Devotions

Are you being pressed on all sides and tested beyond your endurance? Is your strength nearly gone, leaving you on the brink of giving up? If this is the case, what is your way to victory? I can tell you how God continues to bring me out.

First, do not think you are experiencing some strange, unique battle. On the contrary! You are in good company. Remember Job, Jeremiah, Elijah, David, Paul? What you are going through has been common to believers throughout the centuries.

“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:12-13).

Second, when you think you cannot go another step or endure another hour, with all that is in you cry out to God, “Lord, help!” Then consider the counsel of the psalmist:

“I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice. He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me” (Psalm 55:16-18).

“I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. . . . In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears” (Psalm 18:3, 6).

^“O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me” (Psalm 30:2).

And here is a key verse: “For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper” (Psalm 72:12).

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be your helper and He will not turn a deaf ear to your cry for help! 

“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock” (Matthew 7:24).

Beloved, you are not building upon the rock if you need a preacher to thunder at you to obey God. Or if you need a set of rules laid out for you. You don’t need a rule book, you need a passionate love for Jesus.

The more you love Jesus, the easier it is to serve and obey Him. When your heart is enraptured with Jesus, you won’t have to constantly go before Him, crying, “God, break the power of the devil over me.” No, those chains will begin to fall off as you get to know His heart, and obeying Him will become second nature to you.

If you are in love with Jesus, I have several questions for you:

How can you go through the day without spending time in His Word?

How can you not yearn to get alone with Him in prayer?

How can you not praise and worship Him?

How can you not seek to learn what pleases Him?

Jesus tells us, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). What an incredible promise!

Search the gospels and get to know Jesus’ words. Begin with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 and read through chapter 7. And then as you learn His words, do them! God’s commandments are not grievous or burdensome. On the contrary, obeying them becomes easier the more you grow to love Him.

As you build your house upon the rock, you will be able to stand unafraid when the storm comes. Nothing will move you — because you are walking in loving obedience to the Father. 

Did you know that Satan sometimes puts people in league together just to hinder your labors for God? They come together in an effort to discourage you or discount your ministry. But if you are on a divine mission — called to do a work for the Lord — no plot against you will work.

Nehemiah was called by God to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. The work was progressing wonderfully when Satan stirred up a hornets’ nest to hinder it all. Four very prominent leaders joined in a plot “to do [Nehemiah] mischief” (see Nehemiah 6:2).

Four times these leaders set a trap for Nehemiah and called out to him, “We insist that you come down off your wall and talk with us!” But four times Nehemiah replied, “I’m not coming down off the wall. I have work to do because God ordained that I do it” (see verse 3).

Beloved, do not get involved with people who just want to argue. It is meant to be a distraction and you must go on with God’s work. Understand, the reason Satan comes against your prayer life, your consecration, and your walk with Him, is not just to bring you down. He also wants to ruin the ministry God has given you and destroy anything that brings glory to the Father.

These leaders began a rash of rumors against Nehemiah that prejudiced many against him. All these plots were designed to put fear into Nehemiah’s heart so he would become discouraged and run.

But none of those snares could stop the work of God! Scripture states, “So the wall was finished. . . . And it came to pass, that when all our enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were about us saw these things, they were much cast down in their own eyes; for they perceived that this was wrought of our God” (6:15-16).

When you remain steadfast, the work of God will go on and others around will take notice and glorify Him along with you. 

Jezreel was a city that excelled in warfare because of its vast fleet of chariots. Chariots represent the strength of man and signify the power to speed ahead with great agility and power.  

We have a “chariot lifestyle” today — one of comfort and ease where all our needs are provided. And if we want to do something, we just go ahead and do it.

The chariot lifestyle can have great appeal to Christians with its standards of success — material wealth, security, comfort. But the true servant of God does not seek these things primarily; instead, he seeks to obey his Master’s voice and pursue the concerns of His kingdom. This follower learns early in his faith walk that by pursuing the Lord first, “all these things (food, clothing, shelter) will be added to him” (Matthew 6:33).  

Elijah knew better than to look to the world’s resources. Imagine the scene as he addressed King Ahab, perched high in his brilliant chariot, towering over the lowly prophet. Yes, Elijah spoke boldly to Ahab, “Prepare your chariot and go down” (1 Kings 18:44, ESV). But next we read, “The hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to . . . Jezreel” (verse 46). God’s man outran a chariot over a distance of many miles! How did Elijah accomplish this? The phrase “gathered up his garment” means that he prepared himself for the race.

When Peter says to “gird up the loins of your mind” in 1 Peter 1:13, he is saying that we need to prepare ourselves for the contest by reinforcing our belief and trust in the Lord. And the apostle Paul used running a race as a picture of our Christian life. In his final epistle, he said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

We, too, can run with strength and win the prize if we properly prepare for the race. 

Many of us want more of God but not to the point of being ridiculed. Our Western minds think, “I will serve the Lord, but I will remain in control.” But that is not how the Church began. The Church began with Spirit-controlled Christians who yielded themselves to God. That’s radical, yes, but that’s the way the Lord did it.

Some might say, “Yeah, but we’ve improved upon that New Testament style of Christianity.” If so, I want to see the spiritual fruit our improvements have produced. People may have mocked those first, “unsophisticated” Christians, but thousands got saved in the first four chapters of Acts. The Word of God was treasured. The churches were filled with sacrificial love. A holy excitement pervaded the atmosphere. Have we really improved upon that?

In Acts 2, while the disciples gathered in one place, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in languages they didn’t know. I don’t want to debate speaking in tongues, but I want to point out that when the Spirit came upon them, they immediately began to do something they could not do naturally. “When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: ‘Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?’” (Acts 2:6-8).

The disciples were speaking in actual languages they did not know. They were doing something that could have no other explanation than that God was the source. An undeniable expression of Spirit-controlled living is that we will be lifted above the limitations of mere natural talents and abilities.

The irony of Spirit-filled living is that we have to give up power in order to gain a greater power. How many times have you had trouble doing something, so you just tried harder? Have you ever tried harder to have the self-discipline to read your Bible more or pray longer? To love an unlovely person? To be bold when you felt afraid? How did that work out for you?

Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.