Body

Devotions

The Reward Is Worth the Difficulties

David Wilkerson (1931-2011)

There is a cost to being completely sold out to God but there is also a great reward. When you are lukewarm, having a form of godliness without power — not overly sinful nor overly holy — you are accepted and your life is relatively quiet. You are no trouble to anyone, not even the devil.

When you get hungry for God and start to dig into his Word, people often fail to understand. Your appetite for worldly things begins to wane and you enter a new realm of discernment. You are broken and contrite in spirit, and you have a new burden for the church. You expect your friends to rejoice with you but, instead, they begin to call you a fanatic.

Moses was wonderfully touched by God’s hand and awakened about the bondage of God’s people. He was so excited by the great revelation of deliverance he had received that he ran out to share it with the brethren: “It came into his heart to visit his brethren … For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand” (Acts 7:25).

Moses was the meekest man on earth; he was consumed with God, not in a holier-than-thou way but in a humble, prophetic way. He wanted his brethren to hear and see what God was about to do but instead of rejoicing with him, they rejected him, saying, “Who do you think you are? Who made you ruler over us?” Someday they would understand — but not then.

Likewise, when you share insights into God’s Word or try to explain truths you discover, you may hear, “Are you sure you aren’t going a little overboard? That’s a bit heavy for me.” And, frankly, you may lose friends or even have family members distance themselves from you.

The greatest reward for going all the way with Jesus is well worth any misunderstandings that may come your way. That reward is having Christ always stand with you! There are other rewards but his constant presence is all we will ever need.

Failing to See Our Own Sin

David Wilkerson (1931-2011)

“One of the Pharisees asked [Jesus] to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil” (Luke 7:36-38).

Simon, this Pharisee, also invited a select group of religious leaders to join the supper table. It was clearly a religious gathering, made up of men who fancied themselves the holy men of their generation. Then a “woman of the city” crashed the scene and knelt at the feet of Jesus. She bathed his dusty feet with her tears and wiped them clean with her hair — something no decent woman of that day would have done in public. Finally, she opened an alabaster box and poured perfume on Jesus’ feet.

The Pharisees were indignant, thinking, “How shameful! If Jesus were really a prophet sent from God, he would have known this woman is evil and stopped her.” Indeed, Scripture says those were Simon’s exact thoughts (see Luke 7:39). Jesus read his thoughts and announced, “Simon, I have something to say to you” (7:40). Jesus told the story of the two debtors, one with a huge debt and one who owed less, who were freely forgiven by their creditor. Then the Lord pointed out Simon’s arrogance, judgmental spirit and lack of compassion. “Simon, you don’t see the depravity of your own heart. You judge this broken woman but fail to recognize that you need as much, or even more, mercy.”

Jesus showed the spirit of forgiveness and restoration in the Pharisee’s house that night when he turned to the woman and said, “Your sins are forgiven” (7:48). He came to befriend and restore the fallen, the friendless, those overtaken by sin, and he is saying to us today, “This is what my ministry is all about. Let me enlarge your heart to see hurting, broken people so that you may extend my mercy to them.”

A Jesus Principle

Gary Wilkerson

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6).

God will release something supernatural through prayer and fasting. Isaiah 58:10 tells us, “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom as the noonday.”

God is telling us that a true fast will shift our focus from living for ourselves to living for others; from being self-absorbed and self-indulgent to living a life of satisfying the desires of the afflicted. Those who live to satisfy their own desires find themselves thwarted in their pursuits, frustrated and not finding the fulfillment of life they are looking for.

A true fast is not just about abstaining from food; it is the idea of consecrating yourself to God, separating yourself from something so that your heart is awakened to helping stricken people. It may be people around the world through missions or it could even be your own family. Jesus modeled this principle of living an others-centered life.

“And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail” (58:11). God gives you his power, his glory, his presence when you begin to live for others. And God is the one who gives us the transformed heart to make this shift happen — the shift from being self-centered to being God-centered and others-centered.

If you will allow the Holy Spirit to grip your heart and cast off doubt and fear and undue concern for the things of this world, he will transform you. Something supernatural will happen in you so that something supernatural will happen through you.

What If We Were a Unified Church?

Nicky Cruz

After the Holy Spirit first gave birth to the church and marked the first followers of Jesus by his holy fire, the immediate results in their lives were dramatic and all-encompassing.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:42-47).

I long for that kind of church today — a unified body of Christ. And I believe God longs for this as well. This is a church unified by a clear vision of our compelling mission and purpose in this world. It is a church drawn together, as believers everywhere learn to view the lost people all around them as God sees them. And it is a church that shares with these lost souls a single, simple, unifying message — the good news of Jesus Christ.

The first-century believers began in a small room with just a handful of people, but they took that challenge, and God used their faithfulness to make an eternal impact on their culture and the world. God’s people now number in the hundreds of millions worldwide and while we may not have the same mission field, we all have the same command from Jesus — evangelize the world.

Just imagine what can be accomplished when his people move together to reach the lost. And you can be a part of this holy mandate by reaching out to those around you — your family, your work colleagues, your neighbors.

Nicky Cruz, internationally known evangelist and prolific author, turned to Jesus Christ from a life of violence and crime after meeting David Wilkerson in New York City in 1958. The story of his dramatic conversion was told first in The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson and then later in his own best-selling book Run, Baby, Run.

A Wonderful Example of Faith in Adversity

David Wilkerson (1931-2011)

When Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians, he was being held in a Roman prison, his feet chained to a soldier on either side. The conditions were horrible and Paul suffered great indignities, with no time alone and no freedoms.

Think about it. Here was a man who had been very active, traveling the open road and high seas to meet and fellowship with God’s people. Paul drew his greatest joy from visiting the churches he had established throughout that region of the world. But now he was chained down, literally bound to the hardest, most profane men alive.

Some of the Christians who knew Paul began to murmur that he was bringing disgrace on the gospel because of his situation. But Paul was intent on finding God’s purpose for allowing him to come to this point. Instead of asking, “Why did this happen to me?” he decided to discover what his reaction should be. This servant of God made up his mind: “I can’t change where I am but I know my steps are ordered by the Lord. Therefore, I’m going to magnify Christ and be a testimony while I’m in these chains.”

“Now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death” (Philippians 1:20). Paul was in no way resigned or indifferent to his circumstances but he was determined that God’s Word would be validated by his reaction to his affliction. “Knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel … Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice” (1:17-18).

Paul’s attitude is a wonderful demonstration of how we should react to adverse circumstances. It is possible to waste all our tomorrows anxiously waiting to be delivered out of our suffering, but if that becomes our focus, we will miss the miracle and joy of being emancipated in our trial. Paul’s word to the Philippians was, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” (4:4). And I say to you, “Rejoice in the Lord always!”