David Wilkerson Devotions

Recently, a distraught sister in Christ wrote these words to me: “I am terrified. I think it would be wonderful if a hydrogen bomb fell on us, especially on me and my family. It would all be over for us in such a hurry. We’d be with Jesus! I lost my husband to cancer and one of my two unmarried daughters has health problems and hasn’t worked for two years. I just got out of the hospital and am recovering from a broken back. We have suffered terribly for the past few years. Members of our fellowship are being persecuted, and my friends are all suffering unmercifully.

In a weary moment, Jesus stopped to rest at a well, but there was a lost woman who needed help. Once again, He was energized. His disciples came again to find their Master so relaxed, so refreshed! “He said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of” (John 4:32). That is the secret energy of resurrection life!

Often I feel like a drained car battery. If you forget to turn off the light of your car, all you get the next day is that dreaded noise—urr . . . urr—the empty clinking sound of dead machinery.

Jesus has never been more willing to show His power than He is right now because He has never been more powerful than He is right now. Our faith has to go beyond the point of death. It must look into the face of everything that is dead and proclaim, “Jesus never gives up on the dead!” We should never give up on anyone or anything, no matter how hopeless the situation seems.

What a terrible scene occurred at the house of Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagogue in Jesus’ day. There was confusion, doubt, fear, and wailing when his daughter died.

Mark 5:38-40 reads: “And [Jesus] cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly. And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn.”

A grieving father named Jairus came to Jesus to ask for the healing of his dying daughter: “There cometh . . . one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet, and besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live. And Jesus went with him” (Mark 5:22-24).

He who conquers death has all power—and there was no greater evidence of Christ’s power on earth than those He raised from the dead. “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth (gives life to) them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will” (John 5:21). Jesus clearly claimed to have power over death. He even said of Himself, “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25), and He proved it!

“Making mention of you in my prayers; 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” (Ephesians 1:1

“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper . . . this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 54:17). Everything Satan tries in order to get you down just won’t work! Those big guns aimed at you will melt away in the presence of the Lord.

When you walk with the Lord you will be rewarded with light, direction, discernment, revelation—a certain knowing! As you die to this world day by day, the light will grow brighter. You are headed toward the sun. Zacharias prophesied that Christ came to give light to them that sit in darkness . . . to guide our feet (see Luke 1:79).

Those who neglect the Lord soon spin out of control as the devil moves in and takes over. Such a person has a devastated self-image. His or her feelings and thoughts cannot be curbed, and their tongue wags and moves under the power of bitterness and anger.