Devotions

When the Lord touches someone and he is driven to his knees, he becomes intimate with Christ. He enters into a place of rest and begins to minister to Christ with new passion and a greater love.

This servant also becomes more aware of the coming Day of Judgment when he knows that God will ask him one great question: “How did you portray Christ to a lost world?”

This is the single criterion for how we will be judged on that day. It doesn’t matter if we have been shut in with God like Moses, received great revelations like Daniel, been sanctified like Paul, or preached boldly like Peter. Everyone will be judged by this single standard: how did your life express who Jesus is and what he is like?

One of the last messages Jesus spoke to his disciples before his crucifixion is contained in Matthew 25. Christ’s words gave them a new attitude of love and concern for the poor and this same message caused me to make changes in my life and ministry. That passage of Scripture is:

“Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me’” (Matthew 25:34-36).

Of course, no one can be saved by good works alone, but we will be judged by whether we live only for ourselves and shut our eyes to the needs of the poor and helpless. The Lord doesn’t expect you to do it all, but he expects you to be personally committed to hands-on involvement in at least one area of need. When you have a desire to obey his command, the Holy Spirit will show you the way.

We hear a lot about the favor of God these days, which is a good thing. Without the favor of the Lord, we would not be able to breathe, stand or find true life anywhere. Our loving, compassionate God looks to bless us with his amazing favor.

Sadly, today the teaching of God’s favor is being twisted by some. They use it as a means to gain material, physical and emotional blessings from God. That’s tragic — because it reduces the Lord to just another American commodity. They tell you to invest a little church attendance here, sow a bit of financial seed there, claim the power of your tongue to confess your way into the life you dream of, and — bingo! — you are favored.

But that is not God’s way. He cares for us much more than that. If we get everything we dream of, that’s not favor, that’s lust. True favor is not found in the blessing itself, it’s found in the One who does the blessing — our loving heavenly Father. Seeking him, not things, is the hunger that dwells in the core of every human heart. We were made to find our life in him.

God is jealous, in a righteous way: He will not allow himself to be used as a means of fulfilling our lusts and self-gain. He will destroy all the idols we set up in our hearts so that he alone stands as our greatest desire.

This doesn’t mean we should not want to see God’s blessings flow in our lives. Out of his loving grace and kindness, our Father delights to give good gifts to his children. Some leaders have twisted biblical doctrines in the so-called prosperity movement but that does not mean the idea of God’s favor should be thrown out. Rather, it should be rescued!

God loves to bless us because he is amazingly good. I encourage you to seek him first and watch how he pours out his favor on you. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).

Satan lives in the past. He is the prince of what once was, the king of regret and guilt. He lives to keep us there, to remind us of what we have done and how horrible we have been. His mind is consumed by thoughts of past victories; of the times he caused us to sin, to stumble, to fall for his lies. Because in his heart he knows that the past is all he has.

When salvation comes, Satan’s hold is over and his only hope is to make us think we are still captive. He can no longer have our souls, but he can make us miserable and ineffective as God’s children.

Don’t let him do it. Don’t let him fill your mind with doubt and confusion, with thoughts of past sins — sins that God has chosen to forget. Sins that we need to forget before we can truly move forward.

It is not enough that we accept Jesus and ask for his forgiveness; we must also reject who we once were and completely embrace the new day — the day of our salvation. The day of a renewed heart, mind, and soul.

It is important to note that there is a huge difference between the masses who follow Christ and those few followers who live each day with a burning passion for Jesus! They have done more than accept salvation; they have embraced a completely new future. They have chosen to forgive themselves and look forward.

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

Do not let Satan fill your mind with doubt and confusion, with thoughts of past sins — sins that God has chosen to forget. He gives you a new heart, one that has no past, only a bright and glorious future.

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.

“We do not lose heart … but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Corinthians 4:1-2). The apostle Paul states that we are called to be a manifestation of the truth. Of course, we know Jesus is this truth. So, what does Paul mean by saying, in essence, that we are to manifest Jesus? 

A manifestation is a “shining forth” that makes something clear and understandable. So, in short, Paul is saying we are called to make Jesus known and understood to all people. In each of our lives, there should be a shining forth of the very nature and likeness of Christ.

Paul takes this concept of manifesting Christ even further. He says we are actually God’s letters to the world: “You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men … written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).

The carnal mind simply cannot comprehend spiritual things. It considers them foolish. So God chose to make his Son known to sinners in a most effective way: by revealing him in flesh-and-blood epistles, living messages that can be read by everyone. This happens only by the work of the Spirit. At the moment we are saved, the Holy Spirit imprints in us the very image of Jesus and he continues shaping this image in us. The Spirit’s mission is to form in us an image of Christ that is so truthful and accurate that it will actually pierce people’s consciences.

The Holy Spirit accomplishes this by taking hold of our redeemed hearts and surrendered bodies and continually drawing us into Jesus’ presence. There we are compelled to holy living.

As you spend more time with him, his image in you will grow and your life will become such a powerful manifestation of Jesus that those around you will be touched and moved.

Moses was possessed by God. When he lived in Pharaoh’s house, he refused to be called Pharaoh’s son: “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward” (Hebrews 11:25-26).

There is no doubting God’s touch on Moses’ life while he was in Egypt. He knew he was called to deliver Israel; in fact, he assumed the Israelites would recognize him as their deliverer when he killed the Egyptian slave driver. Stephen testified of this: “[He] struck down the Egyptian. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand” (Acts 7:24-25).

Instead, Moses had to flee Egypt because of his action. By the time he left he was totally sold out to God, although he had no idea he was about to hide on the back side of a desert for forty years.

What does this wilderness period in Moses’ life represent? It is a time that many God-possessed servants face. You may be one of them, feeling that you are stuck in a place far beneath your abilities. Moses was just such a servant. He had a mighty call on his life and he dreamed of doing great works for God, yet he was in a wasteland with no apparent future.  

While Moses was convinced he had no voice and no message, God was working behind the scenes. One day he set a bush on fire and spoke from it, “Take off your shoes, Moses. You’re on holy ground! Now you are about to see great things in your service to me.” 

That burning bush was the fire of the Holy Spirit moving through a natural object. Likewise today, God wants to reveal more of himself to you so that others around you will realize, “That person has been with Jesus.” As you seek him with renewed intensity, you will be turned into a new man, a new woman. Just as it was with Moses, your best days are still ahead.