The Witching Hour***

The Holy One calls to me this morning. After a deep wrestle in what I call the “witching hour” of the night, the Holy Spirit calls for an important meeting. The “witching hour” is my title and description of the hour(s) on the clock where every sane person should be deep asleep but instead the enemy starts peddling his trashy lies and the carnal mind seems to be defenseless and most vulnerable.

The Holy One speaks a command I have heard before, “Don’t believe Satan’s lies or even your own eyes, believe only in My Word”. 

The devil is a consummate liar. But even more, the devil can orchestrate signs and wonders to support the lies he spews into our lives to challenge and destroy our faith. God’s word says that:

“The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders….” 2 Thess 2:8.

This condition is part of the great apostasy and the rise of the Anti-Christ in the world. The apostasy is the falling away or turning away from Truth and should serve as a warning for the Church to beware of progressive ideas that contradict the ancient Scriptures that are the basis of our faith.

My question of the Holy Spirit as I seek His wisdom is “I see that some things in the Word are circular like “without faith it is impossible to please you”, but then I know also from Your Word that apart from You I can do nothing”. Faith is the act of believing in a sense, so where does the truth lie?” Or rather, “what is the expectation of me in regard to faith?”

The Holy Spirit was sent to Glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and to lead us into all truth. He has always been gracious for my deep questions and today is no exception. Because I am dull in my ability to grasp Divine perspective at times, I ask Him to paint pictures that convey the lesson or directive He wants me to understand. Today it is a picture He has given that helps me in my wrestle.

The lie the enemy posed this morning deals with an ongoing trial of deep emotional heartache and my faith in the midst of it. While God’s word speaks of victory, circumstances are stacked up in opposition. The enemy delivers a thought arrow that my faith (or lack thereof) is the reason the victory is out of my grasp. The Lord’s mercy provides a very powerful picture that relieves the confusion the enemy tries to cause:

The Divine structure of God’s authority and my life appeared like a circle. God, at the top of the circle, always initiates. God sent His Son to pay the price for sin and open the way back to a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father. God also sent the Holy Spirit to indwell us and He is the One who provides for unity with the Trinity. I call that Trinity Unity. The Holy Spirit makes us complete in that circle. Jesus said we will come to see that: “I am in the Father, and you in Me and I in you” John 14:20. This makes up that circle of unity. Faith is a gift that flows in a circle from the Father to the Son through His Holy Spirit to me and I give it back to the Father.

The same can be said of the desires of our heart and the prayers we have been given to pray. The lies of the enemy are an effort to destroy our unity with the Trinity.

As I apply the truth, the picture reveals that God will supply the faith that I need to please Him. Just like He supplied His Son to pay the price for humanity’s sin and then supplied the Holy Spirit to be our strength in flesh weakness. My requirement in all of this is to remain in conscious Unity with the Trinity through surrender to the Holy Spirit and obedience to the Word of God. Simply speaking, I ask Him to supply the faith I need to please Him. As I pray for wisdom, the Word says, I have it and I am not to doubt. So the picture of the circle is truth.

There is no enemy within my circle of “life”. Whatever comes to me has been filtered through fingers of love. I may not always understand the plan, but the God ordained purpose is for my best: whether for this moment or for tomorrow or even further for my eternal future. The enemy and all his nonsense is merely a tool in the hands of the Master to hone the vessel. In that I can trust.

It is apparent to me that while the enemy was having me focus on the circumstances, his real target was my faith.

With this confidence, I reject the lies that tormented me in the “witching hour” of the night and declare (in faith) that I have been redeemed out of the hands of the devil by the Blood of Jesus and not he nor his lies have any authority over me or power within me. I stand in unity with the Trinity and know that the victory promised in God’s Word is certain, no matter how long it takes to manifest here on earth.

This morning I see that the challenge the enemy made to my faith was the very thing I needed to declare my faith. Interesting how that worked….

The Holy Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?

The Curse On The Fruitless Fig Tree***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  I am thankful to be reminded that as a Christian we never arrive at a place of perfection in and of ourselves.  The pressure would be too great because failure in our flesh is inevitable.   I am thankful that I know the Lord and understand His rebukes as “loving training for reigning” at some future time.

When pride rears its ugly head, I can count on Him to let all the air out and bring me back to reality.  Today is one of those days. Rebuke may be a hard word for some but it conveys a sharp reprimand, or charge or admonishment and as a current day disciple of Christ, He has all authority as Master and Lord to rebuke, admonish, charge or reprimand me as He surveys my reaction to life challenges.

His words today bring conviction, “The Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them”.

The back drop of this conversation has been a personal study on the account of the fig tree that withered in Matt 21:18-22 NKJV:

 “Now the morning as He returned to the city, He was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves and said to it "Let no fruit grow on you ever again” Immediately the fig tree withered. .  And when the disciples saw it they marveled, saying, "How did the fig tree wither away so soon?"

So Jesus answered and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to that fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea' , it will be done".  And whatever you ask in prayer believing you will receive."

 At the first pass through, this is such a powerful promise for answered prayer.  The question we all have is how can we have such confidence in our prayers?  When we read about the life of Christ, we learn He spend long hours in prayer.  I believe He was always asking the Father how to handle whatever crossed his path in any given day.  That is quite different than we pray most of the time.

He said that He only did what He saw the Father do and He only said what He heard the Father say.  I believe that their unity of purpose and method was the power behind the miraculous acts The Son of God executed while on earth.

With the Word telling us that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but Divine, I see that this situation with the withered fig tree may be an example of that Divine weapon and is one of a spoken word.  Words can be and do bring blessing and also can be and do bring curses. This should open our eyes to the fact that Jesus called this fruitless fig to wither and then used it as a lesson on the power we possess.

My thoughts go running to all the evil around us.  Much can be gleaned from this account and lesson.  There are many things in life that this fruitless fig tree symbolically represents.  I think about the evil we are up against.  I think about all the "fruitless fig trees" there are.  Systems and organizations and people who look like it/they should offer nourishment or provide an expectation that betray the trust or fail to provide for the expectation they represent. We are facing off with dangerous deceptions as well as those things providing false hope.    

I believe that part of what grieves the heart of God is when His people see these "fruitless figs" and allow them to continue to flourish.  Jesus stopped his journey and cursed this tree that looked like it should provide an answer to a hunger.  He found it was nothing but good looking leaves when its function was to provide fruit to satisfy that hunger.

I begin making a mental list of all the fruitless figs I should and can call to wither.  But His rebuke stops me from saddling up my warrior horse and riding into the field of battle today.   More and deeper thoughts must be undertaken and shared with my Heavenly Counselor before I take up this Divine weapon in the battle.  

I take note that what stands in the way called "doubt" is also a word that means desert, withdraw, waver, hesitate and oppose.   It is an imperative that we move and operate under the ruling authority of the Holy Spirit when we undertake to “curse” what we interpret/discern to be a “fruitless fig tree”.

All our thoughts and actions as a Christian must be those of a servant of the Most High God.  We must never undertake a calling or action that contradicts the eternal purpose of our Lord and Savior.   

The Holy One has taken me to His Word and the Lord’s rebuke of the disciples when they asked if they should bring down fire upon those who rejected Him in Luke 9:55.  “But He turned and rebuked them and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.  To discern we must have the counsel of the Holy One within.  Our only way of discerning the real difference between good and evil is to surrender our thoughts and feelings to the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all truth.

We are never to undertake the use of so powerful a weapon without the directive of the Lord.  He alone has the knowledge of how and when it is to be applied in the proper way.  And yes, I have seen some fruitless fig trees wither.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him? 

  

   

For Such A Time As This?***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  We as a nation are in the lead up to another election of our President and legislative leaders.  We are placed at a crossroad and again being offered 2 choices each of which represents a world view, and a set of values upon which the candidates stand and promise to accordingly rule this nation. 

Professing Christians have an obligation and privilege to lend their vote in each and every great contest and yet fear or apathy seems to immobilize them. 

Politics is government and God has His eyes on the government of nations…all of them.  If God is interested in who governs His people shouldn’t we be interested as well?  He sees behind the scenes and has exposed much for us to consider in these epic and historical elections.  Even if we cannot know the "heart" of the candidate we can absolutely know the platform upon which they stand and intend to govern. 

History in governing shows us the truth about where the two parties stand and how each might go about enacting their agenda.  Day to day the political waters may get muddied, but the platform of each party does not change:  Law and order or chaos in the streets.  Protect the sanctity of life or support infanticide at any point in the development of a human.  The list goes on and the differences are clear cut.

Buyer beware of those who want to fundamentally change our nation and overturn and upend the foundation upon which our nation has stood for all these years. We are a democratic republic and one nation under God.  We are a different nation than any who have come and gone before. We are a blessed nation and must look to the One who has blessed us and then fight for what we have and how our founders under Divine guidance established the form of government that has protected it's citizens over the course of history and time.       

Sometimes the best way to assess and process where we are in our life and nation today, is to take a look back in scripture to learn how God made a way for Israel to survive and prosper even in their land of exile. The Holy Spirit takes me to the account and life of Esther who was elevated through interesting circumstance to become Queen of Persia.   

Queen Esther was living the life of royalty not by her own desire but by God’s Design.  In her position, she was not necessarily subject to the threat that had been leveled against her people, (the Jews) living in Persia, their land of exile, but she was given a huge role to play in their ultimate survival.   

Mordecai, Esther’s beloved uncle became aware of the threat and brought it to the Queen.  For sake of the symbolism and application of the lesson for our days and time, I will share it in today’s terms:   

An executive order written by an enemy of the God’s chosen people went out to all the states that they (God’s people) were to be destroyed, killed, annihilated: all of God’s chosen, both young and old, little children and women…and in one day to plunder their possessions….I.E. take their bank accounts, businesses, homes, properties ….The executive order was published and sent to all the provinces for execution of the order and for all the people in all the provinces to be ready for that day.

Confusion entered the faith community, for they had lived in peace with their neighbors and provided no reason for the genocide executive order.  There was great mourning among God’s people with fasting and weeping and wailing. 

I cannot speak for God in the matter of these elections, but I hear Him say to me: “For such a time as this”.   

When the Holy One speaks to my heart, there are times when He starts a sentence He wants me to finish and this is one of those times.  The book of Esther is recorded in the Old testament.  This is a testimony of God’s deliverance of His people orchestrated through the natural circumstances they were facing at the time. Esther was in a strategic position in history to influence the survival of the nation of Israel.  

To understand the character of our God, it is important to realize that He is a God of Precedents.  Precedents are revealed as His acts in the Old Testament days and through the Biblical history of Israel, that He will enact in like kind today.  Even the miracles that Jesus executed in the New Testament are available and act as precedents for us to ask for and even prayerfully expect in our lives today. 

Our God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow…He never changes so things He did in days gone by, He can and will repeat in our days.

Back to the account of Esther and God’s people set up for destruction.  Esther fasted for 3 days along with the rest of her people in a petition for Divine favor from the King.    

Since the genocide executive order was sealed by the authority of the King, it could not be revoked or rescinded.  Favor came to Esther as the wicked plot was revealed to the King, and the King who loved Esther, offered the opportunity to write a new executive order whereby God’s people could defend themselves. 

The 2^nd edict (executive order) permitted Gods people to gather together and protect their lives thereby empowering them to fight against all who would assault them.  The “battle” ensued and the day that the enemies of God’s people had hoped to overpower them, the opposite occurred in that Gods people overpowered those who hated them….

We may ask ourselves why we have come to this in our nation?  In God’s economy, maybe it is to rally the troops and unify the Body against the threats that would silence our voices for years and years to come.  Perhaps this is a day like for Esther but as a citizen with a vote to cast and a stand to make.  Maybe we are here with feet on planet earth “for such a time as this”.   

I pray this is a precedent the Lord has provided us and intends to repeat in this our One Nation Under God "elections".  I pray this is our time to defeat the evil plot against us in the land.  I pray we will all gather together to defend ourselves and crush those whose agenda is for the destruction of our faith and our traditional Biblical values. 

I pray we might all see the great influence our vote may have on the survival of the church in America.  And I pray that we stand together in unity as “One nation under God”.  All for the glory of our Kingdom and our King.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?