Isa 43:10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

CONFRONTATION Of The CROSS


Let me show you what I mean by the confrontation of the cross.

Consider a man who is fed up with his sinful habit yet he continually
falls deeper into its clutches. He has promised himself a hundred times he will never do it again - and, for a while, he submerges the temptation and enjoys a measure of freedom. But later it comes back with greater force.

This man has covered up his sin, lied about it, cheated because

of it - and it has brought him great sorrow. He no longer enjoys
it, but he can't quit. He just keeps going back.

The man knows he will have to stand at the judgment seat one

day and he goes through life fearing exposure and scandal. His
sin has drained him, shackled him, deceived him. It has brought
him down to a weariness in which he can hardly exist - he's at
the end of his rope.

In this sad, weary, worn-out state, the Holy Spirit brings the man
this word: "There is a way out for you. There is a place of victory, peace, joy, newness of life. Accept Christ's call to run to Him and find rest. Go to the cross of Jesus Christ."

Beloved, when you kneel at the cross, you will not hear an easy,

soft word, at least not at first. Even though the cross is the only
door to life, you are going to hear about death - death to every sin.

At the cross, you face the crisis of your life and that is what is

missing in so many churches. The preaching of the cross brings
about a crisis of sin, of self-will. It will speak to you with loving,
but firm, words about the consequences of continuing in your sin:


Deny yourself. Embrace the death of the cross. Follow Me!

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me (Lk 9:23).


~David Wilkerson~

Saturday, July 21, 2012

GOD Ran Out Of Patience With Them


Israel refused to believe God's message about how precious they were in his eyes. Instead, they preferred to focus on their condition their problems,weaknesses and inabilities and they gave in to their fears.

After a time, God ran out of patience with them, saying to Moses: "How long
will this people provoke me? And how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have showed among them? I will smite them . . . and disinherit them" (Numbers 14:11-12).

The Lord forgave Israel for Moses' sake but they were not permitted to enter
into the Promised Land. Instead, they were assigned a wilderness existence, a life given over to constant fear and destructive doubts. They were forgiven but miserable! They had lost the hope, rest and peace that come from accepting and believing how special God's children are to Him.

Beloved, the only time God's patience runs out with us is when we refuse again
and again to accept how much He loves us and wants to see us through our battles. Indeed, many Christians today have been turned back into a wilderness of their own making. They have no joy, no victory. To look at them, you'd think God had forsaken them years ago when actually He has just turned them over to their own complaining and murmuring.

Thank God, Joshua and Caleb entered into the Promised Land. And what joy they
had! God blessed them incredibly and they stood as green trees in His house until their dying days. They were men of power and vision because they knew they were precious to God.

You also are precious to the Lord, in spite of all your problems and failures.
No matter what your trials or struggles, you can be a green tree in God's house, just as Joshua and Caleb were. Simply stand on what His Word promises:"He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me" (Psalms 18:19). That is the foundation of true faith.

~David Wilkerson~

Sunday, July 15, 2012

I Am Come To Send Fire

Luk 12:49 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? 
Luk 12:50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!
Luk 12:51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:

If you and I are going to be men and women of the Spirit, we are not going to have an easy time. Hell will see to that. At once the clash arises and it is true that the more the Holy Spirit is able to have His way in us and to lead us into all the will of God, the more we find this opposition, this antagonism. And it not only comes between us and the world, it sometimes comes in the circle of the Lord's own people. It is inevitable provocation. You wonder why, sometimes. As you read the New Testament you wonder, "What is the matter with these people? Why should they be so upset and so annoyed? And why should it be so spontaneous, this thing? And persistent; so unreasonable?" but there it is. There is the fact. It is inevitable.

You see, this thing that the Lord came to do and is doing, will not allow for any neutrality. It is going to be one thing or the other. It is going to be for or against. The eyes of flame (here the fire comes in again) the eyes of flame will not allow lukewarmness or anything that is of the Laodicean character. 
The fire is a positive element always, and it will create positive situations. If everything is all just nice and quiet, no disturbance, no trouble and no antagonism and opposition, you have reason to question whether the Holy Spirit is doing much, because He does aim at such a positiveness, which is a very, very costly thing. It is either with the Lord, or not with the Lord, and there is nothing between. It is going to come out sooner or later and be precipitated. Now, the Lord says that is what He came to do. This is not an accident, a chance or things having gone wrong or miscarried.
This is exactly what He came to do – to scatter fire on the earth and these are the inevitable effects of the fire. They are going to work out.
~T. Austin Sparks~

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Help Thou My Unbelief!


                              
Mar 9:24  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
 
Here is something that you and I must dwell upon. Personally, I am constantly brought to this: I have not yet learned thoroughly to believe what I believe in! I believe in the finished work of Christ, yet sometimes I am just as miserable about myself as any man could be.

I am often almost at the point of giving up because of what a wretched kind of thing I am. If there is anything in this world that would cause me to give up the Christian ministry, it is myself. Do you understand what I mean? Oh, how we are discouraged by what we find in ourselves! And so, we don't believe what we believe in. We believe in the finished work of Christ, and that God puts all that finished work to our account.

God does not see us in ourselves – He sees us in Christ. He does not see us, He sees Christ in us. We don't believe that! If we really did we would be delivered from ourselves and would indeed be triumphant Christians.

Of course, that does not mean that we can just behave anyhow. We may speak and act wrongly, but for every Christian there is a refuge – a mercy seat. It has not to be made; it is there with the precious Blood. That has not to be shed; it is shed.

There is a High Priest making intercession for us. There is everything that we need. The work is finished, completed. Oh, we Christians must believe our beliefs! We must take hold, with both hands, of the things which are of our Christian faith.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Sunday, July 1, 2012

The Adulteress Will Hunt


The adulteress will hunt for the precious life (Proverbs 6:26).

The adulteress spoken of in this verse is Satan. He hunts down those who are precious to God.

The devil tries to seduce everyone who hungers after the Lord. Why do you think you are being so tested? You may have had a lifetime of trials, but it hasn't been because you are evil. No, it is because Satan knows how precious you are in God's sight and it is the precious life he is after!

During an evangelistic crusade on the West Coast, I met a young man who was a witch. In fact, he was the leader of a coven of witches. Even though this young man was deeply involved in the occult, he didn't believe Satan or his demons
would ever possess him.

One night as he tried to go to sleep, he saw horrible, demonic faces swirling on the ceiling of his bedroom, leering down at him. As they began to gather like a cloud and form a funnel, the young man realized they were about to come into his heart.

He was petrified. Then he remembered something from his childhood so he cried out, “In Jesus’ name, go!” And all the demons vanished.

The next night those forces rallied even greater legions. As the young man lay down to sleep, he heard a roaring sound. He looked up and saw the whole room filled with ugly, horrible creatures. They had formed a funnel again. This time the young man stood up on his bed and shouted, "I claim the blood of Jesus!" Again the demons fled in disarray.


The young man thought, "The next time they come, I won't be able to handle it." So he called a Christian friend and asked him to accompany him to one of my crusade meetings.


During the service, the young coven leader was convicted by the Holy Ghost, and he gave his heart to the Lord. He testified that even though his family had a background in the occult, he remembered that when he was about six years old, he had a heart for Jesus. “I clearly recall going into the woods behind our house and preaching my heart out," he said.


I have seen this same heart for God in my own children and grandchildren. I had that kind of heart when I was a child, so I knew exactly what this young man was talking about.


Suddenly, a light went on in me and I knew why the devil had tried to possess this young man and destroy him. It was because of how precious he was to God.

~David Wilkerson~