Devotions

One of the important secrets to obtaining the blessing of God is giving! When Moses was giving his final instructions and farewell address to the Israelites, he gave specific instructions about something called “the third-year tithe.” Unlike the regular tithe, or ten percent annual offering, the third-year tithe was reserved for a different purpose.

“At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands” (Deuteronomy 14:28-29).

It is important to see what God was doing here. Every third year, the towns of Israel became huge storage centers for the tithes of this agricultural nation. Because the priests from the tribe of Levi were not allowed to own land, God insisted that the people provide for them in a special way. But that was not all. This tithe was also earmarked for the vulnerable and underprivileged among them.

What a marvelous, compassionate God we serve. He always has a special place in his heart for the weak, brokenhearted and rejected among his people. Compassion and concern for the downtrodden is rooted in the very heart of our Creator.

However, there was even more to the third-year tithe than supplying for the priests and the needy. Israel was to give generously “so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.” It seems that the act of joyfully giving to others actually opened up the windows of heaven so that the people themselves could be blessed.

God still wants to do extraordinary things for his followers who imitate him in compassionate giving. This is a profound truth that we would do well to apply to our daily living.

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.

In the early years of the Church, a great persecution took place. During that awful period, the apostle John was taken prisoner and sent to Rome before being banished to the Isle of Patmos to die. Patmos was a small, desolate place inhabited by only a few other prisoners who had been exiled there.

When John disembarked at Patmos, he was left stranded, forsaken, isolated. He would later write, “I am banished to Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ” (see Revelation 1:9).

Why was John, a disciple of Jesus, given such a sentence? And why was Rome, the world’s ruling power, desperate to isolate him from civilization? Clearly, Rome considered him a threat, as he was obviously renowned among both Jews and Gentiles.

Now, John would be looked upon as a failure. If he were measured by the current standards of success, he would be considered worth nothing: he had no congregation, no church building, no money, no vehicle, no house, no decent clothes.

But how wrong everyone would be! Something incredible happened to John after his first few days on Patmos. He made a decision that impacted the entire church world for eternity. Simply put, John died to all his own plans and thought of ministry. As far as he knew, his exile on Patmos was his final lot but he determined to worship God. “I’m going to walk in the Spirit and give myself to seeking the face of God. Now I have time to get to know him as I never have.”

John’s life was reduced to a single focus: Jesus Christ alone. And he said, in essence, “All I will ever need is prayer, worship and communion with Lord.” It was there on Patmos that John learned to be dependent on the voice of Holy Spirit. And the good news is that later, John was given his freedom and his writings became an anointed light to the world.  

You don’t need to be isolated in order to give yourself wholly to communion with the Lord. God will meet you right where you are, at any time of day or night, if you will just call out to him.

Daniel testified, “Suddenly, a hand touched me, which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hands” (Daniel 10:10). The word for “touched” here means to violently seize upon. Daniel was saying, “When God placed his hand on me, it put me on my face; his touch filled me with an urgency to seek him with all that is in me.”

God-touched servants have an intimate relationship with Lord. They receive revelations from heaven and enjoy a walk with Christ that few others do. Whenever God touches someone’s life, that person often falls to his knees and he becomes a person of prayer, driven to seek the Lord. I’ve often wondered why God touches only certain people with this urgency. Why do some servants become hungry seekers after him while other faithful people go on their way?  

Daniel, a devoted servant, was touched by God in a supernatural way. There were many other good, pious people serving the Lord in Daniel’s day. These included Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and tens of thousands of other Israelites who maintained their faith while enslaved in Babylon.

So, why did God lay his hand on Daniel and touch him as he did? Why was this one man able to see and hear things no one else could? “I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, for the men who were with me did not see the vision” (Daniel 10:7). The vision Daniel saw was Jesus himself, clear and vivid. In fact, it was the same vision given to John on the Isle of Patmos (see Revelation 1:13-15).

The Lord revealed himself to Daniel in the way he did because this young man was consumed with a passion to know God’s heart. Also, God decided the time had come to deliver a message to lost humanity and he needed a voice to speak his message.

The Lord is looking for those today who are consumed with knowing him and will grieve over the moral condition in our society — while also eagerly looking for Christ’s coming.

You have heard of the prayer of faith but I believe there is a mirror image of this prayer that is based on flesh — the prayer of unbelief. Such prayer is totally unacceptable to God; in fact, Scripture says it is sinful in his eyes.

Moses, a godly, praying man who had followed God’s calling at every step came to a crisis in his life. The Israelites were being chased by Pharaoh and there was absolutely no hope of escape except to go through the Red Sea. Moses knew in his heart that this crisis was ordained of God and yet, the panicked cries of hundreds of thousands of people were ringing in his ears, so he went to an isolated hillside and loudly poured out his heart in prayer. God did not take kindly to his all-night crying because it was evidence of a root of unbelief in his heart.

I doubt that you ever heard the Lord tell you, “Quit crying and get up off your knees.” But the Lord rebuked Moses, “Why do you cry to Me?” (Exodus 14:15). The literal Hebrew meaning of this verse is, “Why are you shrieking at me?”

Why would God say this to Moses? Because when God called Moses to deliver Israel, he promised to give him a voice that people would listen to (see Exodus 3:18). However, Moses responded with unbelief, “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you’” (4:1).

Think how foolish Moses’ unbelief was. By God’s power, he had already performed incredible wonders and he later experienced face-to-face intimacy with God. But here at the Red Sea, he hesitated in unbelief and God commanded, “Take spiritual authority over this crisis and move forward in faith. Hours from now, you’ll be dancing with joy.”

As we face our own crises, we may convince ourselves that prayer is the most important thing we can do. But a time comes when God calls us to act, to obey his Word in faith, lest our prayers be offered in unbelief.

“If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15, NKJV). Jesus forgave us out of his goodness and mercy and, likewise, he says we are to be loving and merciful toward our brothers and sisters.

Paul refers to Jesus’ command, saying, “Even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do” (Colossians 3:13). He then expounds on how we pursue obedience to this command: “Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another; if anyone has a complaint against another … above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection” (3:12-14).

What does it mean to “bear with one another” or, as it reads in the King James Version, to be “forbearing”? The Greek word means “to put up with, to tolerate.” This suggests enduring things we don’t like. We are being told to tolerate the failures of others, to put up with ways we do not understand.

At an overseas conference where I was scheduled to speak, several prominent ministers warned me against cooperating with a particular minister, claiming he was into bizarre worship and other things they considered foolish. Yet, when I met that pastor, I saw Christ in him; he was a kind, loving, gentle man of prayer. I realized that these ministers refused to “bear with” a brother in Christ merely because they had differences in style.

Why do servants of God, who have been forgiven so much personally, mistreat their brethren and refuse to fellowship with them? I believe it can be traced back to a struggle to understand and accept God’s mercy and goodness, a trap all of us can fall into if we are not careful. We must diligently seek to trust the Lord for patience, mercy and love toward others.