Devotions

One particular time, I was stirred by the Holy Spirit, and he led me to this passage: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 1:20-21, NKJV). As I read, I heard the Spirit whisper, “David, you’ve never come into the fullness and joy of my love.”

The Bible is filled with the truth of God’s love, but at times I allow myself to wonder how the Lord could ever love me. It’s a failure on my part to keep myself in the knowledge and assurance of his love.

The revelation of God’s love comes in part when we are born again. If you were to ask most Christians what they know about God’s love for them, they’d answer, “I know God gave his Son to die for me.” Few Christians, however, learn how to be kept in God’s love. We know something of our love toward the Lord; but if you were to ask most Christians to find biblical passages on God’s love for us, they could point to only a few.

Multitudes grow spiritually cold and lazy because they’re ignorant of the Lord’s love for them. They don’t know that their greatest weapon against Satan’s attacks is to be fully convinced of God’s love for them, through the revelation of the Holy Ghost.

In his final prayer on earth, Jesus said, “Father, I desire…that they may behold my glory which you have given me; for you loved me before the foundation of the world…. I have declared to them your name, and will declare it, that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:24, 26).

The implication here is that when the Father loved Jesus before eternity, he loved us too. “Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Ephesians 1:4).

How long has God loved you? He’s loved you since he has existed because God is love. It is his very nature. He loved you as a sinner. He loved you in the womb. He loved you before the world began. There was no beginning to his love for you, and there is no end to it.

One of the earliest letters to the church was from the apostles to new Gentile believers, and in it, the authors said, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality” (Acts 15:28-29, ESV).

Rather than weight down new believers with endless rules like the Jews had, Paul simply commanded, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27, ESV).

It was the Holy Spirit’s inspiration speaking through them, saying, “Come on, church. Whether or not there’s a specific law about it, don’t engage in things if you’re not certain whether they’re biblically compromising.”

When I was a youth pastor, the kids would come up and always ask me a question like “How far can I go into the things of the world and still be a Christian?  Like, okay, I know I can’t have sex, but can I do this?” For adults, it’s often questions like “I know I can’t get drunk, but do three beers count as drunkenness? How about two beers? How close can I get to the world?”

That’s totally the opposite of what the Holy Spirit is calling his church into! We should be saying, “How close can I get to Jesus? What can I let go of to get closer? If there’s any former association in my life that has a sense of dabbling in the old way of living, how far can I get from this?”

In the church, we should hear the Word of the Lord and say to ourselves, “I want to be circumspect in heart. I want to be pure in my conscience. I want to obey the Word of the Lord. I will stop at nothing to win the prize for this race I am running.”

God will take a simple salvation prayer, a simple prayer for protection, a simple prayer for healing, and he will add power to it. He will go above and beyond what I ask for or could even think of. You don’t have the capacity, but the Holy Spirit in you does. All this pressure is not on you. God’s saying, “I’ve got my hand on this. I’m going to take this farther than you’ve ever gone.”

It all depends on who’s hand is on you. It goes like this: A basketball in my hand is worth about 19 dollars; a basketball in LeBron’s hand is worth about 75 million dollars. A tennis racket is useless in my hand, but a tennis racket in Serena Williams’ hand is a French Open or Wimbledon. It all depends on whose hand it’s in.

Two fish and five loaves in my hands are just two fish sandwiches; two fish and five loaves in Jesus’ hands will feed five thousand people. A nail in my hand may produce a house burning down, but a nail in Jesus’ hand produced salvation for the entire planet throughout all of history and the future. It just depends on whose hands it’s in.

We are in God’s hands.

Some of you may have said, “I don’t know how to pray.” That’s the truth. Fortunately, the pressure’s off of us. The Spirit knows how to pray. “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26, ESV).

How ridiculous is it to think our prayers depend on us saying the right words? There are so many dumb prayers that come out of my mouth; thank God he doesn’t answer those prayers! If God answered every prayer just like we wanted him to, life would be a train wreck. He sifts through our prayers and makes them right. That should give us confidence. Every one of us can and should pray.

As you’re being led to pray, God says, “Perfect. I’ll take your flawed prayer, correct it and put power to it. I will push it beyond what you can even imagine.”

^{After pastoring an inner-city congregation in Detroit for thirty years, Pastor Tim served at Brooklyn Tabernacle in NYC for five years and pastored in Lafayette, Louisiana, for five years. He became Senior Pastor of Times Square Church in May of 2020.}

Years ago, God put it on my heart to start a boys’ home on Long Island. I truly sensed the Lord was behind this work. However, after just eighteen months, state officials imposed such stringent regulations on the operation of the home that we had no option but to close it down.

We’d taken in four boys during the brief time we were open. After we closed down, I lost touch with them. I had always thought that venture was one of the greatest failures of my time. For more than three decades, I wondered why God ever allowed us to move forward with it.

Recently I received a letter from a young man named Clifford.

He wrote, “Brother David, I was one of the four boys sent to the home on Long Island. Your houseparents were so loving and kind. They taught us the Bible and took us to church. One day they took us to a church that was holding a tent revival. I was so bitter and despondent. It was there, under the tent, that the Holy Spirit began tugging at my heart. I heard the preacher say, ‘Jesus loves you.’ All the years of pain, confusion and hopelessness came to the surface. I got on my knees and prayed. That was thirty-five years ago. Now God has called me to preach, and he’s moving me into full-time ministry. This ‘thank you’ has been brewing in me all this time. I just want to thank you for caring. I know what the love of God is.”

This man’s letter proves to me that nothing we do for Christ is in vain. That boys’ home was not a failure because one lost, confused boy discovered the meaning of God’s love.

This is the joy that Christ described in his parable, “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:4-7, NKJV).

“Then the king of Assyria sent…Rabshakeh…with a great army against Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah” (2 Kings 18:17, NKJV). The Assyrians represent today’s “guides to prosperity.” The devil will parade his army around your walls, people who are powerful, beautiful and seemingly successful in all they undertake. When you see them, you will feel walled in like a prisoner.

The first trick of the man of sin is to question a believer’s commitment to trust the Lord fully. Rabshakeh, whose name means “drunken envoy,” was the king’s ambassador. He mocked the godly, saying, “What confidence is this in which you trust? You speak of having plans and power for war; but they are mere words. And in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?” (2 Kings 18:19-20).

Satan then adds another twist; he tells you that God is the one behind all your troubles. Assyria’s messenger claimed, “The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’” (2 Kings 18:25). Satan will try to convince you that God is getting even with you, that he is mad at you. This is his slickest lie! He makes you believe God has forsaken you and turned you over to trouble and sorrow. He wants you to think all your problems are the result of God’s punishment for your past sins. Don’t believe it! It is Satan who is out to destroy you.

Our Lord is a deliverer, a fortress. Isaiah said he comes “To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified” (Isaiah 61:3).

No, dear saint, you are not going down. You are simply under attack, being barraged by the enemy’s lies because you have set your heart truly to trust in the Lord. Satan is trying to destroy your faith in God.