Tag: prophecy

Devotional 163: All That I Have is Yours

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John 16:12-15

12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

Luke 15:28-31

28 “But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. 30 But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’

31 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.

John 8:34-36

34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. 35 And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. 36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

If you’ve the privilege of loving someone unconditionally, mutually, reciprocally, where trust and honesty are the foundations out of which that love springs, we can rest in our Savior’s promise that what He has told us has been given to Him as the will of the Father, to redeem our souls to Him, and that we shall inherit with our Lord and Brother a heavenly kingdom..

Grafted in as the sons and daughters of G-d among His chosen, we must remember that in order to inherit the glory, we shall not be made immune from suffering or the world’s troubles, but we have been called out of it to be witnesses to the Atonement of the Son that leads the way to Redemption, that we might live in the light of the Father’s presence, redeemed, spotless, and blameless under the Blood of Jesus.

Through faith we believe this, through prayer we seek the paths to walk, the strength to persevere when persecuted, the power to resist temptation and turning back, to have patience in keeping possession of our souls until the Harvest, and unwavering faith in His promises, which He tells us He’s received from the Father to convey to us.

As He has ascended to G-d’s right hand, the Holy Spirit now imparts to us that very same will. None of the words fall to the ground, none of the doctrine is changed, and mercy and grace are provided for the short term, but repentance and fleshly crucifixion of earthly desires are required for the long term.

It is a discipline, and a sacrifice, producing the spiritual fruits of righteousness and peace. (Hebrews 12:11)

We are the midst of prophetic times, seeing through spiritual eyes all that the Savior has said beginning to unfold.

Let us hold fast, and wrap ourselves in light as with a garment, as our Lord does when He comes to us. (Psalm 104:2)

Therefore I pray.

Lord Jesus,

In the days ahead, in the midst of the trials, we pray for our leaders, our neighbors, our families, and ourselves, that we might acquit ourselves of the spirits of fear, greed, and confusion, which have no part in You, and therefore should not in us. 

Forgive us, and grant us grace if we’ve forgotten, if we’ve fell into temptation to let the world infect us with them, and to let them hold sway over the Comforter You’ve sent to us from the Heaven. 

We repent, and return to that which we know to be true, that You are our Shepherd, and we shall not want. We hold fast to the promise of G-d, that whatever befalls us, our faith in You connects us to He who sent You. We need not walk in fear, but we do not set wisdom aside.

Your words are spirit and life, and we hide them in our hearts, even as we proclaim them from the rooftops, even now, in the midst of present trials. (John 6:63)

Let nothing take us from Your hands, Lord Jesus. We look to You for guidance, strength, and healing, as we pray the earthly leaders raised up in this time begin to look to You as well in all things.

We thank You for protecting our families and ourselves, for You have said the faithful shall be spared according to Your divine will.

In righteousness, peace, and joy may we honor You. 

Amen.

 

Devotional 156: The Hour is Coming

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John 4:20-24

A Samaritan Woman Meets Her Messiah

20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

In His conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus tells her that she too, will worship the Father neither on the mountain or in the city, because when the hour comes for our redemption, we will all be in the presence of the Son at the judgment, and the purging of the Father’s enemies will begin.

As of this moment, this woman, whose people were the mortal enemies of the Jews of that time, is included in the gathering.

This, for her, is a personally confirming statement that aligns with what Jesus said about the Father calling those ‘His people’  who were not. That is, they are not of the Jews, but they believe in the Son, and His titles as Christ, Messiah, Son of G-d, and Son of Man. As the savior, judge, and king of the faithful, He tells us all the nations will be gathered before Him, and all will be judged by Him to eternity in the kingdom of G-d, and the outer darkness so many embrace.

The raging fires, warm ocean temperatures, poisoned soil, rise of immorality, rise of the occult, breakdown of family, greed of the wealthy,  the blurry concepts of gender and sexuality, the drug epidemic that continues to ravage generations, the neutralization of  the emphasis of men, all point us back to the prophecies of Paul (2 Timothy 3:1-7)

Jesus tells us to be discerning of the times. (Matthew 16:1-4)

What we must remember is that this Earth is under Satan’s dominion, given to him by Adam, (Matthew 4:9), and the Tribulation is yet to be. Of that, Jesus speaks to us here: (Matthew 24:1-31)

In the days ahead, in the decade to come, we must be diligent in our work, more focused on Christ than ever before and turning more to the Word of G-d as the worldly trappings of tech, luxury, the rise of AI, the proliferation of corruption and vice begins to unravel the fabric of this nation’s people and economy.

Christ tells them they already have their reward.

Let us be found as the servant who was doing his work when his master returned.

Therefore I pray:

Lord Jesus,

Today, we remain still in Your presence, receiving times of refreshing, that our joy may be renewed, our faith strengthened, and our souls sanctified and found worthy to stand before You unashamed.

Forgive us our doubts and lapses when we have grown weary in battle, and pour out Your grace on our misunderstanding of all that You came to do for us, and with us. Forgive us for confining You and the Father to our mortal, limited parameters, as beings of myth and imagination, as jinn who fulfill our wishes with no guidance or accountability on our part.

We ask that you intercede for us to the Father to prepare our hands for war, and for a boldness to finish the work for which You revealed the Father to us, and gave us the Holy Spirit to seal the new covenant of Your atoning blood that redeems us from the grave.

Help us to continually discern the signs that tell us this world is transitory, our journey is not yet complete, and our way is narrow on the holy path as we follow You.

Increase our faith, help our unbelief, and let our praise reflect our joy as we head for eternity with You as our King forever, in the light of the Father’s presence, holy and whole, in spirit and truth.

In righteousness, peace, and joy, may we honor You.

Amen.

 

 

Devotional 108: The Other Prophesied King

The purging of our heart’s strongholds is long, hard work.

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1 Kings 13:1-5

The Message of the Man of God

13 And behold, a man of God went from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord, and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. 2 Then he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said, “O altar, altar! Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, a child, Josiah by name, shall be born to the house of David; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men’s bones shall be burned on you.’ 

2 Kings 23:1-3

Josiah Restores True Worship

23 Now the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him. 2 The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord.

3 Then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.

The only king prophesied by name in the Bible other than Jesus was destined for righteousness and fellowship with G-d.  A good king recognized that the process of purification for the sins of his people began with him, and was a reflection of him. What the king does, the people will follow.

Josiah did a lot of work, tearing down the hedged bets of shrines, high places, altars of human and child sacrifice, unholy objects and idol figures that were a plague on the land, built by his forebears in case the G-d of Abraham was not who He claimed to be.

It is amazing how much of our human attributes we ascribe to G-d’s ability to achieve, never knowing that even our highest possible achievement is our limited way of expressing love to Him, and even prone to error, as when David first moved the Ark of the Covenant, if not done without His permission, guidance, or assistance. These are works of the flesh, burned to stubble in the testing by holy fire.

That being said, we too, were prophesied to be the children of G-d.  Our days were planned before one of them came to be, and now, we live in the fruition of that summoning. Are we willing and able to remove the rebellious items in the high places of our own houses? Are we willing to consent to G-d’s sovereignty in His calling on our lives? Are we willing to put our pride and will aside, and empty ourselves of who we think we are, in order to be who the Father called us to be, and do what He’s asked us to do?

Are we ready to leave all?

Luke 5:27-32 

Matthew the Tax Collector

27 After these things He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” 28 So he left all, rose up, and followed Him.

To give up the one thing keeping us from the Kingdom?

Mark 10:21

21 Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”

The Father’s call supersedes anything and everything else, and demands obedience if we are to be His servants, discipline if we are to be His disciples, and faith if we are to be in His presence.

It was said of Josiah:

2 Kings 23:25

25 Now before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him.

Compare that to this:

1 Samuel 15:11

11 “I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night.

What will be said of us, as the children of the living G-d, called through grace, partaking of His mercy?

It’s up to us.

Therefore I pray:

We thank You, Father, for the mercy of Your calling, for bringing us out of the world to reveal the truth of Your Son through the power of Your Spirit. 

Let disobedience and perverse things be far from us, and let our eyes be pure lamps so the light that enters us brings no stains of darkness to our souls.

Help us to hold fast to Your statutes, obey Your commandments, and allow the purification of our fellowship with You, and the conviction, confession, and remission of our sin to reconcile us to You again, by the Spirit’s prompting.

We would not grieve you with our faithlessness, erecting high places in the worship of the created instead of the Creator, handing our fates over to false gods, and trusting in fables of the stars and zodiac, and put before the doing of Your will the enjoyment of our possessions that Your hand has freely given us, to provoke Your anger.

We would abide in Your love and not Your wrath, for You are jealous for our souls, and have given us salvation that we might be reconciled to You. We will not treat it as a common thing. Bring to mind, when we fall into temptation to backslide, and sin, that we were bought with a price that cost You everything, and the You bestowed the gift to us alongside Your chosen people.

Father, we cry out to You today, to restore good and righteous leaders to us, to break the spiritual choke hold Your sworn enemy has the world in now. Bring our leaders to godly repentance. Convict them, O Lord, and open their eyes to the strife their words and actions create, the pain and the worry, the loss of life You’ve given to all men, not just to one nation, the elite, and the wealthy.

We pray Josiah’s spirit of mind be with us as peg down our tents in new territory, and if it is not, O Lord, Your will still gets accomplished. 

May our deeds withstand the testing fire, that we might claim our reward, and depart from those who would see us hurt, or dead, before our work is done.

May it be done to us as You have said.

Amen

 

Devotional 91: A Mother’s Heart

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2 Kings 4:12-25

12 Then he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite woman.” When he had called her, she stood before him. 13 And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘Look, you have been concerned for us with all this care. What can I do for you? Do you want me to speak on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’”

She answered, “I dwell among my own people.”

14 So he said, “What then is to be done for her?”

And Gehazi answered, “Actually, she has no son, and her husband is old.”

15 So he said, “Call her.” When he had called her, she stood in the doorway. 16 Then he said, “About this time next year you shall embrace a son.”

And she said, “No, my lord. Man of God, do not lie to your maidservant!”

17 But the woman conceived, and bore a son when the appointed time had come, of which Elisha had told her.

18 And the child grew. Now it happened one day that he went out to his father, to the reapers. 19 And he said to his father, “My head, my head!”

So he said to a servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 20 When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died. 21 And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door upon him, and went out. 22 Then she called to her husband, and said, “Please send me one of the young men and one of the donkeys, that I may run to the man of God and come back.”

There is a lot in this story left untold: we are not told the woman’s name or status, only that she was notable, so she wasn’t poor, and that she’d set aside a space for Elisha after recognizing he was G-d’s prophet.

G-d honored her faith in her dealings with Elisha by granting her a son, but then it seems her faith was tested, and the son was taken.

She didn’t turn to her husband, who’d proven rather useless in this matter; either he didn’t know what to do, or didn’t care, but what we know is he didn’t even take the boy in himself. She didn’t even tell him the boy had died.

She knew the source to go to, however. Not being an Israelite, she had no access to G-d except through the prophet. Her attitude was that of Martha’s at the tomb of Lazarus: “But even now I know that whatever You ask of G-d, He will give You.” (John 11:22)

Since the man of G-d prophesied her conception, but not the death, of her son, she would go to him to fix the problem.

I can imagine the rush of emotions going through her that run through us all when the Father grants something and seemingly snatches it away: anger, doubt, questions, frustration, and a sense of resolve in that if the Father wants it to be, He’ll fix it.

We’re not told her age, but in calling for the carriage to take her the prophet’s house, she told the driver not to slacken the pace. The journey through the country was likely arduous, but she bore the pain and pace through the heart stopping terrain to reach Elisha before it was  too late.

The thought of it being too late never occurred to her, and she confronted the prophet, putting the onus on him to intercede. He does, but needs to persist; the Father did not render this an easy task even for the prophet, but in the end, her son is given back to her to care for her in the days when she’ll be dependent on him.

A child grows near the mother’s heart, takes comfort from its rhythm, and becomes a part of the mother’s own biology; that is a bond fathers will never know. Her love for her son drove her to do things a ‘notable’ woman didn’t necessarily have to do.

She humbled herself, and went to the prophet, she did not summon him to her.

She kept her counsel, staying in control, not telling anyone what happened; she was not going to speak death over her son, not even to Elisha’s servant. She was going to deal directly with the source who had access and would know what to do.

She held onto her faith that the prophet’s G-d would honor the word that He gave to His servant, and He did.

I remember being in a mall once, and a mother had lost her child. I was around 220, and no lightweight, and she came walking very fast, her face like flint. She bumped me out of the way and I almost fell. Confronting the person who had her daughter by the hand, she stood in the woman’s way and challenged her.

The woman, a grandmother herself, informed her that she’d found the child wandering and they were looking for her, and gave the little girl back as she rebuked the mom for losing the child in the first place, so the story had a happy(?) ending. But I remember the force of that bump. She’d have pushed me over if I’d been directly in her path.

Let’s honor our G-d-fearing mothers today, with prayers and gifts, with our presence (if we can), with a call, with a reverent awe for their sacrifice, and a heart of gratitude that when they knew we were coming, they said to the Lord: It is well.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Let’s pray:

Father in Heaven, we thank you for the courageous hearts of our mothers, for the protection, wisdom, and insight they’ve imparted to us. We thank You for giving them hearts of unconditional love, hearts that we’ve broken from time to time, but were never missing that love.

We thank You for gifting them to us, for we would not be able to stand today without them. We thank You for making them willing to sacrifice for us, that they may see us grow and prosper, and do better in the world.

And for my own mom, who now dwells above with You,  I thank You for holding her in Your arms, and bringing her into Your kingdom. I long to see her again, but I know that has its own time, and today, I am content with the memories of her gentle wisdom, her smile, her singing voice, and the love that emanated from her heart even in her anger.

I have yet to plumb the depths and reach the heights of all she gave to me, but there are new paths of discovery ahead, and I know she walks them with me in spirit.

In Your name, I pray blessings and peace to all the mothers of the world who nurture, sacrifice, and love as You have loved. Comfort the suffering, rebuke the negligent, and sustain the family through them.

Let it be to us as You have said.

Amen.

 

 

 

Israel’s Consolation

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O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, 

that mourns in lonely exile here,

until the Son of G-d appears.

Luke 2:25-26
Simeon Sees God’s Salvation
25 And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

Simeon was no prophet, or seer. He worked no miracles, saw no angels. He was not in the fields when the angel appeared to the shepherds.

He was simply this: just, and devout.

We meet him here, at the end of his life, holding Jesus in his arms and blessing G-d.

G-d honored the devout heart of his servant, and likely beyond his expectations, for in the Spirit he was told he would see the Messiah, not hold Him. G-d keeps His promises to His people.

Israel was in need of consolation, but clearly the Lord shared with His servant that the net of grace would be expanded to those though beyond hope of redemption, despised as pagans, and shunned and barred from society as sinners.

Simeon was also in need of consolation, having seen the persecution of his people under Roman rule. The Holy Spirit revealed to he would not die until he saw G-d’s promise fulfilled not just to him, but to all the people, including the reprehensible Gentiles.

As Simeon was facing his own end, the Father gave him a vision of the divine plan for salvation, and he knew that the body he held would later save the lost and shake the empire with His ministry, a body one day broken and bloody, a body that took our place.

Is your heart in need of consolation? Mine is. My elders are all gone, with the exception of one aunt, and family gatherings with future generations has proven unreliable in planning and levels of commitment, so they’re largely a thing of the past. I’ve had to make my peace with that, and I thank G-d for the memories I do possess.

Life these days is fragmented, compartmentalized, fast-paced, uncertain, and scary.

Our representatives, as well as those who hold them to account, seem devoid of integrity and morality.

As believers, we are buffeted on every side by dismissive mockery and the unsubtle gutting of what used to be a sacred time.

The giving of gifts with thought and love behind them has become a feeding frenzy in an effort to save what amounts to pennies, and civility and common sense fade with the fall leaves.

We trot out the poor and homeless like a forgotten box of decorations and put them back on January 2nd.

The stores have trained us to value things so much,  we are willing to scratch and claw our fellow humans to get to them because they keep convincing us we never have enough, and tell us that we don’t have the power to disconnect.

Neither is true, and the power of the decision lays with you; we can be frugal, and good stewards of our finances, but we need not be mindless and heedless of our humanity about it.

This Christmas, be at peace with yourselves, and with one another.

Therefore I pray:

Let us be consoled that we’re on the narrow path, consoled in His word, consoled in His mercy and grace, consoled that the light to the Gentiles is bright and high and clear. Let us be consoled, by faith the Lord of All lifts us up to be with Him.

Let us be consoled we are no longer under the Father’s wrath, consoled that the carpenter who lay in the wood of the manger was willing to lift the wood of His cross, for our sake, and in our place.

Let’s be consoled in our devout and fallen hearts that He honors His promises to His servants, and elevates them to sons and daughters.

Let it be to us as You have said.

Merry Christmas