It Takes Great Faith To Believe That God Is With You

                                                 When The Door Slams

Because of my adversaries, show me Your way, LORD, and lead me on a level path. Do not give me over to the will of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing violence. I am certain that I will see the LORD's goodness in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and courageous. Wait for the LORD.              (Psalm 27:11-14 HCSB)  

            There will be points in your life when you are utterly incapable of affecting the outcome of a situation you find yourself in. At times like this, you have no choice but to wait for the Lord and trust Him to act. Often, it then takes great faith to believe that God is with you, because He might seem very distant or He has turned away from you. This is why Isaiah said, "I will wait on the LORD, who hides His face from the house of Jacob; and I will hope in Him" (Isaiah 8:17 NKJV). 

            If you have sinned and disobeyed the Lord, chances are good that He actually has turned His face from you and is not listening to your prayers (Isaiah 59:1-2). But if you have sincerely repented, then there are no longer any issues between you, and you simply have to believe that God loves you and will act on your behalf.

            Think about this: This takes faith. You might go through a time of testing just like Job, who was convinced for several months that God was against him. During such lonely sojourns, you must trust God's Word, not your feelings, and believe that "the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him" (Psalm 103:17 KJV). 

            This can be a difficult time, and what will sustain you is the knowledge that God is good and He will eventually come through for you and resolve the situation.

            Confession: I had heard rumors about You, but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I take back my words and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:5-6 HCSB).  

Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness. 

                                                    Never Rest Ministries              

Wherever The Light Is, The darkness Tries To Put It Out

                                                 When The Door Slams

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man' I put aside childish things. For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. Now three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.                                                                                                                      (1 Corinthian 13:11-13 HCSB)

            What accounts for all the anger and horror in the world around us? Where are the angels? Can they come if we refuse to believe in them? What accounts for the darkness in human hearts as the world becomes more and more secular? Why are people turning to drugs for comfort rather than to the Light of Love? I don't know the answers to these questions. But I do know that wherever the light is, the darkness tries to snuff it out. 

            Perhaps all the terrible things that are happening are, indeed, a sign that the Spirit of Love is MIA, that more and more of us are turning to this ferocious power who pushes us into doing what we don't think we can do, who gives us courage we never dreamed we had. I take the devil and his crafty plans seriously indeed. One thing which we can count on the devil to do is to take the original good which God created, and try to make something ugly out of it. Sometimes he succeeds--though that does not make the original good any less good. There are people today who play with the powers of love, who take them trivially, who seek easy answers. 

            Think about this: There are no easy answers, but I think we need to be aware that if we deny the world beyond the world of technology and provable fact, we do to our own pitfall. "The miracles of Jesus were the ordinary works of His Father, wrought small and swift that we might take them in." 

            Affirmation: Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: Because of You we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered                                           (Romans 8:35-36). 

Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness     

                                                    Never Rest Ministries 

Our Faith Or Unbelief Is Determined By Our Understanding

                                                When The Door Slams

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrew 4:14-16 NIV)      

            Our faith or unbelief is determined by what we understand. Few of us realize the effect of our spoken word on our own hearts or on our adversary. The adversary hears us when we profess failure, sickness, and the lack of finances, apparently he doesn't forget; and we unconsciously go down to the level of our own understanding. No one ever rises above it. If you confess sickness, it develops sickness in your system. If you confess doubt, the doubts become stronger. If you confess the lack of finances, it stops the money from coming in. You say, "I can't understand this." No. Because most of us live in a paradox realm and spiritual things are very indistinct.

            Hebrews 4:14 must become a constant reality: "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our  confession "(NKJV). Our confession is that the Word cannot be broken, that what the Father says is true. When we doubt the Father, we are doubting His Word. When we doubt His Word, it is because we believe something else that is contrary to that Word. Our confidence may be in the arm of the flesh; it may be in medicine; it may be in institutions; but whatever our confidence is in, if it contradicts the Word, it destroys our faith life. It destroys our prayers. It brings us again into bondage.

            Think about this: Every person who walks by faith will have testing's. They do not come from the Father; they come from the Adversary. He is refusing to allow you to escape him. You become dangerous to the Adversary when you become strong enough to resist him--when you have learned to trust in the ability of the Father to meet your every need. When that becomes a reality in your consciousness, the Adversary is defeated. 

            But as long as he can confuse the issue and keep you in a state of flux, you are at a disadvantage. May your confidence in the Word be strengthened to give you wisdom to know that no Word from God is void of power or can go by default. There is no power in all the universe to void one statement of fact in His Word. Your confidence is in the unbroken, living Word, and as you hold fast to your faith in the face of every assault of the enemy.

            Affirmation: The LORD said to me, "You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled." The word of the LORD came to me again: "What do you see?" (Jeremiah 1:12-13 NIV)            

 Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness.

                                                    Never Rest Ministries 

The Main Tactic Of The Enemy Is Deception

                                     When The Door Slams

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:10-11 NIV)  

            We are not to be ignorant of the Devil's Tactics. We can overcome all the schemes of the devil. The devil is a schemer. A scheme is a plan, design, or program of action. The Bible talks about the wiles of the devil (Eph. 6:11) A wile is a trick or a trap. A trap is a snare. 

            Warfare involves tactics and strategies. The greatest generals are great tacticians and strategies. You cannot win without a strategy. Don't allow the enemy to strategize against you. Overcome and destroy his strategies through prayer. Traps and snares are hidden. People fall into traps unknowing. We are delivered from the snare of the fowler. A fowler is a hunter. Satan is the hunter of souls. We can release ourselves and others through prayer. 

            The main tactic of the enemy is deception. He is a liar and the father of lies. The Word of God exposes the tactics of the enemy. God is light, and His Word is light. The light exposes the enemy and tears down the darkness. 

            Multitudes of people are deceived by the enemy. There are hosts of lying and deceiving spirits that work under the authority of Satan. These spirits include delusion, deception, lying, seducing, blinding, error, and guile. Our praying can strip the power of these deceiving spirits and cause the eyes of people to be opened.

            David struggles were with natural enemies. Behind these natural enemies were spiritual ones that were opposed to the Davidic kingdom. Jesus was to come from this line and and sit upon this throne. David was fighting something beyond the natural. Through the Holy Spirit he was contending with the powers of darkness that were set against the arrival of the kingdom of God.

             The powers were also manifested through Herod, who attempted to kill the coming Messiah. Herod was driven by spirits of fear and murder. He was used by Satan to attempt to abort the coming kingdom. However, the Holy Spirit had already been loosed through the prayers of David, and Throne were secure. 

            Think about this: Many of these warfare prayers are taken from the psalms of David. Jesus is the Son of David. He sits on the throne of David's prophetic prayers were weapons against the enemy's attempt to stop the promised seed. David's victories in prayer opened the way for his throne to continue. The throne of wickedness was unable to overcome the throne of righteousness.

            David consumed his enemies (Ps. 18:37-40). He did not turn until they were destroyed . We must see our spiritual enemies completely destroyed. We must pursue the enemy. To pursue mean "to follow in order to overtake of capture." It means "to chase with hostile intent." We cannot be passive when it comes to warfare.

             Affirmation: The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. (2 Samuel 3:1)

Ask the Holly Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness.   

                                                    Never Rest Ministries