Devotions

Satan has a strategy to deceive believers and make them doubt the faithfulness of God in answering prayer. He would have us believe that God has shut His ears to our cries and left us to work things out for ourselves.

A great tragedy in the Church today is that so few believe in the power and effectiveness of prayer. Without meaning to blaspheme, multitudes of God’s people can be heard complaining, “I pray but I get no answers. I’ve prayed so hard for so long without any results. All I want is a little evidence that God is changing things. How long must I wait?” These believers no longer visit their secret place of prayer because they are convinced that their petitions, born in prayer, are somewhere miscarried at His throne. Others are convinced that only “spiritual giants” can get their prayers through to God.

In all honesty, many saints of God struggle with doubts: “If God’s ear is open to my diligent prayer, why is there such little evidence of His answering?” Have you been praying a certain prayer for a long time without receiving an answer? Have even years gone by and still you wait, hoping . . . yet wondering?

Let’s be careful not to charge God with being slothful, unconcerned about our needs and petitions, as Job did. Job complained, “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me” (Job 30:20, ESV).

Job’s vision of God’s faithfulness was clouded by his present difficulties, and he ended up accusing God of forgetting him.

It is time for Christians to take an honest look at the reasons our prayers are aborted. We might be guilty of charging God with neglect when all along our own behavior is responsible.

“Wait on the Lord, and keep His way, and He shall exalt you to inherit the land” (Psalm 37:34).  

Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, was returning home from being with Ahab, the evil king of Israel. The Lord sent a prophet out to meet him, with these strong words, “Jehu the son of Hanani the [prophet] went out to meet him, and said to King Jehoshaphat, Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you” (2 Chronicles 19:2).

God was saying to Jehoshaphat, “Ahab was my enemy — an idolator — and you made friends with him. You indulged his wicked life and didn’t take a stand against it. You may think it’s a light thing to join in with someone who is against Me, but you don’t realize the consequences of such actions.”

At this point you may be thinking, “I understand that Ahab was evil, but when I think of my own friends, there’s no way I consider them to be God’s enemies.” Yet, consider what the Word says.

Does your friend take the Lord’s side in all things? “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Luke 11:23). 

Is your friend’s counsel full of rebellion? “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft” (1 Samuel 15:23).

Does your friend speak evil of godly people? “He who condemns the just . . . is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 17:15).

This is not a game! Your companions are a serious matter to God because their actions have serious consequences. “You give your mouth to evil . . . [you] speak against your brother. . . . Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces” (Psalm 50:19-20, 22).

Thank God, the king humbled himself and repented: “Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord” (2 Chronicles 20:3). And God responded to Jehoshaphat’s brokenness by giving Judah total victory over the Moabites. The Bible tells us, “Then the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for his God gave him rest all around” (verse 30).  

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Many think that Jesus is issuing an invitation to throngs of hurting people in this verse, but this is much more than an invitation. He is telling us — commanding us, in fact — to come to Him because He alone can supply the rest our souls need. 

Is it even possible for us to “come to Him” on our own? According to Jesus, it is not: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). Why would Christ command us to do something we are unable to do?

He is giving us an important lesson here, one that is critical to the Christian life. When we are given a command, we cannot just charge ourselves up and say, “I can do this. I’m your man, Lord!” If we do that, we are in trouble before we begin. A command in the gospels exposes our inability. God does this on purpose because as He reveals to us His will, He also shows us our inability to achieve it on our own.

How wonderful that Jesus follows every impossible command with a promise. After He says, “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him,” He immediately adds, “And I will raise him up on the last day” (verse 44). God will draw us to Himself but He will also raise us up into new, resurrection life. New life comes only through Him.

“Whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God” (John 3:21, my emphasis). I love how the King James Version translates the last part of this verse: “That his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” 

God is fashioning the work in us. As soon as He reveals our inability, He reveals His ability and willingness to accomplish it all. 

Jesus confronted the Laodicean church, which represented the Church of the end times. He gave her this warning that reaches out across the centuries to speak to you and me today: “If you don’t repent, I will spew you out of My mouth” (see Revelation 3:16). What incredible words!

What is the crime, the unimaginable sin committed by the modern Church? Listen to the words of the One who, above all, seeks our faith, trust and surrender:  “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. . . Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into his house and dine with him and he with Me” (Revelation 3:15, 19-20).

This passage of Scripture, so often quoted, is not addressing a lost world in need of “letting Jesus in.” Rather, it directly and solemnly is a call to modern believers who are lazily lying on the bed of indifference, quite happy with themselves and the portion they have.

This generation has been diabolically blinded to the spiritual revelation that without a burning faith it is impossible to please Him. Jesus is literally and dramatically standing outside the door of a self-sufficient Church that trusts in methods, strategies and “cutting edge” paradigm shifts and tactics borrowed from the secular marketplace. He is crying out, “Let me in! Repent! Turn away from these broken cisterns that offer no living water! I am calling for a people who will walk in faith, whose trust and confidence will hold solely to My promises. I long for a people whose faith will allow them to see the invisible, believe the unbelievable, and receive the impossible!”

Claude Houde is the lead pastor of Eglise Nouvelle Vie (New Life Church) in Montreal, Canada. Under his leadership New Life Church has grown from a handful of people to more than 3500 in a part of Canada with few successful Protestant churches.

Idolaters live in deception — believing a lie to be the truth!

“For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to enquire of him concerning me; I the Lord will answer him by myself” (Ezekiel 14:7).

This passage of Scripture means, “Because you are hardened in your sin, with no desire to turn and repent, every word you hear from now on will confirm you in your iniquity and deception.”

We see a picture of this with King Ahab, who was probably the most idolatrous king in the history of Israel. At this time, he had aligned himself with King Jehoshaphat to go into battle against Ramoth-gilead.

^“And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so” (1 Kings 22:20-22).

Consequently four hundred prophets stood before Ahab, encouraging him to move forward with the attack. Can you imagine the scene? There stood a horde of flattering men, all mouthing words that fed Ahab’s idolatry. They were all lying to him, confirming his sin.

What a horrible tragedy. Ahab could not hear God’s voice because of the idols rooted in his heart. So God sent him a strong delusion — one that would destroy him. 

“They received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this [reason] God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11).