Devotions

I was talking to this young woman the other day, and she had visited this other church that has a booth in the lobby where people will give you a prophesy about your future. It’s like fortune tellers, except you don’t have to pay. They act like prophesy is something you can do automatically; the Spirit doesn’t have to move upon anyone, so you can prophesy over everyone. You see, what they teach in this place is that you’re a child of God, so whatever thoughts are in your head must be God’s thoughts. Just speak them! 

So this young woman went up to the prophesy booth, and one of their ‘prophets’ told her, “You’re a princess of God, and don’t forget that you’re a princess.” Everyone likes hearing nice things like that. This person doesn’t know her, doesn’t know if she’s living in sin or if she’s even a believer at all. 

Peter got up in front of the first church audience and told them, “Repent! Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Repent, like change myself? Turn around, and live differently? Oh, it’s much nicer to just be told that I’m a royal person and God loves me without me having to change. 

Scripture says, “Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace…” (Hebrews 13:9, ESV).

You know the first thing that happens when the Holy Spirit works? Repentance. There’s a new consciousness of sin and cry of “Oh God, save me, cleanse me.” If things are glib or not in line with scripture, the Holy Spirit is a thousand miles away. All revivals have started with people praying, “Search me, oh God, and know me.” Jesus comes to convict the world of sin; that includes believers.

Only then do we see God’s grace, and it gives us strength. We’re told that grace, the favor of God, strengthens our hearts. First, though, we must watch out for unbiblical teaching. How will we know it’s a strange teaching unless we know our Bibles? Let’s search the scriptures carefully so that we know God’s grace!  

^{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.}

“O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath!” (Psalm 38:1, ESV).

In Psalm 38, David realized he needed to be rebuked for his sins, but he wrote, “God, please don’t rebuke me in your anger.” 

As parents, disciplining a child in righteousness is an act of love. It means correcting, reproving, and bringing godly order to a young person’s life. Here, David knew he needed God’s righteous rebuke and discipline. 

Friend, are you willing to say, “God, I need your rebuke?” Are you willing to let God access your day, week, month, or this season of your life in how you are living? When David said, “Rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath,” he wasn’t saying, “Don’t discipline me,” but rather, “Don’t discipline me in your anger.” 

The wrath of God is the pouring out of his judgment upon a people. It’s the tearing away of a relationship between him and us because of our sin that grieves him. An unrepented sin that causes us to be brought under God’s vengeful, aggressive, angry wrath. 

David went on to say in Psalm 38:3, “There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin.” David understood that he was not in sound mind, body or emotional well-being because of sin. Like David, our admittance of sin says, “Lord, correct and show me your ways. Show me the areas of my life that cause you grief and restore me.” 

If David, a man after God’s own heart, could look at his sin with a repentant heart, shouldn’t we see the seriousness and grievousness of our sins? God wants to pull out the dark areas of your heart, mind, body, and soul so that you might see a greater light. You have to root out the things that don’t belong before receiving the joy of the things that do belong.

If you lack joy, delight, and spiritual freedom, maybe it’s because you are not asking God to discipline you in his righteousness. Sin grieves God, but its remedy is God’s mercy, forgiveness, and salvation.

The purpose of intimacy with Jesus is to have a revelation of the Father. If your eyes are not opened to the Father, you have not entered into the fullness of intimacy with Christ. 

Basically, Jesus told the disciples, “You need a revelation of who your Father is. You must be able to teach those who are like sheep without a shepherd. They think nobody cares that they are illegitimate children, so you must do the work and speak as I did. They need to know they have a loving Father in heaven” (see John 14:6-9). 

Beloved, we also need that revelation. We must be able to say to the world, “Watch my life. Listen to what I say. See the work I do. It’s all about my heavenly Father.”

I imagine Jesus saying to them, “So you want me to show you the Father? Just think back to the wedding of Cana, when I turned the water into wine. That was an expression of my Father. He was showing his concern for even the smallest, insignificant needs of his children. He was showing he cared about family, marriage, and food for his children. That was the Father at work! I have never done anything on my own, but only what he has told me to do” (see John 14:10-11). 

He went on to say, “Do you remember the feeding of the four thousand and later the five thousand? Those people had been without food for almost three days. You saw their hunger and asked, ‘How will we feed them?’ So I broke the loaves and fish and divided them up. You saw how the people grabbed at the abundance of food. You remember all the baskets of leftovers.” 

Why does Jesus say the Holy Spirit will bring all things to our memory? It is so we can have a revelation of the Father. It is so we can replay in our minds every miracle he has done in our lives, every deliverance, every wonderful work. Through it all, Jesus says, “Everything I have done for you is an expression of the heavenly Father, who he is, and what he wants to be to you.” 

It must have shocked Jesus to hear Thomas say, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?” (John 14:5, NKJV).

This was a confession by Thomas. The disciples had been with Jesus for three years, but they missed the revelation of the Father. They did not know his love, care or tenderness. “Show us the Father,” Thomas asked, yet that is just what Jesus had been doing for the past three years. 

If we fully understand that we have a loving heavenly Father, why would we ever be downcast when the enemy comes against us? Why would we despair over a financial burden that seems overwhelming? Why would we wonder why we cannot seem to get victory over a besetting sin? 

Listen carefully to Jesus’s answer to Thomas. It has everything to do with us. “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; and from now on you know him and have seen him” (John 14:7).

Then Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us” (John 14:8).

Jesus could not believe what he was hearing. You can almost hear the incredulity in his voice as he answers Philip, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’” (John 14:9). 

In other words, “Thomas, Philip, my precious disciples, how can you ask this? You say you know me, yet how could you miss the revelation I have spent the past three years giving you? Don’t you yet see that all my mighty works were the Father in me revealing who he is, what he is like, and what he wants to be to you? All I taught you was from his heart, not mine.” 

Beloved, Jesus’s whole life was an illustrated sermon. Day by day, with every miracle he performed and every parable he taught, he was expressing God’s character to us. He sent his Holy Spirit so his followers could do even greater works and keep revealing the Father’s love to new generations. 

Jesus came to earth as a man to redeem humankind from sin and from every kind of bondage and imprisonment. That fact has been established in the minds and hearts of most Christians, but Christ also came to earth to reveal to us the heavenly Father. 

Jesus told his disciples, “The Father has sent me” (John 5:36, NKJV). He said, “I can of myself do nothing…I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me” (John 5:30), then he stated, “I go to my Father” (John 14:12).

Listen carefully to what Jesus is saying: “I came from the Father, and while I am here, I do only his will. Soon, I will go back to my Father.” Jesus’s entire life was about the heavenly Father. His coming to earth, his purpose while here, and his return — it was all about revealing the heavenly Father. 

“…The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do…for whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner…and shows him all things that he himself does…” (John 5:19-20).

Jesus said he had no will of his own and did nothing on earth except the will of his Father. Indeed, Christ essentially told the Pharisees, “Watch my life, my ministry, all the miracles and good works I do and you will see the heavenly Father. Everything I do reflects who he is and is meant to reveal him to you.”

“All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal him” (Mathew 11:27).

Jesus is saying it is impossible for you to know who the Father is unless he reveals him to you. You cannot get that revelation on your own just by reading the Bible or going to church. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Jesus must reveal the heavenly Father to you.