Body

Devotions

A Place of Perfect Rest

David Wilkerson (1931-2011)

There exists a place in Christ where there is no anxiety about the future, no fear of calamity, affliction or unemployment. And there is no fear of falling or losing one’s soul. This place of total confidence in God’s faithfulness is called a place of perfect rest by the writer of Hebrews.

Such perfect rest was offered to Israel, but the people’s doubt and unbelief kept them out of God’s rest: “Those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:6). The Israelites lived in constant fear and dread, always waiting for the next crisis to happen. As a result, they were desolated in their trials.

If Israel had entered into God’s rest, his work in his people would have been complete. But because they didn’t, the Lord continues to search in every generation for a people who will enter: “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God” (4:9).

God is telling us, “This offer of rest is for you today! There still exists a place in me where all doubt and fear no longer exist, a place where you’ll be prepared for whatever may come.” Thus, his Word urges, “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it” (Hebrews 4:1).

Today, multitudes of God’s people know nothing of this rest in Christ. As they hear the awful reports of tragedies, calamities, and deaths, they are filled with fear and dread. Their constant prayer is, “Oh, God, please don’t take one of my loved ones. I could never handle the grief.”

Yet, if you are at rest in the Lord, you won’t succumb to such fear. You will not panic or fall apart when you’re hit with some unexpected crisis. And you won’t lose hope, accusing God of bringing on your troubles. Yes, you will endure pain that is common to every human being but you will be at rest in your soul, because you know God is in control of everything concerning you.

A Life that Satan Cannot Destroy!

David Wilkerson (1931-2011)

As Jesus lay silent in the grave after his crucifixion, Satan and his hordes gloated. They thought they had won an irreversible victory but all along, God’s foreordained plan was being put into action — a plan for resurrection life!

The Lord sent his Holy Spirit down into the very bowels of death and there he quickened the body of Jesus, raising him from the dead. Then out of the grave stepped our blessed Savior, right through the thick stone. And he emerged with this testimony:

“I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death” (Revelation 1:18). Christ was saying here, “I am the one who has eternal life. I was dead, but look, I’m alive, now and forever. I hold the very keys to life and death in my hands!”

The moment Jesus walked out of death’s prison, he became the resurrection and the life, not only for himself but for all who would believe on him from that day on. He has brought forth to us a resurrection life totally beyond death’s power.

Because of this, there is no longer any reason for a Christian to fear death or to see it as an enemy. Our Lord has conquered it completely: “Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death” (Acts 2:24).

If you have received Jesus as your Savior and Lord, then he resides in you as a mighty power of resurrection life. And the same resurrection power that brought him up out of the grave will sustain you, as well. “Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Corinthians 13:5). You have within your being all that is in Christ, a powerful life-force that Satan cannot destroy!

A Testimony the World Longs to See

David Wilkerson (1931-2011)

If you tell the world that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, a God who can perform the impossible, they will watch to see how you react in impossible situations. And the devil looks on, too, hoping your faith will fail.

The Psalmist writes, “Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You, which You have prepared for those who trust in You in the presence of the sons of men!” (Psalm 31:19). What is this great goodness that God lays up for those who trust in him through trying times? It is an impenetrable, glorious testimony to the world that your faith can survive any situation.

We see this kind of testimony in Daniel. His jealous co-governors devised a plot against him, convincing King Darius to ban prayer for thirty days. Daniel was fully aware of the penalty for continuing to pray, yet he knew the Lord would see him through. Just as his peers predicted, Daniel disobeyed the ban and kept praying three times a day.

Although King Darius respected Daniel, he was forced by his own decree to cast this devout man into the lions’ den. The king assured Daniel, “Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you” (Daniel 6:16). Yet, that night the king couldn’t sleep (6:18).

We know how God responded to Daniel’s faith — he shut the mouths of the hungry lions! In the morning King Darius was up early, anxious to see if God had answered Daniel’s prayers. You can imagine the king’s joy when he heard Daniel’s voice praising God (6:21-22).

Because of this great demonstration of God’s keeping power, King Darius wrote a decree that impacted an entire kingdom: “Men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. For He is the living God” (6:26-27).

The world still longs to see a testimony of God’s great power in the lives of those who proclaim his name — those who believe what they preach and never doubt his Word.  

Are We Willing to Have Our Faith Refined?

David Wilkerson (1931-2011)

Beloved, God is searching for a people who will trust him fully. The Lord did not save us so we could bask endlessly in his goodness, mercy and glory. He had an eternal purpose in choosing each one of us and that purpose goes beyond blessings, fellowship and revelation. The fact is, God still reaches out to lost humankind, searching for a believing people he can shape into his greatest evangelistic tool.

God was searching for such a people in Gideon’s day. When Gideon issued a call for volunteers to fight the Midianites, thousands of Israelites responded. But the Lord told Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands … Proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart’” (Judges 7:2-3).

God was telling Gideon, “If anybody is afraid, tell him to go home now. I will not allow my army to be infected by fear.” God was actually turning away volunteers for his army; at one point, some 22,000 doubters were sent home. Gideon eventually reduced the number of volunteers to 10,000 but God told him there were still too many and the Lord finally settled on 300 battle-tested soldiers. 

This ought to tell us something. As the Lord seeks gospel messengers he can send out to the world, he is not going to recruit churches whose pews are filled with fearful, doubting, untested people. He will not look for powerful, efficient religious organizations or highly educated seminarians. God uses organizations and the highly educated, of course, but in themselves none of these has the resources needed to be God’s tried and tested messengers.

So, what is needed to reach a lost and hurting world? God is seeking those who are willing to be tested, tried by fire, those whose faith he can refine and bring forth as pure gold.

Radical, Disruptive Prayer

Gary Wilkerson

In the Sermon on the Mount (Luke 6:20-22), Jesus gives a list of characteristics or activities for which one will be blessed. He speaks of blessing those who are meek, those who are poor in spirit and those who are peacemakers. This list has come to be known as “the beatitudes.” However, the beatitudes did not include, “Blessed are the disruptive, for they shall not be paralyzed.”

Being “disruptive” is an attitude that Jesus encourages in us and one that he lived out himself; he was not only meek and mild, but he was radical and wild. On more than one occasion, Jesus was disruptive to the norms of the religious. He also was disruptive to the kingdom of darkness.

Jesus’ powerful life in prayer was constantly and effectively a thorn in the side of evil. When he prayed, kingdoms were moved, powers of darkness fled, and a great work of God was released on earth. He was even disruptive to those who chose to follow him, constantly upsetting their comfort zone. When they lacked this disruptive spirit, he came and awakened them to their need for vigilant, aggressive prayer, asking them, “Couldn’t you fight in prayer for even an hour?” He disruptively turned their world upside down. 

There are times in our lives when the battles we face, the tasks at hand, and the missions to which we are charged need more than casual, comfortable prayers. Comfort and ease in the sweet hour of prayer may be fine for morning devotionals, but when we are charged with a holy mission that seems totally hindered by the adversary, our true hope is found in radical, disruptive praying. Rather than a sweet hour of prayer, we often need hours of prayer.

Many Christians are so paralyzed that people look at their lives and see nothing atypical or peculiar about them. But we are called to be a peculiar people and when we are disruptive for the kingdom of God, we will appear peculiar, indeed.