Prayer Importance

Pray at all times (on every occasion, in every season) in the Spirit, with all [manner of] prayer and entreaty. To that end keep alert and watch with strong purpose and perseverance, interceding in behalf of all the saints (God's consecrated people) (Ephesians 6:18-20 - Amplified).

Religious ideas block the importance of prayer. The ones I’m speaking of are the ones that tell you that God is in control of everything. And yes, in His sovereignty He is in control of the full scope of things from beginning to the end. But for now, because of Adam’s failure, he has ceded control to us. Adam’s dominion (Genesis 1:26) was given to Satan when Adam failed. Satan became the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4; John 14:30; 1 John 5:19), which means for a limited time in the scope of eternity, Satan has a legal right to steal, kill, and destroy.

Due to Adam’s disobedience and subsequent transfer of legal, God-given authority to Satan, God must obtain legal permission through prayer to invade our circumstances. It’s obvious that God’s will is not being carried out in much of life. It’s not His will that divorces occur, that children are abused, that people are maimed or killed in wrecks and disasters, that wars ravage a nation, that churches split, that people are murdered, that crooks steal, etc.

Prayer is our invitation to the Father to once again invade our circumstances and bring change. Prayer is us using our legal authority in Christ to invoke God’s help in the intricacies of life. Prayer is giving God legal permission to work in a situation or individual. Without our asking in prayer, God is hindered in providing help.

So don’t buy into the religious notion that God is in charge of everything, so just let it happen! In prayer ask for His aid and help in every circumstance you encounter! We are laborers together with God!

Because praying in faith and praying in the spirit are such powerful weapons, the enemy seeks to keep the saints from praying. He usually does this by making them so busy that they just don’t fit prayer into their schedule. Don’t buy into this! Make time to pray!

I’ll leave you with some random quotes from E.M. Bounds book The Weapon of Prayer, pages 7 -12:

He rules the world as He rules the church, through prayer. When the church is in the condition of prayer, God’s cause always flourishes, and His kingdom on earth always triumphs. When the church fails to pray, God’s cause decays, and evil of every kind prevails. God works through the prayers of His people, and when they fail Him at this point, decline and deadness follow. Praying saints are God’s agents for carrying on His saving and providential work on earth. If His agents fail Him, neglecting to pray, then His work fails. Praying agents of the Most High are always forerunners of spiritual prosperity. How we estimate and place prayer is hoe we estimate and place God. To give prayer a secondary place is to make God secondary in life’s affairs. When Satan can keep us too busy to stop and pray, he has effectively disarmed us!

Yoked

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest ( relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good — not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne (Matt 11:28-30 - Amplified)

We are yoked with Jesus! When I’m on a missions trip in Ethiopia traveling south from Addis, I see oxen yoked together plowing in a field. Or we’re passing through a small town and I see donkeys yoked together pulling a cart. The yoke connects the oxen or donkeys by the neck and evenly distributes the load they are pulling.

The main deal is that the yoke will only work well if the oxen or the donkeys that are yoked walk in step with each other. If one stops, it hinders the other and they don’t get very far.

To be yoked with Jesus means that He is helping me with my load. If I fail to walk in sync with Him then I causing undue stress and I’m not taking advantage of the help He’s offering. He has much more power and ability than I do, so He brings to the yoke process the majority of strength. If I’ll just walk with Him by being a doer of the Word, then He carries the load and I have a carefree stroll walking along beside Him.

If I was yoked to a person weak and smaller than me, then I would be helping them carry their load! But every day, Jesus wants to be yoked with me as I work, as I relate to family, as I deal with finances, as I deal with children, as I minister. This produces a rest for me because someone else is helping with most of the task I’m involved with all day long! And the Someone yoked to me is so much bigger than me!

Don’t resist the yoke that Jesus offers you today! His yoke is easy, and He will lighten the load. Act on His Word, speak the Word, fellowship with Him in prayer, and enjoy the stroll!

First Love

Nevertheless I have this against you that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent (Revelation 2:4-5)

It’s a wise thing to give yourself a spiritual checkup every now and then. I want to post today an excerpt from a newsletter I received from David Wilkerson in 2005. Allow his works to speak to your life. Take some time to wait on the Lord today:

May I give you a short word, which I believe is from the mind of Christ through the Holy Spirit? It has to do with what I believe is one of the greatest needs in the church today. It is a word every believer ought to hear. This is the word: Growing numbers of Christians are no longer fully satisfied with Christ. He is being dethroned by what the Lord Himself called thorns. He defined thorns as the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in. Christ said these are the thorns that choke the Word and cause it to become unfruitful. I ask you, is the Lord more on your mind than a year ago? Do you spend more time in His presence than a year ago? Is your passion for Him growing or withering? Many of those who were once passionately in love with Christ now run about pursuing their own interests. They’re burdened down with stress and problems, chasing after riches and the things of this world. They have grown cold or lukewarm, and have less and less time for Jesus. The Lord and His church now only get an hour of their time, on Sunday mornings. Jesus said, If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered (John 15:6). In other words, that person is drying up, no longer drawing from the true vine. Yet he is deceived by thinking all is well, because he still speaks the language of intimacy he once enjoyed with Christ. Riches and the things that are necessary in life are not evil in themselves. All of us face cares and troubles in this life. The sin comes in the time and energy we spend in pursuing these things, at the expense of neglecting Christ. Dear saint of God, one day soon we will stand before our blessed Christ to face His judgment seat. We will see Him face to face. I want to stand in His presence as a fruitful son, not ushered into His presence as a lukewarm, withered, estranged, thorn-choked servant. I hear the Holy Spirit calling the Lord’s people back to their first love. Back to hungering and thirsting for more of Christ. Back to spending quality time in His presence. Back to loving His Word. Back to casting all cares upon Him. Back to depending on Him for guidance.

In all of our activity today, let’s stay in close fellowship with the one person that means more to us than anything. He’s always available to us. Are we always available to Him?

Faith

And He said to her, Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace (Luke 8:48).

Faith receives what grace provides. This lady had a physical problem for twelve years. Crowds were pressing on Jesus from every side, but her believing touch pulled the power of God from Him into her body and she was healed. In a crowd that size, there had to be so many that needed that same healing power. But only she had the touch of faith.

Smith Wigglesworth, the noted English evangelist, said that when you’re believing God, it seems as though He will pass over a million people just to get to you. Need doesn’t move the hand of God. But faith pulls on His awesome power. Faith is conduit that God’s power travels on into your life.

With God all things are possible. All things are possible to him who believes. Healing comes through faith. Not hoping that one day things will be better, but by believing that right now God has done and is doing what He promised.

Faith never looks to the future to receive what God has provided. Hope longs for the day of deliverance. Faith acts as though the work has already been done. It talks of the victory and gives thanks for the answer while symptoms rage.

Faith takes the place of what you are believing God for until it manifests. Faith is as happy and joyful before the results can be seen and felt as it is when the manifestation comes. It almost anti-climactic. Faith is as sure of the results as it would be if they were already manifested.

Believing you receive is the key to results. Give yourself a faith check-up today. Are you believing and acting as though you had the healing right now. Or are you looking to some unknown date in the future for the manifestation. Faith sees it now. Hope looks in the distance. Faith is excited and joyful, full of praises now. Hope longs for the day of deliverance.

Add faith to your foundation of hope and you’ll be like the woman in the crowd. As you stand in faith, praising, thanking, speaking, and acting as though you had what you asked for, one day the Father will drop the manifestation on you. The Father is looking for your faith today.

Crying Out for More of God

The Father has a desire to deepen His presence in local church services. I gave my heart to Jesus over 30 years ago at the height of the “charismatic movement.”At that time we had powerful meeting where the Holy Spirit just filled the room with Himself. The oppressed were set free. The saints were overjoyed. Jesus was central to all we did. The saints were not perfect, but they were hungry!

Now, the Charismatic movement has spread worldwide, and many parts of the world are experiencing a genuine spiritual awakening. Here in America, we now have Christian TV, radio, thousands of books, DVD’s, CD’s, and thousands of churches that were started resulting from the Charismatic movement. Yet sadly, the Presence of God has diminished. Now I sense God wanting to pour out His Spirit on us in a fresh way again and bring a refreshing!

In some ways, as a whole, we’ve grown complacent in our spiritual walk, perhaps because of the saturation and availability of spiritual resources. I sense that the Father wants us to begin asking Him for a deeper moving of His Spirit in our personal lives, and in our churches. And I believe that if we do, He will grant us the rain of His Spirit in a fresh way. Ask the Lord for rain in the time of the latter rain. The Lord will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone (Zechariah 10:1). Include this scripture in your prayer life.

Here are some things to guard against if you are really desire a fresh manifestation of the Holy Spirit in your life and in your church. First of all, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don’t criticize your local church and your pastor. That’s a sure way to quench the Spirit in your own life. Pray for your local assembly and your pastor, that the leaders and the saints will follow His plan and direction for the church. Pray for wisdom for your pastor as he seeks to her from God and move in wisdom.

Secondly, realize that in a local church there are all kinds of people that the Father really loves. Some are not ready for all that God has. It would be easy for the more spiritually attuned folk in a church to push and do things in such a way that the less zealous and informed just don’t get it, and simply leave. So in a local church, there are services geared to touch the less inclined spiritually and at the same time feed the whole flock. That service is generally Sunday mornings in most churches. I’m personally seeking the Lord about what changes I need to make in our Sunday services to draw the presence of the Father and the people who need Him.

Thirdly, be careful with how you talk about wanting more of God with others. Don’t criticize and murmur if you’re not satisfied, pray! If you’ll read through the book of Acts, you’ll see that the moving of the Holy Spirit paralleled the unity among the believers. Frequently being in one accord in one place was mentioned.

In your own person, foster a love and care for others. If you have anything against anyone, go before God and make it right. And if necessary, go to the person and reconcile. A lack of unity will drive the Holy Spirit away from a church! Ask yourself the question, Is there anyone that I could not sit with and have a comfortable conversation? Do I hold anything against anyone? Let’s cry out for more of God and let’s love one another unconditionally!

Praying in God's Great Big Ocean

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose (Romans 8: 26-28). We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose (Romans 8:28 – Amplified).

I have an alert inside to spend some extra time now praying in the spirit, that is, in other tongues. When you pray in the spirit, you’re tapping into God’s eternal plans; for your life, for your family, for your nation, for the world. Praying in the spirit is like stepping out of a small pond into the Atlantic Ocean! In the pond are only your concerns, your issues and life particulars. But in God’s great big ocean you’ll find His purposes for all the issues concerning both of your life and things that concern the greater whole; others, your church, your nation, and the world.

Today we need praying that is broader and bigger that will enable the Spirit of God to undertake and manifest. Praying in the spirit gets the job done in prayer! Praying in the spirit enables you to pray the perfect will of God for everything! It’s absolutely unlimited praying.

Often, when someone or some event comes to my mind I say, Lord, I’m going to take some time to pray in the spirit about this. Anything I need to pray regarding this I trust that you will help me pray out as I pray in the spirit! Often when I do this, He gives me things in English to pray about the situation too.

It’s absolutely thrilling to be a fruitful branch of the vine! All of life’s issues should start and end in your prayer life. Take time today to pray in the spirit!

Willing and Obedient

If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, You shall be devoured by the sword"; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Isaiah 1:19-20).

To receive God’s best we must pursue Him with our whole heart and seek to obey His plan for our lives. It is not possible to walk in the best that God has for you spiritually, mentally, physically, socially, and financially without obeying His call for your life. You can’t have the blessings without intimacy with the one who brings the blessings!

While I lived in Tulsa, I frequently attended Kenneth Hagin’s meetings and heard him share several times about a lady that he could not pray for to be healed. Many years ago he had gone to a hospital to visit a lady there who was around 58 years old. As he sought to pray for her, he said he just couldn’t pray for her healing. He said it was as though a hand lifted his hand off of her as he sought to lay hands on her.

He asked her why he was having trouble praying for her healing and she responded by telling him that she had been called by God into ministry as a missionary at age 13. As she grew older, she said she longed to get married, have children, and have a normal family. She said that she reasoned in her mind that she could obey the call of God by being a secretary in a church and by just supporting missions.

She said to brother Hagin that she did what she wanted, got married, had children, and supported missions, but that her health broke and she had never been healthy all her life. And now she knew that she could not be healed because she was not in line to receive God’s best due to her disobedience.

Many people fail to receive healing for similar reasons. Unless we put God first, we’re not in line to receive the promises of His Word. We all should take the time to seek God in prayer and find out what His perfect will is for us. He won’t speak to you about it unless you initiate! Draw near to God and He will draw near to you (James 4:8).

Take time regularly to consecrate yourself to do the will of God. Obedience creates in your life the atmosphere for blessing. Disobedience or slackness in seeking can open up a door to the devourer. Seek God today!

Why is There a Hell?

Many people simply can’t correlate the scriptural teaching of hell with a loving God. How can God allow people to suffer such a horrible fate if He really loves them?

Many people surmise their own idea of who God the Father is and what He is like from their own thinking and from their own experiences. But we must go to Word to understand God. It may take our finite minds eternity to explore all of His ways and understand the Infinite God completely!

Notice Psalm 50:16-21: But to the wicked God says: "What right have you to declare My statutes, Or take My covenant in your mouth, seeing you hate instruction and cast My words behind you? When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have been a partaker with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. These things you have done, and I kept silent; you thought that I was altogether like you; but I will rebuke you, and set them in order before your eyes.

One part of God’s character is justice. Psalm 89:14 reveals: Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; mercy and truth go before Your face. His love for us is based on justice. God cannot forgive sin just because He loves us. If that were so, then why did Jesus go to the cross? Why did Jesus have to come as the incarnate Son of God if God could simply forgive the sin of mankind? God’s forgiveness of our sin must be just and fair. He can’t break the rules He set up to govern the universe. That would disqualify Him from being God.

God must be just to His own moral law; He must be just to His enemy Satan; and He must be just to man. Our redemption is amazing. Satan never thought that God would go to such an extreme to redeem us from hell. When Satan succeeded in his scheme to cause man to sin, he thought that we would end up with his own judgment, hell, and that there was no way God could justly set us free from this penalty. But Satan miscalculated the love of God for us!

In redeeming us, God assumed the liability for our wrongdoing, and chose to pay the just penalty for us sin for us! The penalty for eternal spirit rebels is incarceration in hell and then the final judgment of the lake of fire! When Jesus went to hell for us and legally paid our sin debt, the indictment for sin was removed from us, and the trial date cancelled!

Now, every person who accepts Jesus Christ’s legal payment for their sin by bowing their knee to Him can be set free from sin and it’s eternal penalty! Now that is amazing love!

The sad part is that those who refuse Jesus just and legal payment for their sin must endure the sentencing at the great white throne judgment and eventually be placed in the lake of fire. Those who seek their own way in life without bowing their knee to the Son of God in obedience and faith in Him must bear their own sin and its penalty. We have an obligation to tell the sinner that God has cancelled their sin debt in Christ and that they do not have to go to hell!

If a person chooses to refuse Jesus’ eternal sacrifice, then God has an obligation to His own justice to allow them to go to hell even though He loves them so much. Let’s wake up to our responsibilities today to share this good news with those we come in contact with. Ask the Father to open up conversations with the people you associate with today. Their eternal well being is at stake!

Hell and the Lake of Fire

A truth that is rarely mentioned is the doctrine of eternal retribution. This is the belief found in scripture that there is a place called hell and the lake of fire for those who leave this life without embracing the forgiveness for sin offered them by God through Jesus Christ.

Every human faces judgment after death. Hebrews 9:27 reveals: And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. Those who die without being born again will face the Great White Throne judgment. This is only for unbelievers, no believers are found here. At another time and place, believers will stand before Jesus at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Let me give you the why and how of what happens to unbelievers at death. To understand hell, you must understand the purity and holiness of God. God cannot come near impurity or sin. His very presence would annihilate it! Old Testament saints had no access to the presence of God in the Holy of Holies because they were still sinners. Only the high priest could go into the presence of God and then under great precaution lest he be struck dead by the holiness of God’s presence. Uzza died when he touched the Ark of the Covenant. He was a sinner touching God’s purity.

There has to be a place of confinement for eternal spirit rebels. Those who leave this life without being born again are impure because of sin and cannot enter heaven. If God allowed them to wander around the universe unrestrained, they would demoralize the universe!

Hell was created as a place of eternal confinement for Satan and fallen angels after they sinned and rebelled against God. The Lake of Fire is the final resting place for Satan! Since humanity yielded to sin, humanity faces the same fate as Satan since humans too are eternal spirit rebels that never cease to exist after death.

At death the unsaved go immediately to the eternal county jail called hell to await the trial for their sin called the Great White Throne Judgment. Once judged for their rejection of Jesus, they are cast into the federal penitentiary of eternity called the Lake of Fire. There the unsaved will suffer the agonies of the being burned by fire for eternity. Once there, no one ever gets out! It’s eternal. Spirit beings don’t burn up, they just keep existing! This is a terrible end for any living thing.

I’ll share more on this tomorrow. I’ll leave you with the passage from Revelation 20 which clearly shows the trial and sentencing for eternal spirit rebels. Every person you meet today will either spend eternity with God in heaven and then later in the new heavens and new earth if they have been born again, or they will spend eternity hell and then the lake of fire if they die without Jesus. We have the responsibility today to share the good news with them! No person has to go to hell unless they choose to reject Jesus’ payment for their sins. You have the responsibility today to share the gospel –the good news- with every person you meet!

Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-15).

What Justice Demanded

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:1-2).

Here’s what the judicial side of our redemption demanded. A man got us into sin, and a man must legally pay our sin penalty. But not just any man. For a man to qualify to pay our sin penalty, he must first certain criteria. He must be in fellowship with God, and be guilty of no sin of His own. He must not be subject to Satan’s control and He must have a body that is not subject to physical death. No human born of two human parents is capable of legally paying for the sins of mankind, for he is sinful himself, is under Satan’s control, and is already subject to death.

When Jesus hung on the cross, he cried out as God literally turned His back on Him and made Him to become our sin. Our sin is a spiritual thing. Though Jesus suffered untold agony when He hung on the cross, His physical sufferings did not begin to touch our sin problem.

Jesus literally bore our spiritual death. He really died twice on the cross. He died spiritually when He cried out as God forsook Him. He became our spiritual death. Later, He died physically, but only after He died spiritually by becoming our spiritual death.

When Jesus died, He went to hell to pay our sin penalty. The penalty for sin is spiritual and physical death, and incarceration in hell. Jesus bore our sin penalty, and went to hell for us the moment He died. In this way, He legally dealt with our sin problem, and made a complete redemption available for us!

Hell was divided into two compartments before Jesus died and rose from the dead. According to Jesus there was the righteous side of hell called Paradise by Jesus on the cross, and also called Abraham’s bosom. There was also the unrighteous side of hell where all unbelievers of all ages go at death.

When Jesus died, He went to the unrighteous side of hell and stayed there until God was satisfied that our sin debt was completed paid in full. When God’s justice toward our sin was satisfied, the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus in hell, and He was Born Again, that is, He came back alive unto God and His fellowship with the Father was restored!

He then went to Paradise, the righteous side of hell, and led the Old Testament believers in a triumphant procession out of the righteous side of hell. On the way to heaven they appeared to the saints in Jerusalem.

Jesus then conquered death by being resurrected from the dead in a new flesh and bone body. His resurrection took the sting out of death for us, and guarantees us a physical resurrection when Jesus comes for us in the rapture of the church.

Jesus defeated death, hell, Satan, and the grave for us when He was raised from the dead. His resurrection gives makes available to us the New Birth; access into the presence of God anytime day or night; victory over Satan and all His forces; healing for our bodies from sickness and disease; the promise of all our needs being met in this life; and the promise that one day we’ll have a brand new immortal body just like the one He received at His resurrection.

Jesus is now seated at the right hand of the Father, where He ever lives to make intercession for us. He is our heavenly defense attorney, and He’s never lost a case! We are seated with Him far above the power of Satan and his emissaries.

Take your place seated in heavenly places with Jesus Christ, and rule and reign in your life through the victory gained By Christ Jesus for you!

The Wisdom of God

Yet when we are among the full-grown (spiritually mature Christians who are ripe in understanding), we do impart a [higher] wisdom (the knowledge of the divine plan previously hidden); but it is indeed not a wisdom of this present age or of this world nor of the leaders and rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing and are doomed to pass away. But rather what we are setting forth is a wisdom of God once hidden [from the human understanding] and now revealed to us by God — [that wisdom] which God devised and decreed before the ages for our glorification [to lift us into the glory of His presence]. None of the rulers of this age or world perceived and recognized and understood this, for if they had, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:6-8- Amplified).

The wisdom of God sent Jesus to the cross. The whole reason that Jesus was incarnated was so that He could die for the sins of humanity. The Magi who offered Jesus the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh were prophetic in their deed (Matthew 2:11). The gold spoke of Jesus divinity, the frankincense of His anointing as Messiah, and the myrrh spoke of His death, since myrrh was used in preparing the dead for burial.

If we knew the day, time, and events surrounding our death, it would take a heavy psychological toll on us. A. B. Simpson says the veil that hides our future is woven by the hand of mercy. But this is not so with Jesus. He was born to be the lamb taken to the slaughterhouse. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).

But it was not just Jesus gruesome physical death that bore our sins. His sacrifice was much deeper than that. In the wisdom of God, the sinless Son of God became a man so that he as a sinless man could assume our sin debt and pay it for us! When Jesus cried out on the cross My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me, He fulfilled part of His purpose in coming to the earth in incarnate form. Isaiah reveals that the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6).

The Apostle Paul received the revelation from the Holy Spirit that Jesus was our sin substitute there on Calvary. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus actually bore our spiritual death on the cross. He became what we are, so the we could become what He is! He became our sin, our separation from God, so that we could become the righteousness of God in Him! That means that now we can stand before God as though we had never sinned!

When Jesus cried out My God, My God on the cross, He was hit with the sudden realization that God had turned His back on Him. The sweet fellowship He has with the Father from eternity past was suddenly gone. Gloom and darkness surrounded Him. The legions of hell in the spirit realm gaped upon Him. They gape at Me with their mouths, like a raging and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it has melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet (Psalm 22:13-16).

Yes, Jesus became our spiritual death on the cross. And He endured our sin penalty so that we could go free. Tomorrow we’ll look a bit deeper into Jesus death and what it did. Don’t take personal sin lightly in your life. Jesus endured hell so that you could be forgiven. He gave both His natural and spiritual life so that you could escape hell!

Not My Will But Yours

He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." (Matthew 26:39)

If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword"; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Isaiah 1:19-20).

Jesus prayed the prayer of consecration in the garden of Gethsemane before He faced crucifixion, died, and then was raised from the dead. The word Gethsemane means the place of crushing. There in that olive tree orchard olives were harvested and crushed in order to provide the rich and healthful oils that benefit humanity. And in that same Olive orchard Jesus was faced with giving up His human desires to a higher cause, the redemption of all humanity from the penalty of sin.

Jesus had to experience the place of crushing and then He had to face the physical agony of death by crucifixion before He could attain His stature in heaven of being seated at the right hand of the Father. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:8-11).

Before His exaltation, Jesus faced personal humiliation. There is a pattern here that we must see. If we are going to occupy that place of being seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6) and of being heir of God and equal heirs with Jesus (Romans 8:17), then we’re going to have to be willing to experience our personal Gethsemane. This is the place when we take all of our personal human ambition and desire and lay it down before the Father. Then we willingly submit to whatever plan the Father has purposed for our lives from the foundation of the world.

Unless you’re willing to bow in humility before the sovereign purposes of God for your life, you will never attain to the best that God has for you right now.

Isaiah stated tersely that only those who are willing and obedient will eat the good of the land. Willingness and obedience go hand in hand. The Father wants you to be willing to do anything He asks you to do and to go anywhere He asks you to go. That kind of personal consecration takes life out of the sphere of self-centered living, and places us into the abundant stream of God’s will.

Kenneth Hagin used to mention the Lord speaking to him in a time of personal consecration while he pastored a church in Texas in the 1940’s. He said that the Lord told him that at that time he had only entered into the first phase of the ministry that God had for Him, and at the time he had already been in ministry for 12 years! Then brother Hagin mentioned that the Lord said to him that many ministers live and die and never enter the full will of God for their lives. He then noted that God did not speak to Him further about his own ministry until he took extra time to seek him and make personal consecrations.

Then brother Hagin mentioned something that may shock you. He said the Lord told him that this lack of consecrating to do the will of God is the reason that many die before their time, and die in mid life! That’s quite shocking, but the truth is that we don’t qualify for God’s best unless we give him our best, our ultimate consecration of our now and our future to the Father.

To be seated in that position of authority and blessing with Jesus your Lord, you must pass through your own Gethsemane and your own crucifixion of fleshly desire and will. To receive the best that God has for you, you must seek Him with your whole heart!

This prayer of consecration should be a regular part of your personal prayer life. Take some time today and commit yourself afresh to do the will of God, whatever it may be for your life. If you do, you’ll qualify to eat the good of the land. If you refuse, it could cost you dearly!

Growing Through Relationships

And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not (Deuteronomy 8:2).

God dealt with the Israelites a certain way in order to train them and as He said in the above verse to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. What happened to Israel is an example to us of how the Father deals with us as New Covenant folk who are to walk in love at all times in every situation.

I’ve seen so many patterns over the years in my own life that show me that this is how the Father trains us for the next level of responsibility He has for us. He will allow us to be placed in a relationship that makes us uncomfortable, that draws out of us a fleshly, carnal attitude, an anger problem, resentment and unforgiveness a caustic, bitter thoughts, words, actions, or feelings. Then He sits back to see how we’re going to deal with our human responses to those who don’t treat us the way we think is correct.

Our response shows our maturity and ability to change and adapt to all circumstances and put love first, or it shows our carnality and lack of spiritual maturity and the need to grow or deal with personal issues.

The deeper you go in God, the more He will ask of you. If you run when problems arise in relationships instead of facing the issues and dealing with yourself, you actually hinder an important part of the growth process in your spiritual life. Walking in love will make great demands on your flesh, on your human responses!

If you going to be used by the Spirit of God to minister life, you have to die! That is, die to having your own way, to having things go the way you think they should go. Being used by the Father means coming to the place that your personal needs and opinions no longer matter! What matter most is what God says as revealed in the Word. And for us New Covenant believers, we must be willing to compare all of our thoughts, words, actions, choices, attitudes, demeanor, as well as our responses to others with the unconditional love that we’re commanded to walk in!

Every relationship and every conversation you have today is a potential test for you. The Lord wants to see how you’re going to deal with others when they don’t treat you the way you think they should. It’s a character test. Your relationships today and how you deal with them are showing you what is in your heart.

Let the Father take you to the place of brokenness today. Brokenness is the response of humility to the conviction of God! Cry out to the Father for Him to have His way in you and help you make adjustments in how you relate to others. Make a choice to pass the tests life brings through relationships today!

Turn Thoughts into Prayer!

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2). My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you (Galatians 4:19).

Some time ago, I was awakened in the wee hours of the morning with the one of my ministry friends on my heart. He’s going through what may be one of the greatest tests of his life to date. When I woke up, not only did I have him on my mind, but I had him in my emotions too. I felt what he felt; which was loneliness, isolation, hopelessness, etc. The sense was very strong and I recognized that the Father was giving me intercession for him. I was taking his place in pray. They Lord rolled his burden upon me for a few minutes as I wept and prayed.

When a person comes to your mind, day or night, it just may be the Holy Spirit urging you to pray. When He wants to minister to someone, that ministry starts in prayer. He usually alerts someone close to the person to make intercession.

In 2004 my appendix burst mid flight on the first leg of a trip to India. The Father gave my mother intercession for me two weeks before and as a result, I’m still alive!

My Father was given a dream about me in August of 1995, and He prayed for me for most of the next day. The following day I was involved in an auto accident that could have been devastating. It resulted in only damage to the car. Neither me nor the other person involved were physically hurt. My father’s prayers were answered.

In 1984, I was involved in another car incident where my car careened down and icy hill and almost fell 20 feet down into a manmade, cement bottomed stream. My mother had intercession for me several weeks before and again my life was spared. My only injury was a broken wrist!

God gave me intercession for a backslidden friend years ago during my morning devotional time with Him. I felt lost and away from God the way my friend was at the time. He called me a few days later and shared with me the story of his repentance and return to the Lord. The Father answers prayer!

Don’t take lightly the faint thoughts of others that invade your consciousness. Someone’s life could be handing in the balance. Take time to pray!

Free From Bitter Root Strongholds and Expectations

Exercise foresight and be on the watch to look [after one another], to see that no one falls back from and fails to secure God's grace (His unmerited favor and spiritual blessing), in order that no root of resentment (rancor, bitterness, or hatred) shoots forth and causes trouble and bitter torment, and the many become contaminated and defiled by it (Heb 12:15-Amplified).

Bitter root strongholds and bitter root expectations are often at the core when we’re having problems in our relationship with God, ourselves and others. When others wrong us, and we hold on to that wrong in the form of unforgiveness and resentment, that event can become a bitter root in our thoughts, and can color future behavior.

Bitter root expectations arise out of bitter thoughts left unchecked in the soul. I have a bitter root expectation when I expect someone now to treat me the way someone in my past treated me. It’s a set up for problems in relationships, and is very common.

Let me show you a very simple instance of how I’ve had to deal with this in my own life. When I was a young boy, my friend and I would plan to meet at a certain place while riding our bikes. My friend would tell me that he would meet me at 3:00 PM at a certain place. I would go there and wait and he didn’t show up. I was early and waited for him for 20 minutes or more, and he never came. This happened several times, and then was repeated by others. I was on time, they were no shows! This really bothered me but I just shrugged it off and forgot it.

Then, as an adult I found myself not trusting people when they would commit to do something for me. I would check on them three or four times when a person made a commitment to do something for me at a certain time. It go to the point that I would rather do something myself than to trust another person to do it for me!

One day the Lord showed me the root of this distrust I had in people in general, and I saw that I had developed a bitter root expectation. I had really harbored unforgiveness towards the friend who constantly let me down. This unforgiveness or bitter root stronghold buried in my inner thoughts created in me an expectation that made me think that I just couldn’t trust people. Once I saw it, I prayed and repent for harboring the unforgiveness towards my friend so many years ago.

Once I did this, I found that I was enabled to trust others in a way that I couldn’t before. My deep inner thoughts had been released from the expectation that others would fail me! I was amazed at how quickly this helped me.

I’ve taken this same principle and dealt with many issues in my life; issues with personal beliefs about myself because of how others treated me in my past; issues with authority figures in my life that let me down; and so many other things.

It’s important that we cleanse our soul from bitter root strongholds and bitter root expectations. One way to do this is to write down the names of people with whom you’ve closely related. Parents, siblings, friends, teachers, coaches, relatives, boyfriends or girlfriends, ex-spouses, pastors, etc. As you think about that person, write down any uncomfortable things that happen between you and that person. Pray and specifically forgive them for anything that they did that brought harm to you. Once you forgive them and release this to the Lord, make a decision to never allow your mind to go there and dwell on what they did again. In prayer before God you have released them from anything you’ve held against them. I call this itemized forgiveness. Thought by thought, you go before God and purposely release any negative thoughts you have about any person in your past.

This releases you from bitter root thoughts that create negative expectations in your current relationships. This releases you from so much mental and emotional baggage! Forgive on this deeper level and you’ll be free to love and free to bless in your current relationships.

Rooting Out Wrong Thinking and Living

The Jesus life we’re called to live is about personal growth and change through the Word. James tell us that the implanted Word will change our thought patterns and emotional responses. Hebrews 4 tells us that the Word is so powerful that it is able to divide soul from spirit. The Word goes down deep into our human nature and sorts out what is flesh and what is spirit. The Word is so powerful that it actually goes down into the very thoughts that give us consciousness. These are the thoughts that make us behave the way we do and cause us to act and react almost automatically in many situations.

We all have thoughts that are so deep within us that we’re not able to recognize them. These are the thoughts that form our belief system. These thoughts are formed by our interaction with our parents and families and are the drive that makes us act the way we do.

Here’s the deal. If there is a disconnect between what you read in the Word and what you do at home and in your close relationships, then there is a root that must be dealt with in your life. All of us have these kinds of roots that must come out! These are trans-generational sins that we must allow the Holy Spirit and loving friends to reveal to us. We usually don’t see them ourselves.

Here’s a quote from my friend Chip Judd: God wants to identify, challenge, and change any patterns of thought, belief, or behavior that are contrary to His will. Many of these patterns are so much a part of us that we can’t see them without the revelation of God’s Spirit and the help of other loving Christians.

Here’s a brief glimpse at what I mean. I’ll give you some stats on what kind of children both loving and harsh parents produce and you may see what I mean in your own life.

Harsh, Perfectionistic, Neglectful, and Condemning Parents Produce Children Who 1) Are plagued by insecurity, guilt, fear, anger, loneliness, and withdrawal (self protective walls around them) 2) Have high, rigid, unattainable standards 3) Have a feeling that they do not measure up 4) Are driven to accomplish goals and to please others in order to win the love and acceptance that they crave 5) Think that something is wrong with them (children tend to believe that parents are always right) 6) condemn themselves for not being worthy of love. They either deny their need for love or they try to secure love by performance 7) Struggle with their perception of God. They just can’t do enough to please Him. They often feel that God is distant and condemning.

On the other hand, Loving, compassionate, protective, affirming, and disciplining parents produce children who: 1) Feel loved, valued, and secured 2) Are able to try new things without threat of condemnation if they fail 3) Are able to take appropriate social and business risks without fear of failure (they are self-confident) 4) Are able to enjoy relationships without fearing intimacy. (If you were not loved by your parents – to you intimacy may hurt) 5) Are emotionally, relationally, and spiritually healthy 6) Believe that God is caring and affirming.

If you have the fruit, then you have the root. If you’re able to relate well with others, if you’re able to reveal your heart, if you’re able to receive admonishment from others without feeling hurt and betrayed by them, then you probably came from a family that loved you with some measure of unconditional love.

But if you’re easily offended, if you can’t receive constructive criticism from others without thinking that they totally reject you, if you often feel isolated and alone, then there are root thoughts in you formed from problems in your home as a child. They are buried deep in your soul and hinder your current relationships. The Father wants to wash them away with the water of the Word and with His unconditional love and forgiveness. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss how this works!

Work on Your Love Walk

For the last week, I’ve been writing about the characteristics of love according to 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8. Love should be the most important item in our lives as believers. Our witness to the world is tied directly to our love walk. Our spiritual growth is tied directly to our love walk. Our effectiveness in the kingdom of God is motivated by our love walk. Our authority over the demonic is rooted in our love walk. Take your love walk seriously. It determines your success in spiritual things.

The following is a compilation of several translations of the characteristics of love found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. I encourage you to copy this and keep it with you. Meditate on it regularly and your lifestyle will change!

Let me describe love. It is slow to lose patience; love stays in difficult relationships with kindness, and it always looks for ways to be constructive. There is no envy in love. It is not possessive and never boils over with jealousy. Love makes no parade of itself; it never boasts, nor does it puff up with pride. Love is never arrogant and never puts itself on display, because it is neither anxious to impress, nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. Love never gets irritated and is never resentful. Love holds no grudges, and it keeps no record of evil done to it. Love refuses to be provoked and never harbors evil thoughts. Love is not rude or grasping or overly sensitive, nor does love search for imperfections and faults in others. Love does not compile statistics of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails. Love celebrates what is real and not what is perverse or incomplete. Love never does the graceless thing. Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. Love never insists on its own rights, never irritably loses its temper, and never nurses its wrath to keep it warm. Love is not touchy. Love can stand any kind of treatment because there are no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust. Love bears up under anything; it perseveres in all circumstances. Love’s first instinct is to believe in people. If you love someone, you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best in him, and always stand your ground in defending him. Love never regards anyone or anything as hopeless. Love keeps up hope in everything. Love’s hope never fades. Love keeps on keeping on! It trusts in God in every situation and expects God to act in all circumstances. Love goes on forever. Nothing can destroy love. Nothing can happen that can break love’s spirit. In fact, it is the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.

Love Hopes and Endures All

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…(1 Corinthians 13: 4-8).

Love also hopes all things. This characteristic is similar to believing the best in someone but goes a step further. Love expects improvement as time goes by. Hope always deals with the future and when we hope all things we are saying that we believe others are changing for the better! The Amplified Bible of this phrase reads its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances. Agape believes in the God who can change people!

Agape endures all things. The Greek word for endure here in 1 Corinthians 13:7 is the word hupomeno. This Greek word comes from hupo which means under and meno which means to remain. Together it is the picture of a person who remains steady in a difficult place. When the going gets tough this person continues to stand and continues to love.

In trying and difficult relationships the person who loves with agape becomes a real strength to those who through their own hurt are hurtful to others. Agape will allow you to remain through thick and thin; to put up with the biting, hurtful, stinging things that others do to you. Agape love maintains faith that God is working behind the scenes to bring about change in a person who is frankly hard to live with! Endurance will enable you to be kind to the unkind and tender to the harsh.

Here’s another quote that I thought was so good concerning endurance from the book The Life of Faith:

To endure is to go through a thing just as though it had not occurred – to be not in the least affected by it. How many of us can and do go through all trying, hurtful, evil things that are on every side as sweetly, calmly, silently, lovingly, and uncomplainingly as if they were all just as if we would like them to be. That is to endure.(1)

The last characteristic of love is that love never fails! 1 John 4:16 tell us that we are to believe the love that God has for us. It is possible to come to the place in life where you believe that live is the best way to live. It is better than selfishness, strife, bitterness, resentment, grudges, anger, and animosity. The love way is the most successful way to live!

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(1) Mrs. C. Nuzum, The Life of Faith (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1928, 1956), p. 85-86

Love Covers With Silence

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…(1 Corinthians 13: 4-8).

We’ve been examining the characteristics of agape love the last few days. The last two days I discussed the truth that love does not rejoice at iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Love does not ignore problems, but kindly confronts them with truth. A person who really loves you will be honest with you if you’re involved in something that will be a detriment to your life in some way.

The next characteristic of love from 1 Corinthians 13: 7 is that love bears all things. The word bear is the Greek word stege which simply means a roof or a covering. In this verse it means to cover by silence the offences of others! In fact the Berkeley translation of the New Testament of this phrase reads, Love covers all things in silence.

Proverbs 10:12 tells us that hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins. And this principle is mentioned again in 1 Peter 4:8: And above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins. A believer who walks in love will not gossip about others’ problems!

Mrs. C Nuzum, author of the book The Life of Faith (1) has this to say about love covering with silence: Love covers sins, even when there is a multitude of them. Love not only hides the evil in others, but refuses even to speak of it. Then, if we tell of the evil someone has done, criticize, judge, condemn, or murmur against anyone, no matter who he is or what he has done, we are proving that we have not love, because love covers in silence.

Resist the tendency to talk about others and their problems. A mature believer who walks in agape has learned to value others and will not be used to disseminate negative information! We are to keep our thoughts and our words on things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy!

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(1) Mrs. C. Nuzum, The Life of Faith (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1928, 1956), p. 84

The Other Side of Love

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…(1 Corinthians 13: 4-8).

I want to finish discussing The other side of love today. Remember that love does not rejoice in injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. There is a side of the love walk that is confrontational when correction may possibly transform a life or protect others.

Proverbs 27:5 reads: Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Today’s English Version makes it clear: “Better to correct someone openly than to let him think you don't care for him at all.” Love wants what is best for the other person, even if at the moment it takes a tough stand. Today we call it tough love.

Jesus is our Savior from sin, and He is also our example of living in a fallen world. Notice that he didn’t smile and shake hands with the hypocrites selling their wares in the temple. Rather, He took out a whip, and drove them away. He overturned their tables for money exchange, let loose the animals they were selling, and challenged their ungodly deceiving actions! Did Jesus walk in love? Of course He did!

Jesus called the religious leaders of His day hypocrites and with-washed graves full of dead men’s bones! Why did He act that way towards them? Because He loved them enough to be real and honest with them and loved others enough to expose the leaders wrong behavior lest others become infected with it and fall into the same trap!

In 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15, Paul tells the believers in Thessalonica to have nothing to do with a person who is purposely acting in an ungodly way. He tells them to that a person who doesn’t work (and is able to) should not be able to eat for free. He tells them not to fellowship with a believer who is living in a divisive, ungodly way so that the deceived believer will be ashamed of himself and repent! “And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother” (2 Thessalonians 3: 14-15).

On the surface, that seems unloving, but a closer look would reveal a heart desire to rescue a believer that may be headed down a path of destructive behavior.

In Titus 3:10-11, again Paul asserts tough love on a man who has been told to correct his behavior repeatedly, and just simply refuses to listen. He tells the church there in Crete to have nothing to do with him: “If anyone is causing divisions among you, he should be given a first and second warning. After that have nothing more to do with him, (11) for such a person has a wrong sense of values. He is sinning, and he knows it” (Living)

In 1 Corinthians 5, we find Paul dealing with a man who is involved in an immoral relationship with his step-mother, and is flaunting his actions in the church in Corinth. Read the entire chapter and you’ll find Paul acting in love as he turns the man over to the devil so that his spirit would be saved. He then tells the Christians in the church to have absolutely no fellowship with this man until he repents!

In Hebrews 12: 50-11, we find that God chastens and deals with those he really loves. And in Revelation 3: 14-20, we find Jesus telling the church in Laodicea to repent of their lukewarmness or He will vomit them out of His mouth! He says in verse 19, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent.”

God is love, and love, though kind is also full of discipline and honesty. Fear keeps the peace at all costs, even to the point of holding back from needed confrontation. Proverbs 28:23 makes it so clear: He who rebukes a man will find more favor afterward than he who flatters with the tongue.

In summary, love is kind to all, does not respond in kind to wrongs committed against it, and will be silent toward personal persecution. But, love will defend the weak and stand for truth when unfair actions hurt others.

May the Lord enable us all to be set free from fear that refuses to confront problems when necessary, and to be filled with the love of God which “does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.”

Love Stands for Truth!

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…(1 Corinthians 13: 4-8).

Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth The Amplified Bible translates this phrase as follows: It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Weymouth’s translation reads: “She finds no pleasure in injustice done to others, but joyfully sides with the truth.” The Living Paraphrase renders it: “It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out.”

I call this the “other side of love.” Love stands for what is right, and will stand up for others when their rights are being violated. Love will not stand by idly when God and His standards are being attacked. Love will confront wrong doing in deference to the good of all involved!

How can you tell whether to “turn the other cheek” or to challenge a situation? Here’s the deciding factor. When others do you wrong, you don’t retaliate. Remember, love doesn’t take account of the evil done to it; doesn’t pay attention to a suffered wrong. But love will hold accountable those whose actions hurt others. Love always puts others first. And when someone is being hurt or unjustly dealt with, love will come to their defense.

To put it another way, when someone hurts me, I take no account of their actions, and treat them as if they did nothing wrong. But when they hurt someone else, I will stand for what is right and step in and acts so that others will not be hurt.

Love will challenge the behavior of the alcoholic who is being irresponsible and leading his family into poverty or extreme debt. Love will challenge person who abuses a child physically, emotionally, or sexually, and will do what is necessary to stop the hurtful actions. I’ve called law enforcement on a number of occasions when I saw that laws were being broken and pain was being inflicted on the innocent. When I called the authorities I was really acting out of Agape love, because love “finds no pleasure in injustice done to others, but joyfully sides with the truth.”

I have stepped in and challenged husbands who for many years physically and psychologically abused their wives. I’ve encouraged parents to confront the irresponsible child in their 20’s that lives in the home and doesn’t work. The parents were actually acting out of selfish motives to allow this behavior to continue! They were only thinking of themselves, and not of the needed maturity in the life of their son or daughter.

It seems so mean for the mother eagle to push the baby eaglet out of that nest and watch it seemingly fall to its own death. But if mother eagle didn’t force the eaglet to fly, it would be dependent on the mother for life, and would eventually die when the mother could no longer bring it enough food! So out of instinctive motherly love, the eagle knocks her baby eaglet out of the nest over and over again, and swooping down catches it on her back just before it hits the ground.

Stand your ground in love today. Stand for what is right. The Lord may lead you to lovingly challenge a person who is harming themselves or others. This other side of love is necessary and so overlooked today. I’ll continue this thought tomorrow!