Devotions

David acknowledged God’s great mercy when he said, “I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great assembly” (Psalm 40:10).

David was grateful to God for such great love because he was deeply conscious of his own failings. “My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up” (40:12). No matter how badly people have sinned, God’s love still reaches them. He sent his Son as a sacrifice for this very purpose.

“Because your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You” (Psalm 63:3). This life is short! Yet God’s love will endure forever. A billion years from now, Jesus will be as tender and loving to us as he is now.

The greatest proclamation of his lovingkindness is joyful praise. Stop and think for a moment: God is not mad at you. If you are ready to forsake your sins, you can be forgiven and restored this very moment. The Word says that nothing can come between our Lord and us: no sin, no guilt, no condemning thoughts.

If you really understood how tender He is toward you — how patient, how caring, how ready to forgive and bless — you would not be able to contain yourself. You would shout and praise Him until you had no voice left!

Beloved, Jesus is coming — and we're clean. We're ready to go. You have a loving, tender Father who cares about you. He's bottled every tear you've ever shed. He's seen every need. He's known your every thought — and He loves you!

“A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return” (Luke 19:12).

Jesus tells the parable of a nobleman who entrusted some of his servants with equal amounts of money to manage while he was away on a trip. Upon his return, the master asked for an accounting from the servants to evaluate how faithful each had been in his assignment.

The first servant reported that he had made some good investments and enjoyed a profit. “Lord, your mina had made ten minas more” (Luke 19:16). This servant was generously rewarded for his wise stewardship. Likewise, the second reported success and was rewarded accordingly. However, the third servant had played it safe because he feared his master, and he was harshly judged by the nobleman (see Luke 19:18-26).

This parable of Jesus illustrates two types of environments and two types of men. One type is building an environment of faith, as he believes God is moving in his midst and will do great things. But the other type represents a ministry of fear where the Lord is seen as a difficult taskmaster.

The man who walks in suspicion fears his gifts will not be acceptable to God. He is overly cautious and extremely conservative. Such a minister lives in fear and is always afraid of doing something wrong. He works hard to earn his Father’s love but does not have enough faith to step out. He preaches good sermons but has no vision.

You can choose which environment you wish to live in. The believer who lives in an environment of faith glorifies God no matter how dire his circumstances. He is filled with joy and praise to Jesus for his goodness because he knows his sins are washed away. On the other hand, it is sad to observe fearful Christians who are not free enough to totally trust their loving Father.

I encourage you to trust your Savior and accept the freedom he gives you. He wants you to live an abundant, overcoming life in him, and he invites you to run into that safe place of faith today!

My heart sings with the thought that throughout scriptural history, when God wanted to do something profound, he often looked for the person who was the least able to make it happen. When he wanted to bring a prophet to the nation, he looked for a barren womb in a woman named Hannah. When he wanted to deliver his people from the hand of the Midianites, he appeared to Gideon — the least of his father’s house in the tribe of Manasseh. When he wanted to give an incredible promise to a man named Abraham, telling him that he would have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the whole world would be blessed through him, he waited until Abraham had no possible way of doing it in his own strength.

After Solomon prayed at the completion of the temple, the Lord appeared to him at night and said, “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice … If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place” (2 Chronicles 7:12-15).

I see something of the character of God in this passage of Scripture: his willingness to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. You see, the kingdom of God is about men and women becoming all that God destined us to be; laying hold of things that are not within our natural grasp; understanding truths which our natural minds do not know; and living in freedom which any amount of natural effort cannot bring us into. The kingdom of God is about miracles and mercy!

The Lord is waiting for ordinary people like you and me to discover something about his heart. Come to him on behalf of the lost of this day and become a vital part of his overall plan.

_{Carter Conlon joined the pastoral staff of Times Square Church in 1994 at the invitation of the founding pastor, David Wilkerson, and was appointed Senior Pastor in 2001.}

In Numbers 13 and 14, we find the language and definitions of true faith and unbelief. The ten spies who had gone up into the land had returned with a report of what they had seen. “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large” (Numbers 13:27-28). So the report was both positive and negative.

The people panicked and cried out in fear and unbelief, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we” (see 13:31). But Caleb, a quiet voice of faith, had just the opposite approach: “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it” (13:30).

The whole congregation joined in, “Let’s go back to Egypt and captivity. We can’t make it to the Promised Land. There are too many strong enemies” (14:1-4). But again, faith speaks through Joshua and Caleb: “The land we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land … [The Lord] will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey” (14:7-8).

God wants to know what is in your heart as a true believer. Is it fear of giants and a desire to go back to Egypt? He wants a people who will use faith to tear down everything that keeps them from the fullness of Jesus. 

The enemy has no power to stop God’s people from attaining what he has for them. Satan may be using a giant of trouble against you right now — not to keep you down but to keep you out. All hell is raging against you to keep you from moving into the fullness of Christ, to a place of rest, a life of confidence and a walk of peace under his lordship.

Let your faith prevail and proclaim, “I will not fear what man can do. My enemies have no power for God is with me. I’m going in to what he has for me!”

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you” (Psalm 32:8-9).

In these two brief verses God gives us one of the greatest lessons concerning guidance in all of Scripture. First there is a precious promise to us, a foundation upon which we can build a great faith. This foundation is his willingness to lead and guide us in everything! In the beginning of the chapter, you discover that this promise is offered to a special people — those whose sin is covered and in whom there is no deceit; who have the Lord’s hand heavy upon them; who are godly and pray in a time when they may be heard; who are hidden and preserved from trouble; and who sing songs of deliverance.

Yet the Word of God says a person may be a believer who enjoys all the spiritual benefits of being a child of God and still be like a stubborn mule when it comes to submitting to his guidance. God said of Israel, “For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways’” (Psalm 95:10).

God was essentially saying, “After all those long years of receiving my tender guidance and miraculous deliverances, they still don’t have the slightest idea of the way I work! And they never even try to understand my principles of guidance.” 

God wants a people who know him well enough to move at his slightest urging, but most believers do not spend enough time in his presence to know him in this way. The Israelites were mule-headed children, too self-centered to trust God with their future. They wanted a quick, easy way out of the hard places and they learned nothing from the supernatural leadings that took them from slavery to the very edge of the Promised Land.

Beloved, God would much rather lead us with his eye than with a bit and bridle. He wants us to have a settled knowledge of his ways and a constant assurance of his hand of guidance upon us.