Devotions

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way” (Psalm 37:23, NKJV). The Hebrew word for ‘ordered’ in this verse means fixed or pre-planned. God doesn’t work with a day planner. He doesn’t plan out our path a day, week or year ahead. No, he has an entire life-plan laid out for every believer. The moment we’re saved, that plan goes into operation.

What is this pre-planned path? Jesus answers very simply, “I am the way” (John 14:6). Christ himself is the path to glory and eternal life. He leads us toward our final destination, and our path ends in his arms, in heaven. The book of Hebrews tells us Jesus is “bringing many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10).

Yet, what we can’t know is the specific route that Jesus is going to take to get us there. None of us can be sure what the rest of our journey will look like. That path is a way known only to God. Take my own life, for example. I’ve been en route to glory for more than seventy years. Along the way, God has given me some goals, some dreams and some visions, which I’ve pursued; but the Lord has never outlined the entire path to me. In fact, even after all these years, I’m not sure where the path will lead me tomorrow.

When Jacob was old, he described his own path to Pharaoh. “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of my life been” (Genesis 47:9). The Hebrew word for “evil” here signifies afflictions, sorrows and adversities.

I can identify with Jacob. There are certain periods of my own pilgrimage that I would not want to relive. Of course, I praise God for all the blessings and miracles he has worked for me. I’m grateful for the faith he has built in me over the years. If I had to relive my life, though, I would want to know ahead of time that everything turns out well. However, that’s just not the way God works. The path of every believer is one of faith.

I want this to encourage those who need an answer to prayer, who need help in a time of trouble and who are ready and willing to move God’s heart according to his Word.

First, lay hold of this covenant promise in the book of Psalms. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1, NKJV). The phrase ‘very present’ means always available and immediate. Faith must rest in the assurance that God’s Spirit is abiding in you at all hours of the day and night. Because he took up a habitation in you, he listens to your every prayerful thought and cry. We know that if he hears us, he will grant our petitions. The Holy Spirit will move heaven and earth for any child of God who takes time to pour out his heart to the Father with unrushed, unhurried time in his presence.

In Psalm 62:5-7, we are shown the prayer of David that touched God’s heart. David says, “Wait on God only. Expect help from no other source. He alone must be your source, your only hope and defense. Only he can supply you with the strength to keep going until your answer comes.”

When you become wholly dependent on the Lord alone — when you stop looking for man to help you and trust God for the supernatural — nothing will be able to shake you. Nothing can move you into fits or pits of despair. David declared, “I shall not be moved” (Psalm 62:6).

Now the heart of it all, the secret to prevailing prayer that every saint throughout history has learned, is the pouring out of the heart before the Lord. “Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah” (Psalm 62:8). God will hear and answer you when he sees you’re willing to shut off all media for a season, cry out your heart, pour it out before him and trust he will respond.

God doesn't look at what is right and then try to do it. Righteousness is not something God’s attempting; it's something he is. Out of his sovereignty, he exists as a righteous being. He's not trying to be powerful; he is power. He doesn’t simply have a massive wealth of facts and insights; he is knowledge. Proverbs speaks of this: God doesn’t just have wise thoughts; he is wisdom.

Why does this matter? Why should we care if God either does good things or is all that is good? It matters because if God is all that is good rather than simply doing good, then we can’t have anything that is good without God.

If there's love on earth, it's because God is love. He's demonstrating that through his grace. There's grace on earth because of him. There's justice on earth because God is just. What’s more, if God is not in heaven, all the attributes of him — joy, love, peace, righteousness, wisdom, justice — are not in heaven either. Take God away, and both heaven and earth become hell.

Jonathan Edwards said in a sermon, “The main reason why the godly man has his heart thus to heaven is because God is there; that is the palace of the Most High. It is the place where God is gloriously present, where his love is gloriously manifested, where the godly may be with him... If God and Christ were not in heaven, he would not be so earnest in seeking it, nor would he take so much pains in a laborious travel through this wilderness, nor would the consideration that he is going to heaven when he dies, be such a comfort to him under toils and afflictions.”

The Bible says that if we acknowledge this truth that we have nothing good apart from God, he will “…make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11, ESV).

No matter what we’re going through in life, we have the comfort of knowing that God is good, and that goodness will never waver. That’s good news in both the easy times and the rougher periods of life.

Before the confrontation between Elijah and the false prophets took place on the top of Mount Carmel, the Lord gave Elijah specific instructions… He had just declared that there would be no rain for the next few years, and now he heard God telling him, “Go to this brook and camp out there. Birds are going to come and feed you” (see 1 Kings 17:1-4). How many of us would rather come up with a plan that sounds a bit more logical? Yet at these very moments we must remember that God’s ways are not our ways; his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

After a while, Elijah probably got rather comfortable living by the brook. In his heart, he may have thought, This is wonderful! The rain has stopped, and God is preparing the nation to turn back to him. As for me, I have this refreshing water here every day. …God left me here in a safe place.

Elijah represents a type of person today who lies by a spiritual brook, opening the Bible every day, enjoying the cool water and supernatural provision of God anytime he wants. Meanwhile, despair is all around him; people are confused; others are losing their jobs. All the while, he simply concludes, I’m just going to ride out the storm here. If that was Elijah’s plan, it certainly backfired. God moved him on from that place back into the lives of suffering people.

We may camp around the promises of God for a season, but there always comes a point when God must provoke us to move on and respond to the cry of those around us. We are not to turn a blind eye to the pressing needs all around us, settling for a shallow Christianity with no power, no provision, no purpose and nothing to give. Instead, I am confident that investing in people will once again become the hallmark of the true Church of Jesus Christ.

Here is the truth that will become known again in our generation: “Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6, NKJV). Those who know God and are willing to obey him will reach out to people who are losing heart.

^{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.}

In the gospels, Jesus was invited by a certain chief Pharisee to his house. Other Pharisees had been invited as well, men who were leading keepers of the law. When the host called his guests to be seated, there was a sudden scramble for the chief seats at the head table. Scripture tells us that Jesus “noted how they chose the best places” (Luke 14:7, NKJV). It was a brazen display of pride, a need to be seen and recognized.

When Christ himself sat down to eat, he gave that roomful of Israel’s top religious leaders this word of rebuke. “When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:8-11).

As he considered his audience at that Pharisee’s house, he was describing a particular type of leader: those who “love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts…for a pretense make long prayers” (Luke 20:46-47). In short, Jesus tells us, there are men and women who do good works only to be seen by others. These people love the spotlight and are constantly blowing a trumpet for themselves.

This applies to ministers, but it is also a word for every child of God. We must take this particular word from the Lord very seriously.

Why exactly did Jesus put so much importance on “Take the lowest seat in the house”? If we obey this command, Christ can then invite us to “come up higher” into a place of righteous honor and enter into the fullness of God’s touch. It opens our hearts to the call to have a richer intimacy with Christ. Only then will we become a more convincing, sure and righteous oracle of the Lord.