…weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).

You can lie down to sleep with this prayer on your lips: “Oh, Lord, I reject these negative feelings. I disown them. I don't know where they came from or how, but I commit them all to you. Give me a new assurance and take away all fear. Amen.”

God has not forgotten you! He knows exactly where you are and what you are going through right now. He is monitoring every step along your path, but we are just like the children of Israel who doubted God’s daily care for them, even though prophets were sent to deliver wonderful promises from heaven. We forget in our hour of need that God has us in the palm of his hand. Instead, like the children of Israel, we are afraid we are going to blow it all and be destroyed by the enemy.

Could it be that we continue in our hurting, living in defeat and failure, simply because we really do not believe God answers our prayers anymore?

Are we as guilty as the children of Israel in thinking God has forsaken us and turn to our own devices to figure things out for ourselves? Do we really believe our Lord meant it when he said God will act just in time in response to our prayer of faith? Jesus implies that most of us, even though called and chosen, will not be trusting in him when he returns. Some of God’s people have already lost their confidence in him. They do not believe in the deepest parts of their souls that their prayers make any difference. They act as if they are all on their own.

Be honest now. Has your faith been weak lately? Have you almost given up on certain things you have prayed so much about? Have you grown weary with waiting? Maybe you have thrown up your hands in resignation as if to say, “I just can’t seem to break through. I don’t know what is wrong and why my prayer is not answered. Evidently God has said no to me.”

God has not forsaken me nor you! A thousand times no. He is right now wanting us to believe he is working all things out for our good (see Romans 8:28). Stop trying to figure it out; stop worrying and doubting your Lord. The answer is coming. God has not shut his ears, and you will reap in due season if you faint not. “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart” (Galatians 6:9 NKJV).

Paul exhorted the people of God, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5, NKJV). The apostle was saying, “Let the mind that is in Christ — the very thinking of Jesus — be your thinking also. His mindset is the one we all are to seek.”

What does it mean to have the mind of Christ? Simply put, it means to think and act as Jesus did. It means making Christ-like decisions that determine how we are to live. It means bringing every faculty of our mind to bear on how we actually can have the mind of Christ. Every time we look into the mirror of God’s Word, we’re to ask ourselves, “Does what I see about myself reflect the nature and thinking of Christ? Am I changing from image to image, conformed to Jesus’ very likeness by every experience that God brings into my life?”

According to Paul, here is the mindset of Christ. “[He] made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). Jesus made the decision while he was still in heaven. He made an agreement with the Father to lay down his heavenly glory and come to earth as a man. He was going to descend to the world as a humble servant. Rather than be ministered to, Christ sought to minister to others.

For Christ, this meant saying, “I go to do your will, Father.” Indeed, Jesus determined ahead of time, “I am laying down my will in order to do yours, Father. I subjugate my will so that I may embrace yours. Everything I say and do has to come from you. I’m laying down everything to be totally dependent upon you.” In turn, the Father’s agreement with the Son was to reveal his will to him. God said to him, in essence, “My will won’t ever be hidden from you. You will always know what I am doing. You will have my mind.”

When Paul boldly stated, “I have the mind of Christ,” he was declaring, “I too have made myself of no reputation. Like Jesus, I have taken on the role of a servant.” Paul asserted that the same can hold true for every believer when he said, “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

I grew up in what would later be considered the Holiness Movement. My grandfather was a holiness preacher. He used to take a tent and travel all around the United States, preaching about hellfire and brimstone. “Live a holy life, or you won't see the Lord.” I understood holiness in the sense of “I want to live above sin. I want to pursue Christ. I want to read my Bible. I want to pray, go to church and go on missions trips.” Those fit in my category of holy, but my life wasn't whole.

My friend Tim Dilena was preaching with me at a conference, and he told all of us pastors, “Hold up one hand. Now list your five closest friends. People that you could count on; you have true devotion to one another, and you're pursuing one another, and you know each other's stuff.”

I raised my hand, and I listed off my five real quick. Then Tim added, “But they can't be your wife or your kids.” I thought, “Oh, no.” My five were gone. I tried it again; I got to the third one, and I was questioning four and five. I was thinking, “No, they're coworkers or acquaintances. They're a pastor in another city, but they're not really my close friends.” It hit me at the core.

I'm holy in the sense of loving Jesus and praying, but I'm not whole in the sense of made complete in Christ by his body the church. “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23, ESV). It’s something that goes beyond “Read your Bible. Pray.” Belonging to a small group is not necessarily having friends. You can hide in a small group almost as well as you can hide in a mega church. I was a pastor of a near mega church, but I couldn't count five really close friends on one hand.

It's unhealthy to not have friendship. After my friend’s sermon, I began to see my need for a whole and holy life. That realization changed my whole life and my ministry. Today, pray about an area in your life where God wants to bring wholeness in addition to holiness, whether it’s with friendships or in some other area.

Paul knew some Judaizers had come to the early church and had told them, “Don’t listen to Paul. He’s a chump.” So he had to write and defend himself, as he often did. “You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first,” —this is a humble confession— “and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. …Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Galatians 4:13-14,16, ESV).

The Bible has all kinds of incidents where a prophet would come to a king and speak a message from the Lord, but it was a corrective Word. The king would respond, “What did you just say?” Then to his guards, “Would you arrest him and put him in a cell. Oh, and two days later, go ahead and cut his head off.”

Why? Because we don’t like to be corrected. When we walk in pride, we are fools, and Proverbs says, “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1). If you don’t want people to get upset at you, you got to tell them what they want to hear.

A lot of churches run this way. Avoid any verses in the Bible that are corrective and might make people feel uncomfortable. If they’re practicing some sin like racial animosity, don’t tell a white person that everybody’s the same and that we’re to love everyone. No, they don’t want to hear that if they’re in certain parts of the country or part of certain mindsets. Don’t tell black people that they have to love white people even though the history of this country is not so pretty. No, they do not want to hear that. Don’t tell anybody anything they don’t want to hear because pride doesn’t like to be corrected.

People think, “I’m going to do things my way, and if you correct me, that means you don’t like me!” The scripture say, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6). Don’t we all need a baptism of humility? Lord, give me humility so that I don’t see anyone who corrects me as an enemy.

^{Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.}