Tag Archives: Faithfulness of God

Nectar and Beauty From Suffering

bleeding hearts 2

Bleeding Hearts are native to Siberia, a place of banishment and abandon

How the Lord brings beauty and life from places of desolation is a true mystery because His work is unseen.  Faith is believing in that work, before we see the fruit.  Our confidence during the battle pleases God because, in the spiritual realm, we are declaring victory solely based on God’s trustworthiness.

Whether our Lord allows debilitating illness, wrenching injury, or emotional anguish and despair the scriptures and the legacy of the saints before us declare that He never afflicts without purpose and sovereignty.  In every fiery furnace, His hand is on the thermostat.

The Bible promises fruits from hardship and suffering, “grief in all kinds of trials”  1 Peter 1:6-7.   ‘Undeserved suffering’, painful chastisement, and mournful grief can thrash the life of a believer but bring utter confusion to the one not girded in God’s word.

We have no power to erase the pain of betrayal, the anxiety and panic attacks from pummeling traumas, nor can we lift the weighty blanket of depression.  But, for the sheep of the Good Shepherd, there is always a life-giving vein that flows to raise and renew us.  Our lives will not be restored to what they were.  We may walk with a limp from the storm,  our head may be singed from the fire…but not without purpose and design.

Whether slow burning or flash fire, what the enemy seems to obliterate from our lives can truly well up an unseen view and yearning for God and heaven.

“I know my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been destroyed… I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes…How my heart yearns within me!”  Job 19:25-27

Misery is the fruit of worldly suffering…not so with our Maker!  Like a grueling chisel, heartbreak and loss can break and crush what we greatly value in this world.  If only our priceless will to choose remains, choose to trust God, He is still in control.      

Bleeding Hearts 1

Flourishing in shade, Bleeding Hearts are planted to brighten up dark areas

 

Unlike the world’s endless quest to pump up the flesh, our Lord uses brokenness for His work and glory.  Trusting our Father opens the door to victory, not the elimination of pain, but the promise of His life flowing through ours as a hopeful light to others.

This is the fragrance of Christ that the world needs.

humming bird on bleeding heart

What Should We Do When God Disappoints?

God “disappoints”, someone, somewhere every day. Amidst crushing crisis, upon the cliffs of death and darkness, we fan the embers of faith to believe God will show up and rescue us from the very thing we dread. We pray, plead and willingly beg but our tears only water grass at the gravesite. What will we do when God is silent, when He closes the door, when our dreams are swept away…is God pushing the broom?

Those who don’t know the Lord test Him in their place of despair, “If you are God, show yourself to me and others here in this hospital room and we will believe!” Although the Lord rebuked the devil, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” He doesn’t condemn us in our desperation. But neither our desperation, nor nights of anguish and millions of tears can assure that God will miraculously move. Prayer cannot change the will of God, but can supernaturally open to us the revelation of what His will is and align us with His presence and sovereignty.

Prayer doesn’t make God answer, it aligns us with the answer He already has.

If you have never entered into a living faith, never truly repented and surrendered to the Lord, but rise up in your ‘911’ and call upon Him, what will you do when you are disappointed? Most people will walk further away from any semblance of faith when the ‘God option’ fails in their time of need. What will YOU do? Or, brother and sister in the Lord, what happens when we are walking right before God and He leads us onto a path of brokenness, pain and deep disappointment, what will we do when our prayers seem answered with worse calamity?

The juncture of devastating disappointment is a critical one and yet can be the most life giving crossroad of our faith. This is painfully true. Crushing disappointment is not a time to test God, it is the time He tests us. How can we survive this? How can our faith thrive through this?

Do not judge God by your circumstances, do not give up in prayer, call upon Him to enter into your despair and compel yourself to do this:

Abandon every “if-then” condition set upon God.

Make a commitment, even with a speck of faith, to prayerfully read the Bible every day. “The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” emotional pain separates us from worldly clamor and avails to us a door for the Lord to minister and speak.  Commit to that daily appointment with the Lord, He already awaits.

Did we seek God only to receive miracle or do we truly desire supernatural life?

Faith is the engine that moves and aligns us to God, positioning us to hear from Him, leading us into His presence. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God.” Meditate upon the Psalms, enter into the disappointments, the deep losses, the grief of God’s people and begin to believe that their found healing and victory is also for you.

out of pit and sold as slave

Betrayals and disappointments tested and built Joseph’s faith,  preparing him to trust and serve  Sovereign God (Genesis 37-50)

 

Press on past the voice of the enemy, Satan, as onslaughts come to fuel grief and doubts, “What good did praying bring?” “What kind of God is this anyway who lets your loved one suffer and die?” “What was God doing while your husband cheated? While your home, your plans, your dreams, crumbled to the ground?” Your faith is the target of the devil’s biggest lies: “God was doing nothing all this time! He doesn’t love you! His word is not true!”  Resolve to reject every lie and accusation against the Lord, especially those hidden within your own heart.

Holy Scripture, originally written without punctuation, renders two understandings of Isaiah 59:19 as scholars vary a tiny comma…

“When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.”

“When the enemy comes in, like a flood the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.”

I pray that the Holy Spirit comes in, like a flood of Living Water, overwhelming the wiles of the enemy and refreshing us with the Word of God.

It is natural to hope upon the miracles of healing, the abundance created by five loaves and two fish, the raising of the dead and sight to the blind, but these are temporal, not eternal ‘measuring points’ of God’s faithfulness. Jesus established His divinity through such miracles but that He did not come to perform miracles. He came to save us from our sins. Far fewer people are crying out for and rejoicing in this miracle although this is the one He came to fulfill, the one that will NEVER disappoint, the one that leads to eternal life. From that unbroken and eternal promise, He calls us to follow Him on a narrow path carrying our cross.

When the dust settles might we ask, are we in right relationship to God through repentance? Are we committed to following Him on a path of self-denial?  Have we invested our heart to a popular ‘easy-believism’ or are we given to the whole counsel of God?

“It needs to be said that a world of confusion results from trying to believe without obeying! A mere passive surrender may be no surrender at all. Any real submission to the will of God must include willingness to take orders from Him from that time on.” A.W. Tozer

Does God heal? Does He miraculously provide and restore? The Lord is well able and does supernaturally intervene into the crisis of man. However, His purpose is higher than prolonging life and fulfilling hopes; it is for an abundant and eternal life led by God. A God led life. May our spiritual eyes open as we consider, from Genesis to Revelation, the disappointments, losses, betrayals and calamities of the saints AND the faithfulness of God to move upon them. The Lord  wastes not one tear nor one moment of suffering for those given to Him.  In His hand ‘He works it all together for good, for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose’.

I pray for those now at critical junctures of faith, may they decide to take all doubts, anger and grief to God and compel themselves to search His Word.

“Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” Isaiah 49:23

CUTTING OFF OUR OWN HEAD

There can be no doubt or dispute that the demise of our brethren under the sword of persecution is brutal and grievous.    Only the Holy Spirit’s power can enable one to endure, with courage, such unimaginable demise.  While some may have lived as nominal Christians, the edge of the sword radically defines their faith and eternal destiny.  Jihadists publicize these devilish deeds to evoke fear and dread, yet testimonies reveal that a living faith is coming forth through the fire.

We however in the west, ‘west of Jerusalem’ that is, are thus far not facing execution but nonetheless have defining moments to declare Christ and be His testimony to the world.   One might imagine that, within this window of relative freedom, Christians might rise up and stand against the consuming tidal wave that looms over our lands.

The tidal wave is not sin, we are already living in that endless flow.  The coming tsunami is the looming judgment of God.  Compromise and complacency expose our unbelief in this prophetic truth, a gross negligence since our call is to proclaim Christ’s return as “Righteous Judge”.

How have we, as the church, become so irrelevant and powerless?  The professed Body of Christ no longer stands apart from the world with open arms to the broken and confused.  No longer pillars of truth, upholding God’s unchangeable standards, we want to ‘belong to’, ‘fit in’, and ‘prosper’ – we certainly don’t want to ‘die’.

To fit anywhere within the world’s lofty standards requires disavowing the righteousness of God – the very standard by which we will be judged.

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.”  (Prov 14:34)

Few voices are left to even speak of God’s righteousness, when nearly every page of Holy Scripture declares God as righteous – upholding, defending and proclaiming righteousness.   “The Lord loves righteousness…” and “…will judge the world with righteousness” are inescapable truths throughout scripture.

As the professed Body of Christ increasingly merges into worldly standards, we are detaching from our “Commanding Officer”, Jesus the “Righteous One”.  To our own spiritual demise, we are cutting off our own Head, the only true source of power, discernment, and promise.   Accolades and popularity, even prosperity replaces intimacy with the Lord.  Do we realize our own ideas and efforts are worthless?   “Apart from Me you can do nothing” declared the Lord, nothing of eternal value.

The defining line between the world’s lofty standards and the Body of Christ is the righteousness of God.  It is the measure by which the Holy Spirit convicts man of sin and upholds the Cross for forgiveness and eternal life.  Yet, it is a central stumbling block for the professed believer in this world – a truth against which many will align with the world.   The spirit of this world holds great contention against the righteousness of God – changing God’s standards, redefining sin and the ‘wages of sin’.  Ultimately diminished is the expression of God’s great love, the high price He paid to redeem us from sin and cover us with this righteousness.

What is the ‘Great Apostasy’ if not the cutting off of Christ, our Head?  Are we not now in this great apostasy, “refusing to love the truth and so be saved”?  Have we not willingly received a ‘powerful delusion’, the same lie birthed through Satan in the beginning:  you can sin and get away with it – in fact, it is not sin at all!

Coming out from under Christ’s authority and preeminence has great and lamentable consequences.  Apart from Him, His protection and promises to deliver and defend sadly fade, as will His presence in our midst, through the storms and wilderness, and His living word spoken like salve to our heart.   Yet, as we near the precipice of perilous times, He continues to call His sheep back to follow.

lighthouse_wave

“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and they are safe.” (Prov 18:10)

Self sufficiency brought fleshly confidence to the western church, dethroning the authority and preeminence of Christ.  Contorting, even dismissing, the Word of God to redefine sin makes the Lord more palatable and acceptable to the world… ‘palatable to the world’ but nauseating to the Lord.  Like the Laodicean church, we are increasingly becoming a headless church, standing in the danger of misrepresenting God.

In His mercy, the Lord will awaken His church, revive His Body, with divine calling, powerful shaking, painful discipline – even orchestrated crisis.  He will have a testimony on this earth through true believers.  Our desperate cry for His presence and promises will define our faith and strengthen allegiance to His Word and His authority over our lives.

bold-as-a-lion-armando-heredia

The Lord Himself will empower us to stand and represent Him.  Endowed with His wisdom and discernment, we will have a word for this generation and add to His Kingdom.  Walking in His shadow, our short lives in this world will count for eternity.

“Shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous;

The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!  The Lord’s right hand is lifted high!”

(Ps 118:15)

Great – But Left Alone to Die

Old prison windowHis was no ordinary conception, born to parents past child bearing age.  John the Baptist was the fulfillment of great prophecy – bridging the Old Testament with the New – in the ‘spirit of Elijah’.  Endowed with the Holy Spirit in the womb, he consecrated his life to one mission:  ushering into the world the incarnation of God on earth.  John’s calling exceeded the realm of priesthood.  He would not sit before the scribes or teachers of the Torah.  He became John the Baptist through years of sequestered fellowship with God.   When he “grew and became strong in the spirit” he was drawn to the desert in preparation for his high calling.  This meant total separation from the world, from all that would distract, all that would influence and indeed – even that which would bring natural comfort – home, family and friends.

Prevailing culture and social protocols had no power to restrain John’s convicting preaching.  This great herald emerged with divine anointing, baptizing an estimated 300,000 in Judea.  His anointed ministry was fulfilled at the sight of Christ, “Behold!  The Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world!.”  With words endowed by the Holy Spirit, this was the peak of John’s life and perhaps the beginning of the end to his profound ministry.  He would not serve alongside Christ in His mission, nor would he continue his preaching and baptizing.  “He must increase, I must decrease” was his prophetic declaration. This powerful, godly man was arrested by Herod the tetrarch.  Imprisoned in the remote fortress of Macherus, John was again separated from all and – at the whim of a dancing girl – was beheaded. Disciples went and claimed the headless body of this beloved prophet of God and buried him.

In Luke 7, Jesus declared John to be a prophet, even “more than a prophet…among those born to women, there is no one greater than John”.  The Lord’s ministry was well founded as John languished in a cold stone cell. ‘No one greater’, Jesus proclaimed of his anointed cousin, but did nothing to rescue John.  All knowing and all powerful, Jesus Christ knew of the darkness that overshadowed John and the debauchery that would lead to executing this holy man.  It was well within the Lord’s power to dispatch powerful angels, to release John and even strike Herod dead.  What was Jesus doing as John – held in highest esteem by Jesus – was led to his gruesome death?

In Isaiah 53, an infamous prophecy of the coming Christ, Jesus is called “a man of sorrows”.  Is there not great  sorrow in knowing that your beloved kin, acclaimed even in heavenly places, is suffering and will die at the hands of reprobates – and you could but don’t intercede and rescue? 

In God’s sovereignty, evil men do not prevail.

John had a singular high calling, yet it was far second, an underpinning, to the mission and passion of Christ on earth.  Leaving the grandeur and majesty of heaven, Jesus came to be despised, rejected, oppressed.  While He displayed supernatural power in compassion – healing the sick, feeding the hungry, raising the dead – the Son of God came not to extend His power to intercept or overthrow worldly kings and kingdoms.  The Son of God refrained from rising up against Herod, an act which would change the course of His mission,  the pathway of the cross.   Rather than establish Himself as ‘hero’, saving a man from wicked men in this world, Jesus maintained His singular focus – saving mankind from damnation for all eternity.  As Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness with places of power and position in this world – regardless of outward appearance  here –  again the Lord prevails.   He would allow no temporal victory in a condemned world to undermine His victory over death for all eternity.

This “Man of sorrows” had the anguish of foreknowledge here and would deeply grieve the death of His beloved prophet, servant, and cousin who would be left alone to die.   More than foreknowledge however, Christ divinely knows – even if we don’t – that for those surrendered to Him,  suffering and death are servants to the purposes of God.

Great – and none greater – was John the Baptist.   His divine mission complete, the sword could not rob him.  “Alone” was John’s place of communion and strength in God.  In the desert or a prison cell, John knew intimate heavenly fellowship that would strengthen and encourage, buffering all torment and fear.  The one who prepared the way for  God into the world would himself be ushered from this world to great reception and reward in the presence of almighty God.

 

Crushed By God

“Why? Why, why, why!!?” cried my anguished heart toward God, “What kind of God are you??!!” “How could you let this happen!!!!”

After a personal acceptance of God, trauma and suffering can be the most fiery trial of faith. At this cross road, many become embittered and cold toward their Maker. Their faith, once alive – now dries up like a dead leaf.
Be assured of two things at this juncture – God can handle our anger, our accusation and disbelief. He will not take on our challenge – the powerless clay rising up against the potter. As He Himself entered into every realm of suffering and temptation, He does not judge our anguish before Him. But He waits.
You may be at this juncture, have crossed this point, or perhaps will face a time of crisis in life and in your faith. When in the fire, we cannot see clearly nor can we think or meditate when the flames rise up around us. But no fire burns forever. When we step forth from it, still smoldering and weak, will we turn our back against God or will we ask – with heartfelt quest, “What kind of a God are you?”
He is waiting for this because He is ready to answer. He holds the powerful salve for our heart which alone can reach the inner recesses of sorrow and bitterness. Only God can prepare us to hear from Him. The Lord does not waste any of our afflictions, our pain, our loss – through the fire comes a powerful presence and revelation of God. We must go from the faith that God exists to the faith that He is sovereign.
For the Christian, surrender brings victory. Affliction and grief are not random nor has calamity occurred outside of God’s providence. These are challenging milestones of faith – battles with great reward. Only in the sovereignty of God can we begin to accept and see divine purpose. And only in deliberate seeking can we glimpse beyond the natural, towards eternity, where glory comes from being crushed by God.