Devotions

I ask you, dear saint, if there is any regret in your life. Is an unfulfilled expectation distressing you? Has something offended you in Christ? Did you call out to Him for help, but He didn’t come in time? Have you been praying for an unsaved child without any visible results? Do you feel imprisoned in a difficult marriage or job, and yet nothing has changed despite years of prayers? Do your requests seem to be falling on deaf ears?

Right now, Satan wants you to be impatient. He wants to make you anxious about God’s promises concerning your life, your family, your future, your ministry. He’s working to convince you that God is too slow, that He has ignored your requests, that He has left you behind. The enemy wants to bring you to the point where you’re ready to give up all your confidence in the Lord.

That’s right where Satan led John the Baptist. Yet, John did the right thing in his moment of distress: he took his doubt directly to Jesus who knew immediately that John was calling for help. Jesus so loved this man that He gave him exactly what was needed. As a result, I believe John never again voiced his impatience. I’m convinced that when John stood before the executioner, his last words were, “Jesus is the Christ, the Lamb of God. And I am John, the voice crying in the wilderness. By God’s grace and power, I have made His path straight.”

Likewise, beloved, God is doing a work in you and He will finish that perfect work in your soul. Your job is simply to hold on in faith. Then, when you have endured, you’ll be able to say: “Christ is resurrected and enthroned. I am His beloved and I have no regrets. He has fulfilled all my expectations.”

“Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6).

The devil seemed to sense impatience in John the Baptist as he was being held in prison before his death. Impatience is the inability to wait or bear afflictions calmly. And when we grow impatient with God—eager to receive answers from Him—and we mix impatience with faith, our attitude in prayer becomes a “strange incense” to the Lord. It fills our being, His temple, with a noxious odor. And instead of sending up a sweet-smelling incense of prayer, we exude a foul smell. Satan picks up this scent quickly.

Impatient believers are offended when they see God working miracles all around them but not in their lives. They’re offended at what they believe is God’s slowness to answer them, and over time they feel neglected and imprisoned. Hebrews tells us such impatience is a form of spiritual laziness: “Be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12). We are instructed to follow Abraham’s example: “After he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise” (6:15).

Scripture also tells us that “the Word of God tried [Joseph]” (see Psalm 105:17-19). Likewise today, God’s promises can try us at times, and if we don’t add patience to our faith during these trials, we’ll end up being offended at God. Proverbs 18:19 states, “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.” The Hebrew word for offended as used here means to “break away, apostatize.” In other words, when we’re offended by God, there is a danger of spinning out of faith completely. And the longer we hold on to our offense, the harder it becomes to break through our prison bars of unbelief.

Yet James 1:2–4 gives us the cure: “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
 

Jesus exposed one of the enemy’s biggest methods of causing God’s people to stumble when He spoke this message to John: “Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me” (Matthew 11:6). The word for offended in Greek means “entrap, trip up, ensnare.” I believe Jesus was tenderly warning John, “You ask Me if I’m the One you have claimed I am. John, can’t you see what is happening here? Satan isn’t trying to get to Me, he is setting a trap for you through that question.”

Christ had been through the same test Himself during His forty days in the wilderness. And now He was telling John, “The devil is setting you up, trying to ensnare you. But you can’t entertain his lies. He says I’m not who I claim to be but you must not fall into this satanic trap.”

Let me ask you: What do you think is at stake in Jesus’ phrase, “offended in me”? What makes these three words so powerful? It’s that Jesus knew the consequences for John if he gave in to Satan’s lie. He knew what would happen if this godly man began to doubt who he was in Christ.

You see, all Satan had to do was trick John into speaking three words—three words that would quickly undo all the prophecies that had been delivered centuries before. All the good that God had accomplished in and through John would be undone. And the faith of untold multitudes, including generations to come, would be shipwrecked. What were the three words that Satan wanted John to utter? “I have regrets!”

The word “regret” means “distress over unfulfilled expectations.” To regret is to say, “My hopes have not been met.” In short, it is a statement that refutes one’s own faith.

Yet I believe John never got to that point. Instead, he received Jesus’ message to him, the essence of which was: “John, there awaits you a blessing of faith and reassurance if you will resist Satan’s lies. Do not allow unbelief about who I am to take root in you. If you do, you’ll doubt who you are and all that God has done in your life.”
 

God’s promises are meant to build up our expectations in Him. We are to claim His Word as the rock-solid promise of a loving, powerful Father to His children. Yet, often, when we don’t see His Word being fulfilled according to our schedule, the enemy floods our minds with questions about God’s faithfulness. Satan’s aim is simple: to rob us of all our confidence in the Lord.

I’m convinced the devil tried to raise all kinds of doubts in John the Baptist when he was in prison. I imagine him whispering into John’s ear: “Yes, this Jesus is a holy man. But He’s just another prophet performing miracles and doing good deeds. If He is the Messiah, then why are you still in such need? Why hasn’t He kept His word, as Isaiah and the prophets laid it out? And why hasn’t your own preaching worked for you?”

Satan uses these same lies and deceptions against us today. His goal is to plant seeds of doubt in us about God’s Word, His promises, His delight in us. The enemy whispers: “You say your heavenly Father is a God of miracles, of the impossible, that He hears your requests before you even ask. Then why all this suffering? Why all the silence from heaven? Why isn’t there a single shred of evidence that God has heard your cry?

“Look around you. Everyone is receiving answers to their prayers but you. You’re stuck in an unfulfilling marriage. You pray for your children to be saved, but nothing changes. For years, you’ve preached God’s faithfulness to others, so why hasn’t it worked for you? Why has He left you stuck in this awful condition?”

One sure evidence that unbelief has taken root in your soul is that you quit praying for what you once believed God could do. You no longer bring your burdens to Him. You don’t come to Him in faith anymore. In short, you’re no longer willing to let Him do things His way in your life.

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7).
 

Abraham was neither Christian nor Jew. As far as we know, he didn’t have any history with God at all. But one day he was commanded by God, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). So Abraham packed up and left!

We all venerate Abraham as our forefather in the faith, but his story is actually sort of strange. Here’s a man who had everything—wealth and heritage, a wonderful wife, and plenty of cattle and land. Yet, incredibly, when a voice told him, “Get up and leave,” he heeded it. He willingly separated himself from everything he knew, even good things, to follow God.

Now, let me ask those of you who are married: Would you think it strange if your spouse said a voice had told him to give up his job, his home and possessions, and move his family to another state with no promise of support or income? Even if he thought he had heard from God? Maybe you would be willing to go—but wouldn’t you be tempted to call a psychiatrist first?

What compelled Abraham to do this? What empowered such clear separation? A look at Stephen in Acts 6 and 7 provides some insight. Stephen was clearly set apart for God’s purposes, working miracles and wonders in Christ’s name in the early Church. Yet this got him into trouble with the religious leaders. As he stood before them on trial, he preached, “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia” (Acts 7:2).

Stephen was saying, in effect, “Are you offended by my faith? Well, it all started when our father Abraham left behind his dependency on the things of this world to follow God. Once he beheld the Lord’s glory, he gladly separated himself from everything he knew!”

Many of you reading this know what Stephen was talking about. When you first encountered Christ, you recognized, “I just tasted something I’ve never tasted before. I’ve never known this kind of joy. I’ve never experienced this awe. I know for sure I’m on holy ground.”