God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. (Psalm 46:1-3)

Are you afraid?  Are you easily shaken?  This is a fair question.  When troubles arise do you run and hide?  Are you easily disturbed?  Does anger enter your heart and frustration take over?  Do your eyes fall on your circumstances or on the power of God?  Do you see God or do you see the giant?

David was a boy, but killed a giant man.  He saw the circumstances that stood before him.  He was not compelled by his people, family or even the king to enter into that battle.  He could have chosen to walk away and no one would have questioned why.   Certainly, they would not have even thought of him as a choice.  He was a boy, after all.  But something rose in his heart.  He knew his God and he knew that this giant before him was no match for Him.

I get calls from people all the time asking me if they are going to be alright.  They want to hear me say, “Yes everything is going to be ok…don’t worry because God’s got your back.”  They call me because they want the confidence that is in my heart to speak to their situations.  They do not have that confidence on their own, so they are looking for a champion to command that darkness out of their lives.

If only they could be like David!  If only they could see from God’s perspective!  If only faith would rise up in their hearts so that they would see their circumstances from heaven’s eyes!  They would not worry one more day.  They would not lose their cool ever again.

It is actually not possible for you to experience anything but blessing in Christ.  Trials will come, but from that trial will rise a fire in your heart to conquer lands.  The devil may come at you one way, but he will run away in seven directions.  Yes, the devil always tries, but he never succeeds.

One of my preacher friends called me two days ago.  He was anxious because his dog attacked another dog causing so much damage that he was liable for $5000.00 (that he did not have) to pay the other owner’s veterinarian expenses.  He called me wanting me to get a word from the Lord for him.  An excitement rose up in my heart, so I told him so.  I told him I felt like an explosion of increase was about to take place in his life.

He told me that he had to put the money on his credit card and go to the bank for a loan.  In the natural it didn’t look good…but God!  The next day he called me back very relieved.  He said that his house insurance covered the damages.

The enemy tries, but he cannot succeed.  You have to know this in your heart that no matter what arises against you, the Lord has a way out.  There is nothing going to conquer your life.  Your enemy will not be able to shame you because you have the Almighty God as your best friend and He is looking out for you.

Have you read Psalm 18 and seen the response of God when His boy was surrounded by his enemies?  God came down to earth riding on a cloud of glory and squashed those enemies beneath His feet.

His peace will rise upon you in trials that come.  You will feel His presence in a way that you never imagined possible.  Even in the most difficult trials God will be there with you.  There is no one or nothing that can stop Him from coming to the aid of the one He loves.

So bury your head in His shoulder today and ask Him to come near to your heart.  He gives good gifts to His children and there is no greater gift than His peace.  So get ready for a visitation and baptism of peace.

THE COMING OUTPOURING

Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness. (Isaiah 35:4-8)

This morning as I was driving to work, the Lord spoke this prophetic promise from Isaiah into my heart.  Like you, I have been waiting for God to move in such a way that many millions of lives will be touched by the power of God.  Like you I have been seeing the darkness that has come upon our land and know that a revival must come to bring the hearts of the children back to the Father.

We live in a time when men and women grope about in darkness.  They are blind and they are deaf.  They don’t even know how to speak anymore.  They curse God and wonder why their lives are cursed, but this is not the end of the matter.

God is faithful and He is merciful.  He will not let this generation pass by without a visitation of His goodness.  There shall come a great awakening.  He shall open the eyes of blind hearts and He shall open the ears of those who refuse to listen and those that are lame in spirit shall be strengthened.  Their faith shall become strong.  Not only will they believe, but they will become burning ones that shine for others to also see the Lord on high.

In the places where the jackals thought they owned the earth, in the haunt of the demonic fold, there shall come a moving of God’s waters that washes away the darkness.  In that place of fear will come a rising of the presence of God.  Men and women who were bound heading straight into hell will be released by a supernatural moving of the spirit of God upon their lives. Just like the pouring out of the spirit on the day of Pentecost there will come a pouring of the spirit in our time on many towns and cities.  Thousands will be saved in one day.

Holiness now might be a curse word in the mouths of a generation bound by sin, but they shall come to rejoice in Holiness.  They shall become pure by the Holy Spirit and they shall become innocent once again.  The name of the Lord shall arise over their lives and they shall be known by a new name.

God is calling.  Are you listening? Can you hear His voice?  He wants to release you from the fires of darkness.  Call out to Him and He will hear your cry.  He will be faithful and you will leave for eternity under the sure mercies of Yahweh, the most powerful God.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)

When you enter into the realm of God’s love it is about His strength of feeling in your inner man.  He is inside of you like a strong breath, pulsating in your heart and in your being.

His presence becomes a guiding force.  When you feel it, you feel capable of doing anything.  Ideas will come into your mind that would seem bizarre except for the fact that you are drunk on His Holy presence.  God in your inner man will cause you to walk on water.  You will jump and fly into mid-air.  Nothing seems impossible when God is closer to you than the breath you breathe.

I keep praying more and more to know the love of God.  I want to experience that love.  I want to be transformed by it.  I don’t want anything to come between me and my God and I am willing to do whatever he says to remain in the place of His presence.  When God speaks I am quick to listen because His spirit is all I desire.

The things of this world actually grow strange and dim when you encounter the glory of His presence.  I remember being fond of the strangest things before Jesus but when He came to life in my heart, all of a sudden these things paled in comparison to His wonderful presence.  I was willing to give up everything to stay in that place of presence.  I turned and walked away from the world in order to grasp the one thing my soul longed for more than anything else–and that was God.

And for these ten years I have been turning from the world more and more.  In the end the only thing that will remain is love.  The only thing that I will take with me into eternity is the presence of God.  I love Him more than life.  I want Him to be more real to me tomorrow than He is even today.

He is pruning me and cleansing me and making me more into His image.  Each time He speaks to me I become more like Him.  He whispers change and I change.

I have learned to listen quickly, because the rewards of His love and peace far outweigh anything that you or this world could give to me.  I have been tempted in many ways, but I continue in His presence, because it is better than all other temptations.

It is by faith that I have stepped into this place.  At one point I made the decision that Jesus was all I needed.  I determined in my heart that all other things that I needed in this life were not as important as He was.  I have not regretted one moment of my life in Christ.  Before Christ my life was filled with regrets.  I was filled with shame and sorrow.  Now these no longer rule my life.

I am ruled by the peace of God.  I am rooted and grounded in love.  Even when I make mistakes, He loves me.  Even when I fail, He is there.  He makes a way where there seems to be no way.  As long as I do what He says and I am obedient, then I remain in Him.

I pray for you and for me today that we will remain through every storm, through every crisis and through every trial.  I pray that you will walk on water and that you will see the foul waters of your heart turned into wine–the finest wine.

May His blessings surpass you and encompass you today.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. (1 Corinthians 1:18-21)

Have you ever felt yourself fearing what the world thought of your faith?  I will admit that when I was younger I used to worry about what philosophers and the media thought of my faith.  I went as far as to renounce my faith at one point in my life because this fear was so strong.

The opinions of men are mortal in nature and have a certain lifespan that ends at the grave.  Each one of us will appear before the Father one day and have to account for the opinions that we allowed to influence our life.  We will stand before Him and give account for our beliefs that were not aligned with His word.  I can assure you that in that moment He will not say, “Oh that was a very good reason for not believing me.”

We are to trust and obey Him.  We are to renounce the thoughts and ways of the world even when they seem to have a speck of wisdom about them, and if we are easily swayed by these thoughts, then we probably shouldn’t be listening to them at all.

Too much sugar might taste good, but in the end it will make you sick.  It is the same with the thoughts of men. They seem to have an air of superiority about them, but in the end they cause emotional sickness and spiritual death.

We cannot take ourselves out of this world, but it doesn’t mean that we have to watch every movie that comes out or watch every show or news program on TV.  We don’t have to read the latest blogs or newspapers.  We can turn these things off.  These actually can become clutter that will inhibit us from walking in greater faith.

When you feed on a thought pattern that is not of Christ more than the word of God, it is going to have an effect on your ability to believe the things that God says.  In fact listening to the clutter can actually stop you from recognizing the voice of God when He does speak.

The Psalmist said, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long” (Psalm 119:97); and again “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (Psalm 119:105); and yet again, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11).

It is when we cherish the word more than the world that our paths become straight.  It is when we trust in the Lord with all of our hearts and lean not on our own understandings, but acknowledge Him in all of our ways, that our paths are strong and secure (Proverbs 2:5-6).

The life of a Christian is a life of sacrifice, but the sacrifice does not seem so costly when the benefits of the Kingdom begin to appear at your feet.  I haven’t sacrificed anything for God that He hasn’t given back to me many times in this life, not to mention what awaits me in the life to come.

We need to start obeying Him and listening to Him more than we listen to the philosophers and sages of this world.  I don’t even subjugate myself to their thoughts anymore.  I choose to believe the evidence that my faith is presented in Christ.  My well-being and peace of heart are evidence to me that I have made the right decision.

You need to choose wisely today.