Devotions

“Now Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, but had departed from Saul” (1 Samuel 18:12, NKJV).

Satan envies and fears most those who have been with God in prayer and are determined to stand up and fight in faith. Satan fears even a small army of those who are girded up in faith for a fight. He cowers before those who are up on their feet and ready to resist.

Because he fears you, his design is to neutralize your fighting spirit.

The devil does this by trying to flood your mind with defeating, distracting, hellish thoughts that breed mistrust and questions about God’s power. He’ll scream into your mind and spirit, “It’s no use fighting any more. You are too weak from your personal struggles. The powers of hell are just too big to overcome, so you might as well relax. You don’t need to be so intense about the battle anymore.”

This is all a distraction! Satan’s entire strategy is to get you to take your eyes off the victory of the cross. He wants to turn your focus onto your weaknesses, your sins, your shortcomings. He wants to make you believe you aren’t strong enough to go on. Your strength, however, is not the point; Jesus’ strength is!

The fact is we’re all going to be in a fight until we either die or Jesus comes back. We may be given seasons of calm and reprieve, but as long as we are on this earth, we are engaged in spiritual warfare. There is simply no end to these battles. That’s why Paul says Jesus has given us weapons that are for pulling down strongholds (see 2 Corinthians 10:3-5). We have been equipped with weapons that Satan cannot withstand: prayer, fasting and faith. 

The time has come for us to get our focus unstuck from our current afflictions. We must take our eyes off our trials and fix them on the captain of this war. Jesus holds the key to all victory, and he has promised us, “I have supplied you with every weapon needed for battle. I am ready and willing to give you strength in times of weakness.”

The Apostle Paul taught the Colossian church, “For this reason we…do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9-10, NKJV).

What is required for a pleasing walk? Paul tells us, “As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do” (Colossians 3:12-13).

In other words, we are to ask ourselves, “Am I becoming more like Christ? Am I growing more patient or more quick-tempered? Kinder and gentler, or meaner and more argumentative? More tender and forgiving, or more bitter, holding onto grudges? Do I ‘bear with others’? Do I put up with the weaknesses and faults of those near to me, or do I always have to be right?”

Paul is suggesting that, in light of a coming day of judgment, it doesn’t matter what works you accomplish or what charitable deeds you do. No matter how kind you are to strangers, no matter how many souls you bring to Christ, this question remains: Are you still becoming more loving, patient, forgiving and forbearing?

Examining your walk with Christ means looking not so much at what you are doing as at what you are becoming. Such a walk cannot be achieved by human effort alone. It won’t happen by self-determination and saying, “I am going to become that kind of believer.” Instead, it happens by the work of the Holy Spirit, through faith in his Word.

First, we read these words and believe them to be God’s call to us. Then we examine ourselves and ask the Spirit to show us who we truly are, measuring ourselves by his Word. Finally, we ask the Holy Spirit to help us change.

In Genesis 15, God made a glorious agreement with Abraham. He instructed the patriarch to take a female heifer, a female goat and a ram and cut them all in two. Then Abraham was to take a turtledove and a pigeon and lay them on the ground, head-to-head. Abraham did as he was instructed, and as these creatures lay bleeding, vultures began to descend on the carcasses.

What did Abraham do when the vultures came? Scripture says he chased them away. This was a sacred sacrifice that Abraham would not allow to be defiled or rendered unfit for his Holy Lord. Likewise, the Lord has shown us a way to deal with ‘vultures’ or temptations and vain thoughts when they creep up on our spiritual sacrifices.

Whenever any voice of doubt or questioning God comes into my mind, I have to line it up against what I know about my loving Lord. I can’t accept any thoughts as true if they are simply based on what I am feeling in the moment. They must be measured against Jesus’ promises to me about himself and about the victory he has won for me.

If thoughts come to me that are accusing, if they cause doubt and fear or are condemning or bring a sense of rejection, I know they are not from God. We all have to be prepared for such dark and tormenting thoughts to come. Even the Lord Jesus was subject to these kinds of ideas from the enemy during his wilderness temptation. We don’t have to be afraid of the devil’s attacks, though, because Christ has given us mighty spiritual weapons of warfare.

When vultures come at you, bringing contemplation of your own unworthiness and insecurity, chase them away with God’s Word. The sacrifice that the Lord has led you to make is pleasing to him, and he will honor it.

You may notice in your own life when the Holy Spirit wants to bring you a greater measure of himself, a greater baptism of his power, that you often find these times accompanied by tears.  Don’t ever be ashamed of tears. Don’t ever be ashamed to cry. Don’t ever try to remove yourself from the emotions that come when God begins to move in your life. He wants to move not only your mind but also your heart and bring you to a place of tears as well.

This is confirmed by the Apostle Paul, “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:17-18, ESV). The Holy Spirit was in Paul and his prayers for the church, but what was he talking about here? Why does he emphasize, “I’m going to tell you now, weeping, that some are enemies of the cross”?

The reason he’s telling them so emphatically is not because somebody out there in the wide world is an enemy of the cross, but rather the devil is trying to work inside the body of Christ, in the church itself, to get us to be enemies of the cross. 

Does this mean you could suddenly become an atheist? No.

Being lukewarm, however, becomes a lifestyle all too easily. Remember what John writes in Revelation? “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-17). This is what I believe that Paul alluding to in Philippians.

Could you continue to live in apathy and not be concerned about it? Could you continue to be in the compromise of sinful living and your heart isn’t broken over it?

Oh, church, it's time we get on our faces before the Lord and cry out for his mercy on us and this generation. “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence” (Hebrews 5:7). We need to pray for passion, holy grief and fervency in these final days.

“Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord” (Lamentations 3:40, KJV).

Crisis moments require us to be courageous enough to deal with the issues of our day and, more importantly, those that lie within our own hearts. It is time for an appraisal. Not of our assets, not of our property. We need to probe deeper. It is time for us to stop and seriously consider where we are headed. Are you and I prepared for what is coming? Do we have resident within us what we need to face the coming days?

I fear that many Christians are largely unaware of the depth of the great trials that will one day face the church and, sadly, possess little inner resource to meet them.

We profess our devotion to Christ without much difficulty when the sun is out, the paycheck is in the mailbox, and there is still food on the table. Yet it is when we strike the iceberg that, in the same manner as the RMS Titanic, suddenly the flaws in our hearts and motives will be unveiled.

That is when it will become evident if our security is truly rooted in Christ alone. We will discover whether or not our hearts will prove to be steadfast, with the express purpose of living for the glory of God and the souls of men.

If we expect to be found unshakable in the days to come, I can only arrive at this one conclusion: an immediate and deliberate decision must be made in our hearts to go the full journey with Christ. Following Christ in this way was never promised to be an easy path; in fact, I daresay that the half-hearted simply will not make it.

This is precisely why it is imperative that we take the time to search our hearts now. We must face that most critical of choices: are we all in, or are we out?

^{Carter Conlon joined the pastoral staff of Times Square Church in 1994 and was appointed Senior Pastor in 2001. In May of 2020 he transitioned into a continuing role as General Overseer of Times Square Church, Inc.}