Devotions

In the days to come, you are going to hear incredible messages about loving Jesus. They will sound holy and Christlike, but they will be tainted with an error that will rob the saints of the very thing that produces steadfastness. These messages will lack an urgency for preparation or a longing for His coming! Their preachers will chop away at the glorious truth of this event and get you to look for an earthly kingdom. And if you look eagerly to His coming, you will be labeled an escapist!

There is a new gospel being preached today saying that Jesus comes only to the heart—and that His Second Coming is a special revelation to the mind! He appears only to the inner man!

New Agers advertise that their Christ will appear on TV worldwide. All the world will see His coming simultaneously. As they view this event, they will receive an inner revelation to their minds—a “knowing.”

To some Christians today, this world is not a sinking ship or a world reserved for fire. It is an international capitol building overrun with undesirables whom these believers plan to kick out. They will then take their place, renovating and governing it all themselves. Such thinking is symptomatic of a dying love for Jesus and a clinging to this world! “Beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness” (2 Peter 3:17). No one can be more spiritually blind than to say, “My Lord delayeth His coming.”

Jude said, “Enoch . . . prophesied . . . Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment” (Jude 14-15). Paul said, “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).

This is not an escapist message. It is a message of comfort! Jesus wants us with Him!
 

“We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, ESV). The Greek word for glory here is “doxa.” It’s the source behind The Doxology, the hymn that so many churches sing extolling God’s manifold glory.

“Doxa” is actually John’s translation of a Hebrew word, “kavod,” meaning weighty, substantive, intense, thick. This is what dwells in every follower of Christ: God’s weighty, meaningful, passionate glory. His glory sets you apart—from lightness, from self- interest, from easy believism. That’s how the world knows you exist for God. You don’t serve a Jesus who just wants to make you happy; you serve the real Jesus, the One who has power to transform a life and make it meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling.

All of this opposes the glory of self. “The devil took [Jesus] to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory [doxa]” (Matthew 4:8, ESV). There are many glories in the world that call us to pursue them: reputation, affluence, influence. But the more we seek and receive of those glories, the less we receive of God’s true glory—and the less of His glory shines from our lives.

This pull has crept into the church. Sometimes our worship can lean more toward showy performance and emotional experience than extolling God’s glory and knowing His full, weighty presence. John rightly places God’s glory even before His grace: “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John points out that grace and truth are contained within Christ’s glory; in fact, they proceed from it.

Yet many Christians live as if grace and truth are stopping points, the end-all of our walk with Jesus. They stop at knowing “positional truths,” neglecting to go on in His fullness. But our lives are meant to express Jesus in all His glory—and that requires His transformation of us.

If we think we have it all together—that we have grasped God’s grace fully, that no more is needed—we are stopping short of His glory. Don’t let that happen in your life. Seek the real Jesus in His fullness—and receive the fullness of His grace and glory!
 

Does God really care when we take detours from the path He has set for us?

Many might argue with me on this point, but I’m convinced that God has a specific role set aside for each of us. He has given us unique gifts and talents and desires, and He has created an individual covenant for us that fits those gifts. “For I know the plans I have for you,” God told us through His prophet Jeremiah (see Jeremiah 29:11). Nothing is left to chance when it comes to God. Long before He created us He knew what He wanted us to accomplish. He knew the people that He wanted us to touch and that He wanted to put into our lives to touch us. You and I were created for a purpose, and God’s perfect plan is for us to embrace that purpose.

We all take detours from God’s plan, and we will do so until the day we die. God is patient and faithful just the same. But how much better would our lives be if we strove every day to stay the course that God set before us? How many people could we bless if we allowed God to work through us each day? How much more effective would we be in life and ministry if we only learned to let God set our agenda?

I’m still not sure why God chose to take me as a young Christian and mold me into an evangelist. But this is the plan that He made for me and so I carry it out the best I can.

And what about you? Have you embraced the plan that God has prepared for you? Have you sought out His purpose for your life and then set yourself toward fulfilling it? Or are you living your life by taking one detour after another?

It’s a question that each one of us needs to ask—and one that God is waiting to answer.

Nicky Cruz, internationally known evangelist and prolific author, turned to Jesus Christ from a life of violence and crime after meeting David Wilkerson in New York City in 1958. The story of his dramatic conversion was told first in The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson and then later in his own best-selling book Run, Baby, Run.
 

“He [Jesus] rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him” (Mark 9:25). After Jesus prayed, the boy fell to the ground as if dead. But, Scripture says, “Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose” (verse 27).

Can you imagine the joy in this scene? That clean, freed boy must have run to his father and embraced him. And the father’s heart leapt with joy. God had fixed it all.

So, why did the Holy Spirit move Mark to include this story in his gospel? I believe it was so every parent from that moment forward would know God can be trusted to do the impossible with their children. The Lord was saying, “I can restore anything and anyone. If you’ll just believe, all things will be possible to you through Me.”

All over the world today, multitudes of Christian parents agonize because their children are under the devil’s power. In our own congregation, I see the pain of mothers who ride buses upstate to visit their sons in prison. They know the pain of sitting on one side of the thick, glass window, gazing at a boy who once was tender in spirit. Somehow he got hooked on drugs and then attempted a robbery to support his habit. And now he’s in prison, becoming even more hardened. She has prayed for him for years, but now she’s losing hope. She doesn’t think she’ll ever see him change.

Maybe you think your unsaved husband is hopeless, that he’ll never come to Jesus. Or, perhaps you’ve given up hope for your wife, who leaves you at night to go out partying. But no person is ever too far gone for God to fix. I know many Christian spouses who testify today, “I prayed for my spouse for years. Then one day, after I had given up hope, God broke through. He saved and delivered my loved one!”

We must never give up on anyone—because our God can do anything.
 

In Mark 9, a distraught father brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus’ disciples seeking deliverance. This boy wasn’t simply troubled or rebellious. He was full of evil spirits, and they controlled his every action. His situation was well known all over the region, and when parents saw him approaching, they probably rushed their children indoors.

This poor boy was considered absolutely hopeless. He was both deaf and speechless, so he spewed out only guttural sounds. He foamed at the mouth like a mad dog, and physically he was skin and bones, emaciated by his awful struggle. His father had to hold on to him continually, because the demons tried to cast him into the nearest river, lake or open fire, wanting to kill him.

I wonder how many times this father had to leap into a pond and drag his son out to resuscitate him. It had to be a full-time job just keeping his child from killing himself. Imagine the number of scars and burn marks on that boy’s torn body. I am sure the father’s heart was broken daily to see his son in that condition, with no one able to help.

Now, as the father stood before the disciples, Satan began manifesting in the boy. He started foaming at the mouth and rolling on the ground, contorting and gyrating wildly. Scripture tells us the disciples prayed over him—perhaps for a long time—but nothing happened.

It must have seemed like an impossible situation. Soon the doubting scribes crowded around, asking, “Why is the boy not healed? Is this case too hard for your Lord? Is the devil more powerful in this kind of situation?”

But then Jesus came on the scene! When He asked what was going on, the boy’s father answered, “I brought my son to Your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him. He’s a hopeless case.” Jesus responded simply, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23). Christ was telling everyone present, “Do you believe I can handle all situations except those under the devil’s control? I tell you, there is no problem, no impossible circumstance, I cannot fix.”