When we feel tiredness in our minds, when there is not much faith in our hearts, when we think we cannot go on, this Word is a supernatural tool of the precious Spirit of God to sanctify us, to wash us, to build us up, individually and together, into the perfect reflection of the glory of God Almighty Himself. That glory was seen in one man, in Jesus Christ. Why? Because He was God. He could not be anything other than Himself. Now He is making us like Him so that one day it will be as it was in the beginning. Mankind was created in the image, the thumbprint, the divine reflection of almighty God that we might ever be in ecstasy and communion and fellowship with Him.
Next Step: Intimacy
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. And it shall be, in that day,” says the L
ORD
, “that you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer call Me ‘My Master.’”
Hosea 2:14–16
Scripture indicates that when you stay firm with your decision, and once you have passed through the wilderness experience, you will come to know Him intimately as a husband and wife come to know each other when they have married.
“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). Suddenly, in the place of hope beyond hope and faith beyond faith we step into a divine experience—that very intangible tangible: Jesus loves me; this I know.
This means that we rejoice when our dreams seem to die, when our longings stay just beyond the reach of our fingertips. We choose to “glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3–4). It is making us more and more like the One who poured out His blood in love for us.
Sanctification is progressive. You are growing in anointing and understanding. You are growing in Christlikeness. There are things in you that are being healed.
When you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, you were transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of light and life. But you were not instantly perfected. Second Corinthians 3:18 says: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” We are all being transformed. We have not made it yet.
There is a beautiful scene in Mark 1:40–42: A man with leprosy comes to Jesus, gets on his knees and says, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Have you ever seen a leper? I, Mahesh, have seen many who came to my healing services in Africa. In certain parts of the world leprosy is still a factor. You look and see that fingers have fallen off, and there is just a nub. And then the feet basically become nubs; the nose, the ears have fallen off. It is just a horrendous disease.
Imagine for a moment this man who has been cast out from society, friends, family. Deformed, infectious, possibly missing his fingers and nose, he comes to Jesus and says, “Lord, You can make me clean.” Filled with compassion, Jesus reaches out His hand and touches him. It may have been years since this man had felt human touch. Now God Himself has put His hand on him.
You may feel deformed like that man who needed Jesus’ touch.
I have messed up. I did this. I didn’t do that. My dream has died.
It’s over.
A lot of people look great on the outside, but inside they are filled with hurts. Whatever your guilt and grief, Jesus today is filled with compassion. He does not say, “Okay, you rascal. Your ears and fingers have fallen off because your rascality has come up as a stench to heaven.” When we are lost in our hurts, we tend to think that is how God sees us. We need to bring those festering wounds to Calvary and let those bitter pools be healed. He does not upbraid. He reaches out and says, “I long to know you more intimately.”
Change the Channel
Bonnie and I have tried to discipline ourselves never to focus on pain and hurt. One of my most precious sisters was killed in a horrible accident. Yet you seldom hear us talk about it unless it is in a redemptive way. Her funeral was the place where I determined that the seed buried that day was going to produce a thousandfold. And do you know what? That was the year I started going to Africa to minister. Since that time this ministry has brought more than a million souls to Jesus.
Another example is this: We told extensively in our book
Storm Warrior
(Chosen, 2008) how Bonnie’s cowboy father was one of the great old-time sheriffs in New Mexico history and a great dad. He was murdered in his home, and the gunman was never brought to justice. But we do not hover over the tragedy. We learned that when those things happen you deal with them redemptively and then change the channel.
If you are hovering over that pain, that hurt, that abuse, that scam that you were a victim of, change the channel. John 5 tells the story of a paralyzed man who had sat by the healing waters of the pool of Bethesda for 38 years.
Jesus asks him if he wants to get well, and immediately you see where his weakness lies. He does not give a clear answer like, “Yes, sir! I want to walk!”
No, he starts whining. He lists all his excuses: “I’m all alone; I don’t have anyone to help me; others have let me down; other people always get ahead of me; I don’t have a chance.” If you are in this mode where you are blaming others, you are like this man. And the Holy Spirit would tell us individually and as a church: Get over it. Get up, take your bed and be on your way. No more lying around; no more feeling sorry for ourselves.
First Samuel 30:1–6 tells how David and his men returned from battle to the city of Ziklag, only to find the city burned and the women and children taken captive. David’s own wives had been carried off. Now not only was he distressed personally by what had happened, but the men started talk of stoning him! No one encouraged him. Everyone said, “It’s his fault. Stone him!”
David had real cause to give up, but he had been anointed the next king over Israel. So he encouraged himself, rallied the men to go rescue their loved ones and their possessions—and in 72 hours he was king over Israel! In his darkest hour he encouraged himself in the Lord. He could have quit, but he did not give up, and in a matter of hours he walked into his destiny.
Some years later, King David faced another terrible trial when his son born to Bathsheba grew ill. David knew how to fast. He knew how to pray. If anyone could have gotten hold of God on behalf of an innocent child, David could have. But God is God. And for His own reasons He chose not to heal that little baby. The child did not get better; he died.
Now notice that David did not become bitter. He did not wallow in self-pity, proclaiming, “Why didn’t God hear my cry? Why was my baby not healed? If there is anyone who brought the glory of God back to Israel, I am the one. The Tabernacle of glory is here. We worship God 24 hours a day. Why couldn’t the glory of God heal my son? God, I thought You loved me. Why didn’t You answer my prayers?”
No, David trusted God in the middle of his disappointment. He washed his face and moved on. And we have to learn to do the same thing. You may have been abused. Wash your face, move on. You may have been betrayed. Wash your face, move on. Perhaps someone stole your money, your inheritance. Wash your face, move on. You may have been molested, suffering deep hurts that cannot even be described. But know that you put yourself in your own penitentiary when you fail to move on. You have to get up, wash your face and seek the Giver of life.
Jesus was
despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53:3–5, NIV
Does Jesus understand your hurt, your failure, your wound? Yes. He went through this for you, and now His ministry is to pray for you. He believes you can get up and wash your face and move on. And when you see Him, He will make you forget you were ever devastated by trouble.
This is a day of salvation for us, a day of healing. If you have been carrying certain hurts, disappointments and wounds— perhaps for a while—then let God take you in His arms and heal them.
The Right Perspective
One of our students from our Bible college gave us wonderful insight. He was saying how he wanted to take hold of the fact that the deep things of God are simple enough for a child— something that we stress again and again in our teaching and preaching.
He said that he had been laboring and struggling with a complicated and difficult issue. One day he was in his prayer closet saying, “God, why aren’t You helping me? Why have You left me alone to suffer like this?” That heart’s cry led him to ponder Jesus’ words from the cross: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
It suddenly came to him in a way that he had never considered before that those words reveal how Jesus was fully man when He suffered and died for us. In that moment, full of the weakness and frailty of a man who had come to the end of his strength, Jesus cried out, “Why?” And when He did so, He asked every “Why, God?” that any one of us will ever face in our lives.
Our young friend taught us a great lesson that day. We can ask God who, what, when, where and how, but Jesus has already asked every why.
It is a common response to troubles to ask, “Why?” Consider that line of thought to be a “land” that you are best to stay away from. You do not have a passport to go to the “Land of ‘Why?’” If you cross that border you will be arrested and detained indefinitely. Stay out. Get your mind off your problem and onto the favor of God. Choose to become less problem-minded and more glory-minded.
We cannot afford to be people of poor decisions or indecision. Indecision, in fact, is the worst decision you may ever make. Faith decisions in response to God’s call will move heaven and earth to make blessing come your way.
Hudson Taylor said, “It does not matter how great the pressure. It matters only where pressure lies.” When the pressure comes, does it come between you and God? Or is the pressure pressing you in closer to God? Let the pressure produce the character that God wants to produce in us all.
But this process begins with making the right decisions. Perseverance, character and hope are produced in us only when we choose the right perspective, the right attitude.
Forgiveness is a decision. Repentance is a decision. Wisdom is a decision. Obedience is a decision. Happiness is a decision. Health is a decision. Courage is a decision. Peace is a decision. Light is a decision. Love is a decision. Blessing is a decision. Provision is a decision. Life itself is a decision. The Word says, “Choose this day life or death, blessing or cursing” (see Deuteronomy 30:19).
Coming Through
Why do dreams die? Did we do something wrong? No, the Spirit is driving us into the wilderness of testing to deal with our flesh in order to deliver us from it and reform the priorities of our ideals. This gives us the opportunity to come out of the wilderness experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit, the glory zone!
So we want to unhook you from the voice that has been saying, “You failed. You missed it. You don’t get it. What’s wrong with you? It’s your fault.”
We want to loose you from that and say be hungry for His Presence. Make room for Him. He wants to fill the place you are preparing for Him. Look what He said in the gospel of John: “Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me” (John 14:1,
MESSAGE
). If you believe in Him, the God of heaven has said not to let anything bother you. Don’t be anxious about anything.
The heart humbled by trials is His dwelling place. Isaiah 40:3 talks about a voice crying in the wilderness, calling for us to prepare the way of the Lord. It is in the wilderness we make room for Him. If you are experiencing a dry time, then, in the desert, make a highway for our God. “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low” (Isaiah 40:4). Arrogance and pride will never see Him. But the humble heart shall become a dwelling place for the Lofty One, the One who rules from heaven. When real visitation comes, it comes to the one who has humbled himself in the fear of the Lord. In matters of holy visitation the way up is down.
When Moses threw that tree into the bitter pool, he was exercising faith in the Lord of glory. Galatians 3 tells us that
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
verses 13–14, KJV
When Moses took that tree, he was exercising faith in the Lord of glory who was going to come and hang on the cross. And by faith in the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, the pool was healed. Sometimes we forget how much God the Father loves us. He loves you. Get that as a revelation. He loves you so much He allowed His Son to drip with blood.
So, what is your bitter pool? You will come through. And when you have, you can give to others the same comfort you have received.
What they were not told, they will see, and
what they have not heard, they will understand.
Isaiah 52:15, NIV
The Shunammite Speaks . . .
After two decades of marriage we were still without son or daughter. I worked hard to reign in my spirit and find peace in humiliation. I made myself the perfect wife in all the ways I could. I overcame my shame when meeting the eyes of other women who could drop children like a chicken laying eggs. I ceased to feel the guilt that I had let my husband down. I ceased to cringe at the disappointment my father would have felt had he lived to know I did not bear an heir to his estate. I ceased even to hope that Joktan’s seed might fill my belly. And Joktan—who, in his kindness, never considered his legal right to divorce me—was growing old.