Who told you that you’re unworthy, no good, useless, unusable to God? Who keeps reminding you that you’re weak, helpless, a total failure? Who told you that you’ll never measure up to God’s standard?
We all know where this voice comes from. It’s the devil himself. You hear his lies all day long, a voice that tells you God is continually angry with you. That voice comes straight from the pits of hell.
Every Christian has known mountaintop peaks and deep, dark valleys in their walk with Jesus. In my experience, it’s the valleys—the low places, trials and difficult times—that teach us how to be people of prayer, hope and courageous service.
“But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel” (Philippians 1:12, NKJV). In this verse, Paul tells the Christians in Philippi not to worry about all the things they’d heard had befallen him. All those “things” he refers to included great afflictions and infirmities.
Many Christians experience a turn in their lives they never see coming. When it arrives, it causes an ongoing trial they couldn’t imagine in their worst nightmares. Their life was on a blessed course, maybe one of ambition and achievement, desire and fulfillment, pursuing the things they feel God made them for. Life itself seemed like a straight line forward with a promising outlook and every good thing ahead. Then their lot in life took a crooked turn.
How do you move forward when your circumstances say, “No way”? What do you do when your family is falling apart, you’re struggling financially, you’re discouraged and your heart overflows with pain? Is there a way forward when you can’t see a way?
Mark 2 shows us there is. When things seem impossible and we lose all hope of going on, Jesus faithfully makes a way where there is no way.
In Jeremiah 32, the prophet describes a dire scene. Jerusalem was surrounded by Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldean army. Outside the city, the enemy was building large mounts to send their troops over the walls. Any Israelite who looked down on this scene was surely filled with a sense of doom.
Jeremiah was one of them. As the terrible scene unfolded, the prophet had to watch from a prison cell.
If anyone ever needed to hear a word from God, it was Job. You remember Job’s story: God had taken down the protective hedge around him and given Satan permission to try Job’s faith. Immediately, chaos broke out in Job’s life. All ten of his children were killed when a tornado struck. All his material assets were destroyed—his home, his cattle, his property, everything. Finally, Satan was allowed to attack Job’s body. The man was stricken with boils from head to toe.
"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33).
What does it mean to confess or deny Christ before men? The Greek word for confess here means “covenant” or “assent.” Jesus is speaking of an agreement we have with him. Our part is to confess, or represent, him in our daily lives. We do this by trusting in his promises to care for us and by testifying of it through how we live.
Lately I haven’t been able to shake a certain image from my mind. It’s of a heavenly bank, where God’s people come to make transactions. This bank is always open for us to make deposits, passing to the teller all our sins, anxieties, worries and cares. Of course, the vault where those deposits are taken is the throne room of God’s grace.
“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil…let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:19–20, 22).
There are two sides to Christ’s work at Calvary. One side is to the benefit of man, and the other side is to the benefit of God. One benefits the sinner, while the other benefits the Father.
