Devotions

Faith begins with a total abandonment of oneself into God’s care, but our faith must be active, not passive. We must have full confidence that God can and will do the impossible. We see in scripture “Jesus looked at them and said to them, ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’” (Matthew 19:26, NKJV) and “For with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37).

In short, faith always says, “God is enough!”

The Lord makes men and women of faith by leading them into impossible situations. He wants to hear his servants say, “Father, you led me here, and you know best. So I’m going to stand still and believe you to do the impossible. I’ll put my life in your hands, fully trusting you.”

Our faith is not meant to get us out of a hard place or change our painful conditions. Rather, it is meant to reveal God’s faithfulness to us in the midst of our dire situation. God does at times change our trying circumstances; but far more often, he doesn’t because he wants to change us.

We simply can’t trust God’s power fully until we experience it in our crises. This was the case with Daniel and his three friends. His friends saw Christ only when they were in the midst of the fiery furnace, and Daniel experienced God’s power and grace when he was thrust into the lions’ den. If they had suddenly been pulled out of their circumstances, they never would have known the full grace of God’s miracle-working power, and the Lord would not have been magnified before the ungodly.

We think we’re witnessing great miracles whenever God ends our storms and crises, but we can easily miss the lesson of faith in such times. That lesson is that God will remain faithful to us through our hard times. He wants to lift us above our trials through faith so that we will say, “My God can do the impossible. He’s a deliverer, and he’s going to see me through.”

In Psalm 31, David introduces us to the phrase “the secret of your presence.” He 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! You shall hide them in the secret place of your presence from the plots of man; you shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues” (Psalm 31:19-20, NKJV).

David is saying something very profound here. In the Old Testament, the presence of the Lord was associated with the ark. Israel believed that wherever the ark was, God’s presence was there, so wherever the people traveled, they took the ark along with them. We see an example of this faith concerning the Lord’s presence with the ark in 1 Samuel 4.

The devil greatly fears the Lord’s presence in our lives. He trembles at the very thought of a believer’s nearness to Christ. When his demonic hordes see you praying each day in the presence of your heavenly Father, all hell cries out, “God is with this believer. This one has the divine presence. What can we do against such?”

This is why Satan will do everything in his power to rob you of the Lord’s presence in your life. It’s why he wants to bog down your soul in doubt and fear. He wants you drained of all strength, and he’ll use anything he can, even ‘good’ things, to keep you away from spending time alone with Jesus. He knows your time with Christ makes you victorious over the fears and anxieties of this age.

The Word of God tells us we can pray without ceasing. This is unspoken prayer, anywhere, any time. I have come to believe that my most important prayers are those quiet whispers of thanksgiving that I offer to him all through the day. This keeps me in constant awareness of the Spirit.

All true strength comes from drawing near to the Lord. The measure of our strength is proportionate to our nearness to him. All the strength we’re ever going to need will come only through our secret life of prayer. If we’ll just draw near to Christ, he will draw near to us, giving us a fresh supply of strength daily. This is the secret of his presence!

In Isaiah 38, God tells King Hezekiah, “You’re dying. It’s over.” Hezekiah begins to grieve and goes into great despair. “I said, I shall not see the Lord, the Lord in the land of the living; I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world. My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd's tent…from day to night you bring me to an end; I calmed myself until morning” (Isaiah 38:11-13, ESV).

His goal is just “I hope I can make it through the night.” Have you ever had an argument with a husband or wife to the point where you couldn’t sleep at night? All you could do is try to calm yourself until the morning? Have you ever had one of those emergency phone calls in the middle of the night that kept you up until the sun rose? That is Hezekiah’s cry of the soul.

He goes on to say, “What shall I say? For he has spoken to me, and he himself has done it. I walk slowly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul” (Isaiah 38:15). The circumstances that he finds himself in are so difficult that there’s a heaviness to his soul. Now the bitterness here is not “I am bitterly angry at somebody and holding a grudge.” It’s tasting something in life that causes bitterness to come into the mouth then into the gut, and it slows his whole system down.

Look at the word of the Lord here, though. Hezekiah says something that would be rejected in 90 percent of the pulpits in America today. “Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back” (Isaiah 38:17).

He said that this bitterness of soul worked something good in his life. Most of us want to rebuke the bitterness of soul. Many of us want to pretend it was never there in the first place. Instead, we are called to trust God even in the bitterest circumstances. Praise him when things are going well. Praise him when things are difficult. Praise him when there’s healing. Praise him when there’s suffering. We are called to praise the Lord.

Shortly after my eldest son went off to boot camp to become a Marine, he began to send me fairly desperate letters. He even reached out to the heavyweights, asking me to please get Pastor David Wilkerson and others to pray for him.

It was easy for me to empathize with his desperation once I went down to North Carolina and got a tour of what these young men and women had to experience. Our country’s military has procedures designed to make young men and women into soldiers. These tests and challenges are so severe that they are almost impossible to endure. These young people go in, believing they have the world by the tail, but not long into the process, they realize that their perspective is not true at all.

They often don’t realize at first that all this hardship is necessary in order to prepare them to be soldiers. They are being trained to be obedient and to take orders; they are building stamina that will enable them to stand against insurmountable odds. They are being taught about unity and perseverance; fear is being driven out of their hearts.

God desires the same end result for us as his church. It requires us, however, to undergo intense training. We would all like to come into the kingdom of God, to hear from the Lord, to get filled with the Holy Spirit and then to move forward unhindered as we wield the sword of the Spirit. Those kinds of easy accomplishments, though, will never prepare us for true spiritual battle.

Psalm 105:19 says, “…the word of the Lord tested him.” Another meaning for the word “tested” is “to be fitted for the battle.” When we find ourselves on a long journey or in an intense struggle, it will be easy for us to lose heart along the way.

That is why we must remember that the Lord is fitting us for the battle ahead. Just as men and women are trained for battle once they join the military, there is a process that the Lord must take his people through in order to prepare them for the spiritual war that they either knowingly or unknowingly find themselves in. With this in mind, we gain a better perspective on the trials we may be going through. They are for our benefit.

^{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.}

When a prophet comes with a message of warning, often people want the prophet to give them specific advice about what to do in response. At times, God gives the prophet a word; but more often, it is up to every man of God to take the word into account for his own family. Just as a pastor has stewardship of the church, a man of God is to give an account of his own family.

Joseph heard God say to store up food for the season to come (see Genesis 41). Moses heard God say to receive gifts from the Egyptians for their journey (see Exodus12). We can also hear from God for our situation. Sheep do hear the Shepherd’s voice. Jesus will not only guide his people and comfort his flock but will also give them boldness and a heart to serve those troubled by afflictions.

The wisdom of Paul in his letter to the Ephesians speaks most to what we need. “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:15-18, NKJV).

We can hear from God. We must evaluate our own lives. Are we sitting on the fence? This is no time for compromise or close affiliation with the world. Partying in the house of an Egyptian on the night of the Passover is definitely not a good idea.

A prophet once came to Paul and prophesied that if he went to Jerusalem he would be bound and put in prison. The prophet was faithful to give his word; it was up to Paul to hear from God about how to deal with that warning. Paul still decided to go to Jerusalem. He was willing to risk his life for the gospel (see Acts 21). Some will hear a prophet’s warning and seek their own safety. Others will hear and search out a place to serve where people will need their spiritual strength and compassion.

This troubled time is an opportunity for us to call out to those outside the gate. Shrinking behind a double-locked door or fleeing to a rural farm does our unbelieving neighbor no good! Our desires should be like Christ’s: that all men should flee the wrath to come and find salvation.