Guard Your Thoughts ***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  He whispers His counsel into my ear as my mind comes to conscious attention.

 “Bring every thought into the captivity of Christ”.

The Holy Spirit knows my deepest wrestles and there is no point in trying to be “righteous” and deny the mental assault by evil.  Almost before my feet hit the floor, He takes me back to a day when Jesus was asked by a distraught father to help his demonized son. The disciples were powerless to deliver this young boy and the matter ended up at the feet of Jesus.

Upon deeper assessment of the situation, Jesus addressed the father and asked if he believed that his son could be delivered.  The father replied, “Yes, I believe, help me in my unbelief”.   Mark 9:23

This situation is one we will all experience one time or another in our earthly journey with Jesus.  There will always be situations that call for faith beyond what we have at the moment of a crisis.  And, most of us who are Christians, will say, “Yes, I believe”, but then realize our weakness and come to confess, “Help me in my unbelief”.

The wisdom of God in creation is greater than we could ever attain with our finite minds.  We never arrive at the place where we know all things or where we can completely control anything.  The Holy Spirit reminds me yet again the words of Jesus, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” and that applies even to the condition of our faith and the caliber of our thoughts.

Jesus made it clear that His departure from planet earth was the best thing that could happen to humanity once He died for our sin.  By departing He would then send the Holy Spirit to supernaturally indwell all who would come to believe and acknowledge that He, Jesus, is God.

The 3^rd Person of the Triune Godhead was sent to dwell within us to complete our design.  The Holy Spirit is the final element to the human being that completes us and makes us whole.  We are not perfect nor flawless but with Him we are complete in our design according to the work of the Divine craftsman; Creator of all.  We are all born with that God ordained and God shaped hole (void) that can only be filled by the Holy Spirit of Christ Himself.

The father of the demonized boy had a physical encounter with God in flesh form and had to wrap his brain around that fact and then choose to believe.  Since the resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit has been unleashed into the world and for those of us who believe, we have the Holy One within.  His strength and His power, His wisdom even His faith is always available to us 24/7.

The enemy of our soul is ancient and always present in this fallen world.  His weapon of choice is the same he has used since confronting Eve in the garden and his strategy never changes:  He is a liar and his field of battle is our mind.

As the days draw down and we get closer to the return of our Lord Jesus, the King of Kings, the battle will get more intense and the lies more convincing.   The Holy Spirit reminds me that in order to stay out of the grip of the serial liar, I must bring every thought and make it captive to Jesus. 

This is a tall order and I am not sure how to manage it given my analytical brain, so, like the father of the demonized boy I say, “I will to obey, help me in my weakness”.  I need the Holy One to discern the truth from the lie and then I need Him to empower me to reject the lie.

More and more I realize that my helpless cry is music to my Lord’s ears.  The very thing He is and plans to be, is my strength in weakness.  What a wonderful God we serve.  He never leaves us to face life and its challenges on our own. 

Relief surges as I know His Presence and Counsel will ultimately resolve all the wrestles.  With the Holy Spirit I am whole, complete and one with the Trinity by Divine design.  Now, what about those thoughts?

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?  

Resurrection Life****

The Holy Spirit calls to me this morning. Resurrection Sunday is now over and the relationship with our Heavenly Father that Jesus died to provide is in full swing.

As we settle back into our daily familiar routine, I am compelled to ask the Holy One what resurrection life for us here on earth should look like now that Jesus is secure on His Throne?

His response is as peaceful as His Presence and He speaks out of His Word through 1 Thessalonians 4.

The value of learning the Word of God must never be under estimated for the Holy Spirit speaks through the Word of God to our minds.  In thought exchange, He brings scriptures back in personal communication and for application to all these situations I encounter and questions I might have in life.

Today the Holy Spirit draws out of my mental file cabinet just a few words that start me into today’s counselling sesson for Holy Living.

Inquiring minds want to know more.  I always seem to wonder.  When I wonder, I ask my indwelling “Truth Teller”.  And He always provides interesting conversation on the subject of my inquiry.  It is important to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth.  That is part of His role as the Holy Spirit of Truth.

When we ask for wisdom from our Lord and Father God, the Holy Spirit is the One who provides us with the Divine wisdom.  When we ask, James 1:5-6 tells us that God provides, but then warns that as we ask, we receive, and we must not doubt that we have the wisdom we request.

Faith trusts the “Source” of our petitioned wisdom even as the enemy of our soul tries to twist God’s Word at times. The Holy Spirit is our reality and the possessor of our being. He will always cue us when we are being deceived and bring our thoughts back into right alignment as we surrender to the truth whether it be easy or “inconvenient” to our flesh will.

Today as I ponder the resurrection life we can live here while still on planet earth, thoughts of the super natural and great miracles that can stop even time itself, flood my mind. 

My desire is for all to come to the saving knowledge that Jesus is the One sent by our Sovereign Creator to redeem and restore us to the original relationship we had in the Garden of our origin.

The miracles that Jesus brought as the evidence of His Divinity and partnership in the Trinity Godhead are the ones we all would love to replicate.  Sight to the blind, hearing for the deaf, strength to feeble arms and feet of the weak and lame, all great and mighty works of supernatural intervention is my idea of living the resurrection life.

But then the Holy Spirit says this:

“But we urge you brethren that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, mind your own business, work with your own hands as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside and that you may lack nothing”.

Hmm, not exactly the grand display of mighty and powerfully convincing proofs we all might have thought to be God’s dramatic way and display of Heavenly intervention. 

Once I get past the awkward confession of my flesh pride that hoped to hear of mighty acts on the horizon, I begin to get His point:

The resurrection life is uncommon power in day-to-day struggles with our flesh enemy that demands satisfaction for our flesh lusts.

This word to the church in Thessalonica exhorted them to continue on in the “brotherly love” and orderly lifestyle they exhibited.  But there was also an important warning brought in this letter that they should abstain from sexual immorality and exercise self-control in the sanctification process, in honor and not in “passion of lust” like the non-believing world around them. 

He goes on to say: “That no one should take advantage of or defraud his brother, for the Lord is the avenger of all such inappropriate behavior.  God does not call us to uncleanness but to Holiness.  Therefore, he who rejects this does not reject man but God who has given us His Holy Spirit.”

Brotherly love and purity is the expected lifestyle of one who follows the Lord Jesus into His resurrection life. I know that this is not a shutdown of my desire to see and experience miracles but rather a reminder that we live the majority of our life in the valleys not on the mountain tops.

Faith is tested in many ways and miracles are sometimes very simply the reality of uncommon power in the face of great adversity or strength in our everyday battles with the lust of our flesh.  

Thinking about the temporal life of Lazarus post his resurrection from the dead, he must have gone back to a “common” life with his sisters and community.  His was a true example of resurrection life on earth and yet there is no record of supernatural events associated with him even in the wake of Jesus calling him out of the tomb.

The Holy One has returned my inquiry with a question of His own and it is all about my obedience and contentment:  Can I pursue a “common life” (to me) of resurrection power with the miracles being simply His strength in all my weakness?   His sweet love pouring out from me to the world of angry and hostile people I might meet in a day?  

Can I be content with my assignment if it is simply to lead a quiet life, with no great fanfare but only a peace in the storms of my temporal existence? And can I be a cheerleader for those whose gifts may be more dramatic and exciting than mine?

My idea of “resurrection life” has been refined today.  The fact that I can have a conversation with the God of all Creation IS a miracle in and of itself.  The supernatural life we all might long for looks different when we understand that apart from the Lord, we can do nothing in and of our flesh selves that He is asking of His servants.  

In looking at all the miracles Jesus performed in the lives of those who crossed His path, love was the motivation.  What if living the resurrection life is as simple as living a life of uncommon and unconditional love?

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

Jesus Our Ever-Present Lord*

So many of us today are struggling with physical infirmities and the issue of health care has brought the problem to the level of a social and national crisis.  Failed health or the fear of it seems to dictate or control much of our focus and accounts for a lot of our monthly budget.

The Holy One speaks a gentle truth in my ear, “I am not a distant Master, but your ever-present Lord”.

 His words open up this morning’s counsel session and I wonder what He is about to show me relative to health issues and His Lordship over them?

When Jesus walked the earth, healings made for most of the miraculous works He did in the lives of the people He encountered each day.  Infirmities are nothing new for humans living life in a fallen world.  But His power over the infirmities vexing people’s lives in His day should cause us to wonder what, if anything has changed?

The Holy Spirit reminds me of the recorded account of one Roman Centurion, whose servant was sick and about to die.  No doubt all had been done to help this servant yet we read in Luke 7:2  that he was ready to die.  

The Centurion had heard about this man called Jesus Who had a reputation for healing the sick, so he sent a delegation of  “elders of the Jews” in his behalf to petition for the healing of his servant.  Jesus received their plea and agreed to go to the home of the Centurion.  But before He arrived, in a display of humility, the Centurion sent friends to meet Jesus with a message. 

The message reflected a grasp of the authority he believed Jesus had and in his knowledge of the structure of authority the Centurion told Jesus that he believed the healing could be carried out by a word from Him and that he was not “worthy” to have Jesus come to his home.  This Centurion was a link in the structure of Roman military authority and was both over and under others in rank. He understood that his word would be carried out by the soldiers under him and gave all honor and respect to the like kind authority that Jesus represented over all.

Just as the Centurion expected, the healing power of Jesus touched his servant even while Jesus, Himself was at a distance and the servant was healed.

In case there is any doubt that our Lord is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, I can personally testify that Jesus is not limited by geography when it comes to His healing power.  Out of the cache of testimonies I have gathered over the years of my life, one involves a long-distance healing that happened in my life one Saturday morning:

That fateful Saturday,  I was in attendance at a prayer meeting in Southern California and my husband was 1500 miles away in Baja, Mexico.  He had been battling alcohol addiction for many years, but seemed to have no interest in stepping away from his beloved “mistress”.  Even as a woman of faith I had confessed to the Lord that I had no faith for healing /deliverance from addictions.  I had lived too long with the insidious bondage of flesh to chemicals and felt that the victim of addiction had to be co-operative in their own deliverance, and if it depended on my faith then all was lost.

I heard my Lord say, “Watch Me” but did not know at the time all that it meant.    

My longstanding agreement with that lie was about to be blown out of the water as the pastors in the prayer meeting undertook and made the petition for his healing.    1500 miles away with no knowledge of the prayers of the saints being offered in his behalf (and mine) my husband was delivered by the Healing Power of Jesus. 

Comparing notes on that day, my husband confirmed that at the same hour that the pastors were praying, the “craving” for alcohol just “left” him and from that moment he could and did choose to not drink.

Back to this account of the Centurion, there is much to be gleaned as we grow in the knowledge of our Lord.  From the actions of the Centurion, I see:

His love for his servant  pressed him to go to One he believed could help.

His humility before an authority greater than himself.

His hope turned into action.

His faith in the structure of authority to accomplish the commands of authority.

His ability to see the Heavenly (supernatural) with application to his temporal (natural) circumstances.

This Roman Centurion saw and called out from Jesus what so many of us who (claim to) believe fail to see AKA the Lordship (Sovereign Authority) of Jesus over all the situations we may face in life.

As I am pondering this and my own life testimony, the Lord draws my attention to another lesson and precedent found in God’s Word:  The blessing pronounced to Abraham and the promise that God would bless those who bless Israel.  The elders who were sent to solicit the help of Jesus, reported that the man whose request they were bringing was “a friend of the Jews” and had even built them a synagogue. 

The Centurion was a man who must have believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and saw Jesus as the One who had the power and authority of their God.  Jesus then, according to his faith and in keeping with the promise to Abraham, blessed this man with the answer to his petition.

When I read about this man and his exemplary faith, I am humbled and ashamed.  With so great a privilege as to have the Holy Spirit of Christ within even as Christ Himself is seated at the right hand of the Father, to doubt His authority or question His good will for my health and well-being is tantamount to a betrayal of His Compassionate Lordship and indwelling power to heal.

When Jesus executed His Sovereign authority over all the conditions we may face on earth, He did not condemn or judge the infirmed. All eyes were on Him as the Healer not on the victim or the cause.   Our Salvation brings Holistic healing from the soul out.  

The physical tent that houses the soul is not exempt from the same healing power that saves it.  One day our physical body will return to the dust; our “tent” will fold and our Soul/Spirit will be provided a new house, one that will be imperishable and immortal.        

But here and now, we have the hope for healing of our temporal bodies until He calls us out to possess our eternal one.  Jesus is our ever-present Lord and therein He is our ever-present hope for healing.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

Where Are the Testimonies? ***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  His voice speaks into the darkness of the early morning hours just before dawn.  And even more His voice is heard through the darkness of this age and the world events happening now just before the return of our King.

I hear Him ask the question, “Where are all the testimonies of my work in the lives of my people?”     

I ponder this question and understand it has merit. There is a sadness that over takes my heart as I think about how we can be so ungrateful or lacking in appreciation to and for the One who gave so much on the cross of His crucifixion and be so silent in our devotion. 

Despite the emotion I have when I remember and imagine the agony of His suffering, that is not where the Holy Spirit is taking me in our early morning “thought exchange.  I.E conversation.

“I died in the flesh so that you can live in the resurrection”.

As I hear His words spoken to my heart, my focus turns toward the resurrection and what it means in my life today.  Because of the outrageous rescue that His death provided, life for us is (or should be) a miraculous experience of Heavenly favor day after day even as we walk on this fallen turf we call earth. 

Jesus came and in life modelled for us all that we can do, now that He destroyed the power of Satan and the “works” of the devil that injure God’s creation and His beloved humanity. The chasm between us and our Creator that came with the fall of man, has been bridged by Jesus the Son, and that symbolic “ladder” to Heaven has been offered where we can access the storehouse of our Father and the good will of Heaven for our benefit and use in this temporal life we live here on earth. That “ladder” is also our exit from the earth realm into our reserved place in the Presence of the Trinity for eternity to come. 

The Lord’s question today, tells me what He desires from me.  Where are the testimonies of His works in my life and the evidence of His being and our relationship?  How and when am I sharing all that He has done for me? 

When we are in a relational “walk” with another person, there is a unity, there is intimacy in thoughts exchanged as conversation, there is knowing the other person, there is celebration and rejoicing in sharing life’s ups and downs and what we do for each other and there is a deep gratitude for the relationship that brings such pleasure (Blessing) to life.

In Luke 8:39 Jesus told the demoniac that He had delivered from horrific bondage to "return to your house and tell what great things God has done for you". But then in Luke 17:12, we are told about how He healed 10 lepers but only one came back to give Him thanks and to glorify God   Then came the big question, “Where are the other 9?”  Where is their testimony giving glory to God because of what Jesus did?  Our testimonies about Jesus' miraculous acts glorify our Father in Heaven. 

Jesus gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, healing to the demonized, sick and infirmed, and even to these ungrateful lepers. We read about these testimonies of His miracles in times past, but now is no different as He works in our lives today.  In the smallest details of our greatest needs, Jesus is intervening all the time.  His power is always and greater over the effects of the fall and the works of the devil: Blindness, deafness, lameness, sickness even deadness as Lazarus was physically resurrected,  are all conditions subject to His Power and Sovereign Authority

The Holy One has been reminding me that the greatest evangelistic tool we have is not a degree in theology, but a life of testimonies as to what the Lord has done and is doing for us who call upon His Name each and every day.  My Lord has healed me, (supernaturally and naturally) with and without medical intervention.  He has resolved countless difficulties and challenges.  He has walked with me through fearsome events and we have fought the unseen enemy together.  We have passed through days of dark waters and hopeless impossibilities and arrived on the other side of every trial with testimonies of His Sovereign mercies.

Day after day, His Presence provides those testimonies: miraculous events of the exact help at the exact time (His), and with surgical precision of what is needed to bring resolution to the things in life that trip me up and cause me pain.

His commission to His people has not changed since He gave it:  Go make disciples and baptize them in the name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.  Disciple making is not that hard if we have and then share personal testimonies of what the Lord Jesus has done and is doing in our lives each day.

As we journey with Jesus and walk in a personal relationship with our Lord, testimonies ultimately abound, joy ultimately effervesces and people ultimately get saved.  As a P.S. to those who are still in the “thicket of the Jordan” and your trial is not yet a testimony today, remember and share the one from yesterday since Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow… forever and ever.  He delivered then and He will deliver now.

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?   

   

Am I A Friend of Jesus?***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  There is coming the season of shorter days.  And as we await the return of our King I see the important symbolism of "winter" here on earth.  There is a deadness creeping in.  But not for all.  The Lord is calling for His people to go deep and protect our roots from the chilling effects of a blanket of evil covering our lives and our land. 

His words bring a stark warning: "Dead branches will be removed from the Vine".

Lately a strong word has reached my mind and heart from out of the ancient book of Isaiah 26:20-21,

"Come My people, enter your chambers and shut your doors behind you.  Hide yourselves, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past.  For behold the Lord comes out of His place to punish the inhabitant of the earth for their iniquity; The earth will also disclose her blood and no more cover her slain".

This is a picture of the Sovereignty of our Creator God, who is patient with all of us, but One Who will ultimately call an end to the evil acts of fallen humanity AND discipline the ungodly acts of His people who are living in surrender to their flesh rebellion of His Holy One within. 

We can deny the Truth thinking these words were written for a different time and people but I heed the warning and take it as a command for believers in Christ Jesus . The words call to mind a picture of the Passover when the death angel passed through all of Egypt and struck every household that did not have the Blood of the Lamb on it's doorpost. Or when Noah entered into the ark and survived the Lord's judgment by water.  God spoke and there are those who listened. 

The Word of God is applicable for every generation and every person regardless of the age or time we have our feet on planet earth.  The Creator has communicated with His created since the very beginning, but the created have personally chosen to ignore His voice, His Word and His Son who came to earth as the exact replica of His Being.

Out of the New Testament we have an updated exhortation.  John 15:8, speaks of our relationship to Jesus as our being branches in the Vine.  It suggests a deep abiding relationship as Jesus IS the Vine and life-giver of the branch.  The Vine provides for the life of each branch.  A branch that is alive produces fruit that can be enjoyed.  The branch gets pruned as part of the care so more luscious fruit will come forth and the things that might destroy it are removed.

The lesson imparts wisdom:

We are to abide (dwell, stay, settle in, sink deep) in the Vine

Without Jesus (the Vine) we can do nothing (of permanent Spiritual value)

Any who do not abide in Jesus, he is cast out as a branch (loss of fellowship) and is withered  (loss of vitality)  and thrown into the fire (Thus indicating spiritual disaster).



However:

"If you abide in Me and my words abide in you, ask what you desire and it shall be done for you".  By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so that you will be My disciples."

Putting it all together, could it be that the Lord is calling His people into a private chamber to speak to His people about personal private things He wants us to know and implement into our lives...with the short time we have left on earth? 

The question is, "Will we go?"

Will we make the time and set the place for that vital abiding connection with Jesus?  At the end of the day, Jesus is asking us to be His friend, "You are MY FRIENDS if you do whatever I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what His Master is doing. ...."

An amazing promise-filled life awaits the "friends" of Jesus.  Not only will we see the Divine hand upon our circumstances but we will also be given to understand the Master's reason for what He is doing....

Time for all of us to give careful thought to our "ways".  Are we abiding or neglecting?  Are we available to the Lord in relationship or making excuses for our absence?  If the horn blows at midnight and life here is over, where will you be in the end? 

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?









  
        
     

  

Lord, Help Me in My Unbelief ***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  He whispers His counsel into my ear as my mind comes to conscious attention.

 “Bring every thought into the captivity of Christ”.

The Holy Spirit knows my deepest wrestles and there is no point in trying to be “righteous” and deny the mental assault by evil.  Almost before my feet hit the floor, He takes me back to a day when Jesus was asked by a distraught father to help his demonized son. The disciples were powerless to deliver this young boy and the matter ended up at the feet of Jesus.

Upon deeper assessment of the situation, Jesus addressed the father and asked if he believed that his son could be delivered.  The father replied, “Yes, I believe, help me in my unbelief”.   Mark 9:23

This situation is one we will all experience one time or another in our earthly journey with Jesus.  There will always be situations that call for faith beyond what we have at the moment of a crisis.  And, most of us who are Christians, will say, “Yes, I believe”, but then realize our weakness and come to confess, “Help me in my unbelief”.

The wisdom of God in creation is greater than we could ever attain with our finite minds.  We never arrive at the place where we know all things or where we can completely control anything.  The Holy Spirit reminds me yet again the words of Jesus, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” and that applies even to the condition of our faith.

Jesus made it clear that His departure from planet earth was the best thing that could happen to humanity once He died for our sin.  By departing He would then send the Holy Spirit to supernaturally indwell all who would come to believe and acknowledge that He, Jesus, is God.

The 3^rd Person of the Triune Godhead was sent to dwell within us to complete our design.  The Holy Spirit is the final element to the human being that completes us and makes us whole.  We are not perfect nor flawless but with Him we are complete in our design according to the work of the Divine craftsman; Creator of all.  We are all born with that God ordained and God shaped hole (void) that can only be filled by the Holy Spirit of Christ Himself.

The father of the demonized boy had a physical encounter with God in flesh form and had to wrap his brain around that fact and then choose to believe.  Since the resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit has been unleashed into the world and for those of us who believe, we have the Holy One within.  His strength and His power, His wisdom even His faith is always available to us 24/7.

The enemy of our soul is ancient and always present in this fallen world.  His weapon of choice is the same he has used since confronting Eve in the garden and his strategy never changes:  He is a liar and his field of battle is our mind.

As the days draw down and we get closer to the return of our Lord Jesus, the King of Kings, the battle will get more intense and the lies more convincing.   The Holy Spirit reminds me that in order to stay out of the grip of the serial liar, I must bring every thought and make it captive to Jesus.

 

This is a tall order and I am not sure how to manage it given my analytical brain, so, like the father of the demonized boy I say, “I will to obey, help me in my weakness”.  I need the Holy One to discern the truth from the lie and then I need Him to empower me to reject the lie.

More and more I realize that my helpless cry is music to my Lord’s ears.  The very thing He is and plans to be, is my strength in weakness.  What a wonderful God we serve.  He never leaves us to face life and its challenges on our own. 

Relief surges as I know His Presence and Counsel will ultimately resolve all the wrestles.  With the Holy Spirit I am whole, complete and one with the Trinity by Divine design.  Now, what about those thoughts?

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

    

  

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?