Devotions

There is tremendous relief in living under the guidance and provision of God. It takes a lot of worry off your shoulders. I don’t have to wonder where my next meal is coming from or whether I’ll have a place to lay my head. I know that God is in complete control and He has never let me down.

Early in my ministry I worried about my children. I knew that my background would haunt me, and I wondered if the curse my parents were under would bleed over into my family. I knew that Satan didn’t like the way I assaulted him week after week and the way I did it in his own backyard. He taunted me constantly, and I knew he would do the same to my wife and children.

As an evangelist I spent a lot of time on the road, away from home, and as a young man I spent hours praying that God would take care of my family, protect them from the harm that Satan wanted to do to them. 

Many nights I lay awake in a hotel room praying, “Lord, You know that I try to be the best husband and father I can be. I love my children and Gloria more than I love my own life. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to them. Please take care of my family. Please watch over their hearts. Watch over my babies, Jesus.”

The more I prayed that prayer, the more God put a sense of peace in my spirit. He told me that if I would stay faithful to His calling on my life, He would take care of Gloria and the children. He knew my heart. He knew how much I wanted to serve Him and how much I hurt for the lost and helpless of the world, so He commissioned me to reach out to them at every opportunity. And He wanted me to do so without worrying about my family.

It was one of the many conversations that God has had with me through the years. He promised to take care of my family, so I released them completely to His care. And He has always kept His promise.

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. 

Some of you going through difficult situations are in a dangerous place with your faith.

I must ask: Have you allowed seeds of unbelief into your heart? Do you have serious questions regarding God’s faithfulness? Instead of worshiping Him, do you doubt Him?

“Lord, why haven’t You intervened for me? Why have You allowed such confusion in my marriage, my family? You have put on me more than I’m able to bear.” Such an attitude can lead to a hardened heart and eventually spiritual deadness.

The apostle Paul exhorted Timothy, “Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:3). The Greek word for hardness here indicates suffering, difficult afflictions. What does Paul say to Timothy about these things? “Endure them, son! You are a soldier in the Lord’s army. You’ve been trained to undergo hardship in spiritual battle.”

We see this reflected in the Old Testament as well. We are told, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him” (2 Chronicles 16:9, my italics). The Hebrew word for perfect in this verse means “wholly given to Him in trust.”

God looks down upon the whole earth, searching diligently for that man or woman of faith who is given to Him in complete trust.

Whenever the Lord finds such a servant, He says of that person, “This beloved one is holding fast to his faith and confidence in Me. Therefore, I will show Myself strong to him. He’s going to know My power and see My strong arm revealed on his behalf.”

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).