Devotions

Don’t settle for partial victories just because you are weary, frustrated or feeling helpless. God never stops at half a victory. The moment you feel so tired that you can’t take one more step is often the moment he is about to give the greatest victory and breakthrough.

The church is not meant to be composed of masses and crowds who want comfort, pleasure and everything handed to them on a silver platter. The church is meant to be full of warriors who say, “God, I know this is going to be a fight. I know it is going to be wearisome and will even cause tears to flow; but, God, I’m with you in this battle!”

You may feel that you have prayed the last prayer you’re ever going to be able to pray about the need that is pressing you. You are exhausted, but you must stay in the fight. Don’t stop praying, and don’t give up. Yes, it has been a long day! Nighttime is coming, and inside you are saying, “It’s time for me to sleep.” Instead, God says, “No, no, the fight is just starting.”

What has happened to the all-night prayer meetings in churches? What has happened to people waiting on God? What has happened to people who fast and pray for a breakthrough?

The church was called into battle. It was not begun just to have good services and a nice building with lights that go off and on during the music. That’s not why we’re here. We are here to do battle against the gates of hell because we have a promise that hell will not prevail (see Matthew 16:18). We do not have a promise that it won’t be strenuous or that all we have to do is whisper and the gates of hell will not prevail. No, there is going to be a battle, and Satan is not going to give up easily, but we have a promise.

It’s going to take a battle! Are you ready to fight?

Our lives are so crowded these days that it’s not uncommon for us to think things like “Oh, we didn’t get to go to Jim’s wedding. How unfortunate. We’ll send them a gift card.” In biblical times, being invited to a wedding meant a lot. If you were invited to the marriage feast of someone prominent, though, and missed it, that was intensely shameful. 

With that understanding, let’s look at a biblical story with new eyes. “And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come… Then he said to his servants, “The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.”’” (Matthew 22:1-3, 8-9, ESV).

These commoners were minimalizing the joy of the king for his son, and that was incredibly shameful. The language here is very similar to when Jesus invited people to follow him, and they gave excuses like “Oh, I have to bury my father” or “Let me straighten things out at my house first” (see Luke 9:59-61). Jesus’s answer is “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). 

Jesus’s response to these people may seem harsh if we don’t understand that this was an invitation to the wedding feast of God, and nothing could be more important than that royal invitation to God’s kingdom. 

Everyone is invited inside, but we’re not allowed in on our own terms. Most people, even in this day and age, would be appalled if someone wrote the bride and groom to ask them if they could move their wedding to a ‘more convenient’ location or date. Similarly, we don’t get to do that with God. He sets the place, the time, the invite list and the dress code. It is our honor to accept his invitation. Let’s not let any excuse stand in the way! 

^{Joshua West serves as the Pastor's Network Director at World Challenge helping equip and empower pastors all over the world. Joshua’s desire is to raise up ministers who will correctly and boldly preach the word with passion and integrity. The point of all his work and writings is to preach the gospel, glorify God and to teach sound doctrine.}

What do you do when you’re overwhelmed? What do you do when it seems the odds are against you or you don’t have enough resources? Do you go home at night and continue being stressed, anxious and fearful?

If you want to see victory in your life, you will have to fight for it; and in the fight, God will supply the strength and resources that you need. You will come out of the fight as a worshiper of Jesus Christ. 
In 2010, my father, David Wilkerson, turned the leadership of World Challenge over to me. In the beginning, Dad was there to support and encourage me. If I ever got in the midst of a battle that I wasn’t quite sure how to handle, I’d call Dad. In April 2011, he passed away in an auto accident, and I found myself without that particular resource to help lead World Challenge. Sometimes, when challenging things happen, I feel a little bit of fear. What if I don’t have what it takes? What if I don’t handle this situation well? 

One day, as these doubts filled my mind, the Holy Spirit came over me, and confidence dropped into my heart. I realized that if God was leading me, he was saying, “This is the way you should go.” All I had to do was trust him. I don’t have to look at the black or red lines and see where the finances are; I have to look to heaven for his answers. At World Challenge, that is what we are doing. We are working harder and reaching more people, all because we will not let the enemy cause fear to come into our lives.

Some of you are in a battle right now. It might be financial, or it could be relational like problems with your children. Whatever the battle, I have a good word for you: Don’t give up in the battle! Don’t give up interceding. Don’t let limited resources cause you to think that somehow God is limited in power. 

Remember apostle Paul’s encouragement to the believers in Galatia: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9, ESV).

God’s Word tells us that Christ paid for the sins of humanity with his own blood on the cross. He lived a sinless life, keeping the law at every point; and he fulfilled the law, removed the curse, ransoming us from the claims of hell and the devil, and will present us before the Father with perfect righteousness.  

The Word goes on to tell us we can have Christ’s perfect righteousness attributed to us, and God will consider us perfectly righteous in Jesus if only we believe what he has accomplished for us. Please understand that I am speaking of those who have repented of their sins. 

Oh, how my flesh recoils at the simplicity and ease of it all. The flesh cries, “No way! It can’t be that easy. I have to help; I must pay something. After all, I still have problems in my life. I still struggle with sin. I can’t expect him to consider me righteous because I still have so many things needing improvement. I need to clean up my act first.” 

Certainly, we may shed tears. We have to be humbled and broken, but a river of tears alone will not save anyone. A lifetime of struggles will not save anyone. Scripture says that our salvation must be by grace through faith. No flesh shall glory in God’s presence. 

• “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:17, NKJV). 

• “For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith” (Galatians 5:5).

• “And be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” (Philippians 3:9).

My faith has to rise above all my fears, satanic lies, feelings, and circumstances and rest in what God’s Word declares. His Word says that by repentance and faith in Christ, he looks upon me as having the perfect righteousness of Jesus. He accepts me “in the beloved” as holy and righteous.

Oh, what a wonderful thing the power of faith is! 

We will never be justified or accepted as righteous before God unless we stand before him with Christ’s perfect righteousness as our own. That is the only righteousness God will ever recognize. So how can we receive Christ’s perfect righteousness? 

The heavenly Father imputes it to us through our faith. “Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works” (Romans 4:6, NKJV). Paul quotes David as saying, “The richest, most blessed, most peaceful man on earth is the one who understands he has a perfect righteousness imputed to him without works.” 

The word impute means “to regard or esteem, to consider, to attribute to a person something he does not have, to reckon or credit to one’s account.” When Jesus imputes his righteousness to us, God looks upon it as our very own. No, we did not earn it. Christ did it all, and he credits it to our account. 

“[Abraham] did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God…And therefore ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Romans 4:20-24).

This righteousness has to be imputed to us. It is not ours by infusion. In other words, God doesn’t just pour it into us. No, it is never our righteousness; nothing we have done or accomplished. It is always his righteousness, imputed to us and credited to our account. 

This imputation comes by faith alone. We can’t work for it or merit it in any way. Rather, because of our faith in Jesus and his redeeming work, the Lord credits the righteousness of Christ to us, and we are reckoned as perfect in him. It is a perfect righteousness that is of faith and not of works.

• “Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace…” (Romans 4:16). 

• “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10).

• “Even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference” (Romans 3:22).

Beloved, by confessing our sins and having faith in him, we stand before God with an imputed righteousness.