My Daily Dose of Courage

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.  (1 John 1:8-10) Our Lord is determined to set His children be free from the bondage of sin and death, and He has prescribed the Blood of Jesus as the only power able to carry out His desire. The weight of sin on humanity was so awful and pervasive, that the Father had to send His Son to pay the price and lift the burden of judgment and damnation off the shoulders of every man, woman, and child who would simply believe.   You see, there is nothing unholy or unclean in heaven, nor shall there ever be. So, the Lord made provision for us in His Son, imputing His righteousness and holiness to us in exchange for our sin and sadness. Now, heaven lives in us, and we will one day live in heaven.   We...

But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.  ( James 1:4)   Before the Lord can use us as change agents, He must first change us. God is doing a new thing in you, and “new” means something that has  never  been done before. The life of this new creature is not learned overnight. It is a beautiful and demanding work that only the Lord can carry out, and He does that work according to His will, His Spirit, and His timing. So, be still and trust Him. Let Him have His way with you. He knows what He is doing, and He knows when to do it. The saint who  "lacks nothing"  is one who is filled with the Holy Spirit and the wisdom that prepares him or her for every situation and conversation. This preparation is a sovereign work of God that is not done according to human efforts or desire; but the Lord employs times and seasons to do His work as He sees fit.   We suppose God will move according to...

My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.  (James 3:1) We live in a day where many Christians have taken it upon themselves to speak in the name of the Lord. Some even call themselves apostles and prophets.  Many follow these voices, and far too often end up damaged and shipwrecked due to their lack of discernment and discipline.   The Bible warns us to be careful and to judge these men and women by their fruit. If we are filled with the Word, we will recognize the presence or absence of the Word in their teaching. If we are full of good works, we will recognize and rightly discern theirs. Every Christian must be able to wisely discern what we see and hear. Thank God for His Holy Spirit!   "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me,...

But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.  (Romans 14:10) Are your words kind and gracious, or are they harsh and judgmental?   The first thing God must change in us is a judgmental attitude. Are we more interested in being right than glorifying God? We can easily convince ourselves we  are  glorifying Him when we are grieving Him by demanding our rights and defending our point of view.   Truthfully, we only hear God clearly when we humble ourselves and stop insisting on winning the argument and having things our way.   Forgive us, Lord, and teach us to show others the grace You have shown us.   Let's Pray  -  Dear Lord, please forgive me for judging others and misrepresenting You. Give me Your heart for my fellow man and help me to see them as You see them. Amen.

So Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountains, and Laban with his brethren pitched in the mountains of Gilead . . . (Genesis 31:25) Then the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he also is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” So Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two companies. (Genesis 32:6-7)   Have you ever felt like Jacob, trapped between a rock and a hard place? And when you looked honestly at the situation, did you realize this was a bed of your own making? You cannot go back, because you have burned that bridge — and you cannot go forward, because you burned that bridge, too. This is the time when God’s man or woman finally comes to realize the folly of meddling with the steps ordained for him or her, and that our agenda has brought so much more difficulty into our lives than there had to be. ...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

"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 ...

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. ...

“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?...

For we walk by faith, not by sight.   (2 Corinthians 5:7)   Yes, the Lord has cloaked Himself in invisibility, He has hidden Himself from the learned and the wise, and the most intelligent are incapable of understanding Him or His ways. He has chosen simplicity and humility over haughtiness and pride. He is meek and lowly, and we must come to Him as children, or He will not receive us. Therefore, the world and its obsession with itself and its pleasures will never enjoy the fellowship available to those who simply hear and believe; those who embrace the profound and indispensable joy of faith.   No effort to discredit Christ (and there have been many a furious effort) has succeeded in dampening the fervor of the faithful— those of us who have not seen yet believed. We are that people, a holy nation whom the Lord has drawn by His Spirit, and we stand out as bright and shining stars against a backdrop of unbelief and darkness. We have not seen Jesus face to face, but w...

Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8)   Faith is the life blood of our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is a spiritual concept, born of God in heaven, and it takes a spiritual man or woman to grasp it, possess it, and walk in it. Faith is the simple belief that God exists, and He rewards those who diligently come to Him. Oh, the rewards of the saint who forsakes selfish pursuits to seek out the One who has first sought him!   Is your walk one of faith? Do you pray as one who knows God to be a God of His Word? Who is receiving help from your incessant trips to the prayer closet? Are you praying for others with purpose and diligence? Are your prayers less about you and your things, and increasingly about the will of God and others? When the Lord comes to your prayer closet, will He find you there? And will He find faith? I hope He will!   Let's Pray - Dear Lord, since faith is the one thing that pleases You,...