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Send Me Lord

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”  (Isaiah 6:8)   This is the holy pattern for God’s ministers. We must not simply go but be sent – for we cannot reveal the true and living God to others until we ourselves have seen Him and receive His approval. We must not send ourselves, for it is not our interest we are standing for, but His. Isaiah understood this, and he responded with a sincere purpose to go and to glorify the God he had just seen. May it be the same for every one of us who wish to be known as servants of God. May we wait until we have seen, heard, and commissioned by the Lord before we go.   There are three witnesses of every man or woman called to the ministry — the Lord Himself, the minster himself or herself, and the elders of the church. This is the pattern in the New Testament, and it is the third requirement that is most likely to be neglected. Many are convinced th...
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Do Not Grumble

Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the Judge is standing at the door! My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.  (James 5:9-11)   Certainly, we live in tough times. But times have always been difficult, and they always will be, for we are truly pilgrims and strangers on earth. The Lord would have us to be examples and instruments of His grace and mercy amid our circumstances, whatever they are. That is what it means to be His witnesses.   Can He trust you to stand with Him well in the hard and dry season?   Endurance and perseverance are very precious attributes for the believer. They are so much more than the will to outlast our difficult seasons; they are a display of God's grace and ...
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Teachers Take Heed

He must increase, but I must decrease.  (John 3:30)   But you, do not be called “Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren.  (Matthew 23:8)   The Holy Spirit is the only Teacher in the Church of Jesus Christ. The ONLY Teacher. We may teach — and well we should if we are called — but the Spirit is the only Person with the authority from above to teach the Word and reveal the Father and the Son in our hearts. Ministers of the Gospel do well to remember and receive this truth. This affords us the freedom to leave the results of our service to God, because we have been obedient to share the Word as He has directed.   Pastors and teachers are not responsible to make men understand or love the Lord, nor are we responsible for their growth and maturity in spiritual things. We do not have any lordship whatever over another person’s faith; that is between them and the Lord. The more we decrease, the sooner we decrease, the more purposef...
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Our Heavenly Supply

Remove falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food allotted to me; lest I be full and deny You, and say, “Who is the Lord?” Or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God.  (Proverbs 30:8-9)   Some people have a way of distorting the value of money and esteeming it more than they should. There is a dangerous tendency to look to our financial resources before we look to heaven, and that can bring all manner of stress and hardship. Every lesson God teaches us has this in mind — that we no longer depend on ourselves or anything other than Him — especially our money.   The church is a supernatural enterprise, and every resource she needs is in Jesus Christ and nowhere else. As the Word tells us, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and all our needs are met in Him. The church and the Christian life are heavenly things, and their supply must be heavenly also, lest we become something God never...
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Give Us Understanding

"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."  (John 15:5) The Lord will never use a person working in his or her own strength or sense of righteousness, and no one makes a real difference in the world until they stop trying to make a difference. We can expect to receive nothing from the Lord, until we realize the only thing we have to offer God is emptiness.   It is doubtful the Lord will fill anyone who is not empty, or that he will help anyone who is not helpless. The Lord does not come alongside us to make our dreams come true or to satisfy our wants. He is after something much more profound – brokenness. Jesus laid down the prerogatives of His deity and became broken bread and poured-out wine for us. We must do the same for Him.   . . .  for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  (Matthew 11:29)   Our Lord tells us to pick up our ...
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The Temple of God

Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?  (1 Corinthians 6:19)   If people are going to see the beauty of the Lord, they are going to see it in us. Therefore, we must choose to be true to the One who redeemed us by shedding His own blood, and remember we do not belong to ourselves, but to Him exclusively. Christ has given us His Spirit to dwell in our hearts — not as a guest, but as Master of the house; and that house must be well kept if we want Him to abide. The life given by Holy Spirit is the only distinction between the children of God and all other religious people. Only He can impart and reveal the things of God and Christ to us. He provides the power for victorious living, bringing spiritual vitality, health, holiness, and wholeness to every saint He fills. We must never grieve Him by continuing to sin, or by ignoring or limiting Him in our lives or our fellowship. ...
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The Greater Principle

“O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?”  (1 Corinthians 15:55) Jesus won the ultimate victory over sin and Satan by His life, death, and resurrection, and we are the recipients of all the benefits of our Lord's triumph. Yet, sin is still the primary enemy of the heaven-bound saint, and we must not be foolish enough to ignore that fact. The very principle of sin (not just the act) is an affront to everything the Lord is, says, and does; therefore, that sin principle must be rooted out with a superior principle —  “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”     Even before sin entered the DNA of humanity, the Lord had a plan for our redemption, and that good plan was manifested in time and in Jesus Christ. Sin was exposed and defeated by His death on the cross; and by His resurrection from the dead, death itself lost its terrifying power. Therefore, we can emphatically ask,  “O, death, where is your sting?...
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