Can you imagine having major surgery, getting up the next morning, walking out the door, going back to work, and acting like nothing happened? They could have just taken out half your organs, but you’re going to get up and go about your life like everything is normal. Of course not. After a major surgery, there is a recovery process. Your body has been through something significant, and sometimes you have to learn how to do things again that once came naturally. The same thing can happen after we receive a breakthrough from the Lord.

We love the moment of breakthrough. We love when God touches us and something changes instantly. Those are my favorite kind of miracles. But what happens the next morning? What happens when you’re no longer standing in a church service surrounded by people who are believing with you? What happens when you wake up and your body says something different, an old thought returns, or the circumstances around you begin trying to convince you that nothing really changed?

There is no point in getting a breakthrough and then walking right back out of it. We have to learn how to walk in what God has given us.

After I had brain surgery in 2014, I had to learn how to walk again. I could stand up, but then I would fall over. For weeks, one of the only things that made me feel normal was when Aaron would put a belt around my waist and walk with me down our driveway. I would ask him, “Will you take me for a walk?” He would put that belt around me, stay right beside me, and we would walk down the driveway and back. Without that belt and without him beside me, I didn’t have the capacity yet to walk by myself.

I think there is a picture in that of what happens spiritually after a breakthrough. Sometimes God does something significant in our lives, but now we have to learn how to walk in it. Jesus is right there to help us. The Holy Spirit is there to strengthen us. We have the Word of God to hold onto, but we still have to take the steps.

This is also why continuing to gather with other believers matters. There is a blessing in being part of the body of Christ and being surrounded by people who will believe the Word with you. But there will also be times when you are by yourself. Eventually, you have to go home. Eventually, Monday morning comes. You have to know how to continue standing when no one else is standing beside you.

I have received many healings throughout my life. Some were instantaneous, where the Lord touched me and it was simply done. Like I said, those are my favorite. But there have been other healings that I had to walk out. There were mornings when I woke up after knowing the Lord had touched me and everything in my body hurt. What do you do then?

You have to decide whether what you feel has more authority than what God has said.

We are creatures of habit. I sit in the same chair every morning with the Lord, under my blanket, drinking out of the same cup. We all develop patterns. We develop physical habits, but we also develop habits in the way we think. If you have lived with something for a long time, you can become accustomed to responding to it in the same way. So when something comes against the breakthrough you have received, doubt may try to come right back with it.

That is when 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 becomes so important:
“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

You have to take the thought captive. When the thought comes, “Maybe nothing really happened,” you don’t have to accept it. When your body says, “You’re right back where you started,” you don’t have to agree with it. When the relationship hits another difficult moment and your mind immediately says, “See, nothing changed,” you don’t have to allow that thought to stay. You take it captive and bring it into obedience to Christ.

There have been mornings when I have awakened and my body was telling me one thing, and I had to tell it something completely different. I’m not going to act like I wake up feeling great every day. I’m still walking things out. But I have learned that I don’t have to bow my knee to what my body tells me.

I can say, “No, I don’t receive that. I am healed. Jesus healed me. Jesus is my healer. I thank You, Lord, for my healing.”

I am a spirit living in this body. If I bow my knee to everything happening in this body, then I am allowing something inferior to determine what I believe. But if I bow my knee to the Word of God, then I am submitting myself to something greater than what I see or feel.

Everything God says is true.

I have decided that I believe His Word. I believe every word in it. It is what I stand on, and that isn’t theory for me. The Word of God is the reason I am standing before people today doing things doctors said I would never do.

I was completely disabled for four years. Doctors eventually told me there was nothing else they could do for me. They told me, “We fixed you.”

I said, “You did not fix me. You stopped me from dying, but you left me more broken than when I started.”

Aaron brought me the Word, and at first I got angry because I knew those Scriptures. I had experienced healing before. I could tell you what the Bible said. But knowing a Scripture and allowing that Scripture to become the foundation you live on are not always the same thing. One day, I got it.

The more I stayed in the Word, the more my body responded to the Word. Today, I’m doing things doctors said I would never do. You wouldn’t know by looking at me that I was completely disabled for four years. That is the testimony.

Where my spirit goes, my body has to follow. I have learned to tell my body how it will respond, how it will react, and how it will revive. There is power in standing on the Word, and there is power in speaking what God has said.

Jesus says in Mark 11:23-24, “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Notice that Jesus says to believe that you have received it. That means there may be a period of time when you believe you have received before everything around you looks the way you expect it to look. That is where you have to learn to walk it out.

This applies to more than physical healing. Maybe God has brought restoration to a relationship, but then you have a difficult day and old patterns try to return. Maybe you have experienced financial breakthrough, but then an unexpected bill arrives. Maybe God has delivered you from something that controlled your life, and suddenly the temptation comes back.

What are you going to do when something challenges your breakthrough?

You have to make a decision about what you will allow to remain in your heart and what you will reject. You cannot stop every thought from coming, but you can decide whether you are going to give that thought a place to live. Keep spending time in His presence. Keep putting the Word in your heart. Keep thanking Him for what He has done. Keep taking thoughts captive. Keep speaking what you believe. And keep walking.

There were days after my brain surgery when I needed that belt around my waist and Aaron beside me just to walk down the driveway. But I didn’t stay there forever. I kept walking.

Maybe you are still taking your first few steps in something God has done in your life. Don’t become discouraged because you haven’t reached the end of the driveway yet. Take the next step. Then take another one. And while you’re walking it out, don’t keep your testimony to yourself.

Revelation 12:11 says,
“And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”

There is power in your testimony.

If you get saved, tell people you got saved. If you get healed, tell people you got healed. If God restores something that was broken, tell people what He did. Don’t spend all of your time talking about what the enemy did before your breakthrough. Start talking about what Jesus did. Your testimony reminds you of what God has done while declaring to everyone around you that He is still faithful.

You may have to walk some things out. I certainly have. But walking something out does not mean God didn’t touch you. Having a thought come against your breakthrough doesn’t mean you have to receive that thought. Having a difficult day doesn’t erase what God has done.

Take the thought captive. Stand on the Word. Thank Him for what He has done. Speak your testimony. And then take another step. You received the breakthrough. Now learn to walk in it.

You can tell a lot about what you really believe by listening to the words that come out of your mouth. We can say, “I believe God,” and genuinely mean it, but when pressure comes, what is already established in our hearts will eventually find its way into our words. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. In other words, our words are revealing something. They are showing us what has been growing inside of us.

2 Corinthians 4:13-14 says, “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence.”

Faith has a voice.

Paul said, “I believed, and so I spoke.” What he believed and what he said were connected. That means if we really want to know what has taken root in our hearts, one of the simplest things we can do is listen to ourselves, especially when life isn’t going the way we want it to go.

Jesus said in Luke 6:45, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

For years, while my wife was disabled, our family lived through circumstances that were difficult every single day. I loved God through those years. I believed in healing. I believed the Word of God was true. But there came a point when I realized that what I said I believed and what was coming out of my mouth weren’t always lining up.

I remember talking with a man one day and telling him about everything we were going through. I wasn’t intentionally trying to be negative. I was simply talking about life as I saw it. But while I was talking, the man physically took a step back from me. I could tell that the words coming out of my mouth had affected him, and suddenly I heard myself. I thought I was good until I saw that man take a step back.

That moment made me realize something had to change. I couldn’t continue saying that I believed the Word of God while allowing the circumstances we were living through to dictate everything coming out of my mouth. We had developed habits of talking about how bad things were because things had been bad for a long time. After a while, you don’t even recognize it anymore. You can become so accustomed to speaking a certain way that you no longer hear what you’re saying. We had to change the way we talked.

It wasn’t easy because habits don’t disappear overnight. But there came a point when I had to get a bulldog tenacity about it and say, “I don’t want to talk like that anymore. I want to declare what the Word of God says.”

That wasn’t pretending the problem didn’t exist. Biblical faith isn’t denying reality. We knew what the doctors had said. We knew what Julie’s body looked like. We knew what our family was experiencing. But we also knew that if we continued allowing those circumstances to become the only thing we talked about, we were continually reinforcing them in our own hearts.

Romans 10:17 says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

We usually read that verse and think about hearing someone preach the Word, and that is certainly part of it. But you also hear yourself. The words that continually come out of your mouth are continually going back into your ears. Over time, they begin forming your belief structure. If all I ever say is how impossible something is, how terrible everything is, how nothing is ever going to change, and how defeated I am, I’m hearing that message over and over again. I’m preaching to myself, and eventually I’m going to believe my own sermon.

What are you preaching to yourself?

This is why our confession matters. The word “confession” simply carries the idea of saying the same thing or coming into agreement. Biblical confession is coming into agreement with what God has said.

We see this clearly in Romans 10:9-11: “Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.’”

Notice again the connection between the heart and the mouth. With the heart we believe, and with the mouth we confess. What is established in the heart eventually finds expression through our words.

Jesus taught the same principle in Matthew 12:33-37: “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Those are strong words from Jesus. He connects the fruit of a tree with what comes out of a person’s mouth because our words reveal what is being produced in our hearts.

That’s why changing our words isn’t simply about learning to say positive things. This isn’t positive thinking. You can repeat positive statements all day long and never operate in biblical faith. Faith isn’t built on saying what we wish were true. Faith is built on what God has already said.

The goal is to get the Word of God so deeply established in our hearts that when pressure comes, the Word is what comes out. If fear is filling my heart, fear is eventually going to speak. If bitterness is filling my heart, bitterness is going to speak. If defeat has taken root in my heart, defeat is going to speak. But if the Word of God is filling my heart, then when circumstances squeeze me, the Word should be what comes out.

Proverbs 18:20-21 says, “From the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”

Our words matter. They aren’t meaningless sounds that disappear the moment we say them. Scripture repeatedly teaches us to take seriously what comes out of our mouths.

This is why I’ve learned that I can’t pray someone past their confession. I can pray for a person, encourage them, lay hands on them, and stand with them in faith, but if they continually go back to declaring that nothing will ever change, they are revealing what is still established in their heart. At some point, we have to decide whether we are going to come into agreement with our circumstances or come into agreement with God.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be moments when you struggle. It doesn’t mean you can never tell someone that you’re hurting or ask for prayer. There is a difference between honestly acknowledging a challenge and allowing that challenge to become your confession. You can acknowledge where you are without deciding that where you are is where you have to stay.

The Bible says in Hebrews 10:23, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

Why do we hold fast? Because there will be opportunities to let go. There will be circumstances that challenge what we believe. There will be days when what we see doesn’t match what God has said. Holding fast means I don’t change my confession every time my circumstances change because my confidence was never supposed to be in my circumstances. My confidence is in the One who promised.

So what is your confession?

Don’t answer that question too quickly. I used to think mine was good too. Instead, listen to yourself this week. Listen to what comes out of your mouth when something goes wrong, when you get bad news, when the pressure increases, or when the answer you’ve been believing for hasn’t shown up yet.

What are your words revealing about what is in your heart?

If you hear things coming out of your mouth that don’t agree with the Word of God, don’t become condemned. Do something about it. Go back to the Word and allow it to change what you believe. Faith comes by hearing, so begin filling your heart with what God has said until His Word becomes greater in you than the circumstances around you.

That’s what we had to do. We had to change the way we talked because we were changing what we allowed to live in our hearts. Eventually, we watched circumstances change too. My wife went from disabled to able, but long before we saw the fullness of that change with our eyes, we had to decide what we were going to believe.

Faith has a voice.

The question is whether our voice is agreeing with fear, circumstances, feelings, and defeat, or whether it is agreeing with the Word of God.

“I believed, and so I spoke.”

What do you believe?

Listen to what you’re saying. Your words will tell you.

This week, I’ve been thinking about the victory we have in Jesus Christ. Billy Graham famously said, “I’ve read the last page of the Bible, it’s all going to turn out all right.” Our ultimate hope is in the truth that Jesus is coming back for His bride, bringing justice and peace. However, that truth can’t be an excuse for us to live idly in the last days. Jesus said in John 16:33,

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

The word for overcome in the language it was written means to “conquer, prevail, or get the victory.” Jesus died to destroy the power of sin, the world, the devil, and hell.

1 John 3:8 says,

“Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”

Colossians 2:15 says,

“He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him.”

Jesus said in John 10:10,

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Jesus has been completely victorious. However, He overcame so we too could overcome. It’s not enough to know that Jesus conquered the enemy, sickness, hell, and death itself if we’re losing the battle in our own lives.

The only way we can lose the fight to things Jesus has been victorious over is if we don’t know He’s won, don’t fight with the right weapons, or if we refuse to fight at all.

There are many times in the Word of God when we see His people allowing the enemy to dwell where they shouldn’t have been. We see a practical example of this in the story of the Israelites entering the Promised Land. God delivered them out of Egypt and told them He would drive out all their enemies so they could live in peace and prosperity in Israel. However, we see in Judges 1 and 2 a record of many nations the Israelites didn’t drive out. They learned to live with their enemies, but this eventually became a snare, bringing idolatry and sin and ultimately war and death.

That pattern will appear the same way in our own lives. If we don’t learn to be victorious over our enemies, we will live in compromise, conflict, and difficulties God doesn’t intend for us to live in.

1 John 4:2-4 says,

“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

The word for overcome used here is the same one used in John 16:33. Jesus overcame—conquered, prevailed, and was victorious—so we could also overcome!

1 John 5:4-5 says,

“And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

If you’re battling the pull of sin and darkness, then there’s more ground to be taken. That battle can be won!

If you’re struggling against physical sickness or mental and emotional difficulties like fear or depression, there’s a battle to be fought and won. Those are not things Jesus died for us to live with, but to overcome!

The book of Revelation has a lot to say about those who overcome. n chapters 2 and 3, there are letters to seven churches, and each one contains a promise for those who overcome or conquer. These verses all say “to the one who conquers,” but the word used for conquer is the same Greek word used for “overcome” in all the verses we’ve looked at so far.

Revelation 2:7 says,

“To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

Revelation 2:11 says,

“The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.”

Revelation 2:17 says,

“To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.”

Revelation 2:26-27 says,

“The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.”

Revelation 3:5 says,

“The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”

Revelation 3:12 says,

“The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.”

Revelation 3:21 says,

“The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.”

No one knows the full depth of what all those verses mean, although there is incredible in-depth teaching on those things. All these verses clearly demonstrate the great reward for conquering or overcoming. Our victory in life will reap a reward in heaven. We will eat from the tree of life, be clothed in white garments, and sit on the throne with Jesus. There is only one way to overcome, and it’s through the blood of Jesus and the power of testimony.

Revelation 12:11 says,

“And they have conquered [the enemy] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”

1 Corinthians 15:57 says,

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

If there are still enemies in the land that God has given us, then there is ground to be taken and through faith in Jesus and the power of His blood, we can live in the victory He’s promised us. We don’t have to settle in complacency like the Israelites did and watch the next generations suffer for it. God wants His church to live in the same power the early church lived in. Amid every difficulty, we carry the victory of the One who has already overcome. As we saw above, greater is He who lives in us than he who is in the world. The final verse I want to look at today is Romans 8:37-39 which says,

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I encourage you to read the preceding verses that detail all the things that will try to separate you from the One who is victorious, but if we abide in Him, we will abide in His victory. In the original language, there is a single Greek word for “more than conquerors.” It’s a derivative of the same word used for conquering or overcoming in the other verses we’ve been looking at, but it’s combined with another word meaning above and beyond. It’s the only place in the Bible this word is used, and it means to be overwhelmingly, decisively, and completely victorious. It’s not talking about barely winning the battle but winning so overwhelmingly that the enemy looks completely powerless. That is the life Jesus died for us to have. It doesn’t mean we won’t have to use our faith to go to battle at times, but we know as we do that we will completely and overwhelmingly overcome by the blood of Jesus! Whatever you’re facing today, be encouraged with the truth that you have the power to live in peace, victory, and freedom because the One who is in you has already destroyed the power of every enemy you could face. We overcome, because He has already won!

This week, I’ve been thinking about holiness. That may seem like an old-fashioned word, but it’s one of the most important concepts in the Word of God. 1 Peter 1:16 says,

“Be holy, for I am holy.”

What comes to mind when you think of holiness? For many, it would be “don’t do this, this, or that.” Religion, without a relationship with God, puts the focus on what not to do. Holiness isn’t about just abstaining from sin. It’s important to avoid sin, of course, but that can’t be the depth of our understanding of holiness. Our goal can’t simply be to avoid certain things, or we’ll be no better than the Pharisees who devised rules and regulations to appear holy. They thought if they kept all the rules about eating and washing that they would be holy, but it’s always about the heart. Jesus addressed this issue with them in Matthew 15:7-11. It says,

‘You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you:

“These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.”

And He called the people to Him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”’

Jesus explained further in Matthew 15:17-20:

“Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.”

That which we produce will demonstrate whether our hearts are holy. What we say and do must align with what we believe. A tree only produces after its own kind. An apple tree produces apples, and a peach tree produces peaches. If we have the Word of God planted in our hearts and we ensure that only truth is allowed to flourish in us, then we will produce only life. However, if there is compromise or mixture in our lives—if we allow weeds to grow in our hearts and try to also plant the Word of God—then we will produce confusion. James 3:10-12 says,

“From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.”

We see a contrast between blessing and cursing, fresh and salt water, and figs and olives or grapes. You can’t carry life and death at the same time! Anything we produce apart from the Spirit is a product of our flesh. Galatians 5:16-24 says,

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

In our culture, it’s an unpopular idea, but holiness and unholiness can’t coexist.

Righteousness and sin can’t be mixed. You can’t live for God one day of the week and for yourself six days of the week and believe your life is pleasing to God.

This brings me to what’s really been on my heart this week regarding holiness. The word for holiness in the original language means to “dedicate, separate, or set apart.” It has more to do with purpose than anything else. There were things dedicated as holy in the temple. That meant those items were used for only one thing—the service of the Lord. It was the idea of consecration. When something was dedicated to God for use in the temple, according to His instructions, it wasn’t sometimes taken out and used for other things. It was dedicated—set apart for just one purpose.

God is holy. There is no mixture in Him. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. By the blood of Jesus, we too are to be set apart—dedicated—for Him alone.

Hebrews 10:10 tells us,

“And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

The word for sanctified is that same word for holiness. It simply means “to be made holy” or “to be set apart.”

That means by the blood of Jesus, we have been set apart for God Himself.

Hebrews 9:11-14 says,

“He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Ephesians 5:25-27 says,

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

2 Timothy 2:20-21 says,

“Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.”

We see the theme of holiness and sanctification throughout the Bible. In that last verse, we see the contrast between vessels of gold and silver and vessels of wood and clay. When we are cleansed by the blood of Jesus, we are set apart as a vessel of honor. That’s about purpose!

We aren’t made to carry anything but the Holy Spirit. We were created to produce only that which the Word and Spirit produce in us after we’ve been washed in the blood of Jesus. We’ve been set apart for just one thing. We’ve been dedicated to Him.

This week, I encourage you, as I have, to take inventory of your fruit—the fruit of your thoughts, the fruit of your words, and the fruit of your actions. Are you producing life? Is the water flowing from your life the living waters Jesus promised, or salt water made bitter by the flesh? Are you producing the fruit of the Holy Spirit or the fruit of your flesh and efforts? Holiness isn’t just abstinence from sin, but an understanding of your purpose. You were washed in the blood of Jesus, set apart as special, consecrated, dedicated to God for just one thing. He saved you with a purpose! We are carriers of the Spirit of the Living God as we walk with Him, and there is nothing more precious than that!

Today, I want to ask: What are you full of? We are all full of something, and God wants us to be full of Him. We cannot overestimate the power of God in us. The truth will change our lives! If we have a need—emotionally, spiritually, physically, or financially—the promise of its resolution can be found in the revelation that He is in you, through the power of His Word and Spirit. Every word He’s spoken has the power to change us and our circumstances if we will allow it to. Often, we go to prayer waiting for God to give us something—an answer, strength, grace, peace, etc. We go to Him asking for that which He’s already given. Throughout the New Testament, we see the truth that God has already put the answer in us. We don’t need to be looking for an external solution if we’ve accepted Jesus into our hearts. He has made us His dwelling place and we will walk in victory if we allow Him to work through us, instead of seeking something to be done for us. Everything we need has already been paid for on the cross of Jesus Christ. He will bring resolution and alignment to every circumstance we face. This week, I just want to share some scriptures with you about the power of what God has put inside of us. I encourage you to read these slowly and meditate on them!

Repeatedly in the Word, we see that God has placed His Word in our hearts. His Word carries the power to cleanse, change, align, and renew. The Bible isn’t something we’re meant to read and listen to, but something to be buried in our hearts, so it can grow and produce a harvest!

Psalm 119:11 says,
“I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

Colossians 3:16 says,
“Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.”

Romans 10:8 says,
‘But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming.’

1 John 2:14 says,
“I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”

God plants His Word in our hearts so we can be transformed into a dwelling place for God Himself. The Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts is the guarantee of our inheritance in heaven and the power of God on the earth today. He isn’t a presence that comes just when we pray or when we worship in church. He is the Spirit of the living God dwelling in us everywhere we go.

Acts 2:4 says,
“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

1 Corinthians 3:16 says,
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

2 Corinthians 1:21-22 says,
“It is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”

1 John 3:24 says,
“By this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”
We are one with God because He has cleansed us by the blood of Jesus and filled us with the Holy Spirit.

1 John 4:4 says,
“Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

Galatians 2:20 says,
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

Colossians 2:9-10 says,
“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily formand you have been filled in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority.”

We have been filled in Him. God is not a distant deity, but the King who dwells in the hearts of His people through the blood of Jesus Christ and the power of His Spirit. We are one with Him!

The weight of that truth will change our lives. We don’t need to look anywhere else for love and affirmation because God has poured His love into our hearts. He loved us when we didn’t deserve it. We have an opportunity—not to just know we’re loved, but to encounter and abide in the One who is love itself. We won’t need to look anywhere for fulfillment if we’re truly filled!

John 17:22-23 says,
“The glory that you have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as you loved Me.”

John 17:26 says,
“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

1 John 4:16 says,
“So, we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

Romans 5:5 says,
“...and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

God’s love, Spirit, and Word dwell in us because we are one with Him. We are His dwelling place, and we can draw from thistruth like water from a well. If we try to live by the power of our own strength, measure success by outward standards, or seek affirmation from people, we will never be satisfied. But when we draw from what God has placed within us, we can live in the abundance He has prepared for us.

We carry God’s seed, which keeps us from sinning (1 John 3:9).

Jesus said His joy would be fulfilled in us (John 15:11 and John 17:13).

His anointing is in us (1 John 2:27).

We can be strengthened by grace in Jesus because He dwells in us! (2 Timothy 2:1)

There are countless more verses we could look at regarding the power at work in us.

The point of all of this is the truth that peace, joy, hope, strength, grace, healing, victory, and breakthrough are not things God is holding in heaven. We don’t have to pray that God would release those things to us. He already gave us Jesus. We instead must learn how to walk in the fullness of truth, in the fullness of His presence, in the grace and love He’s already given. Romans 1:29-31 is not a pleasant passage of Scripture. It lists all kinds of things people are filled with if they reject God’s goodness. We can be filled with fear, anger, greed, bitterness, unrighteousness, hate, selfishness, and much more. If we are full of sin, the seeds of the enemy, or ourselves, we cannot be full of God. However, we can ask God to empty us of all those things and fill us with Him! We can continually fill ourselves with the truth of God’s Word and watch it transform our lives. We are not fighting a losing battle. We are temples of the living God, carrying victory on the inside of us. Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world. We are overcomers because He dwells in us. Colossians 1:27 sums it up most profoundly: “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory!

Have you ever clearly heard the voice of God? I don’t mean an audible voice, but the sound of His Spirit speaking a word of encouragement, conviction, or direction to your heart. The Lord will often speak to us through His Word, through a sermon, or through another person, but it will sometimes be His voice in our hearts. There is nothing more important than knowing we can hear Him. Every word He speaks will align with His Word, which is why it’s so important that we test everything by the authority of Scripture. If we have given our lives to the Lord, we can discern the voice of God, because we were created to know the sound of His voice! John 10:27 says,

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

This week, I’ve been thinking about the importance of positioning ourselves to hear Him. It’s not enough to know we can hear His voice if we aren’t actively listening. He wants to speak to us in every detail of our lives. Jesus told a parable that speaks to this truth. Most will know the famous story of a farmer who sowed seed on four different types of soil. Only the seed sown in good soil thrived and bore fruit. Jesus explained the meaning of the parable in Luke 8:9-15, which says,

‘Then His disciples asked Him what this parable meant. He replied, “The knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, “though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.” Now this is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. The seeds along the path are those who hear, but the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. The seeds on rocky ground are those who hear the word and receive it with joy, but they have no root. They believe for a season, but in the time of testing, they fall away. The seeds that fall among the thorns are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the worries, riches, and pleasures of this life, and their fruit does not mature. But the seeds on good soil are those with a good and honest heart, who hear the word, cling to it, and by persevering produce a crop.”’

Every type of soil represents someone who heard the word. The seed didn’t change; however, each type of soil had a “but.” They heard the word, but it was stolen by the enemy. They heard the word, but they fell away in testing. They heard the word, but it was choked out by worries, riches, and pleasures. As Jesus said, some who heard the word did not understand and bore no fruit. There are those who will hear the word and completely miss the life and power it contains. However, there were those who heard the Word and never lost it. The first qualification was the quality of the soil. It says those who were fruitful had a good and honest heart. A pure heart is the first requirement to clearly hear God’s voice. We can’t hear His Word with any agenda or selfish motive. We must be humble and receptive to every word that God speaks and allow Him to shape us according to His plans. However, that wasn’t the only qualification. Jesus said those who had seed sown on the good soil clung to it and persevered. We must choose to take hold of God’s Word and never let it go! We must choose to love and tend every word that He speaks to us above all else. It’s not enough to live our lives knowing that God speaks and assuming He’ll talk to us if He wants to. We have to prepare our hearts, position ourselves to hear His voice, and cling to every word that He speaks. His Word is our life!

Jesus said just a few verses later in Luke 8:18,
“Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”

He said in Matthew 11:15,
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Proverbs 2:2 says,
“…make your ear attentive to wisdom and incline your heart to understanding…”

It’s not enough to know we can hear Him. We have to choose to hear Him!
If we choose to continually listen to the sound of the enemy, the sound of testing, and the sound of the world and our own desires, the seed of God’s Word—the sound of His voice—will be unfruitful in our lives.

It’s possible for our hearts to become calloused to the voice of God.

Hebrews 3:7-8 says,
‘Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness…”’

Hebrews 3:12-13 says,
“See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

The word for “harden” in both Hebrews 3:8 and 3:13 means to “become tough.” One scholar said:

‘[It] speaks of a moral and spiritual “hardening,” a progressive resistance that renders the heart insensitive to God’s voice. While a physical callous forms through repeated friction, this hardening develops through repeated unbelief, sin, or the judicial act of God.’

We must ask God to give us soft, receptive hearts to hear His voice. He can remove callouses if we spend time in His presence and allow Him to change, restore, and renew us. He can give us hearts to hear His voice. We can stand in the presence of the Lord and hear things that will change our lives and the lives of those around us. Where are we standing?

Jeremiah 23:16-18 says,
‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, “It shall be well with you”; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, “No disaster shall come upon you.” For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?’

Just a few verses later, Jeremiah 23:22 says,
“If they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.”

We don’t have to struggle or strive to hear His voice, but simply choose to continually stand in His council. We were created to hear Him, and we can choose to come with humble and open hearts, positioned to hear His voice.

Psalm 1:1-2 says,
“Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on His law, he meditates day and night.”

This week, let’s position ourselves to hear the voice of the One who loves us more than we will ever know. His voice is peace, strength, hope, and joy. It is healing, clarity, and life. He waits to speak to His people if we will but listen! Let’s take heed how we hear, for the Creator of heaven and earth is speaking. Will we listen to Him? Will we cling to every word He speaks? Will we obey and persevere? If we choose to hear Him, we will see a harvest of blessing in our lives that we could never have imagined. God has given us a choice. We can stand in our own counsel, the counsel of the world, or the counsel of heaven. He won’t force us to listen and obey, but if we will position ourselves to hear Him, He will speak to us the mysteries of heaven. We can stand in the council of the Lord and live in the abundant blessing He has for us!

This week, I want to talk about the power of a seed. A seed looks nothing like what it’s capable of producing. An unassuming acorn doesn’t look like it could ever be a mighty oak tree, but within that seed is the complete genetic blueprint necessary to yield a tree and countless more seeds. The Word of God has a lot to say about seeds, in various contexts. The concept of a seed is used many times in relation to the importance of giving (Galatians 6:7, 2 Corinthians 9:6-10). The tiny mustard seed is used as an analogy for the power of faith (Matthew 17:20, Luke 17:6). The Bible also uses seeds to talk about the power of God’s Word. All these things convey the truth that seemingly small things carry the power to produce great results. Mark 4:30-32 says,

‘And He said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”’

We can never underestimate the power of small beginnings, because every mighty tree was once a tiny seed.

Matthew 13:3-9 says,

‘He told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.”’

When God’s Word comes to us, even as a tiny seed, it carries the blueprint to produce God’s power in us. The DNA of Jesus is in every word God speaks, and if we allow it to grow and develop in us, it will become a mighty tree! In the same chapter of God’s Word as the parable of the sower, we see two parables about the power of God’s kingdom. Matthew 13:31-33 says,

‘He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”’

Jesus teaches again about the power of a tiny seed and confirms it with the parable of the leaven. This image is even more powerful when you realize three measures of flour isn’t just a few loaves. In the original language, it says three “seahs” of flour, which in modern measurements would equal roughly 60 pounds of dough. This parable wasn’t about a woman mixing some yeast in her dough for supper. It was a picture of a woman “hiding” a tiny bit of leavening in a massive amount of dough. The result was not that the leavening disappeared, but that the entire 60 pounds of dough, enough to yield up to 100 large loaves of bread, was transformed. Jesus emphasized the power of a tiny thing to transform everything it touches. He wanted us to understand the power of something that seems small, a tiny seed or a “hidden” bit of leaven.

We do also have to remember the power of other seeds. The enemy will also attempt to plant seeds in our lives. These are the weeds that tried to choke out the Word in the parable of the sower. The Word of God also talks about the weeds of the enemy that the Father will separate when judgment comes (Matthew 13:24-30).

The enemy will always try to plant seeds in our hearts through lies. It won’t usually be obvious deception, but tiny seeds. In the Garden of Eden, the serpent didn’t come to Eve and say, “Disobey God, so sin can enter the world and every generation after you can suffer the consequences.” She would not have disobeyed if she could clearly see the consequences amid the temptation. The enemy came to her with just a seed of doubt. He said, “Did God actually say…?” (Genesis 3:1) The seed of that lie led her to disobedience. Jesus told the disciples to “beware the leaven of the Pharisees” (Mark 8:15). Just as the seed of God’s Kingdom will grow in us and produce life, the seeds of the enemy, the seeds of doubt, fear, and all manner of lies, will grow and bring death. We have to ensure we are cultivating the soil of our heart and guarding against the seeds of the enemy by the power of His Word! We have to ensure we are allowing only life-giving seeds to take root in our hearts.

God’s Word can transform not only our own lives, but every place that God plants us, if we allow every seed He sows in us to have free rein in our lives. Jesus is the Word, the seed that God planted in the earth. John 12:23-24 says,

‘But Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.”’

The Father sent Jesus as a seed. He didn’t send Him as a king to make Himself known. He sent Him as a seemingly insignificant man, a carpenter, a teacher, to influence one small nation at a seemingly insignificant point in history. However, that seed has been bearing fruit in the earth from the moment He was planted!

1 Peter 1:23 says,

“…you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”

We are born again through the imperishable seed that is Jesus Christ when we receive Him through God’s Word!

This week, remember the power of a seed. The truth of God’s Word planted in our hearts will change everything if we allow it to grow and transform us. We may not see the results we want instantaneously, but as we cultivate the soil of our lives, His Word will do what He says it will do. It will set us free. It will change us. It will purify and empower us. It will allow us to see His Kingdom come everywhere we go, as He touches the world around us. Allow the power of His Word to change you, like leaven changes bread. Allow His Word to take root in you and grow from a seed to a mighty tree that bears fruit. The truth will always transform and His truth is planted in you!

This week, I’ve had a lesser-known story in the Bible on my heart. It’s a short story and it isn’t warm or comfortable. It’s not a tale recounted in children’s books or depicted in movies. The book of Hosea, known as one of the “minor” prophets, is a short book in the Old Testament, sandwiched in between several other “minor” prophets and often overlooked.

However, the story of Hosea is as much a picture of God’s heart as any other in the Word of God. It takes place around 750-730 B.C., before the northern kingdom of Israel fell for the last time. Hosea was a prophet of God and at the time of his ministry, Israel was prosperous. Spiritual and moral decay was rampant, but there was nothing to indicate anything was amiss except the warnings of God. The people were wealthy, safe, and content to continue in sin. What could go wrong?

God did everything He could to call His people to repentance, including allowing the prophet Hosea’s life to become a painful sermon illustration. God asked Hosea to marry an adulterous woman as an example of the unfaithfulness of Israel. Hosea 1:2 says,

‘When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”’

Ouch. Hosea married a woman who would be as unfaithful to him as Israel was to her God. Gomer, Hosea’s wife, was loved and cared for by her husband and had three children. However, she left her family to go after other lovers. It could have been the end of the story, but God’s prophetic purpose wasn’t complete. Hosea 3:1-5 says,

‘And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” So, I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so, will I also be to you.” For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.’

As painful as all of this must have been for Hosea, he went in obedience to bring his wife home. He paid the price for her redemption and brought her out of her infidelity, once again as a prophetic picture of what God would do for His people. Her unfaithfulness contrasted with Hosea’s faithfulness paint a picture of God’s heart to His wayward people.

Hosea 4:1-3 says,

“Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore, the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away.”

The Scripture points out here that the land itself, along with the animals, birds, and fish, were affected by Israel’s unfaithfulness. This is fascinating to think about, but the truth is that if we are unfaithful, everyone and everything God has called us to steward will suffer the consequences.

Hosea 4:6 says,

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.”

Tragically, the people didn’t heed the warnings of God, despite the prophetic acts of Hosea. The Assyrian empire conquered Israel and the people—and their children—suffered the consequences of their sin.

It’s easy to look at Gomer—and Israel—and wonder how they could have been unfaithful. How could she leave her family? How could they forget everything God did for them? However, all sin is unfaithfulness, because it is an affront to the covenant of God.

We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory and have all found ourselves in need of God’s redemption (Romans 3:23). The story of Hosea is so powerful because God hates unfaithfulness, idolatry, and adultery—and we’re made to hate it too. Idolatry and adultery are connected because they are the breaking of covenant—one, a covenant with a spouse, and the other, a covenant with God Himself. We may think we have no issue in that area because we live in a nation that doesn’t have overt idolatry. However, anything we put above or alongside God in our hearts—including ourselves—is an idol.

The first of the ten commandments is “Thou shall have no other gods” (Exodus 20:2-3). There are many other verses about God’s hatred for idolatry and adultery.

James 4:3-5 says,

‘You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that He has made to dwell in us.”’

Friendship with the world is adultery! Faithfulness to God means that He is both first and alone in our hearts. We can’t love Him and the sin and darkness that He brings us out of. He is holy! Jesus said the greatest commandment was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” (Matthew 22:36-40). If we love God with all our hearts, there is no room for idolatry or any type of unfaithfulness. If we love Him with all our hearts, we won’t sin against Him. Passion for Him will remove the desire for anything else!

Thankfully, the prophetic truth God spoke through Hosea did not end in 730 B.C. God was speaking to Israel of a time when He would buy them back for the last time—when He would call His children to Himself for the last time. Hosea 13:14 says,

“I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol; I shall redeem them from Death. O Death, where are your plagues; O Sheol, where is your sting?”

This same scripture is cited by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 15:54-55. It says,

‘When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”’

Paul wrote here of the final resurrection through the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was the final ransom paid for the debt of our unfaithfulness. He was the demonstration of God’s unending faithfulness. As Hosea loved Gomer, regardless of her unfaithfulness, God loves us no matter what. Nothing can change the power of His love.

However, the blessings are only found within the covenant. We only get to live in God’s promises if we remain in God’s house. God sent Jesus, paying the highest price to redeem us from sin and ransom us from the power of death. He reached down for us, just as Hosea went to purchase his adulterous bride back from her sinfulness, but she had to come home. We too, must come home to God and live within His covenant if we want to receive His blessings. If we’re outside His covenant—in sin or unfaithfulness— we can’t live in His promises.

The prodigal son was always loved and always welcome, but he didn’t live like a son until he came back to his father’s house (Luke 15:11-32). When he was living in a pigsty, eating slop and covered in mud, it was because of His choices, not his father’s neglect. We can’t blame God when our choices have consequences. God is faithful. It’s not something He does. It’s who He is. His people’s wandering, sin, and unfaithfulness don’t change His character. He loves us and grieves over His lost children more than we’ll ever understand. He longs for His people to come home more than we do, regardless of how far they wander. Romans 5:8 says,

“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

This week, be encouraged with the truth that God’s love and faithfulness are unending. They are who He is, who He has always been, and who He will always be. That truth is meant to draw us to Him in faithfulness. We can be faithful, because He has been faithful. We can be confident in His promises because He is unchanging. Let’s walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which He’s called us (Philippians 1:27). Let’s walk in the holiness we’re called to live in. He is the God of heaven and earth. There is no one like Him. The angels, in all their might and glory, never stop crying “holy” around His throne. Let’s live in reverence for the covenant we have with the King of kings and refuse to be unfaithful to the One who has loved us so fully. He yearns for us to walk with Him faithfully every day of our lives, and we can! He bought us back, making a way by the blood of His Son and placing His very Spirit inside of us. He has loved us with an everlasting love. We can choose to live faithfully in His covenant, walking in the power of heaven, every single day of our lives!

How close do you want to be to God? If that question doesn’t make sense to you, then it’s possible that you’ve settled to keep God at a distance. Just as in any relationship, there are degrees of intimacy with the Lord. We must understand as believers that we get to choose how close we want to be.

James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”

This week, I’ve been thinking about different types of people who encountered Jesus as He walked the earth. They had varying degrees of encounters with Jesus, and it’s the same today! Today, I want to talk about just four different types of people who surrounded Jesus in His ministry. There are certainly more, and the ones we’re going to look at are not the unbelievers or religious people. Those who don’t know God—those who doubt, disbelieve or reject Him—could be a discussion all their own. We are only going to look at those who sought Jesus in some way.

We are first going to look at those people who made up the multitudes.

Luke 6:17-19 says,
“And He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch Him, for power came out from Him and healed them all.”

Throughout the Gospels, we see countless accounts of the multitudes that followed Jesus. They sought Him, but most of them sought Him only to receive from Him.

Jesus addressed this in John 6:24-26, which says,
‘So, when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”’

This crowd sought Him because He multiplied food, not even because of the signs and wonders pointing to His deity.

How many in the church today do exactly this? How many of us have done this at one time or another? These crowds knew Jesus worked miracles and they sought to touch Him. They knew Jesus could provide and they wanted to receive. However, that was as deep as many of their relationships with Him went.

James 2:19 says,
“You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”

It’s not enough to believe in Jesus. It’s not even enough to believe in Him and want to receive from Him, yet so many are like these crowds. So many come to church just to watch and perhaps receive something. It’s a great place to start, and Jesus had mercy on the multitudes, but it cannot be where we finish. These same crowds—the ones who cried “Hosanna”—also shouted “crucify Him.” The people who come to church just to spectate and get something and not to encounter Jesus will be easily swayed. There is more!

Among these crowds were some individuals who pushed through and stand out in history. These are the desperate, whose stories we read throughout the Gospels.

Luke 18:35-43 tells us of a blind beggar who refused to be silenced by the crowds who told him Jesus wouldn’t stop for him. He cried out to Jesus in faith and he received his sight.

Luke 8:41-42, 49-56 tells us of a ruler of the synagogue who fell at Jesus’ feet in desperation and saw his daughter raised from the dead.

Luke 8:42-48 tells us of a woman who had suffered with a discharge of blood that made her a ceremonial and cultural outcast. In desperation, she crawled through the crowd surrounding Jesus to touch the hem of His garment. She received her miracle!

The Gospels are full of the stories of those who pushed through crowds, refused to be silenced, cried out in desperation, tore roofs off buildings, and more—just to get to Him. Desperation and faith get the attention of heaven. We must be desperate!

However, we can’t stop here either. Some people come to church and push through the crowds in desperation only when they need something. Your relationship with Jesus can’t be based upon your needs. Luke 17:12-19 tells us the story of ten lepers who cried out to Jesus in desperation for healing. All of them received their miracle, but only one returned and fell at Jesus’ feet, giving thanks for what God had done. Many, even today, receive a miracle or blessing and go away rejoicing, but it doesn’t lead them to the feet of Jesus. It’s good to be desperate, but we can’t stop there!

We have to leave the crowd and allow desperation to lead us to discipleship. See, the crowds and the desperate received God’s miracles and mercies because of His goodness. His grace costs us nothing. However, there is a cost to follow Him as a disciple and receive the fullness of what He has for us.

Luke 14:25-27 says,
‘Now great crowds accompanied him, and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”’

Mark 10:29-30 says,
‘“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.”’

Jesus made clear that to follow Him, our love for Him must be so great that it makes our love for anything else look like hate. There is a cost, but the reward is a hundredfold in this life and in eternity! It is worth it.

In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus commissioned His disciples, and every disciple who would come after them, to preach the Gospel and make disciples of all nations. It’s not enough to be in the crowd surrounding Jesus, even if we’re desperate, if we aren’t encountering Jesus with such power that we are willing to become disciples—that we’re willing to lay down everything else to follow Him!

Finally, we see that among His disciples, there were those who knew Him even more intimately than the other disciples. Peter, James, and John saw things that the other nine did not. They saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain with Moses and Elijah (Matthew 17:1-8). They saw Jairus’ daughter raised from the dead (Luke 8:51). They went farther with Jesus as He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane while the others stayed back (Matthew 26:36-37). They were a group of disciples that Jesus trusted with more. Even among those three, though, only John was at the cross with Jesus. Of all His disciples, John is the only one we see at the end, and it was to John that Jesus entrusted His mother after His departure (John 19:25-27). The closer we are to Jesus, the more He trusts us with the things that are close to His heart.

Psalm 25:14 says,
“The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and He will show them His covenant.”

We can come as close to God as we want to come. The closer we get to Him, the more light, love, peace, strength, hope, and joy we will walk in because He is the source of life. He has good plans and incredible things for us, but He won’t force anyone to follow Him. Jesus loves the crowds—He loves the whole world—but only those who spend time becoming His disciples get to know His secrets—to live as His friends.

To conclude today, I want to ask you, as I’ve been asking myself: how close do you want to be to Jesus? Are you satisfied where you are or do you want to know Him more? The choice is ours. As we draw near to Him, He promises to draw near to us. The plans, dreams, and purposes that He has for us are infinitely more wonderful than anything we could lay down to follow Him. The cost of discipleship is our lives for His, but it is more than worth it to call the King of kings our friend!

This week, I’ve been thinking about some of the absolute truths about God’s character. Here are some statements we can confidently make about who God is, based on the Word of God:

“God is love.” (1 John 4:16)

“God is faithful.” (Deuteronomy 7:9 and 1 Corinthians 1:9)

“God is good.” (Mark 10:18)

“God is the healer.” (Exodus 15:26)

“God is the provider.” (Genesis 22:14 and Philippians 4:19)

“God is merciful.” (Lamentations 3:22-23, Psalms 145:9, and Ephesians 2:4-5)

These are just a few of the truths that we know about God’s character from His Word. These are not aspects of His personality or things that He does. The statement that “God heals” is actually very different from the statement that “God is the healer.” It’s not that He sometimes heals and sometimes provides. It’s not that those are things He can do. God heals and provides because they are part of who He is, and the Word of God says that He changes not.

There are countless more truths we could look at, but we know Jesus is the perfect demonstration of God’s character. John 14:8-11 says,

‘Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know Me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does His works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”

Jesus didn’t say He was the Father, but He was in such perfect unity with Him that the Father could be perfectly seen through Him. We can look at Jesus’ life and see the heart of heaven. Matthew 11:5 summarizes Jesus’ ministry:

“The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

John 10:10 says,

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Acts 10:36-38 confirms both of those verses saying,

“As for the word that [God] sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

Everything Jesus did on the earth agreed with God’s heart, because God was with Him, and everything Jesus did was good.

It is often taught incorrectly that Jesus came to satisfy the wrath of an angry God. The Father is portrayed as angry and just, while Jesus is portrayed as merciful and gracious. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We can’t look at God as though He is a human being. We have limited capacity. We can’t be purely just, purely love, purely truth, purely righteous, and purely merciful all at once. We can only move toward that goal as we become emptied of ourselves and are filled with Him, but that’s a process that lasts a lifetime.

God is all those things, always. The same loving God that reaches down to us in love and mercy could not spare Sodom and Gomorrah, because love is not love without truth and holiness. He is always as kind as He is firm. He is always as holy as He is merciful. We can’t twist our view of God into something that contradicts His Word in an attempt to understand Him. We can only know Him through the truth of His Word, and knowing Him is not something that happens in our minds. We know Him by faith, through His Spirit, in our spirits. We can encounter Him in truth when we acknowledge that He is beyond our understanding.

Have you ever heard it said that the “kindness of God leads to repentance?” It’s an often-quoted verse affirming the truth that God’s love and mercy is what draws us to His heart. However, the context is very important. Romans 2:2-8 says,

“We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.”

His kindness is always coupled with His judgment. His discipline is always coupled with His grace. His love is always coupled with His purity. Jesus demonstrated the absolute compassion and love of God. He withheld nothing, because He loves us so much. Romans 5:8 says,

"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

In that love is also purity, holiness, and righteousness. Jesus bore the weight of our sin on the cross. It was the highest price and His sacrifice does not nullify the weightiness of sin. When we repent and receive God’s love, we become responsible for the fullness of truth that sets us free. We are called to allow the Father to show every aspect of His heart through us as the body of Christ. We are called to allow Him to work through us just as Jesus did. We are His hands and feet on the earth, and we can’t demonstrate just one or two aspects of His character. He is love, justice, purity, mercy, grace, goodness, and holiness. We can receive and carry all those things if we allow Him to will and work in us for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13)!

This week, all that’s been on my heart is the importance of seeing Jesus.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the story of Jesus healing the man blind from birth. He taught about the danger of blindness through that miracle. John 9:39-41 says,

‘Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” Some Pharisees, who were with Him, heard Him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”’

The Pharisees lived a hypocritical life, pretending to see when they could not. Matthew 15:14 says,

“Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

They were deceived into believing they were seeing when they were completely blind. So, how do we know if we can see? Just as our natural eyes function as light receptors, our spiritual eyes only see when we are walking in the light. 1 John 1:7 says,

“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

True holiness, which will always bring fellowship in the body, is the result of light. The light of heaven is purifying. John 3:20 says,

“For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”

True holiness walks in the light!

Matthew 6:22-23 says,

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

This verse is in the middle of a broader teaching of Jesus on hypocrisy in giving, prayer, and fasting. Jesus taught on the importance of not treasuring worldly goods, and He went on to teach about the importance of seeking first the kingdom of God—not the things the world seeks after. This context is important, because our spiritual eyes will only be healthy when our hearts are focused on the right things. If our hearts and eyes are focused on worldly goods, the desires of life, or the opinions of men, we will be deceived. The Pharisees were hypocrites, guilty in their blindness, because they refused to admit they could not see.

Jesus lived before them, performing miracles, demonstrating the love of the Father and the principles of heaven and they couldn’t see Him. They were so blind that they missed the light of Jesus, in all its brilliance. A blind person could be outside at high noon on the brightest day, but still walk in darkness. If our eyes aren’t healthy, we’ll live in darkness in the middle of a glorious day.

Can you see Him?

Hebrews 12:1-2 says,

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

We must see Him. It is only by looking to Jesus that we can run our race with endurance.

Revelation 1:14-16 says that His eyes are like flames of fire and His face is like the sun shining in full strength.

Many people try to live the Christian life with eyes so dim they can barely see. We can’t live off the hope and light other people have seen. Many have heard descriptions of Jesus’ light, beauty, and goodness, but they’ve never seen Him themselves. Other people’s encounters may stir a desire to see Him, but that’s not the same as seeing Him with our own eyes.

You could sit with a blind person and describe the sun in detail. You could describe what the grass, flowers, and trees are like. You could describe their loved one’s face. You could tell them of the immense beauty of the world around them. They may even be able to describe it back in such detail someone could believe they have seen it. However, the knowledge of someone else’s encounter is not the same as seeing it yourself. Would you be satisfied living with only a description of the world around you? Why do so many settle for that reality in their Christian walk? Jesus wants us all to see Him for ourselves!

Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:18 that the “eyes of their hearts would be enlightened.”

He prayed that way because that was the commission he was given by Jesus Himself. Acts 26:16-18 recounts the words of Jesus to Paul on the road to Damascus. It says,

‘And the Lord said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen Me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”’

To turn from darkness to light, eyes must be opened! That’s the call of the Gospel.

After Jesus was resurrected, His own disciples didn’t recognize Him as He walked with them on the Road to Emmaus. He taught them from the Word, and they listened in awe, but they couldn’t see Him, until He broke bread with them. Luke 24:30-32 says,

‘When He was at table with them, He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him. And He vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?”’

Their hearts burned, but they didn’t recognize Him until their eyes were opened.

We were created to see Him. Our spiritual eyes must be open and healthy to receive the light that shines from the face of Jesus. It’s not enough to get a dim reflection of His light from someone else. It’s not enough to hear His light described to you. The light of the Father, the unapproachable light that shines from the throne of God (1 Timothy 6:16), shines in our hearts through Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6 says,

‘For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”’

His life is our light. We know from the Pharisees that the only way we can remain blind is if we refuse to admit we can’t see. If there is any area of blindness in our lives, all we have to do is ask God to open the eyes of our hearts so the light can flood in. In His light is life, hope, peace, healing, direction and everything we need. Let Him open your eyes today. Let Him reveal Himself to you in glory. Let Him open every area of your heart to let the light shine in. It’s what you were made for!

Of all the wisdom and deep revelation in the Word of God, there is nothing more profound than the simplicity of the love of God. The apostle John said that if everything Jesus did when He walked the earth were to be written down, the earth could not contain the books. However, John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, also gave us the clearest and simplest definition of the gospel we have. John 3:16 says,

“For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Love is the message of God’s Word from Genesis to Revelation. Even in parts of the Word of God where we see His holiness, justice, and judgment, we always see His love. This week, I’ve been thinking about the power of that love to heal our own hearts and lives, but also our relationships, our families, our churches, and our communities. The power of His love cannot be overestimated.

The apostle Paul prayed in Ephesians 3:14-19,

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Paul’s prayer for the church was that they would be so rooted in Christ’s love that they
would have the strength to comprehend that which cannot be comprehended. His love
surpasses our knowledge, yet we are made to be full of it.

Let’s look at just a few Scriptures about His love. There are countless more in the Bible, but this is a small snapshot.

Exodus 34:6 is the powerful passage in which God proclaims His name and His character to Moses. It says,

‘Jehovah passed before him and proclaimed, “Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”’

Psalm 32:10 says,

“Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.”

When the Bible speaks of “steadfast love,” it is not talking about just any love, but the covenant love that comes only from God.

Psalm 136:1 says,

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.”

Isaiah 54:10 says,

“For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you.”

Romans 8:38-39 says,

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We see God’s love demonstrated most clearly in the life and death of Jesus Christ. He is the love of the Father poured out on humanity. Jesus prayed in John 17:26,

“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

He declared His purpose fulfilled on the earth in this one sentence. He came that the love of the Father that is so purely in Jesus would also fill us. It’s why Paul prayed as he did, that we would be rooted and grounded in His love, and therefore be filled with the fullness of God.

We can’t be filled with the fullness of God and be filled with anything but His steadfast love. If we are filled with love for money, love for ourselves, love for the world, or love for the accolades of men, it will displace the love of God in our hearts. God’s love is pure and cannot be mixed with inferior love. There is only one covenant love that will change our hearts and it’s not a love that can come from our human nature. Our society talks a lot about love—loving and accepting ourselves and others. However, love apart from God—apart from truth—is not love. God is love, and pure love flows from Him alone. It flows from the heart of the Father to us, through Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 5:5 says,

“…hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

If there is an absence of His love, there will be an abundance of division. If we aren’t full of His love, our own hearts will be divided. If a church isn’t full of His love, the body will be divided. If a nation isn’t full of His love, a people will be divided.

Colossians 3:12-15 says,

“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.”

Above all, put on love. Love, aligned with His Word, binds everything together in perfect harmony, within the body of Christ. We can love those who we don’t necessarily like, when we are full of Him.

Ephesians 4 also speaks of God’s love in the context of the body of Christ. Ephesians 4:1-2 says,

“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

The chapter concludes in Ephesians 4:15-16 saying,

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

The body of Christ can only be built up in love. We cannot have love apart from the truth of God’s Word, but truth must be delivered in love. The giftings of the Holy Spirit must operate through us in love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 says,

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

This may seem like a very elementary message, and it is the most fundamental message of the Word of God. We teach children to sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” but do we know? Have we been filled with the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge? Can we say we’re filled with all the fullness of God? There is always more. The revelation of His love will allow us to live in healing, peace, unity, freedom, and joy that we won’t know any other way. His love makes us unoffendable. His love makes us indivisible. His love binds us together in perfect harmony. We will be whole, individually and as the body of Christ, only when we are built up in the truth and full of the love that comes only from Him!

This week, I’ve been thinking about the power of spiritual light. It’s something we must choose to love and walk in. There is a sobering verse found just three verses after John 3:16 that few people will be familiar with.

John 3:19 says,
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

Jesus gave a verdict and it was not a good one: people loved the darkness rather than the light. Especially in the book of John, we are given a clear picture of the light Jesus referred to.

John 1:1-5 says,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John 8:12 says,
‘Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”’

The light that the world rejected was Jesus Christ Himself. He was crucified because the world loved the darkness rather than the light in Him. This week, I’ve been thinking about the power of that spiritual light in Jesus. It’s something we must choose to love and walk in! We see the light of heaven most fully in Jesus, but as it says in John 1:1, the light, the Word, has existed since the beginning.

The light of God is not a metaphor. There is a real, supernatural light we see throughout Scripture that is always connected to the presence of God.

Genesis 1:3 says,
‘And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.’

However, God didn’t make the sun, moon, and stars until the fourth day of creation, so what was this light? I believe it’s the same spiritual light we see throughout the Word of God.

Exodus 34:29 says,
“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.”

After he had been in the glory of God, the light of God’s presence was so physically visible on Moses’ face that he had to put a veil over it so the people would not be frightened.

We see bright light accompanying the appearance of angels throughout Scripture. (Matthew 28:3, Luke 2:9, Acts 12:7)

When Saul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, it says there was a light from heaven that flashed around him, and he was blinded for three days from the experience (Acts 9).

When John encountered the resurrected Jesus on the Isle of Patmos, it says “His face was like the sun shining in full strength” (Revelation 1:16).

When the end comes and God creates a new heaven and a new earth, there will no longer be a sun and moon for light.

Revelation 21:23-25 says,
“And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.”

Isaiah 60:19 aligns with this prophecy, saying,
“The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.”

There is a real light of heaven that will eventually replace the sun.
It’s that light that Jesus brought into the world, and it’s not a metaphorical light. It’s a supernatural light meant to shine in each of our hearts and lives.

2 Corinthians 4:6 says,
‘For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’

When we come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, this light shines in our hearts for the first time and it illuminates all that was in darkness!

We must understand that everything God created in the natural reflects spiritual things. We are, after all, eternal souls in perishing bodies. Our spirit is the only part of us that’s eternal! This is significant because our eyes, the part of our bodies God created to see, only work because of one thing: light. Our eyes are incredible, but in simplified terms, they are only light receptors. Without light, they are useless. It is the same with our spiritual eyes. We can only see when the light comes in! Throughout the Word of God, the metaphor of blindness is used for spiritual ignorance—the absence of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:4 says,
“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

We see this exemplified in one of the miracles of Jesus found in John 9:1-7.

It says,
‘As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So, he went and washed and came back seeing.’

It’s not a coincidence that Jesus taught His disciples that He was the light of the world while healing a man born blind. There was more to this miracle than met the eye. After he was healed, the man and his parents were questioned by religious leaders who were angry that Jesus was working miracles, and even more so that He was working them on the Sabbath. At the end of the interrogation, the man was cast out of the synagogue.

The story picks up in John 9:35-41, saying,
‘Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is He, sir, that I may believe in Him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen Him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped Him. Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near Him heard these things, and said to Him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”’

Jesus states His mission in this verse and it’s fascinating and also connects to John 3:19, the verse we began with. Jesus said He came for judgment—that those who do not see may see, and that those who “see” may become blind. Remember, in John 3:19 He said the “judgment” was that the people loved the darkness—they didn’t want to see or be seen. The Pharisees had created such a good religious structure that they had the appearance of sight, but Jesus called them blind guides (Matthew 15:14)! A blind person, in a familiar place, may be able to get around as easily as a person with sight, but it’s not because they can see. That’s what religion does. It creates a structure of rules, customs, and traditions so immovable that the blind may appear to have sight, but they are actually just moving in a dark but familiar place. In the dark, the blind may be able to get around better even than a person with sight. However, when the light comes, it is immediately clear who has sight and who does not. When the light of Jesus came, it exposed the blindness of the Pharisees and allowed those who had walked in darkness to experience sight for the first time!

Matthew 4:16 says,
“The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”

To conclude this week, we want to encourage you to allow the light of Jesus to burn brightly in you, to illuminate every area of your heart and life and the places God has put you to shine. It is always better to see, even if it means exposing some things that felt more comfortable left in the dark. Light only exposes so healing and freedom can come!

Matthew 5:14-16 says,
‘You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”’

We are the light of the world as we reflect the One who lives in us. If you feel like you are struggling in darkness or to see the path God has for you, the answer is simply more light, and the light is Him! Moses’ face shone with the glory of God because he had spent time in God’s presence. We will only shine brightly when we have been with the One who is light. His light will bring clarity, peace, and joy as you choose to allow it to flood every area of your heart. His light will illuminate your life like you’ve never known, if you choose to love it and walk freely in it!

Last week, we talked about the emphasis the Bible puts on considering the right things. We’re to focus our hearts on Jesus and the truth of God’s Word to guard our hearts and minds in peace. Scripture also gives us many things we’re to remember, as well as many things we’re to forget. It would be powerful to look at everything the Word of God tells us to remember and forget, but this week, I’ve been thinking about one particular story in the Word of God. It’s not a long story, and it’s not a pleasant one, but Jesus very specifically told us to remember it in a teaching about the last days. Luke 17:28-33 says,

“It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out; and likewise, the one who is in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.”

Jesus, in this lesson on what life would be like at His second coming, referenced the destruction of Sodom, but didn’t tell the details of the story. He assumed His listeners would know.

Remember Lot’s wife.

Her story is a grave one, but if Jesus says we’re to remember it, specifically in the context of the last days, it’s worth our time!

The full story is found in Genesis 18 and 19. Lot was Abraham’s nephew and he lived with his family in the wicked city of Sodom. Two angels came to Lot’s home, and after experiencing firsthand the wickedness of the city they said to Lot in Genesis 19:12,

“Do you have anyone else here—a son-in-law, your sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are about to destroy this place. For the outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that He has sent us to destroy it.”

The story goes on in Genesis 19:16-17, saying,

‘At daybreak the angels hurried Lot along, saying, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But when Lot hesitated, the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters. And they led them safely out of the city, because of the LORD’s compassion for them. As soon as the men had brought them out, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Do not look back, and do not stop anywhere on the plain! Flee to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”’

Their instructions were clear. The city was to be destroyed, and they had to run and not look back. These were simple instructions, with serious implications. They were given the command for a reason and as they would see, disobedience would have consequences.

Genesis 19:26 gives us one small sentence regarding Lot’s wife. It says,

“But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”

Scholars speculate whether her body was literally changed to salt or if the shower of fire and brimstone that destroyed the cities encased her body in a salty crust, but regardless, she received the same judgment as the wicked cities. God, in His mercy, tried to save her, but she looked back when she should have obeyed and run forward. Jesus warned us to remember her tragic tale. Look again at what He said in Luke 17:32-33:

“On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out; and likewise, the one who is in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” As we talked about last week, Isaiah 43:18-19 says,

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

Philippians 3:13-14 says,

“…one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Our call as believers is to look forward, not back! We are called to run toward Jesus with a devotion that eclipses anything we’ve left behind. We are to flee sin and anything that would hinder us from running our race with endurance. Hebrews 12:1-2 says,

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…”

We can’t run our kingdom race if our eyes are focused on the past, or inferior things. I don’t believe Lot’s wife just glanced back at her home. It had to symbolize the state of her heart for her to receive such judgment. She was longing for the wickedness she should have been running from!

Where we look matters, because our hearts always follow our gaze.

Proverbs 4:23-27 says,

“Keep your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; turn your foot from evil.”

This verse reminds us to guard our hearts diligently and connects it to the power of our gaze. We must keep our eyes fixed directly in front of us, on Jesus, or we will veer from the straight path God has for us! If our eyes are fixed on Him, we won’t be tempted to look behind us. We can’t love the things God loves and long for things of the past. We can’t put our hand to the “plow” of the kingdom and look back at the life we left behind (Luke 9:62). God will always do a new thing in our lives. He’s the Good Shepherd, the best Father, and the perfect provider. If we try to “keep” our lives, we will lose them, but if we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, everything we need will be given to us (Matthew 6:33)!

What have you been considering this week? That may seem like a strange question, but there are many things in the Word of God we are told to “consider.” Several words in the original Biblical languages have been translated “consider,” but they mean similar things: to understand or discern, to examine or observe closely, to perceive, or to think deeply about. All these definitions concern the contemplation of our minds and the meditation of our hearts. What we choose to consistently “consider” will shape the course of our lives. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says,

“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

We destroy enemy strongholds in our lives by taking our thoughts captive and opposing thoughts, arguments, and opinions that contradict the Word of God. It’s a weapon of our warfare that often gets overlooked. If we can’t win the war in our own minds and hearts, we will be ineffective in the battle for ground in every other area of our lives! Isaiah 26:3 says,

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” Peace guards our mind as we focus our thoughts on Him alone. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, expounded on this idea in Philippians 4:8-9:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

He didn’t use the word “consider,” but the idea is still present in this verse. Anything true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy will align with the Word of God. If we think about those things, there will be no room for the lies of the enemy, and the God of peace will be with us. It matters what we consider!

Let’s look at some of the specific commands we’re given in the Word of God surrounding what to consider.

Deuteronomy 11:2 says,

“And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm…”

1 Samuel 12:24 says,

“Only fear the LORD and serve Him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things He has done for you.”

Psalm 107:43 says,

“Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the LORD.”

This is the best place to start if we’ve struggled with thoughts that don’t align with God’s Word. Consider Him. Consider His discipline, His greatness, His might, His outstretched arm, His steadfast love, and the great things He’s done! If we are considering Him, how could we be discouraged? This thought is echoed in the New Testament.

Hebrews 3:2 says,

“Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,”

Hebrews 12:3 says,

“Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”

We cannot grow weary if we are considering Jesus!

In addition to these, there are many more Scriptures instructing us what to consider. Here are a couple from Jesus Himself:

Luke 12:24 says,

“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!”

Luke 12:27 says,

“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

Jesus instructed us to consider the Father’s provision in even the smallest things—the birds of the air, and the lilies of the field. If we consider God’s hand in every detail of creation, and consider our value to Him, we will never be anxious about the things the world worries about.

Here are a few more verses from the New Testament instructing us how to think about ourselves, each other, the body of Christ, our leaders, our own salvation, and our calling: Romans 6:11 says,

“So, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Hebrews 10:24-25 says,

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Hebrews 13:7 says,

“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.”

1 Corinthians 1:26-27 says,

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”

If we think according to the truth of the Word of God, we will live according to it. The promises of God will operate in our hearts as we build ourselves up in faith by meditating on and considering truth.

To conclude, we must understand there are things we are not to consider. By choosing to meditate on God’s Word, we choose not to dwell on sin, fearful thoughts, the past, or even current circumstances that contradict the Word of God. Isaiah 43:18-19 says,

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

As we consider Him, and all the truth of His Word, our minds will align with His heart. Peace will guard us. We will be strengthened and built up in faith because it’s impossible to be discouraged when your heart is full of His Word! This week, we encourage you to consider that which will give you life. Consider the One who will bring you healing, hope, and renewal. Consider not the things that have clouded, confused, and discouraged you. He will do a new thing as you choose to meditate on the truth of His Word!

This week, I’ve been thinking about what it means to trust God. The modern definition of trust is “to have confidence or a firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something.”

The Bible has a lot to say about trusting God, and we must understand that trust is different from faith. Faith is active. We know this from the connotations of the words for faith in the Bible’s original languages, as well as scriptures like James 2:17, which says,

“Faith without works is dead.”

Faith is our active belief in God’s Word, which allows us to receive the promises He’s given.

While trust and faith are both necessary and interconnected, they do differ. One scholar describes the Hebrew word for trust this way: “The verb expresses placing one’s full weight upon someone or something with calm assurance.”

Trust is the idea of leaning so fully on God that we cannot be moved. It is a calm, peaceful, confident rest in the One who cannot be moved.

One of the most powerful pictures of trust is found in Jeremiah 17:7-8. It says,

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Our trust in God makes us like that tree that is not moved regardless of circumstances. We see this in many other scriptures as well.

Psalm 112:7 says,

“[The righteous] is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.”

Psalm 125:1 says,

“Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.”

Proverbs 11:28 says,

“Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.”

Trust is also frequently associated with safety, quiet, and stillness in the Word of God. While it is an active choice to place our trust in God, the result is not an action, but a peaceful rest that comes from unshakeable confidence.

Isaiah 30:15 says,

‘For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”’

Proverbs 20:25 says,

“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.”

Isaiah 26:3-4 says,

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.”

Peace and rest are evidence of trust. If you lose your rest, it’s a sign of misplaced trust! Elisabeth Elliot said,

“Worry is the antithesis of trust.”

If we are worrying, we aren’t trusting. If our hearts are disquieted, it’s time to figure out in what area we’ve stopped trusting Him. Trust is the remedy for an anxious heart.

Psalm 28:7 says,

“The LORD is my strength and my shield; in Him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him.”

Psalm 20:7 says,

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”

Psalm 32:10 says,

“Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD.”

Proverbs 3:5-6 says,

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

Proverbs 28:25 says,

“A greedy man stirs up strife, but the one who trusts in the LORD will be enriched.”

Isaiah 12:2 says,

“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”

Take time to read those verses slowly. I could list countless more about the power of trusting Him, but in these few scriptures, we see the promise of rest, stability, safety, enrichment, guidance.

We must understand that God always desires good things for us, but we remove ourselves from the flow of heaven when we trust in inferior things—like people, our own ability, money, the healthcare system, or anything else in which we place our confidence instead of God. Trusting in something other than God Himself is like uprooting ourselves from the river of living water and planting ourselves by another stream. We may be okay for a season, but when heat or drought comes and that stream dries up, our leaves will wither and we won’t produce fruit. The only stream that never runs dry is the one that flows from the throne of God. Choosing to trust God is planting ourselves by that supernatural stream. Choosing to trust God is standing on the Rock that cannot be moved.

When Jesus and His disciples encountered a storm on the sea, Jesus never lost His peace and rest. He only woke up to rebuke the storm because His disciples woke Him (Mark 4:35-41). When our trust is completely in the Lord, storms will not unsettle us, and drought will not affect us. We will not be moved because He cannot be moved!

To conclude, we must understand that trust is based on the character of God. If you don’t know His goodness, you won’t trust Him. We learn who He is through the truth of His Word and our experiences with His faithfulness. Psalm 9:10 says,

“Those who know Your name put their trust in You, for You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You.”

The more we know Him, the easier it is to trust Him. He is all-powerful and completely good. He has never failed anyone who trusts in Him!

Have you ever felt like you don’t have enough? I think we’ve all felt that way before—not enough money, not enough time, not enough energy, not enough help.

This week, I have been thinking about a familiar miracle of Jesus in the Word of God, in which there was genuinely not enough. The story is recorded in all four gospels, but my favorite is found in John 6:5-14. It says,

‘When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for He already had in mind what He was going to do. Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” Another of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, He said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So, they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.’

Now, you may have read this story countless times, but I encourage you to take some time to think about it, maybe differently than you have before.

At the beginning of the story, Jesus tested Philip when He already knew what He was going to do. There are times when God will test our faith, but that does not mean He gives us things contrary to His Word. James 1:2-4 says,

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

1 Peter 1:7 says,

“These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

God will always be faithful in every trial of faith, but our response matters. Have you ever wondered how you would have responded to the question Jesus asked Philip?

“Where can we get food for this crowd?”

There were 5,000 men in the crowd, and scholars believe it was thousands more than that, including women and children. Philip answered logically—a huge amount of money wouldn’t buy enough food to give each person in the crowd a bite! What he said was factual, but it wasn’t true, because he didn’t answer in faith. If we look at the facts of our situation, we will miss the potential for a miracle. Faith is not foolish, but it often looks foolish to those who don’t know Him!

We also must understand there was precedent in the Word of God for miraculous provision. God fed the Israelites in the wilderness with manna from heaven and quail in abundance (Exodus 16 and Numbers 11). He fed Elijah with miraculous food from a raven (1 Kings 17:2-6). He multiplied a widow’s oil for her family’s provision (2 Kings 4:1-7). Jesus also could have created food from nothing if He wanted. The enemy tempted Him to “turn rocks to bread,” and He didn’t say He couldn’t do it (Matthew 4:3-4)! However, Jesus used what a child had—5 loaves and 2 fish—to feed a multitude. What we have may not appear to be enough, but it’s always enough when we put it in the hands of Jesus!

God isn’t waiting for us to have “enough.” He’s waiting for us to give Him what we have in faith that He will multiply it. Jesus gave thanks for the loaves and fish and distributed the food until everyone had eaten their fill, and there were 12 baskets left over. It didn’t
even stop multiplying when the need was gone. There was more than enough! I read a testimony from Heidi Baker, who is a missionary in Mozambique, Africa, about a modern-day food multiplying miracle. Her family has seen food multiply many times in their time on the mission field, but this story is a little different. She said,

“Our children like their food, and we love to eat together. We have to have a lot of food to feed everyone… One day we made a big batch of cookies for the kids. They are not like western cookies; they are harder and smaller, but our kids love them, and they are a rare treat. On this day, word got out quickly that we had made them, and hundreds more children came looking for one. Juma, one of our little guys, and Dawn, a missionary, were serving the cookies. Before long, they realized they were going to run out. The kids were taking more than one and stuffing them in their pockets. There would not be enough to go around, especially as hundreds more kids were arriving. We teach our kids to pray if they need food. That is what happened in the Book, and the Book is what we live by. So, we put ourselves into the story of the Book. Accordingly, little Juma prayed for more cookies to feed the kids. God has performed food miracles for us many times, but it is normal for Him to make more bread and chicken. This time, He worked on that cookie bag. There were Juma and Dawn, with hundreds and hundreds of kids, and the bag of cookies did not run out. For weeks and weeks, God filled that bag over and over again! This was not a "necessary" miracle. They didn't have to have those cookies. But God loves to bless us and give us good gifts…”

Every miracle in the Word of God can happen for us today, as we trust Him and believe the promises of His Word. Today, let’s thank God for what we have, even if it doesn’t appear to be enough. What you feel you’re lacking may not be food or finances at all, but the principles of God’s Word will always work. Jesus died to provide everything we need, and when we put what we have into His hands, in faith, with thanksgiving, we will see the miraculous!

This week, I’ve been thinking about the power of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus ascended into heaven, He told His disciples regarding the Holy Spirit:

“And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)

The Holy Spirit is the power of God in His church. However, though He empowers us, we can’t think of Him as a power to be wielded. He is the Spirit of God, and He is not to be used or controlled. That may seem obvious, but that’s a misunderstanding people have had since the Holy Spirit was first poured out. Acts 8:14-23 tells a story along these lines. It says,

“Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for He had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.”

I don’t believe anyone reading this has ever tried to buy the Holy Spirit, but we may subtly have the same misunderstanding if we think about the Holy Spirit transactionally. There is nothing we can do to make us worthy to receive the Holy Spirit. That’s why He’s a gift. The only requirement is a life washed and renewed in the blood of Jesus and surrendered to the One He sent. He fills a surrendered vessel who will allow Him to do what He was sent on the earth to do. There is another story in the Word of God in which some Jewish exorcists thought they could wield God’s power simply by using Jesus’ name. Acts 19:11-17 says,

“And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.”

They didn’t have authority because they didn’t have a relationship with the One from whom authority flows. His name is not a tool to be used. Every promise in the Word of God works only through relationship with the One who breathed it. We can ask anything in Jesus’ name when we abide in Him!

The Holy Spirit is the power of God and He will move and lead us, as we surrender. Men’s gifts are often confused with God’s anointing, but gifts alone will not bear lasting fruit. Only the Holy Spirit bears the true fruit of righteousness in a surrendered life.

Jesus said it was to our advantage that He leave the earth, so He could pour out the Holy Spirit (John 16:7). He even said that His disciples would do greater works than He did after He left the earth (John 14:12). He is the power of God moving on this earth and we can expect Him to move in power in our lives, but we must understand it is Him working through us. He is not a power to be wielded, but the power of God to be surrendered to.

He is called the Spirit of Truth (John 16:13) and the Comforter (John 14:16).

He is the One who convicts of sin (John 16:8) and pours God’s love into our hearts (Romans 5:5).

He is the same One who raised Jesus from the dead and who gives us life (Romans 8:11).

Galatians 5:25 says,

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”

Romans 8:14 says,

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

He is the One who leads, not the other way around! We are filled with the Holy Spirit so we can follow. As we follow Him, we will partake in the promises Jesus made to His church. It is Christ in us the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27)! It is the working of the Holy Spirit through us that will turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6). The Father will be glorified in us, as He wills and works for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). God’s power is a person—the Holy Spirit of God—and He is to be welcomed and received. He is to be honored, heeded, and followed. He will work in us powerfully. He will do the same things through us as He did through the disciples in the book of Acts. Today, we encourage you to yield to the One who is called the gift of the Father. He is good and kind, and we will see His power as we surrender to the sound of His voice. As we obey the Word of God and surrender to the Holy Spirit, He will demonstrate the power of heaven in and through us!

This week, I’ve been thinking about the discipline of the Lord. It’s not a warm and fuzzy topic, but it’s something all of us need to understand and walk in. My husband and I are children’s pastors, and we’ve been talking to the kids about God’s nature as a Father. Last Sunday, we talked about God’s discipline, because we couldn’t share about God’s love as a Father and neglect to talk about His correction.

To begin, I asked the kids what comes to mind when they think of discipline. Most of them answered with things like:

“Punishment.”

“Consequence.”

“No electronics.”

“You did something bad.”

Almost every response was negative.

Adults and children alike in our culture tend to have a negative association with the idea of discipline. This matters because of our response when we read verses like these:

“Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you.” (Deuteronomy 8:5)

“My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, do not resent His rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, as a father the son He delights in.” (Proverbs 3:11-12)

“For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastises every son He receives.” (Hebrews 12:6)

We can’t skip over verses like these in the Bible, even if they make us uncomfortable. No one likes the moment of correction. It’s sometimes uncomfortable, embarrassing, or painful, but God corrects us to heal us. We can learn to love the result of God’s correction and not think of it as a negative thing.

Hebrews 12:11 says,
“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Proverbs 15:32 says,
“He who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding.”

Discipline in our lives will yield fruit that we would never have had any other way. We must learn to love the correction, discipline, and instruction of the Lord.

Luke 19 tells the story of a tax collector named Zacchaeus. It says,
“Then Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man named Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, who was very wealthy. He was trying to see who Jesus was but could not see over the crowd because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see Him, since Jesus was about to pass that way.

When Jesus came to that place, He looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down, for I must stay at your house today.”

So, Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed Him joyfully. And all who saw this began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinful man!”

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone, I will repay it fourfold.”

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”’

This is a short story in the Bible, but this one encounter with Jesus changed Zacchaeus’ life. You may not see the discipline of God in this story, but it’s here. We don’t see Jesus get angry or even point out Zacchaeus’ sin. However, he must have felt the conviction of heaven when He was in the presence of Jesus. The easiest way to allow God’s discipline to shape our hearts is to spend time in His presence. If we are constantly trying to find things wrong with ourselves and fix them, that’s condemnation, not discipline. Conviction and correction come from the Holy Spirit, in love. Jesus called to Zacchaeus, one whom no one would have expected him to acknowledge. He went to his home, which offended the crowds because they knew Zacchaeus’ sin. It was in response to that love that Zacchaeus repented. He declared he would give half of his possessions to the poor and repay fourfold what he had stolen. What’s interesting is that this act mirrors an Old Testament law regarding stolen sheep. If someone was convicted of stealing a sheep, they had to restore it “fourfold.”

Zacchaeus was a Jew and he would have known the law, but it wasn’t until he was confronted with Jesus, the Word Himself, that conviction led to repentance. It is only then that Jesus declared “salvation has come to this house.”

There were countless Pharisees and religious Jews who kept the law better than Zacchaeus but missed the opportunity for genuine salvation. However, Zacchaeus’ household received salvation because of an encounter that changed his heart! Repentance and obedience were the result.

In this story, Jesus’ grace didn’t remove every consequence of sin. Zacchaeus received salvation and was forgiven, but there was still restitution to be made to those he had defrauded. We can’t live as though God’s grace exempts us from making things right if we’ve done wrong. I’m sure restitution wasn’t easy or comfortable for Zacchaeus, but it led to life and peace.

Keeping God’s commandments won’t always be easy and it will always offend our flesh, but obedience leads to life and surrendering to God’s correction allows us to receive from Him, as children! We cannot separate God’s love as a Father from His discipline because they are one.

John 16:8 says,
“And when [the Holy Spirit] comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”

Romans 5:5 says,
“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

The same One who convicts of sin pours God’s love into our hearts.

In Matthew 24:12 Jesus said concerning the last days,
“Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”
There is a connection between obedience and love. Lawlessness—disregarding the instructions of the Word of God—will cause love to grow cold. We cannot disregard God’s Word and reject His discipline and then think we can accept His love. His law is His love!

1 John 5:3 says,
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”

This week, we encourage you to invite the Father to bring discipline to any area you’ve needed it. It may not be what you want to do, and God may not say what you want to hear, but there is always life on the other side. He corrects us because He loves us and desires better things for us than we could ever desire for ourselves!

This week, a verse of Scripture has been on my heart, and I want to share some thoughts with you. John 15:5 says,

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

He didn’t say “apart from Me, you can do less.” He said unless we abide in Him, we can do nothing. Every work and effort except those that come from abiding in Him will be entirely fruitless. It is possible to labor and strive for a lifetime and produce nothing that remains. 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 teaches about a day when the work of every believer will be judged. It says,

“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”

This Scripture is about a person’s work, not their salvation. The last sentence says that even though a person’s work may be burned up, they can still be saved. That means it’s possible to be saved and spend your life working and building in vain. However, that’s not God’s intention. Jesus said in John 15:16,

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”

Jesus has appointed us all to bear fruit that will last. His intention is for us to be so aligned with Him that we receive anything we ask the Father in His name. This is how we see the Kingdom of God expand effortlessly. We are meant to abide in Him and build eternal things that will survive the test of fire on judgment day.

However, abiding is an offense to our flesh. We cannot abide without truly understanding that we can do nothing apart from Him, and that is humbling. It is possible to do a work “for Jesus” that Jesus has nothing to do with. Only abiding will keep us from that kind of fleshly labor. If we are exhausted from the work we’re doing, we have undoubtedly stepped out of the place of abiding. Grace will empower us to do the work we’re called to do without growing weary when we do it from a place of abiding in Jesus.

Abiding begins by realizing we have no adequacy or sufficiency apart from Him. If we feel adequate to do the work we’re doing, we won’t rely on Him to accomplish it. If we feel qualified for everything we do, we won’t lean into His wisdom. When we operate from our abilities, we step out of His grace. God will always call us to do things beyond our ability, so we will know it’s only through Him that the work can be done. Let’s look at a few verses along these lines.

John 6:63 says,

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.”

2 Corinthians 3:5 says,

“Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.”

2 Corinthians 9:8 says,

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

2 Corinthians 12:9 says,

‘But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”’

There is a connection between grace and sufficiency that is clear in these verses. God’s intention is for us to have all sufficiency, in all things, at all times.

We’ll have the provision we need when we need it.

We’ll have the wisdom we need when we need it.

We’ll have the gifts we need when we need them.

We’ll have the healing we need when we need it.

All those things come from Him.

If we are striving to be adequate, sufficient, successful, or enough, our efforts will exhaust us and hinder His grace from flowing in our lives. It is only by grace that we will be victorious in life and accomplish the things He has for us to do.

This doesn’t mean that we aren’t supposed to work hard, but that our efforts must be aligned with His will and empowered by His grace. If they are not, we will grow weary and produce nothing that will last! Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:1-5,

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,  and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

Paul was wise and extremely educated. We know he was a leader prior to His conversion on the road to Damascus. He could have ministered from his knowledge and gifting, and that may have worked for a time. However, he chose to “know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Why? So the people’s faith would rest in God’s power and not the wisdom of men.

1 Corinthians 1:27 says,

“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”

If you follow a preacher or a ministry because of an individual’s giftings, it will be easy to be deceived. Since the birth of the church in the book of Acts, we have seen that the expansion of God’s kingdom requires dependency on the Holy Spirit. The church didn’t grow because people were drawn to the wisdom, charisma, or gifting of men. Only the Word of God made alive in people’s hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit will turn the world upside down!

This week, we encourage you to remember that your sufficiency comes only from abiding in Him. You will never work hard enough in your ability to be worthy of God’s grace. You will never strive with enough effort to produce fruit that will abide. The only lasting accomplishments come when we rely on the one who is all-sufficient. This is not just about ministry—it’s about our lives. It applies to our jobs, our families, our churches, and our communities. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. When we truly believe that and abide in Him, we will see Him do more than we could ever ask or think!

Last week, we talked about the saying “familiarity breeds contempt.”

It’s the idea that the more familiar you are with something, the less appreciation you have for it. We specifically discussed it regarding people and relationships. Jesus said in Matthew 13:57, “a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown.” Those that knew Him best honored Him least. However, the truth is, familiarity can breed contempt, but it doesn’t have to.

This week, I’ve been thinking about how this idea extends beyond people—especially regarding the things of God. If we allow ourselves to do things aligned with the Word of God out of familiarity or habit, contempt, neglect, disrespect, and disregard are sure to follow.

For example, if we get so familiar with going to church that it becomes just part of a routine or an item on a checklist, we will dread going and look forward to the end. Attending church, meeting together as believers, is necessary according to the Word of God (Hebrews 10:25). However, if it becomes a chore, we will end up like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day who did the religious activities but missed the point entirely.

They prayed.

They fasted.

They gave.

They went to the synagogue.

They knew and taught the Word of God.

They did everything right, and yet Jesus called them hypocrites who looked great on the outside but were full of dead men’s bones.

So, how do we become immersed in the things of God without allowing familiarity to bring contempt? How do we keep religion from contaminating pure and genuine faith? I believe the answer is simple.

Matthew 11:25 says,
‘At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children…”’

Just before this verse, Jesus denounced cities in which He’d been rejected. Jesus didn’t mean in this verse that truth was hidden from those who were truly wise, but those who thought themselves wise and understanding. He also didn’t mean truth was revealed only to those who were physically children, but those who came to receive like children.

See, children, living in the safety that children should, are still in awe of the world around them. There is a newness that makes simple things in life seem extraordinary. They experience wonder freely. Have you ever had the opportunity to tell a “well-known” Bible story to a child who has never heard it? There is nothing like it. I once got to tell my favorite Bible story, David and Goliath, to a child who had never read it, heard it, or watched a Christian video about it. The story was brand new. The wonder on his face as he heard the story for the first time could not have been fabricated. Wonder is a gift borne of innocence, humility, teachability, and openness. However, when Jesus said truth was revealed to little children, He didn’t mean only physical children.

Matthew 16:13-17 says,
‘When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He questioned His disciples: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
“But what about you?” Jesus asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by My Father in heaven.”’

Jesus said in the verse above that the Father hid truth from the “wise” and revealed it to the children. Here we see also that the Father revealed this truth to Simon Peter. Peter was not a child, but he had an openness and teachability that allowed him to hear truth and receive revelation others could not. God has so many things He wants to teach us and give us, if we will only come as children, with trust in our hearts, with our arms and eyes wide open.

How do we keep familiarity with the things of God from breeding contempt? We come to the Father as children, again and again.

Matthew 18:3 says,
““Truly I tell you,” He said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Innocence, teachability, and humility are all characteristics that can be fashioned in our hearts by the work of the cross and the power of the Holy Spirit. We can become like little children and stay like little children for the rest of our lives. It’s the only way we will continue to receive and experience new things in the Lord until the day He calls us home. An elderly man or woman who is passionate for God after walking with Him for decades does not come to Him as a grandparent, a pastor, a teacher, a veteran, or anything else. If they have stayed on fire for Him for a lifetime, it’s because they have come to Him as a child, again and again. As long as we live, we get to come to Him as little children!

1 John 3:1 says,
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

If we continually come as His children, allowing Him to purify, shape, discipline, and teach us, we will never stop growing. We will never stop learning new things and experiencing His presence in new ways. We will read the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit will bring it to life, as if it’s the first time we’ve read it. Relationship with God will never feel like a religious duty if we never lose our wonder!

This week, we encourage you to come to Him as His child, first and foremost. Every other aspect of your identity must flow out of the truth that you are His son or daughter. It is in that place alone you will find rest and renewal. It’s in that place you will find wonder and awe for the things of God. Familiarity with the things of God will not breed contempt or religious labor if we never stop coming as children! Cast all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). He is waiting with open arms for you to come as a child to his Father!

This week, I’ve been thinking about the idea that “familiarity breeds contempt.”

You may never have heard this saying, but it’s the notion that the more familiar you become with something, the less respect and appreciation you have for it. I’ve heard it said many times by my Pastor and others, but they didn’t coin the phrase. Saint Augustine said, “familiarity breeds contempt” in Greek as early as the 5 th century and referred to it as a “common proverb.” This ancient idea captures the human tendency to devalue the people and things with which we are most familiar.

Jesus said, “a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown” (Matthew 13:57) which aligns with this idea. Jesus was not honored in the place He would have been known best. His own family tried to stop His ministry, going so far as to say He was out of His mind (Mark 3:21). Most of the people who had the greatest opportunity to know Him missed the reality of who He was, because their familiarity blinded them to His value.

Think about your own life. Relationships within families are often the most strained, because it is those closest to us that see the most flaws. However, the fact that this is true does not make it right. While it is human nature for familiarity to breed contempt, it is not the nature of God. Does God lose appreciation for those He knows best? Of course not. No one loves us more than God and He alone knows us completely. He sees every flaw without allowing any of it to diminish our value in His sight. When God looks at a person, He is not unaware of the sin and darkness, but He has the capacity to see His intention despite corruption. God draws people to repentance and salvation by speaking into their potential and instilling hope! Thank God He didn’t allow Adam’s sin to determine His expectation for our future! He looked at humanity and saw the possibility of redemption. God can see who He made a person to be regardless of where they have been. This doesn’t mean He overlooks sin, but that He always calls us out of sin by allowing us to see who He is and who He created us to be.

One of the best examples of this is found in the story of a man originally called Saul of Tarsus. Saul was a self-described Pharisee of Pharisees (one of the people Jesus called snakes, hypocrites, white-washed tombs, and children of hell in Matthew 23:13-39). Saul was a Jewish religious leader who opposed the rise of Christianity more fiercely than anyone. He persecuted Christians, torturing and killing many followers of Jesus. He himself oversaw the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. It would be hard to imagine someone further away from salvation than he was. However, Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus in a blinding light and revealed Himself as the Son of God. He commanded Saul to go into the city to await further instructions. Saul, or Paul, was blind for three days and was led by the Lord to a disciple named Ananias. Ananias had a vision in which Jesus told him to go lay his hands on Paul so he could regain his sight. Ananias took it upon himself to remind the Lord who they were talking about. He said,

‘“Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”’

Jesus responded, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel…” (Acts 9:13-15)

I believe Ananias’ response is understandable considering Paul’s past. However, we will limit what God can do in a person’s life through us if we don’t see them the way God sees them. Our call as believers is to come into agreement with the truth God declares over a person, even if we don’t see how it could be fulfilled. Saul didn’t look like a “chosen instrument” when Ananias met him, but Ananias chose to come into agreement with what God declared about Paul. The first recorded words he spoke to him were “Brother Saul…” He chose not to see him as the Pharisee, persecutor, and murderer he had been, and instead called him “brother.”

It is so easy to allow what we know of someone to overshadow the truth of who God has called them to be. If we look only with our natural eyes and take inventory of the negative experiences we’ve had, it will be easy to devalue ourselves and others. It is especially easy to do this with the people closest to us, because we see their flaws more clearly than anyone else. No one knows you better than your spouse, your children, your family, and your close friends. It is in those relationships especially that we must guard against contempt bred by familiarity. We must be careful not to allow what we know of someone’s past or shortcomings to shape our view of them, even if they have not yet changed. If someone close to you has let you down multiple times in a particular area, it may be difficult for you to believe they will ever change. However, God never stops believing in us and we must allow Him to shape our hearts and our expectations for those around us. Love and humility will keep contempt from taking root! 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says,

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

God, in His love and grace, can always see who we can be washed in the blood of His Son. We must choose to come into agreement with Him. He called David to be king when he was a shepherd disregarded by even his own father (1 Samuel 16). He called Gideon a “mighty man of courage” while he was still afraid of his own family (Judges 6:11-24). When God looks at someone, He always loves and always sees the person they can be if they will choose to follow Him!

This truth is important in our own lives as well. You are not defined by your past any more than Paul was defined by his past. Paul was a chosen instrument of God, not a murderer. In the halls of history, he is not remembered for his sin. He received the grace of God and became a messenger of heaven to Gentiles, Kings, and every believer who reads what the Holy Spirit wrote via Paul’s pen. No life could be further away from salvation than Saul’s, and yet, he was completely transformed by the Gospel. Every man and woman on earth is created with purpose, and He has called us to see people the way He sees them. Familiarity does not have to breed contempt if we are renewed by the Holy Spirit and filled with the hope of heaven!

This week, I encourage you to ask God, as I did, if there are any familiar areas you’ve allowed bitterness or contempt to contaminate your heart because of past experiences. Has what you “know” of someone, or something kept you from hearing what God would say? How much more hope would we have for our families, our churches, our cities, our nation, the global Body of Christ, and the world, if we could see His intention instead of the circumstances? What is He saying that we haven’t heard because we’ve allowed
contempt to contaminate our faith? Even now, allow the purity and sweetness of His presence to break off everything that would hinder you from seeing as He sees. He has such good things for us! It is His good pleasure to give us the kingdom of heaven, and He will do above and beyond all we can ask or imagine, if we will just believe Him!

I believe we often overcomplicate the Gospel and this week, I’ve been thinking about the power of a simple yes. The invitation to follow Jesus has been issued to everyone on earth. The Father is calling us all to come receive life. As Jesus is lifted up, all men are drawn to Him, but everyone must choose to respond. Everyone will either say yes or no to the call of heaven.

However, the choice to say yes is not agreement with a religion, a lifestyle, or a set of rules. Our yes must be to Him.

The religious people of Jesus’ day deceived themselves into believing their good works justified them before God. They did not rely on God’s goodness, but on their own perceived success. They lived as though the more they fasted, the louder they prayed, the better they kept the rules, the holier they would be, but Jesus rebuked them harshly. In Matthew 23:10-32, He calls them hypocrites, blind guides, and children of hell just to name a few. In verses 27-28, He says,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So, you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

If the choices we make are attempts to appear a certain way to ourselves or anyone else, we have already missed the mark. The purpose of God’s instruction is to change our hearts and draw us to Him. We know it was not the law itself that led to the Pharisees’ dead religion. Jesus kept God’s commands perfectly and walked in life, because every act of obedience was in communion with the Father. In the same way, everything we do must be out of love and in agreement with His Word. If our religious activities are to satisfy an outward expectation, we are no better than the Pharisees. If our religious activities don’t move our hearts, we can’t expect them to move God’s heart!

Biblical change always begins in the heart and produces outward transformation. When Peter preached the gospel to thousands after he was filled with the Holy Spirit, it says they were “cut to the heart” and asked the disciples “what do we do to be saved?” (Acts 2:37)

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is for the hearts of humanity. It’s not a religious structure. The only choice that will change a life is a yes to the call of the Father. It’s a yes to the sacrifice of the Son. It’s a yes to the work of the Holy Spirit. We must say yes and keep saying yes, every day of our lives!

While the expression of the call shifted when Jesus came to earth and died for the sins of mankind, the opportunity to answer the Father’s call has always been there. God declared to the people of Israel in Deuteronomy 30:19-20:

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to Him, for He is your life and length of days...”

The Father gave His Word, His instruction, life itself, to His people, and they had to respond to it. Jesus stepped into humanity as the Word of God made flesh. It says,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” (John 1:1,4)

Jesus is still the light of all mankind if we say yes. We choose life by saying yes to the call of heaven, again and again.

However, we must understand that while our yes is necessary, it is not our yes that saves us. It is Him alone who saves us. Ephesians 2:8-9 says,

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

It is in His grace alone that we boast! Jeremiah 9:23-24 says,

‘“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.’

We may think of boasting as bragging, but to “boast” in this scriptural context could actually just mean to celebrate. The only thing worth celebrating is the privilege of knowing Him and everything else should flow out of that relationship. He provides wisdom, health, and riches. He provides breakthrough, victory, and freedom. Good works should be a product of what He does in our hearts.

All the things that could be religious activities—fasting, prayer, attending church, etc.—are absolutely necessary in our walk with God. However, our efforts should not be in doing those things in our own strength. Those things should be done in joy as a product of our relationship with Him, because we’ve said yes. If we remember that every good thing we have is because He’s given it to us, it will be easy to boast in Him alone!

If you don’t know how to pray, we encourage you to pray one simple, life-changing prayer: yes. Even if you’ve already given your life to Jesus, continue to say yes. Yes will keep you from getting stuck. Yes will always keep your heart surrendered before Him. Say yes to the call to repentance. Say yes to the power of the blood of Jesus. Say yes to the inner work of the Holy Spirit. Say yes to the things He has for you to do. Say yes to every good thing He has waiting for you. We won’t have every answer, but we can say yes to the One who does. We won’t win every victory in one day, but we guarantee tomorrow’s victory by today’s yes. Today, we encourage you to say yes to the One who is more than able to do above all you can ask or think. He will transform us from the inside out, changing our lives by captivating our hearts, again and again and again!