Remember

Psalm 77:10Then I thought, “To this I will appeal:

the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand.

11I will remember the deeds of the Lord;

yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.

12I will consider all your works

and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”

As a brother who has seen multiple miracles in his life, I can testify that an important key to your next (or first) miracle is remembering what the Lord has already done.  Do we really believe the Lord parted the Red Sea for Israel to pass through?  Do we really believe our Lord raised Lazarus from the dead?  Do we believe the Lord has performed miracles for His people?  If He has done these things before He can do them again.  His power is the same now as it was then.  We remember so we can apply what was done to our own hearts and minds to condition ourselves to receive the promises.

The Lord's power is not the problem, our own impatience and faithlessness are often the problem.  Two absolutely important keys to our walk with  the Lord are faith and patience.  How much can be achieved with faith and patience?  EVERYTHING.  Mountains can be moved, trees uprooted and case into the sea, the sick healed, and all our personal problems solved with the application of faith and patience.

How do we build up our faith and strengthen our patience?  By remembering what the Lord has already done.  Open the book of remembrance in your mind and count off all of the things the Lord has done for you personally.  While this brother has seen more answered prayers and miracles than I can count, I realize that they were not for me alone.  These answered prayers and miracles now serve as a testimony to you.

What testimony?  A testimony that asks you "what does the Word of God say?"  Then tells you that Word can be trusted to the uttermost.  Here is the deal guys.  This is an all or nothing 'game' we are playing.  Either we stand on our faith or we will not stand at all.

Isaiah 7:9 

... If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.'" .

Remember, remember, remember and give thanks.  Stand in awe of our God and what He has done.  Your faith will swell and grow as you meditate and consider the awesome things He has already done.  Try to picture in your own mind what it must have been like standing in front of the Red Sea and watching it part.  What did it really look like watching the waves of the sea crash down on the heads of the Egyptians?  These things are more real than you or me and we would be wise to lay hold of them and internalize them for our own benefit and the benefit of those you hear us.

If you do not feel that you have the strength to hold on for your own miracle then do it for those you love and those who you will bear witness to when your prayers have been answered and your miracle is complete.  We live in a faithless age and a time when many many people are hurting and in need.  People need answers, they need miracle power in their life not hype and empty promises.

What mankind needs today is the kind of power and deliverance that only our Lord can provide.  Do you need prayers answered?  So do I, and as one who has had prayers answered I can tell you our Lord can and will deliver if we will be patient and listen to His voice.  This brother who writes to you today can tell you He is the only answer.  As you read your Bibles you will see a long line of brothers who testify to you that our Lord's Word is true and He can be trusted.

Hang on, HOLD ON and fight for your answer.  Remember the answers and deliverance and miracles the Lord has done.

Listen to the voice of this nobody for one moment.  This nobody (through the Holy Spirit) points you to the same place all the laws and prophets point you:  our Lord Jesus Christ.  In Him are all the power, the might and the tender mercies and loving kindnesses we need to make it through another day in this testing ground we call life.

Hold on and remember...

grace and peace

What is the Spirit Saying Today?

If you have been reading here for any time, you know that the Lord has redirected this writers attention from writing about end times events (of which there are many) to focusing squarely on Him.

The events taking place in the world around us are signs of judgement for the world, but signs of homecoming for us.  What is this writer's sense of what the Lord is doing today?  He is preparing His Bride.  What is the Spirit saying today?  Very clearly the Spirit is saying praise Him....

Ps 71:5For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord,

my confidence since my youth.

6From birth I have relied on you;

you brought me forth from my mother’s womb.

I will ever praise you.

7I have become a sign to many;

you are my strong refuge.

8My mouth is filled with your praise,

declaring your splendor all day long.

If there is one thing I believe we should keep at the top of our list it is praise Him.  The Lord has impressed this clearly on me over the past few days but actually it has been over a period of many years that He has said this.  What were we created for?  To glorify Him.  We were created for His glory.

I sometime wonder how radically people's lives would turn around if they did this one thing more often.  What would happen in your life if you praised the Lord (out loud with your lips) more often?  The Word tells us the Lord inhabits the praises of His people.

Ps 22.3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

What happens when you praise and glorify the Lord continually?  The Lord shows up.  If there is anything we all need continually it is the presence and power of the Lord God Almighty in our lives.

If there is one thing and only one thing this writer ever told you and that is all you walked away with from reading this blog, it would be to praise Him, out loud with your lips and often.  Do it for yourself, and your family and all those you love and do it because it is what you were created for.  We were created to praise Him and to bring Him glory.  Let us do what we were created to do for ourselves and those we love and more importantly because our God deserves every last word that glorifies His name.  

grace and peace.

Why The Righteous Suffer

1 Peter 1:3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Our faith is being tested.  Faith is of greater worth than gold.  Do you need a miracle in your life?  It will require faith.  Do you need prayers answered?  It will require faith.  We are saved by grace through faith.

In this age of apostasy, we hear all about a one dimensional god.  That is the god the Babylonian preachers tell us about.  He is the grace only god, who offers free unconditional salvation for the price of a 10 second teary eyed alter call.  We are told that our Lord is grace and love only.  We do not hear anything about righteousness, judgement or wrath.  Our God is a God of grace and love AND righteousness, judgement and wrath.  We serve a multidimensional God, not some soft puff vanilla sugar daddy in the sky.  He is a God of wrath, judgement and repayment for lawlessness (along with everything else He is).

In His righteousness He has ordained us to suffer for our faith so we can also be rewarded for it.  This writer believes the Lord does not appoint us to a single moment of suffering that does not have some greater eternal purpose that far outweighs the suffering we endure now.  To put this in perspective, consider even someone who endures a lifetime of suffering, lets say 70 years of it.  On the day that believer stands before the Lord in paradise, with their heart trying to beat its way out of their chest with the joy and incredible pleasure of it all, will that person for a moment even blink at the suffering they endured on earth?  Compare an eternity of ecstatic joy to 70 years of so of suffering.  Everything compare against eternity is nothing.  Eternity is a long long LONG time and that is the length of time we are appointed to enjoy paradise once we have passed the test.

We are in the test right now.  Our faith is the passport into heaven.  We BELIEVE which is why we are called believers.  Our faith can move mountains right here right now.  This writer can say this with confidence because I have seen mountains moved.  The Lord has allowed me to see many miracles so I can testify to you with zero doubt that everything that has been written is true and can be trusted to the uttermost.

Matt 77“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

These Words above (Matt 7:7-8) are not just words, they are power and they are truth.  What does it take to take delivery of the above promises?  FAITH and patience.  The Lord delivers on His promises, that is a fact.  He also likes to wait in order to test our faith, that is also a fact.  Who likes to wait?  Nobody that I know but it is a pre-requisite to take delivery of the promises.

Hebrews 6:12

We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

This has been written to you today to encourage you to hold onto your faith which is worth more than everything in this world put together.  We will inherit eternity, paradise AND answers right here on earth through our faith.  Thanks be to God.

grace and peace

A Time For Everything

Happy Mothers Day (to all the mothers!)

I was asking the Lord why it takes so long sometimes for our prayers to be answered.  One answer I have already received from Him long ago is because it tests our faith.  Another answer I received yesterday was this:

Eccl 3:1There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

The Lord is not just in charge of the answer to our prayers but He is also in charge of the timing of the answer to our prayers.  Do we believe that the Lord loves us?  Then we will believe in His timing.  Do we believe that the Lord can be trusted?  Then we will believe in His timing.  Do we believe the Lord answers prayers?  Then we will believe in His timing.

This writer has had to wait for years for some answers to prayer but the Lord always, always came through.  Will the test of time expose our lack of faith or prove our faithfulness?  Will we give up on the Lord or we will hold on to the very end?

We are all being tested all the time.  Some are being tested by adversity, some are being tested by prosperity and peace, but we are all being tested.  Will we pass the test of time?  That is the question.  Will we hold onto our faith no matter what till the very end?  What did the Lord ask us?

Luke 18:8 

... Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

our faith is everything.

Ephesians 2:8 

... For by grace you have been saved through faith

My prayer is that we will all hold onto our faith until the end.  I hope that some of us might even surprise the Lord with great faith such as this:

Luke 7:1When Jesus had finished saying all this to the people who were listening, he entered Capernaum. 2There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, “This man deserves to have you do this, 5because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.”6So Jesus went with them.

He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

9When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” 10Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well

grace and peace