Victory Is Just a Prayer Away

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Uphold me according unto Thy Word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope. Psalm 119:116

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Do you feel like you’re in a prison cell of sorts today? Every door shuts in your face? Maybe you’re in a prison of despair and doubt. Perhaps you just heard from the doctor and received a bad report, or are dreading a visit this week. Maybe you’re in a financial prison of debt. Or a domestic prison of abuse. You feel there is no way out. 

Paul did much of his writing from a prison cell.

Friend, I want to tell you, there IS a way out for you. God is still on His throne. He hears and answers every prayer.

Victory over your situation is just a prayer away. The circumstances may not change, but your perspective and attitude will change as you begin to pray and praise God. There is no need you and I have that God cannot meet.

ACTION POINT:

Pray this prayer today: “Father, I need You. I need You to forgive me where I have failed You. I need You to change my heart and strengthen my faith so I see my circumstances not as a prison but as a palace—a place from which You are going to work in my life. Change my attitude from dread to joy, from jealousy to contentment, from worry to trust. I love You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Talk to Your Tears

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. (Psalm 126:5–6)

There is nothing sad about sowing seed. It takes no more work than reaping. The days can be beautiful. There can be great hope of harvest.

Yet the psalm speaks of sowing “in tears.” It says that someone “goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing.” So, why are they weeping?

I think the reason is not that sowing is sad, or that sowing is hard. I think the reason has nothing to do with sowing. Sowing is simply the work that has to be done, even when there are things in life that make us cry.

The crops won’t wait while we finish our grief or solve all our problems. If we are going to eat next winter, we must get out in the field and sow the seed, whether we are crying or not.

If you do that, the promise of the psalm is that you will “reap with shouts of joy.” You will “come home with shouts of joy, bringing [your] sheaves with [you].” Not because the tears of sowing produce the joy of reaping, but because the sheer sowing produces the reaping, and you need to remember this even when your tears tempt you to give up sowing.

So, here’s the lesson: When there are simple, straightforward jobs to be done, and you are full of sadness, and tears are flowing easily, go ahead and do the jobs with tears. Be realistic. Say to your tears, “Tears, I feel you. You make me want to quit life. But there is a field to be sown (dishes to be washed, car to be fixed, sermon to be written).”

Then say, on the basis of God’s word, “Tears, I know that you will not stay forever. The very fact that I just do my work (tears and all) will in the end bring a harvest of blessing. So, go ahead and flow if you must. But I believe — though I do not yet see it or feel it fully — I believe that the simple work of my sowing will bring sheaves of harvest. And my tears will be turned to joy.”

John Piper 

Who’s in the Spotlight?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me. John 15:26

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Some people get caught up in what they believe are the actions of the Holy Spirit. They turn their focus to miracles, healings, signs, and more. Friend, beware of those who make the Holy Spirit the figurehead of their faith, because this does not best describe the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit.

In John 15:26, Jesus says that when the Holy Spirit comes, He will “testify of Me.” The Holy Spirit has one cause: to testify of Jesus Christ. He is single-minded. He’s not interested in doing ten things for God – just one. This is the cause of the Spirit: “He will not speak of Himself, but He will glorify Me.”

The mark of a person who’s filled with the Holy Spirit is not that they’re always talking about the fact that they’re filled with the Spirit, but that they’re always glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ.

ACTION POINT:

I challenge you to make this pledge to God: I will bring my talents, my business, my time, and my resources – all for the cause of Christ. This one thing I do – sink or swim, live or die – Jesus will be glorified in my life today and every day!

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

You Cannot Lose in the End

“You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” (Matthew 27:65)

When Jesus was dead and buried, with a big stone rolled against the tomb, the Pharisees came to Pilate and asked for permission to seal the stone and guard the tomb.

They gave it their best shot — in vain.

It was hopeless then, it is hopeless today, and it will always be hopeless. Try as they may, people can’t keep Jesus down. They can’t keep him buried.

It’s not hard to figure out: He can break out because he wasn’t forced in. He let himself be libeled and harassed and blackballed and scorned and shoved around and killed.

I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. (John 10:17–18)

No one can keep him down because no one ever knocked him down. He lay down when he was ready.

When it looks like he is buried for good, Jesus is doing something awesome in the dark. “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how” (Mark 4:26–27).

The world thinks Jesus is done for — out of the way — but Jesus is at work in the dark places. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). He let himself be buried — “no one takes [my life] from me” — and he will come out in power when and where he pleases — “I have authority to take it up again.”

“God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24). Jesus has his priesthood today “by the power of an indestructible life” (Hebrews 7:16).

For twenty centuries, the world has given it their best shot — in vain. They can’t bury him. They can’t hold him in. They can’t silence him or limit him. Jesus is alive and utterly free to go and come wherever he pleases.

Trust him and go with him, no matter what. You cannot lose in the end.

John Piper 

Are you willing to obey at any cost?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. Hebrews 11:8

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Who knows what marvelous opportunity God has for you when you’re sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading. Don’t say, “Show me what You want me to do; then I’ll decide whether or not to do it.” Instead say, “I’ll do it – whatever it is. You tell me. If You explain it, fine. If You don’t, fine. But God, I’m going to do it.”

Abraham is known as “the father of the faithful’ (Romans 4:16). His name is in the Bible 230 times. He went out from his familiar homeland not knowing where God would send him. The “Faith Hall of Fame” (Hebrews 11) devotes verses 8-19 to Abraham and his wife, Sarah.

What level of faith did he have? Faith so strong, Genesis 15:6 says his faith was “reckoned to him as righteousness.” “In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, ‘so shall your descendants be’”(Romans 4:18). God Himself even called Abraham His friend (Isaiah 41:8).

ACTION POINT:

Are you ready to travel under sealed orders? If you are married, talk to your spouse about your availability as a couple to God. I know some who were willing to sell their home, take their children and go even to another city or country to share God’s plan of salvation. Would you do that if He called you there? If not, ask Him to change your heart. It may not be anything so dramatic as that for you. It may be in your office or on your own street. Say, “Lord, make me willing to be willing for whatever you would have me do.” He is the potter; you are the clay.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Great King’s Wine

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

I have never heard anyone say, “The really deep lessons of my life have come through times of ease and comfort.” But I have heard strong saints say, “Every significant advance I have ever made in grasping the depths of God’s love and growing deep with him, has come through suffering.”

This is a sobering biblical truth. For example: “For [Christ’s] sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). Paraphrase: No pain, no gain. Or:

Now let it all be sacrificed, if it will get me more of Christ.

Here’s another example: “Although he was a son, [Jesus] learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). The same book said he never sinned (Hebrews 4:15).

So learning obedience does not mean switching from disobedience to obedience. It means growing deeper and deeper with God in the experience of obedience. It means experiencing depths of yieldedness to God that would not have been otherwise attained. This is what came through suffering. No pain, no gain.

Samuel Rutherford said that when he was cast into the cellars of affliction, he remembered that the great King always kept his wine there. Charles Spurgeon said, “They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.”

Do you not love your beloved more when you feel some strange pain that makes you think you have cancer? We are strange creatures indeed. If we have health and peace and time to love, it can become a thin and hasty thing. But if we are dying, love becomes a deep, slow river of inexpressible joy, and we can scarcely endure to give it up.

Therefore brothers and sisters, “Count it all joy . . . when you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2).

John Piper 

Are you…Available? Expendable? Adaptable?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Colossians 2:8

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Jesus never put the “traditions of men” above the Word of God (see Mark 7:1-13). What about you? Are you willing to adapt your life so God might use you? Or had you rather hold onto comfortable, familiar traditions?

I believe every Christian should exhibit these 3 qualities:

availability

expendability

adaptability

We need to be walking with the Lord so closely, we’re ready to witness at a moment’s notice—availability. Ready to be spent in His cause--expendability. Ready to be sent on a commission from Him--adaptability.

It’s the joining together of God’s ability and your availability that gets His work done in this world. It’s His power and your personality. It’s His work and your witness. That’s God’s plan!

ACTION POINT:

Let’s say someone comes to you right now with the sole purpose of asking you how they can have a personal relationship with God. What would you say? Would you be prepared? Be ready today to give an answer for the hope that is within you (see 1 Peter 3:15).

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers