One particular time, I was stirred by the Holy Spirit, and he led me to this passage: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 1:20-21, NKJV). As I read, I heard the Spirit whisper, “David, you’ve never come into the fullness and joy of my love.”
Years ago, God put it on my heart to start a boys’ home on Long Island. I truly sensed the Lord was behind this work. However, after just eighteen months, state officials imposed such stringent regulations on the operation of the home that we had no option but to close it down.
We’d taken in four boys during the brief time we were open. After we closed down, I lost touch with them. I had always thought that venture was one of the greatest failures of my time. For more than three decades, I wondered why God ever allowed us to move forward with it.
“Then the king of Assyria sent…Rabshakeh…with a great army against Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah” (2 Kings 18:17, NKJV). The Assyrians represent today’s “guides to prosperity.” The devil will parade his army around your walls, people who are powerful, beautiful and seemingly successful in all they undertake. When you see them, you will feel walled in like a prisoner.
We must be prepared for what is coming. We must be ready to spend our days in spiritual warfare, knowing that a flood of iniquity is aimed against the people of God. “Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints’” (Jude 1:14, NKJV). Scripture says we are kings and priests unto the Lord, and we represent these tens of thousands going out to battle Satan’s army. Satan wars against us because he hates us greatly (see Revelation 12:17).
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it — lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’?” (Luke 14:28-30, NKJV).
Jesus told his disciples, “I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my Father bestowed one upon me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:29-30, NKJV). The Lord has spread a table in the heavenlies for his followers. What an exciting prospect!
Let me tell you how and where Paul produced his epistles. He wrote them in dark prison cells. He wrote them after being scourged or having survived another shipwreck. He was intimately familiar with hardship and suffering.
To endure means “to carry through despite hardships; to suffer patiently without giving up.” In short, it means to hold on or hold out, but this word means little to the present generation. Many Christians today are quitters. They quit on their spouses, their families and their God.
If you are a preacher, missionary or teacher, you have some questions to consider. What are you teaching? Is it what a person taught you? Is it a rehashing of some great teacher’s revelation? Or have you experienced your own personal revelation of Jesus Christ? If you have, is it ever-increasing?
Paul said of God, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts17:28, NKJV). True men and women of God live within this very small yet vast circle. Their every move, their entire existence, is wrapped up only in the interests of Christ.
The Psalmist wrote, “Our fathers trusted in you; they trusted, and you delivered them. They cried to you, and were delivered; they trusted in you, and were not ashamed” (Psalm 22:4-5, NKJV). The Hebrew root word for ‘trust’ suggests “to fling oneself off a precipice.” That means being like a child who has climbed up into the rafters and cannot get down. He hears his father say, “Jump!” and he obeys, throwing himself into his father’s arms.