If Jesus gives us a task or assigns us to a difficult season, every ounce of our experience is meant for our instruction and completion if only we’ll let Him finish the work. I fear, however, that we are so attention-deficit that we settle for bearable when beauty is just around the corner.
Worship is focus.
To feel no conviction of sin for a length of time is a serious sign that the Holy Spirit may not reside in us. We can quench the Spirit, but we cannot disable Him.
We constantly fight an unseen enemy. God has assured us the victory, but He has told us to take an aggressive stand against the evil one, covering ourselves in His armor. We’re going to win, but victory is going to take blood, sweat, and tears – His blood, our sweat, and tears from us both.
God will sometimes allow things to get bad enough that we will be forced to look up. Victory always begins with a cry for help. When we come to the end of ourselves and cry out for help, amazing things happen.
Make no excuses. Rationalize nothing. Blame no one. Humble yourself.
God’s specialty is raising dead things to life and making impossible things possible. You don’t have the need that exceeds His power.
We can be saved, the Holy Spirit can dwell in us, and yet we can continually live in defeat because the enemy can outwit us if we do not depend on the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.
We have a crippling tendency to forget what God has done for us. For a while, we’re humbled. Then, if we do not guard our hearts and minds, we begin to think we must have done something right for God to have been so good to us. Therein lies another road to captivity. It is the road of legalism.
If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come. 2 Corinthians 5:17.
No amount of determination will bring freedom. We’re going to learn to be victorious by surrendering our lives completely to the Spirit of God, not by gritting our teeth and trying harder.
Sometimes we praise because we choose to; other times we praise because we want to. Occasionally we praise because we have to – because, if we don’t, the rocks will cry out!