Devotions

“Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped” (Psalm 124:7, NKJV). 

Imagine a little bird trapped in the fowler’s net. Lying helpless, its little heart throbs with terror, and its wings beat wildly against the net to no avail. The more it struggles, the more battered and bruised it becomes. Frightened, the bird begins to cry and screech, but escape is impossible. It is completely at the mercy of the fowler. 

Beloved, that little bird is you snared by the net of sin! The fowler is the devil, the wicked one. He laid his trap and caught you in it.

Now, consider that trapped, little bird. How he could possibly get free by his own strength and power? If he fights to break through the net, he will become even more entangled. He may even break a wing or bleed to death. He can’t deliver himself.

Isn’t this a picture of us when we’re trapped in sin? We make all kinds of promises to God. We struggle and cry, trying to break free from our bondage; but we have lost our freedom and remain trapped.

Imagine that little trapped bird again. That night, the fowler goes to bed, dreaming of this special little bird he’s been after. He can hardly sleep and is anxious to go out the next day and see if he’s caught it.

As the fowler comes near the trap, he sees it has been sprung, and he gets excited. He expects to see a worn-out, bleeding, frightened, half-dead bird in the net. Lo and behold, when he examines the trap, he sees the net is torn and broken. The bird has soared away. 

We find the little bird perched on a limb in a tree high on God’s mountain. He’s free, and his wounds are healing all because the Lord came and ripped open the net. That little bird is saying to itself, “If it had not been for the Lord, if he had not rushed to my side, I would have been swallowed up and devoured. However, God broke the snare and plucked me out of the trap.”

The snare is broken, and we have escaped!

Satan will resist every true worshiper who draws near to God. “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him” (Zechariah 3:1, NKJV).

James instructed believers, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God…” (James 4:7-8). James presupposed that when you draw near to God, you are going to be attacked by the enemy, so he warned, “First, fight Satan; put up all your resistance because when you worship with all your mind and soul, he will oppose and distract you!”

Satan’s chief work is to hinder prayer and corrupt pure worship, especially in those who are serious about following Jesus.

Whenever the Holy Spirit moves in Times Square Church, when all minds are focused on the Lord and he is receiving pure worship, Satan uses everything in his power to try to disrupt it. One time a man got up in the middle of our service, went outside, picked up a garbage can and smashed it into a car window. After that, he calmly walked back into church and sat down. The police had to come into the congregation and take the man out.

These distractions happen all the time. Demon-possessed street people take a seat and fall asleep. As our worship begins and the Lord begins to receive our praises, though, the devil awakens these people, and they begin to make a scene.

Satan will do anything to disrupt worship because he fears it! He will shoot subtle darts into your mind about all kinds of unfinished business, replaying every problem, every worry, every failure of the past week.

Satan wants you to be a despairing, defeated believer, so wrapped up in your problems, so distracted by the cares of life, that you cannot worship God with all your heart and mind. Are you repentant and full of godly sorrow? Have you run to Jesus for cleansing? If so, then resist the devil’s lies. Lift your hands and worship your Savior!

God’s compassion has a purpose. His love has a significance that goes beyond simply supplying our needs. I’ve seen God heal people of terminal sicknesses like cancer, but if Jesus doesn’t return soon, all of them will eventually die anyway. God isn’t going to continue restoring their bodies until they’re 462 years old, right? 

Jesus answers our prayers so that we will ask him, “Who are you?” That’s the question that Jesus wants us to ask. We see it so many times in scripture.

“…A windstorm came down on the lake, and they [the boats] were filling with water and were in danger. And they [the disciples] went and woke him [Jesus], saying, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?’” (Luke 8:23-25, ESV). 

It’s not enough that Jesus provides miracles or heals us or answers our requests. Asking “Who is this?” marks the real beginning of our discipleship journey. We move from loving him for what he does for us to loving him for who he is. 

Please hear me, I’m not saying that you ever ‘outgrow’ asking God to heal you or help you. Christianity isn’t a journey where you get mature enough and then stop asking God, “Will you restore this relationship? Will you bring someone I love to you? Will you heal my body of this illness?” We will still pray those prayers, but Jesus is inviting us to also ask, “Who are you? What are you like? Are you trustworthy in my current situation?” 

Jesus is ultimately taking us to a place where we will finally hear him when he says, “I am.” He is love, justice, graciousness, mercy, the bread of life, the light of the world, the sustainer of our bodies, hearts and minds. He is the door to freedom, joy and a full life. He is all that we could ever desire. 

I love the mountains. I love looking at them, hiking over them, driving through them, taking pictures of them…well, you get the point. I love them in the fall when the aspens are fire-yellow. I love them in the winter when they’re covered in snow. I love them in the spring when they are as green as a southern suburban lawn. I love them in the summer when the meadows are full of wildflowers. In case I wasn’t clear, I love the mountains.

I can walk onto my back deck and look at Pikes Peak, ”America’s Mountain.” Looking at it never gets old. When I drive home from visiting family in Missouri, I can see the top of the mountain from 70 miles away on a clear day. That view stirs warm feelings in my heart, but I’m sure it was not the same for those early pioneers. Why? Because their perspective was very different than mine.

What I think of as home, they thought of as a terrible obstacle to their future. After all, people died trying to cross those mountains. They had made plans for a life on the other side of those mountains, but in the earliest days, there were no roads. As more and more people made the trek to California, traversing the Rockies got easier. Today, with a decent car and anything other than blizzard weather conditions, you can make it from one side of the mountains to the other in just over two hours.

I often hear those in Christian ministry talk about pioneering. I applaud their hearts for making followers of Jesus everywhere, but we must remember that there are few places we’ll go today where someone hasn’t already gone. As I mentioned, I love hiking in the mountains, and some of those trails are difficult…but there are trails. The existence of a trail indicates that someone was there before you, and it was harder for them than for me.

So while it’s good for us to think about pioneering in ministry, let’s have the humility to remember that while the modern-day version of that activity might be difficult, there was a time when it was much more challenging. Remember that the same Lord who sustained them will sustain us if we stay humble and dependent.

^{Mark Renfroe and his wife, Amy, have been involved in field missions work for 30 years. Mark served as the area director for Assemblies of God World Missions and currently serves as the chief missions officer for World Challenge.}

Our minds have a natural tendency to wander and drift. Often we can’t sleep because we are unable to shut down the barrage of thoughts that invade our minds. I call these “unwilling distractions.”

As I sat in church during worship recently, my mind was flooded with invading thoughts about ministry, my next sermon, church finances, the need for more space. These are all important things, but I was totally distracted from worshiping the Lord. I had to keep bringing my thoughts into captivity.

When God communed with Abraham and made covenant with him, Abraham killed five animals and laid them out as a sacrifice. Scripture says, “When the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away” (Genesis 15:11, NKJV).

That is exactly what happens to us during worship. Thoughts fly down on us like bothersome birds, interfering with our intimacy with him and trying to devour our sacrifice. Like Abraham, we need to drive them all away.

Every time I shut myself in to pray, within ten minutes my thoughts begin to run off in all directions. I hear my mouth worshiping the Lord, but my mind is completely on something else. I try fighting off the flood of thoughts, but even more come pouring in. The flesh constantly wars against our spirit, wanting our attention.

The same happens to me in God’s house. I can be praising the Lord, full of love for Jesus, when suddenly my mind begins chasing after some other matter. Our wandering thoughts are not always of the devil. Sometimes they simply crowd in on us, thoughts of business, family, problems, difficulties. They must always be brought into captivity, however, because we are at war!

The flesh will always try to interfere with our worship or our prayer time. We are commanded to resist the flesh, and we must keep bringing Jesus back into focus. If we keep our mind centered on God, his fire will fall on our holy sacrifice.