The anointing God gives is powerfully useful to advance His kingdom. It becomes however, a matter of vision and focus to properly use what God gives. I think of men like Samson who with the strength God gave, delivered a nation, until he became focused on his own pleasure and his strength failed. When men choose to look away from God, their faith becomes paralyzed by fear. In the book of Samuel, David stands as a picture of faith and focus. He becomes God’s tool to set the record straight for us there in a valley between two mountains of influence. David stands against that Goliath in your life that has continued to degrade your faith and usefulness to God’s kingdom. Have you misused your freedom in Christ because you were looking the other way? Your wayward look has brought you under a yoke of fear and bondage keeping you from advancing where God would have you go. No war was ever won with decisive victory by talking the enemy to death. No sir, victory will requires decisive action. It’s the obedience factor to the word which we hear. God wants to use us, but not until fear is gone and the enemy is silenced. In some real sense our Christianity has become too much a product of our culture. Our reality based TV shows have influenced ‘real life‘ for too many believers. It’s like everyone is in the same pot of water and it is beginning to boil watching the same images that promote real-life moral decay in a society that says they are ok with everything while standing for nothing. Everyone is drinking out of the same bottle and it has made them drunk with the wine of immorality; time is past for passivity and not speaking up. It is time for God’s people to act and to move with Him. Where the enemy taunts, God calls to action. The questions are these: Will you be caught looking with the masses the other way, or will you recognize the anointing God has bestowed on you? Will you move with God to behold the situation that lies before you with the eyes of faith and focus? Will you expose the enemy’s lies to you–about you–sent to defeat God‘s purpose in you–so that you fail to possess that inheritance He’s given you? I believe God wants to bring you to a valley; it is a valley of decision, it’s a valley of deliverance. The valley is to address your passivity and blindness. In 1 Samuel 17, David represents here a type of Christ, sent to deliver a nation because he was not afraid to enter the fray. Unafraid to move forward there in the valley of decision–in the valley where forces collide. There is a valley in your life of two opposing forces, one of God and the other contrary to His will and His way. In that valley there is a very real enemy who taunts and scoffs at the things of God and at those who find themselves on His side, however timid they might be. He calls out to you; He taunts in this very hour. The word says, ‘Goliath, the champion came out to Israel and taunted God’s army’. Goliath, the word says was over nine feet tall. He was big, just not as big as the lie he and everyone else had believed, but David would not be part of that culture of fear. He had come from outside that culture–from the sheepfolds and a place where he had witnessed God’s ability to deliver from death. You see the enemy is a champion of fear; he champions fear by telling lies that he will prevail and not you. He looks to cast aspersions on your character and ability by telling you, ‘you’re not mature enough, not big or strong enough’. All of those things being what they are, still he underestimates the greatness of your God when you stand in the window of opportunity and say what God says. The word says, David ‘ran quickly to the battle line’ and took decisive action because the time for talking had past, and the need for swift action had come. Deliberate action in faith gets God’s attention and His favor, so that you do not act alone. His awesome power will move with you, bringing you to see victory and the prevailing word of God that will bring all those around you under the influence of His word and power. When you move in faith through your Goliath, you create a testimony God then uses to publish His fame in a way like you could never imagine. Your single act of obedience creates a single spark…but driven by a great wind that spreads the power of His name like wildfire. David in his youthful zeal would serve at God’s pleasure to tell a story of timeless influence proving, if but one thing, that God needs little more that your readiness to be His instrument. You see, man has a fame that awards himself, but God rewards and uses those who lay self aside–there on the battle line of His reputation to call forth glory in the face of the foolish. Are you listening to the Enemy’s degrading taunt? How’s it working out for you? Run to the battle line of obedience and sling the truth of God’s word letting it fly with boldness to declare the Greatness of YOUR God who slays the champion of fear.
Tag: God
Beyond the Baggage
Remember the word given to Saul? Namely this, that he would would be changed into another man and would be numbered among the prophets. There was however with Saul an uncertainty that left him timid and restrained from doing God’s will. With all of us, God seeks to do a new thing, but the timid of spirit can’t see it–its view is clouded by all the baggage. Get it! God says ‘you will be endued with mighty power and with the mind to receive what I would do on your behalf; you will be changed by a heart touched by my love and declare My word to men.’ The word says as much in 2 Timothy 1:7 when it says, ‘God has not given us a spirit of fear or timidity but one of power and love and sound judgement.’ Samuel declared of the Lord’s chosen, ‘see there is none like him in all the land’. The New Testament says we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood and yet we too easily miss His mighty acts because we all too often dwell with the timid and not the humble. Saul’s royal life was haunted by that timid spirit, and he never got rid of the baggage he was hiding behind. Timidity will keep you in “Yourself” while humility will take you beyond yourself to behold what God will do just because He said so. Humility will give you a front row seat to God’s glory, but timidity leaves you blocked off with a very realistic view of yourself and no faith to see beyond the strength of your own hand. I recently found myself frustrated and angry because I could not change a particular situation that I was facing. God revealed my frustration was borne of a timid spirit causing me a place of grief instead of seeing the way of victory. The timid never go past the frustration, but continue with a passive approach that leaves them disappointed and missing the full plan of God. He showed my need to dwell with the broken not the timid. In that moment of anxiety God revealed this: the timid fail to see His move because of many reasons all driven by fear, but the broken humbly take a seat of rest by a window of recovery to behold what God says and moreover what He would do. Saul became King, but failed to possess all God had intended because he was slave to his own thinking. It left him angry and disappointed not full–timid but not broken. And the end of his life was spent still trying to change the situation by His own methods missing God by a half a step. What about you…want to be angry for the way things are turning out? The timid spirit will keep you there–mad but unable to really do anything about it. That is why it is so frustrating because there is really nothing “you” can do there behind all that baggage hiding from God’s favor. God says, ‘why don’t you look to the word that I’ve given to you as sons?’ ‘I have not given you a spirit of fear and slavery, but I give a Spirit of love so your heart becomes mine. I give a Spirit of power–an unction moving your life from uncertainty to possess the things I have said on your behalf, because son, there is to be none like you, so that I might declare my life through yours. I have given you a Spirit of discipline to think with sound judgement so you can work my plan not your own with the unlimited ability of my resources to accomplish the word I will send before you. I offer you today sound judgment enabling you to think like sons not slaves. Today, which will you be?’ He further says, ‘kindle afresh the gift of God by the Spirit I have given to you, which is powerfully appointed to enable you to focus and to act as sons.’
Change My Heart O God
There is a instance in the dialogue between the prophet Samuel and the newly appointed King Saul concerning what would be for the Lord’s chosen vessel. Samuel said, ‘The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightly and you shall prophecy, and you shall be changed into another man. The word states in 1 Samuel 10:9, after being told he must wait, ‘God changed Saul’s heart in one day’. The point is that in one instant God with one thought, one word can powerfully change your heart to His. The question for you today as was always with Saul is this; will you serve God under His distinct annointing which can loose your tongue and change your life? Today I am impressioned with the simple little song which says, “Change my heart O God, make more like you….” So great is His influence He can change your heart today! A friend recently shared a letter written by Corrie Ten Boom in which she declares strength for every believer in these days by saying each must find their own Pentecost and be endued with power for what comes on the whole world. Will you get yourself still before the Lord today and let Him inspire and create in you a clean heart filling your life with His power and purpose? You are His Ambassador–but only with the changes He can make in your heart–today!
A Tale of Two Trains
I received a vision of a train–one bound for nowhere, the other for glory. From the station they appear to run along parallel tracks; one however, merely circles the city while the other moves swiftly and westerly out from all that looks like progress through a valley and then on to a mountain summit. It is really a picture of faith. Take for example the story of Abraham and Lot. One wanted the city, the other took the heights. Abraham, if you will, took the outbound train for glory by faith to believe God that glory was in moving out and taking possession rather that circling that which he could never fully possess. Scores of believers are literally being taken for a ride on the inside track. It is a ride of deceptive influence where the enemy is the “Thief Conductor”. He makes his passengers comfortable and happy and there are many stops along the way. All the lively excitement enriches the senses, but leads the spirit of man nowhere and for no cause greater than self. In Mark 8:17 Jesus asks His disciples, ‘do you have a dull and insensible heart?’ Repentance will be the mark of true believers in these last days–sin however, will keep you with an inflated view of the obvious missing the discerning influence of the Glory Train–its riders are under the influence of faith because they are hearing a word made more clear as they have a seat by the window with a view of the God inspired not the man-made. Riders of this outbound train have taken the seat of faith for a ride that would seem less certain in its destination, yet the word of the Conductor has a settling effect as they move away from the familiar to experience a revelation God himself could only reveal. David Wilkerson has said, many have knowledge, but no revelation of Jesus. One train deludes, the other reveals. Which train will you ride? One is content only with knowledge, but never finds repentance from circular things. The other is a train of trust where passengers ride because God says, ‘I have greater things for you, and your confession of My Lordship will be your release to board’. Do you find yourself on the inside tracks going round again? You know your are on the wrong train being taken for a ride when God shows you something, but it serves you little benefit. It means you have a thief for a conductor. Truth is, as believers we have all spent far too much time riding the inside rails and not the outbound train. God says don’t be foolish; get off at the next stop and make the connection for the Glory Train. There is one leaving from a stop very near where you live….