Devotions

A messenger brought a frightful report to Asa, the king of Judah: a million-man army was heading toward them! The Ethiopians and Lubims had combined forces, and now this large army was racing toward Judah, bent on its destruction.

On the very day prior to this, Asa had called on the people to give thanks to the Lord for the peace and blessings they were enjoying because they had sought him. Now we read, “And there came out against them” (2 Chronicles 14:9). Overnight, Judah was at war, facing one million hostile soldiers.

So, what does a trusting servant of God do when facing such a dilemma? How does he react? Will he panic? Will he turn to the arm of man for help, or place everything into the Lord’s hands, in total trust?

What was the righteous king’s reaction?

“Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee. So the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled” (2 Chronicles 14:11–12).

Tell me, what does Asa’s reaction here say to us, the Church of Jesus Christ, today? This godly man had been given the most horrible, frightful news. He was facing incomprehensible odds against his survival, much less experiencing victory.

Beloved, the meaning of this passage is clear: It shows us that victory—impossible victory—is preserved for those who put their trust wholly in the Lord.

God, by His Spirit, creates peace—He causes it to happen—and He creates it in you.

I’m not just talking about peace with God. The peace He creates in you is peace of mind, a peace that springs up and flows within, healing, stabilizing, building confidence.

When you have such peace, you stop trying to play God. You stop trying to solve your problems and everyone else’s. You stop playing over in your mind what might happen, what fearful thing might come to pass.

Instead, you bring every thought into captivity. You are able to do this because you stand in the peace God has created in you. You begin to trust and accept His love and you start believing the promises of His Word.

Beloved, I urge you to ask the Spirit for a greater measure of faith concerning His love for you. Ask Him to create in you a greater flow of God’s peace. His peace will come supernaturally, miraculously, when you have yielded all to Him. Then the Lord will bring forth His peace as the fruit of your lips.

True peace can’t be faked; the world recognizes it when it is in someone. The Holy Spirit will make His peace in your life known to those around you. It won’t be your peace that speaks to them, but the Spirit’s. It will move them, causing them to ask you for prayer, prayer that will touch them and bring healing.

As the gathering clouds cause fear in the world, may God’s people walk according to this word from Paul: “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15).

“I create the fruit of thy lips; peace, peace” (Isaiah 57:19). This is one of the most encouraging promises in God’s Word. The Lord says He will drive out from us the spirit of fear and implant in us His supernatural spirit of peace. Isaiah repeats the word “peace” here to emphasize that it is a continual peace.

The Holy Spirit promises, “I will create peace in you.” Once we experience this peace, it will become a creative word that flows out of our lips to others.

There comes a time in each of our lives when we become totally exhausted by all the problems swirling around us—personal problems that that may involve family, friends, our job, our finances. We become exhausted from all the heartbreaking “bad news” calls that come, crises that seem to be spinning out of control.

So how do we appropriate this miraculous, omnipotent creation of peace?

First, we must admit that all our fears are caused by unbelief because we have not fully trusted the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

The Spirit of God is the absolute fullness of divine love: all-caring, like a mother; greater in power than all principalities in hell; knowing all things. Yet, even though we know this, we often sit in the Spirit’s presence murmuring and complaining, thinking the way abandoned children do.

I tell you, no believer can be healed of the spirit of fear—or find peace—until he or she commits all things into the Spirit’s loving hands. We must give up all to His will, trusting that “He who lives in me is greater than he that is in the world” (see 1 John 4:4).

As Jesus was teaching in the synagogue, a man possessed by an evil spirit cried out, “Why are you interfering with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” (Luke 4:33, NLT).

Look at that question, “Have you come to destroy us?” Now we’re really hitting a home run here, because Jesus doesn’t just interfere, He destroys. 

I am so blessed to hear the word “destroyed” in this text because if something is just interfered with, my fear is that it might come back. Has anybody ever had anything that went away and then came back? Last year at this time I said I was going to lose twenty pounds. Well, I lost twenty pounds and then I gained it all back—plus five more. So for me, interfering is insufficient. I need the thing destroyed, how about you?

We thank God that He interferes, but most of all we are glad He destroys the works of the enemy. Jesus said, “I came to destroy the works of the evil one.” If a whole plan was written against you in the pit of hell, He would not just interfere with it, like cross off one point, but He would take that plan, tear it into a thousand pieces, and throw it into the fire. Satan would ask, “What did you do with my plan, my intentions to destroy this person’s life?”

“The Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil” (see 1 John 3:8).

Jesus destroys what was aimed at destroying you, did you know that? He’s there to destroy the powers of darkness in your life.

Paul’s last letter was written to Timothy, a young minister he had ordained. Paul said: “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:6-7, NIV). We get a picture of a fire that’s almost out, embers that need to be breathed on to keep the fire alive. Paul wanted Timothy to fan the flames of the Spirit. He warned Timothy not to neglect them, but to stir up the fire and keep it going. Whatever Timothy did, he was to prevent the fire from being extinguished; he was to give attention to the Spirit’s work in him. Without that anointing, Timothy would never fulfill the purposes of God for his life.

Charles Finney, a nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister and former president of Oberlin College, preached a series of lectures on revivals of religion, which later became a book and is now considered a spiritual classic. In it he describes three key points about the Holy Spirit:

• Jesus promised the Spirit’s fullness. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
• Scripture commands Christians to be filled with the Holy Spirit. “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). Just as there are commands to love one another and not to steal, “be filled with the Spirit” is no different. It is expressed in the imperative form, meaning it is a command no different from any other biblical command.
• The fullness of the Spirit is a necessity in our lives. When Jesus declared, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), He meant what He said.

When God takes control of a life or a church, He takes control through the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is the Helper Jesus sent to do the job. When we fear giving control to the Spirit, we really fear God’s control over our lives. When we refuse to yield to the Spirit, we miss out on the holy excitement of living beyond ourselves.

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.