I was thinking today about our propensity to hide our sins and failures. It’s quite human to do so.  In a sense we come by it honestly.  Adam and Eve responded in the same way immediately following the first sin.  As soon as they had eaten fruit from the forbidden tree, their first response was to cover their shame with fig leaves, then to hide from God, and then to blame others for their actions.  It was a bit ambitious to think that they could hide from the God of creation who had made everything they saw and had fashioned them by hand. And it wasn’t like they could slip away in the crowd because there was no crowd – but shame and fear easily distort our judgment…even the best of us.

Take David, for instance, and his now famous transgression with Bathsheba.  I have no doubt that after their moment of passion they were both overcome with shame. I believe they were both godly people who fell in a moment of weakness.  Because of that, I believe shame overwhelmed them and they left when it was over vowing that it would never happened again.  But then Bathsheba discovered her pregnancy. Her husband Uriah had been in the field with David’s army for weeks or months. The palace servants knew they had been together – just chatting of course – but now her pregnancy would cement the case against them.  At first, overwhelmed with shame and remorse they are both now overcome by fear.

David and Bathsheba’s adultery carried the possibility of unthinkable consequences. The Law demanded death for all those who committed adultery.  In this case an unborn child would die as well.  Although it was unlikely that capital punishment would have been imposed in this case there would certainly be scandal. Uriah would, of course, divorce his beautiful wife. The army who laid their lives on the line for their king would all feel betrayed by a man who was stealing their wives while they camped in the fields at his command.  David was not just a political leader but a religious leader as well.  Now the man who wrote most of the worship hymnal for Israel and the man who danced before the Lord with all his might was an adulterer.  There was so much to lose if the adultery were discovered.

So fear leads to hiding and deception. David determined to bring Uriah home to report on the battle and David assumed that, while in Jerusalem, Uriah would spend the night with his wife. Later, everyone would assume the child was his. When he refused to be with his wife while his men were in the field, David set him up to be killed in battle.  A dead man could not disclose that he had not been with his wife on his short furlough to Jerusalem.  With Uriah dead, the secret sin was safe and life could go on with some serious regrets to deal with to be sure.  But … it was over.

However, it wasn’t over.  For those who serve God, unconfessed and unrepented sin does not stay hidden and does not go away.  There are two reasons for that. Either Satan will bring the sin into the light to destroy people, families, reputations, and ministries or God will bring the sin into the light so that it can be dealt with and so that reconciliation can occur between the sinner and a loving God.  Either way, the sin will be brought into the light.

In the meantime, a guilty conscience and fear of discovery will torment the one hiding the sin. Listen to David.  “When I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity” (Ps.32:3-5).  David sat on the throne for nearly a year without acknowledging his sin.  When Nathan the prophet came to confront David, the child from the adulterous evening had already been born.

I’m sure because of all the imagined consequences if the sin were brought into the light, David had simply hoped it would all eventually just fade away. Undoubtedly Satan had already lit the fuse on rumors from palace servants and soldiers who had wondered about Uriah’s death.  David had tossed and turned for months and we can assume Bathsheba had done the same.  Then God sent Nathan to pry the confession out of David and in that moment David confessed and God forgave.  There were consequences for the sin in the natural realm but all was reconciled in the spiritual realm. Even after adultery and murder, God walked with David through the consequences of his son’s rebellion and the hard years to follow.

Sin separates us from God – not just in a legal sense but also in an emotional and relational sense. We hide from God in our own ways and seal ourselves off from others who might discover our sin or remind us of what we have done. Sin also separates us from ourselves as we either loathe ourselves for the sin or excuse the sin while constantly quenching the Holy Spirit who is bringing conviction.  If we stay in our chosen denial long enough our hearts may harden so that we can no longer feel the tug of God trying to draw us back.

Sin has its costs. The cost of unconfessed and unrepented sin, however, accumulates with interest. Although we hope it will all go away, it doesn’t and as I said before, our sin will be brought into the light either by Satan the destroyer or by God the redeemer. The wise course is to quickly acknowledge, confess, and repent of every sin.  God is our redeemer and deliverer and when we have “blown it big time” we need him more than ever.  Our attempts to hide our sin and deceive others will simply create distance between us and the one who can save.

In addition, my experience is that good people don’t expect us to be perfect but they do expect us to tell the truth when we have failed.  “Blowing it” reveals that I can be foolish but lying about my failure reveals that I can’t be trusted. Satan does his greatest work in the dark and our secrets give him power over us.  He is a tormentor and a blackmailer and out secret sins gives him a wide playing field.

We all sin and our usual first response is very human – cover up, hide, deny our responsibility.  We fear rejection and we fear unknown consequences. But as believers we should not give into the human response because that is the flesh.  We should respond as the Spirit directs – humbling ourselves, telling the truth, repenting, and trusting God with the consequences. The penalties and interest are much less when we keep short accounts with the Father and cut sin off at the legs by our confession. It’s in the secret places that Satan gets a foothold that may soon become a stronghold. Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  I believe the biblical principle is also that if we tell the truth, the truth will set us free.  Be blessed today by truth and don’t give into fear because fear is not from the Lord.

In the early pages of the gospel of Luke, Jesus had just been questions by disciples of John the Baptist.  John had sent them to ask Jesus if he were, in fact, the Messiah or if another was to come.  That moment gives us some insight into the ministry of prophets.  John was, according to Jesus, the greatest of the prophets and yet he was unsure of whom Jesus was. Paul says of New Testament prophets that “we know in part and we prophesy in part” (Jn.13:9).  Apparently that was true of Old Testament prophets as well.  They spoke the things that God put on their hearts and in their minds but often those prophecies were just bits and pieces of God’s overall canvas rather than the whole picture.  John had been confident at one time that Jesus was the Messiah but even John seemed to be looking for a powerful, political, and military savior of Israel rather than a suffering savior who would die on a cross.

But John had come in the spirit of Elijah and was the last in line of the great Old Testament prophets.  He had been sent to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming Messiah who was already among them.  Many of the Jews sensed the call of God to return to him and his ways and so submitted to John’s baptism as a sign of repentance and a need for spiritual cleansing.  Luke said, “All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptized by John. But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.” (Luke 7:28-30).

The last phrase really catches my attention.  “But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purposes for them…” The religious elite and those who knew scripture best rejected God’s purposes in their life.  The evidence of that was that they had refused to be baptized by John because to do so was a confession of spiritual need and sin that cried out to be cleansed. Here is what we discover.  I n our relationship with God, the heart is more important than the head.  These were men who spent their lives in prayer, fasting, and study of the Torah.  But their study had not prepared their hearts for God’s Messiah.  Undoubtedly, they did not have the benefit of the Holy Spirit but the common people responded to John’s preaching while the religious elite did not.

I can think of a couple of a couple of reasons. First of all, the religious system of the Jews did not meet the need of the people at all.  They had limited access to God because they were not priests.  The Law seemed like a burden the demanded much and delivered little for them. Their tithes supported a system that had little regard for the unschooled and the unwashed. Because they had little standing with the religious leaders they felt they had little standing with God.  They were in need of good news.

For the Pharisees, however, the Law and the religious system that supported the Law gave them status and a false sense of security about their salvation.  Doing all the right religious things and being schooled in Torah theology gave them the sense that God was pleased with them and honored them as much as they honored themselves.  They were wrong, of course, but that was their view of themselves and God.

Secondly, the Pharisees and experts in the Law were a self-righteous bunch.  Legalism, salvation based on our own merit, forces people to one of two positions. Either I give up all together because I’m overwhelmed with my personal sense of sin and failure or I convince myself that I am more righteous than most so my odds for getting into heaven are pretty good. The common people felt the wait and hopelessness of salvation based on personal merit.  Again they needed good news so when John began to hint that a new doorway to God was about to be opened, they were willing to listen.  The religious leaders, however, needed to protect their righteous persona so they could not submit to a baptism that was overtly for sinners.

The lesson is that self-righteousness and a commitment to the religious status quo will cause us to miss God’s purposes for our life.  God reveals his purposes to the desperate and the hungry. Blessed are the poor in spirit.  Scripture is clear that God has purposes for believers in general but specific and unique purpose for each believer.  “   For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph.2:10). “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers^” (Rom.8:29).

When we are living out God’s purposes for our life, our lives have eternal significance.  We experience the pleasure and the power of God flowing through us as we fulfill those purposes.  Life seems abundant and exciting rather than tedious and boring. The problem with legalism and religious systems are that they are a treadmill with each day seeming much like the one before it.  Depending on God and stepping into his purposes each day is an adventure.  Have you ever noticed that the most extreme believers seem to have the most fun?  It is because they have pushed into God’s purposes more that most of us.

I believe the abundant life Jesus promises is tied up with the purposes God has ordained for our lives. Religion will not get us there but instead will blind us to those purposes. Self-righteousness and a need to be in control will also cause us to miss God’s directions. A commitment to a static faith and a spiritual status quo will also cause us to miss his purposes that, like his mercies, are new every morning.  Let me invite you to humbly ask God to show you his purposes for your life today and for faith to pursue those purposes. Those who hungered for a fresh touch, a fresh revelation, and rekindled relationship with the Father discovered his purposes for them in the days of John the Baptist. That same hunger will open up his purposes for us today.  Be blessed by going after your destiny in Christ.

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman, and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people, then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not take warning and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood will be on his own head.  Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had taken warning, he would have saved himself. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’ “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. (Ezek.33:2-7)

In the days of the Bible, cities and farmers needed watchmen.  A watchman was simply the “lookout” or sentry who was posted to give warning if danger approached. On walled cities, towers were built and those towers were manned by watchmen who would sound an alarm if the enemy approached or who would alert the gatekeepers that a messenger was approaching or that a company of men were returning from a mission.  In essence, the watchman was to discern whether the approaching figure(s) were friends or foes and he was to alert the city to that arrival.

In several places, God compares Ezekiel to a watchman who has been placed over Israel to sound the alarm if he sees judgment on the horizon. Judgment would often come in the form of invading armies, natural disasters, plagues, etc.  It was the prophet’s job to alert the people of impending disasters so that they might repent and avoid the judgment of God.

There were also towers built in fields, orchards or vineyards for watchmen who would survey the borders of the property to see if any thieves were coming to steal the crops or if any animals were coming into the fields who might damage the crops. If so, they sounded the alert so that the Master’s men could arise and protect the crops.

Dutch Sheets has some great insights about these watchmen.  “In seasons of harvest, there is a more urgent need for the “watchman,” as “the thief” is going to do all he can to steal it, keeping the greater portion.  It is little wonder that God has preceded the greatest harvest of souls the world has ever known – which is now happening – with the greatest prayer awakening in history.

The Lord of the Harvest is wise. I can assure you He has 24-hour sentries watching over the harvest.” (Dutch Sheets, Intercessory Prayer, p. 255).

This is a day when the enemy is extremely active.  I believe that our nation’s leaders have released the demonic into our nation as never before by their attempts to drive God out of our schools, out of our military, out of courthouses, and out of our history.  They have passed laws against prayer and all kinds of expressions of Christianity in our culture while bowing to Islam, promoting abortion, and supporting the gay rights agenda.  In our conservative area of the country we have seen a spike in demonic activity of every kind and I have no doubt that there is more in other parts of our nation. This is a day when we need watchman who will protect the harvest and sound the alarm when an enemy approaches – not just for the nation but also for the church and for  individuals all around us.

There will be attacks from the inside and the outside that we must recognize and to which we must respond.  There will be individuals who work to destroy the nation, our families, and the church.  There will be those who wage a war on Christianity from the outside and those who wage a war from the inside by causing divisions and by teaching doctrines that do not line up with God’s truth. “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” (1 Tim.4:1-2).

Our American tradition has been to mind our own business and not to involve ourselves in the lives of others when we have not been invited.  We have carried that cultural mindset of individualism and self-sufficiency into the church we have labeled those who speak to others about their sin or who speak to others about questionable teachings as judgmental and intolerant.

However, God clearly tells us in Ezekiel that if we see a nation, a family or an individual rejecting God’s truth and God’s Son, then we must warn them or their blood will be on our hands. The church has set relatively quiet while millions of children have been aborted, while laws have been passed legalizing evil and restricting good, while God and prayer have been banned form our schools and then the nations wonders why children and teachers are being gunned down in those schools on a regular basis. If anyone suggests that natural disasters, a failing economy, flu epidemics, and terrorism are preliminary judgments from God on a nation once blessed by Him, they are labeled as religious quacks and extremists – even by other believers.  The truth is that if the church (and we as individuals who are the church) does not begin to sound the warning for the nation and for the people around us, God will hold us responsible in part for the destruction of both the nation and people.

Freedom, healing, and power come to those who align themselves with God and who are obedient even when it brings threats and criticisms.  In the book of Acts, every time the apostles were censured for preaching Jesus, they would go out and begin to preach him again and God wound do move supernaturally in awesome ways through those who were not only warning people but announcing the unconditional love of God.  I believe our warnings should be voiced out of love and concern but also tempered with truth. America was never in as much danger from Germany, Japan, or nuclear Russia as we are right now from a culture that is working hard to reject God and his righteousness at every turn. We really do need to steel ourselves and begin to speak out with wisdom, concern, love for our enemies, and with articulation.  We have been appointed to be watchmen for the church first but also for a nation God has blessed in generations past.

Today, think about your role as protector, defender, and lookout for those you love, for the family of God and also for a world of people Jesus died for.  Ask Jesus who you need to speak to or where you need to speak out.  To whom much has been given, much is required.  God has saved us and blessed us so richly, but with that comes great responsibility to be salt and light, fresh water, and watchmen on the wall.  Be blessed.

Elijah was the greatest prophet of the Old Testament.  I say that because, Jesus declared that John the Baptist had come in the spirit of Elijah and was the one given the honor to announce the coming of Messiah.  When Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James and John it was Moses and Elijah who met with Jesus on that mountain (see Matt. 17:3).

Elijah simply appears in the pages of scripture in 1 Kings 17.  We know nothing of his parents, his tribe or his upbringing.  He simply appears in the days of King Ahab and his wife Jezebel who promoted idol worship in Israel and who ruled as tyrants.  Elijah seems to be the forerunner of John the Baptist in many ways.  He confronted Ahab about his sins as John confronted Herod. He seemed to live mostly in the desert and wore a garment of hair with a leather belt around his waist (2 Kings 1:8) which sounds very much like John the Baptist.  Elijah differs, however, in that he performed miracles and was provided for miraculously while we have no record of John the Baptist ever performing a miracle.

It was Elijah who declared that there would be no dew or rain in Israel for three and a half years except at hos own word. It was also Elijah who confronted 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah on the top of Mount Carmel.  He stood against then and King Ahab until Jehovah was proven to be the true God and the prophets of Baal destroyed.  He was then instructed to go pray for rain and after doing so God sent rain after the three and a half year drought in Israel.  By the way, if Ahab had ever killed Elijah before he prayed for rain it is possible that it would have never rained again in Israel because the drought was to be broken only by Elijah’s words.

As you read the 17^th and 18^th chapters of 1 Kings, Elijah appears to be the fearless, unshakeable man of God that we all want to be.  But something out of character occurs in chapter 19.  After the confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, Ahab told Jezebel what had happened to her “pet priests.” After hearing about their destruction, Jezebel sent word to Elijah that she had taken a vow to kill him within the next 24 hours.

The text then reads,  “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep” (1 Kings 19:3-5).

What we see in Elijah is a spiritual reality that we all need to be aware of.  Often, after great spiritual victories, we become susceptible to fatigue and fear.  Think about it.  Elijah had just completed an amazing day of spiritual victory – confronting Ahab, calling down fire from heaven, destroying the prophets of Baal, and then ran a marathon (see 1 Kings 18:45) to Jezreel.  He did all of this in the power of the Spirit.  However, when the infinite Spirit of God works through the finite body and soul of a man, spiritual and physical fatigue often sets in.  Even Jesus experienced that in his body so that at times he would separate himself from the crowds to seek a quiet place, rest, and time with the Father.

To put it bluntly, put a fork in Elijah because he is done. Elijah is drained at the end of the day and when the threat from Jezebel is delivered, he just doesn’t have the energy or faith to go another round. We like Elijah need to know that we are often vulnerable to the enemy after great spiritual victories or even spiritual highs.  We especially experience that desire to flee when we thought the battle was over and another assault from the enemy suddenly appears.

We have an event called Freedom Weekend where our team will minister in prayer and deliverance to 60 to 70 people over a period of 4 or 5 hours.  At the end of the day, there is always a sense of thankfulness for what God has done and a sense of victory over the enemy.  But there always comes a moment when our team is “done” and no one wants to hear that someone needs a little more deliverance. Our team goes home fulfilled, excited, and tired. All they want is a warm meal and a warm bed.  We have also noticed that for the next week or two there is often a since of spiritual fatigue and almost a spiritual apathy that sets in.  We call this the “Elijah syndrome.” This is a time that we need to rest but also to be very wary of the enemy who wants to exploit that spiritual vulnerability.

Elijah ran away from more battles at the time but God cared for him along the way and was waiting for him when he arrived at Horeb and hid in a cave. Ultimately, Elijah needed a break from the battle; he needed sleep, food, rest, and some time alone.  He needed to hear the small, still voice of God to renew him.  If we try to analyze Elijah’s thoughts we sense that after his great victory of faith, he thought that Ahab and the world around him would change for the better.  Jezebel’s threat left him feeling as if his efforts for God had made no difference.  The enemy was still bold and enthroned and now he was in the crosshairs of, perhaps, the most wicked woman of her time or any time. However, Elijah has set in motion a sequence that would soon take both Ahab and Jezebel off the throne and out of this world.  He discovered that he was not alone in his love for God and righteousness, and he had won the praise of God which is the ultimate prize indeed.

In my last blog I spoke about being aware of the devil’s schemes and so I wanted to make you aware or to remind you of this natural spiritual let down that often occurs right after a mountaintop experience with God. When you have labored hard for a victory and have won the battle, be prepared to experience what Elijah experienced.  Elijah was disappointed in himself for his spiritual letdown but God cared for him and encouraged him until his spiritual energy was restored.  The letdown doesn’t always occur but it occurs often, so find a way to get some rest, spend a little time alone but get some people around you to pray and talk about the victory and to celebrate the win. Ask them to pray for you to be rejuvenated and spend quiet time listening to God. The enemy would love for you to get down on yourself because you suddenly don’t feel like the great man or woman of faith that you seemed to be 24 hours earlier.  He would love to accuse and condemn but just know that it is a natural cycle that even the greatest of prophets experienced and know that your passion and faith will return soon.

Be blessed today in God’s care.

The New Testament writers are very clear that Satan lays traps and designs schemes against God’s people. We are not to be ignorant of his schemes (see 2 Cor.2:11) so it seems that we should give some thought to the processes by which Satan attempts to pick us off one by one.

I appreciate the way in which Graham Cooke describes one of Satan’s patterns so often used to take God’s people out of the game.  “ The Enemy’s strategy works on that same principle.  He is geared to make us feel dissatisfied with who we are.  He wants us to separate from God, the church, our friends, and any useful function we may adopt in furthering the kingdom. If he can get us to hate ourselves and tell our hearts that we are of no account and, as such, it doesn’t matter if we don’t go the meeting or pray or worship, then apathy will follow.  If we allow apathy into our lives then it will hold the door open to unbelief, condemnation, self-loathing, bitterness, anxiety, fear, misery and selfishness.  All these things spell passivity, a passive acceptance of life, and a demoralized outlook on the things of God.  The prophetic is geared to challenge this whole issue since it is based on the truth of God’s love, grace, kindness, and mercy.” (Graham Cooke, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, p.50).

Notice the progressive nature of this scheme.  We become dissatisfied with ourselves and, after a while, come into agreement with Satan’s accusations that we are unlovable, unworthy, and incompetent.  As we begin to agree with him on those issues our self-image plummets and we begin to suspect that other people feel the same way about us.  Because of that, we begin to withdraw and isolate ourselves from the very people who love us and give our lives meaning. As we isolate ourselves our fruitfulness begins to wane. Since we are already feeling bad about ourselves we push back against any encouragement to re-engage and against any conviction from the Holy Spirit because we take it all as criticism and rejection.  As we numb our senses to avoid any more feelings of rejection, we slide into apathy and passivity which continues to alienate us from ourselves and isolate us from God and his people. Of course, throughout the entire process Satan is whispering how much God, the church, and our friends have let us down so that our misery is really all their fault.

Satan excels in placing us in mindsets and situations that create a downward spiral.  For instance, Christians who feel a great deal of rejection and who question their own worth and significance often seek to medicate the pain of their self-loathing through pornography.  The temporary rush of sexual fantasies or the endorphins released during the fantasy soon give way to a sense of shame and failure.  The sense of shame and failure depletes their self-image all the more, which increases their need for escape and the medicating effects of more porn, which then creates more shame.  The shame creates secrets. The addiction becomes a secret part of his/her life that is hidden by lies and deception which, in turn, undermine trust in a marriage relationship or family.  The broken trust then tends to alienate one spouse from another which usually leads to arguments, frustrations, withdrawal from church and isolations from friends. The cycle is self-perpetuating and can devastate not only the man or women caught in the cycle but those who love them as well.

Huge numbers of believers have been marginalized by these schemes and traps of the enemy.  The key is to understand the outcomes and the strategies and to take steps to short-circuit the strategy as early as possible in the process.  Not only should we short-circuit the process but also we should create safeguards in our lives to keep the enemy from even getting a foothold.  Let me recommend a few things.

1.An honest evaluation of our spiritual and emotional health.  This is the hardest step as those of us who struggle with self-worth try to avoid acknowledging any weaknesses or sins in our lives because we fear rejection if others were to find out.

2.Choose to have accountability partners in life with whom you will be ruthlessly honest about your struggles.  Give them permission to ask the hard questions and call you back to spiritually healthy dynamics in your life or when you start to withdraw or isolate yourself or begin to make excuses about diminishing spiritual practices and ministry involvement in your life.

3.Recognize areas of weakness and sin in your life and get to work on those areas while they are occasional struggles rather than something that is dominating your life.  Low self–esteem, anger, addictions, fear, compulsions, etc. are all life issues related to our brokenness and sin nature.  They will not get better without taking action both in the natural and spiritual realms.  Unhealed and unrepented, these issues will be open doors for the enemy to gain access to your life and your soul – first a foothold and then a stronghold.

4.When you recognize you are caught in a scheme of the enemy short-circuit his strategy by refusing to go the to the next level in the process.  Refuse to live a lie.  Refuse to withdraw and isolate yourself from church, friends, and family.  Face the shame by telling someone immediately so that the shame does not grow and give the enemy a more powerful stronghold.

If you know you struggle with your self-mage get help immediately by finding healing in the Lord, establishing your identity in Christ, gaining freedom from spirits of rejection, bondage, fear, and condemnation through deliverance, and by getting intercessors to pray with you until that issue is overcome.

5.Know that the longer you put off surrendering your struggle to the Lord and humbling yourself by getting help from the body of Christ, the harder it will be to find freedom and the more it will have cost you before you do.

Ask yourself:

•  Where will I be in five years if I do not get victory over the sin and brokenness in my life?
• What will it cost me to continue to hide and deny my struggles?
• What will it cost my family and my relationship with the Lord if I don’t deal with this now?
• What could my life look like if I found true freedom from my sin and brokenness?

We are not to be ignorant of the devil’s schemes and we must take action as soon as we sense we have stepped into his trap or have vulnerabilities that invite his presence.  Jesus has come to heal and set free and he is willing to do that for you. If we excuse or deny these struggles, we are making ourselves easy targets for enemy.  Jesus has purchased so much for you by his blood and the Father is so willing to gives those gifts to you, don’t let the enemy steal your life and your blessings.  Be wise.  Avoid the traps or at least call for help as soon as you feel the noose tightening around your ankle.  Be blessed and be wise today.  Tell someone the truth about whatever you have been hiding or denying.

“We were born to live in the realm of the supernatural – the realm of healings, prophetic utterances, angelic encounters, and the gifts of the Spirit.  It should be the most natural thing for a Christian to live a supernatural lifestyle.  If you feel dissatisfied with your Christian walk, it may be because you are missing this all-important element. Jesus didn’t only invite Peter to walk on the water (see Matt. 14-22-33).  By inviting him to risk walking on the water, Jesus was inviting Peter into the realm He lived in all the time – the realm of the supernatural.  And He welcomes us to live there as well. Jesus is looking at you just as He looked at Peter and He is saying, ‘Come.’  He is inviting you to live a supernatural lifestyle.  Can you hear him calling?” (Banning Liebscher, Walking in the Supernatural, p.237).

Why do you think God wrote the biographies of so many men and women in scripture who had supernatural encounters with God, angels, the demonic, etc.?  Think about it. The great majority of those who were walking in fellowship with God experienced dreams and visions, miraculous provision, miraculous deliverance from armies, fire, lions, and enemies of every sort.  They experienced divine favor, divine encounters, prophetic words, unnatural boldness, supernatural strength, and angelic encounters.  Just scan the Old and New Testaments and you will find these things in nearly every life that was attuned to God from Genesis to Revelation.

Children read those things and imagine themselves taking on Goliath, routing armies, healing blind men, blowing trumpets while the walls of a great city crumble, walking on water, and stilling the mouths of lions.  It is not until we encounter adults that we discover that God put all those stories in scripture to show us what he would never do through us or for us but only to show us a multitude of exceptions to the rule rather than the rule.  It seems that God put all those accounts of supernatural encounters in scripture to show us what we could never experience by faith rather than to show us the kinds of things that faith could draw from heaven in our own lives. It seems that God had men pen thousands of scriptures telling us how he used to interact with his people rather than telling how he wants to interact with us today.

I served in churches for 25 years that taught that God did all those things once upon a time, but doesn’t do them anymore.  I’ve never met a person who had simply read the Bible, including the New Testament, who came to the conclusion that God used to do all that cool stuff but stopped doing it 2000 years ago.  They simply assumed that since God did all that cool stuff throughout the pages of the Bible he must still do those things.  We have to be taught that God doesn’t move in the supernatural because we would never conclude that from the natural reading of scripture.

However, I learned that God doesn’t move in the miraculous in our day so well that when I saw the supernatural works of God I didn’t recognize them. If I did see something out of the ordinary I discounted it or found a naturalistic explanation for it. If you think about that borders on blasphemy of the Spirit that Jesus spoke of when the Pharisees witnessed an undeniable miracle but then attributed the miracle to the work of Satan.

When we declare that God used to move in mighty and powerful ways on the earth on behalf of his people but that he no longer does so, the whole story begins to sound like a myth or a fairly tale – once upon a time a great and powerful king used to.  No wonder people doubt the inspiration of scripture. However, those who grow up seeing and experiencing the supernatural moves of God have no problem believing biblical accounts.  Satan has little fear of a God who no longer acts on behalf of his people through miracles and certainly has no fear of a church that only functions in the natural rather than living in the supernatural.  “Christ” comes from the Greek word that means the “anointed one of God.”  Jesus said that the Spirit of the sovereign Lord was upon him because he had anointed him to preach good news.  To be anointed means to carry the Spirit of God and the supernatural power of God as well.  Someone once pointed out that Satan released a spirit of anti-Christ not a spirit of anti-Jesus.  He released a spirit of anti-anointing in a sense.  Not anointing, no power; no power, no danger to the supernatural forces of darkness.

However, if you have the Holy Spirit living in you, you are anointed to live and move in the supernatural just as Christ did.  You are invited to walk on water, still the storms, heal the sick and send demons fleeing. I am convinced that God gave us all the accounts of supernatural encounters in scripture because that is to be the rule for those who follow God, not the exception.  To seek after a supernatural lifestyle is not a pursuit of sensationalism but rather the pursuit of the normal Christian life.  It is high time that the church got after it.  Be blessed today and ask Jesus to work in you and through you in supernatural ways.  It is where he wants you to live.

Here is something Kevin Dedmon said in a chapter from his contribution to a book entitled, Walking in the Supernatural.

After Peter and John healed the cripple at the Beautiful Gate, the onlookers were amazed at what they had just witnessed.  There seemed to be an underlying sentiment that Peter and John were some kind of superheroes with special power that made them unique. Peter, most likely recognizing the attitude, responded:  “Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this?  Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk” (Acts 3:12)” Then, after a short sermon, he added:  “His name, through faith in His name has made this man strong, whom you see and know.  Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all” (Acts 3:16).  Sadly, many people shy away from the supernatural gifts, thinking that they do not have the power to perform supernatural feats.  The reality is that they don’t.  None of us have the power to heal, save, prophesy, or set people free; nevertheless, God has commissioned us to go and do these things – to make the world a better place to live.  What else can we do but obey?  (Walking in the Supernatural, Destiny Image Pub., p.177)

First century Rabbi’s were approached by students who had extraordinary gifts of study and memorization in the Torah and who had a passion to learn and teach the Torah to others.  The process was much like that of Jesus and his disciples. Disciples would live with their teacher for several years learning and observing his lifestyle. The traditional path was for the student to apply with the Rabbi who considered the request and then took the best and the brightest as students. In a sense, the student chose the teacher.  Jesus reversed that order when he went after those who he would call to be his disciples and chose those who were not graduate students from the synagogue and who had probably shown no great capacity for theology.

The two processes were the same, however, when the Rabbi issued the invitation, “Come and follow me.”  That phrase was not an invitation to come and study and receive information or more biblical knowledge so that the knowledge could be passed on to others.  The phrase was meant to convey an invitation to follow the Rabbi so that you could not only learn what he knew but also so that you could live as he lived and do what he did.  The invitation was literally a call to become the Rabbi.  When Jesus called the twelve he meant for them to duplicate his life on the earth. When he called each of us, he meant for us to duplicate his life on the earth.

We have been called to do what Jesus did in whatever setting he has placed us.  We are to be light to the world, dispensers of the love and grace of God, and tellers of truth.  We are to point people to the Father and the Son and offer them the free gift of salvation.  We are called to do that at the office, in our homes, on the sidelines of little league games, and at school.  We are called to do that in line at the supermarket and with the wait-staff at restaurants.  We are called to do that because Jesus did that.  Nearly everyone would agree with the fact that as Christians (which initially meant “little Christ’s” in Antioch) we should minister to the sick and the poor, share the good news, be lights in a dark world, and so forth because that is what Jesus did.

But Jesus did other things as well – supernatural things.  He prayed to the Father and mediated miracles – feeding the five thousand, raising the dead, healing every kind of sickness, and setting people free from demonic oppression. He did those things over and over as part of his lifestyle. Many would be quick to say, “Yes, but he was God….we are not!”  It is true that Jesus was God but he walked on this earth as the Son of Man. Jesus certainly had a position of being God but laid aside all the special attributes of God to live as one of us.  He lived as a man with a deep and intimate connection with God and an unwavering faith.  He also sent out twelve and then seventy-two unremarkable disciples who did the very same things Jesus was doing.  He then sent his Holy Spirit to indwell his church and to distribute gifts of miracles, healings, prophecy, faith, intercession, etc. to unremarkable people who then lived as our remarkable Rabbi had lived when he walked on this earth.

It’s amazing to me that we tend to pick and choose the attributes of the Rabbi that we think we should emulate. When he said, “Come and follow me,” to those he chose (including you and me) he was calling them and us to become him – to live as he lived and to do what he did.  We do this because it is our call and because God, the Rabbi, and the Holy Spirit live within us so that we might replicate the life and the heart of the Son.

Of course, we do not have the power by ourselves to do these things – any of them.  I have no power to be unselfish, to love the unlovable, or to forgive those who have abused me.  The Spirit of Christ alone enables me to do those things. I have to power to grasp the spiritual truths of scripture unless the Spirit enables me to perceive those things. He also enables us to heal, deliver, raise the dead, intercede with power for the lost, prophesy, and so forth.  One is not more remarkable than the other but all are required if we are to become Jesus, the Rabbi.

May we all hear his voice today as he calls us to come and follow him and may our prayer be that we will learn what he knows, live as he lived, and do what he did. As we commit to the process he will send us out to do what he did and will give us his power and authority to do so.  If we will step out by faith, believing that he will always equip us for the assignments he places before us, we will see him live through us just as Peter and John did on the streets of Jerusalem.  We will also be able to declare that it was not us but Jesus who did such a thing.  Be blessed as you follow Him today!

They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.” Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”    But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”            And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. (Num.13:27-33).

This is the account of the return of the twelve spies that the Hebrews sent into Canaan when the Hebrews first came to the land after leaving Egypt.  Many Christians neglect the study of the Old Testament because we live under a different covenant but the New Testament says that the things written before Christ were written for our learning (see Rom.15:4).  We need to find the principles imbedded in these texts so that we can live by faith and secure the promises of God today.  These principles don’t change because God doesn’t change.  So…let’s take a look.

God had determined to give this land to his people hundreds of years before the Hebrews peered over the Jordan.  He had promised the land to Abraham and his descendants and Moses had led them out of Egypt and brought them to the brink of the promise being fulfilled. Basically, God told them that He had already given them the land; they just needed to cross the Jordan and possess it.  God promised that He would go with them and fight before them assuring them victory after victory.  God had demonstrated His commitment and power through the ten plagues that brought Egypt to her knees, by the parting of the Red Sea, and by the destruction of Pharaoh’s army.  He had shown His power and glory on the top of Sinai and had miraculously provided food and water for all the people in the desert.

The people counseled Moses to send spies into Canaan to get a first hand report of the topography of the land, the abundance of the land, and the people who lived there.  Moses thought it was a sound idea so they dispatched twelve men – one from each tribe.  When they retuned after 40 days, they reported that the land was everything God had described but the people there were strong and some were “giants” such as would be seen in Goliath years later.  At the report, whatever courage the people had before quickly faded and they decided that the task was too much – God had called them to so something that was undoable. Because of their unbelief, that entire generation of Hebrews wandered in the desert for 40 years until they died.  After that, their children took the land.

Several questions come to mind as a result of this account.

1. How much does God have to do to convince us that He is for us and that we can overcome any obstacle by His power? Plagues, Red Sea, manna in the wilderness, a pillar of fire by night and a cloud during the day to lead the way, the Law of God written on stone, etc. Was that not enough to prove His intent for His people and His capacity to deliver and provide?  Apparently not.

2. Why did Moses not ask God about sending spies rather than taking counsel from the people?  Up to that point God had directed their every step and protected them by His power.  Why did Moses think they needed to know their way around the country or confirm what God had already told them was true?  The Hebrews had not shown great faith or good judgment in any way up to that point. Why did Moses think it would be different then?  Perhaps he thought the goodness of the land would catch their attention more that the obstacles.  Whatever he thought did not bring about the results he hoped for. Fear and unbelief ruled the day.

3. Why didn’t God just send destroying angels or plague into the land and clear it out ahead of time so that the Hebrews could just walk right in and set up shop?

Here are a few principles for us.

God’s word about a thing is sufficient because He cannot lie.  However, He is always willing to demonstrate His good intentions toward us and His power for us in order to give us confidence that we have understood Him and His word. For a while, God will give us miracles to produce faith; but after a while, He will expect our faith to produce the miracles.  There comes a time when His actions have demonstrated His character enough that we should have at least a minimal level of faith.  The greater the miracles are that He has shown us, the more faith is expected – to whom much is given, much is required. At some point, God will expect us to understand His commitment to us and His character so that we will choose to trust and obey when facing even great obstacles.

Some of us have little faith because we have never allowed God to put us in risky situations.  If we are never in risky situations, we will never need a miracle.  If we never need a miracle, we will never see a miracle and our faith will remain small. When our faith remains small, we will never experience all the goodness, the fruit, and the victory God has promised.  We will simply live and die without experiencing everything that God has stored up for us and that Jesus has paid for.

Additionally, when God has given us a promise and a clear word to go after something, we should never dialogue with the devil or people who have demonstrated little faith in their lives.
They will always counsel us to trust in men rather than God; in what we can see rather than in what we can imagine by faith, and they will simply point out the giants rather than the amazing victories that will be ours by faith.  Stay away from bad reports and from those who always see giants rather than the One who slays giants through His people.

We must also live knowing that God wants us to face obstacles that are impossible to conquer without Him.  If he clears the way ahead of time we never grow, never get stronger, and never get to know Him better.  We would simply become spoiled trust-fund babies, in the spiritual sense, who feel entitled to all blessings and thankful for none.  Besides…when you face the impossible and Jesus shows up, life gets to be fun.  Your faith becomes an adventure that enriches your life beyond measure and Jesus becomes very real. In the realm of your faith, risk is always your friend when God has called you to the risk.   We should learn from David who ran toward the giant rather than away from him.

Finally, the land that was impossible to take was taken a few years later by the children of those who had no faith.  The walls of Jericho could have fallen just as easily 40 years earlier if Israel had responded with just a little faith.   But thankfully, children can rise above their parents in the spiritual realm usually by learning from their parent’s mistakes.  One of the ways we can honor our fathers and mothers is to not judge their mistakes but to learn from them.

So today reflect on all the ways God has already demonstrated His commitment to you and His power.  Consider every miracle, every answered prayer, every moment of divine protection, every healed heart and relationship, and expect God to do it all again and to do even greater things for you.  Be willing to take some risk for the kingdom of God and run toward any giants that come your way today.  God truly has already promised you victory.  Be blessed today in Him.

As I have mentioned many times in this blog, alignment with God is the key to bearing fruit in the kingdom of God as well as experiencing the power and authority of Jesus in your life.  Paul spoke about taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Jesus Christ (see 2 Cor. 10:5). That is alignment.  When we think as God thinks then we will act in accordance with those thoughts.  Since that is true we need to be aware of our thoughts and challenge those that do not line up with scripture or the heart of God.  The most difficult unaligned thoughts to detect are those that are reflected throughout our culture.  They are so much a part of the landscape that we hardly notice them anymore.

Having grown up in the Texas panhandle and then having lived in West Texas for the past thirty years I have become used to seeing tumbleweeds blowing along our roads in the Fall and early Spring – so much so that I rarely even notice them unless they are half the size of my car and blowing across the highway in my lane.  Several years ago I hosted a young couple who lived in Tennessee and were visiting Texas for the first time.  I asked them if I could show them anything that was quintessentially Texas.  I assumed they would want to see Longhorns, a rodeo, a ten-gallon hat, or pump jacks dotting the landscape.  When I asked them they both smiled and said at the same time, “We want to see a tumbleweed.”  I was so used to seeing the Russian Thistle resting against our fence rows that the idea of someone wanting to see such an ordinary sight never crossed my mind.  Our familiar thoughts and perspectives can be that way as well. Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out a thought pattern that is unaligned with Jesus so that we can capture those thoughts and make them obedient to Christ.

I am convinced that for Americans, one of the qualities of heaven that eludes us is the quality of honor. In many cultures those who have lived long and developed white hair are always honored at any gathering.  They are seated first, given the best seats, and are treated with great respect at family and community gatherings.  In biblical cultures, the elders sat in the gates of the cities in seats of honor and were asked questions because they were assumed to have wisdom – the wisdom that comes from a perspective on life that can only be gained by observing life for many years.

There was a time when veterans, policemen, firemen, mayors, governors and presidents were given great honor and spoken of with respect and when husbands and fathers were honored by wives, children, and culture instead of being the butt of every joke in situation comedies. In our current culture the idea of honoring anyone but celebrities has diminished so much that dishonoring someone is much more common than honoring. Dishonor us not just speaking badly about someone but may also take the form of simply ignoring those who should be honored.

Scripture has a great deal to say about honoring others and it is clear that honor is a primary value in the culture of heaven.  Webster defines the verb “honor” as:  to regard or treat (someone) with respect and admiration: to show or give honor to (someone); to show admiration for (someone or something) in a public way: to give a public honor to (someone or something): to salute.”  Let me offer a quick list of those God calls us to honor.

Honor your Father and Mother – Matt. 15:4

Honor God’s Prophets – Mark 6:4

Honor the Son / Honor the Father – Jn.5:23

Honor one who serves Jesus – Jn.12:26

Honor one who does good – Rom.2:10

Honor one another above yourselves – Rom.12:10

Give honor to whom honor is due  – Rom. 13:7

Give honor to rulers and government authorities – Rom. 13:1-7

Honor men who put themselves at risk for the Lord – Phil.2:29

Honor the elders and those who direct the affairs of the church – 1 Tim.5:17

Honor the king – 1 Pet. 2:17

Honor Jesus – Numerous scriptures

Honor God – Numerous scriptures

We could go on but I wanted you to see how much the concept of honor, appreciation, admiration, and respect are part of the culture of heaven and the heart of God.  We are not to seek to be honored by others but we are to be quick to give honor to others. Kris Vallotton has an interesting chapter about “honor” in his book, The Supernatural Ways of Royalty.  There is a section that I wanted to share with you.

“Honor has been absent from the Church’s mindset for so long that we often dishonor people when we minister without even realizing it. This became quote clear to me a few years ago.  Over a period of 12 months we had five different guest speakers come to Bethel Church and preach the message that revival is coming from the youth. The first few times I heard the message my mind was troubled and my spirit was grieved but I couldn’t perceive what was wrong…I began to question God about what was going on inside of me. He told me, ‘Revival is not coming from the youth but from One generation, old to young’”  (p. 117).

Kris went on to talk about Acts 2 where the prophet Joel is quoted and said that in the latter days God will pour out his Spirit on all mankind and the Spirit will manifest in sons and daughters, young men, and old men. His point was that God wanted to unite a generation and “restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse” (Mal.4:5-6).

“The passage makes it clear that as the generations join hands, the curses over the land will be broken. God went on to explain to me that the prince of the power of the air has influenced modern thought to value young people above the elderly in a way that dishonors older folks. The Lord showed me that he Bible intentionally gives more honor and respect to the elderly, but that our culture disempowers them. I began to understand that he wrong spirit was influencing many preachers and they were playing right into the hands of the evil one…Honor is one of the greatest attributes of nobility in the entire Bible. When the kingdom is present inside us, honorable behavior comes naturally to us” (p.118).

Developing a heart that gives honor to those God wants to honor is essential to our alignment with the Father.  Our culture typically honors celebrities, the rich, the physically attractive, and the powerful but not the mature, the self-sacrificing, those who work tirelessly behind the scenes, those who put themselves at risk to serve God, or those who do good. Through the years I have seen churches succumb to the same mindset where each Sunday there is a parade of celebrities across the podium who may have done less for the kingdom of God than the folks who sweep up every Sunday and faithfully take out the trash.  Remember, it is the servants who are great in the kingdom of Heaven.

God says, “Those who honor me, I will honor” (1 Sam. 2:30).  God wants to do that through us. When I develop the heart to honor others it guards my heart against self-focus and trains me to trust God for any promotion that comes my way since I will be shining the spotlight on others rather than myself  – very countercultural.  It is to those whose focus is on the welfare and honor of others more than themselves that God can entrust the riches and the power of heaven.  Be sure to give honor to others today and be blessed.

Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. (Mark  10:18)

Most of us have heard the expression that God is good – all the time. A friend of mine says it this way.  “God is good and he’s in a good mood.”  Statements like that have developed because people, including many believers, aren’t sure that it’s true. People wonder if God is good only part of the time and only with his favorites. Or they may think that maybe he’s good (moral/righteous) but he still seems to be angry all the time. The question of God’s inherent goodness is vital.

Everything in our faith stands on the truth of what Jesus said.  God is good. It is only when we believe that God is good all the time that we can have faith in his promises.  It is only then that we can develop an unconditional trust in him. Anything less leaves us on shaky ground and yet my experience tells me that many believers, in their hearts,  are still uncertain of that goodness.

Satan’s great strategy in the garden was to undermine Adam and Eve’s confidence in the goodness of God. In his dialogue with Eve, Satan implied that God might not be so good.  He suggested that there were many good things that Adam and Eve deserved that God was withholding from their lives.  He suggested that the warning about death related to eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a ruse to keep them from becoming gods themselves. He suggested that God was a liar and a manipulator who was keeping them from the best things in life. The only evil in the Garden that day was Satan.  But Satan always calls evil good and good evil and so he accused the creator of being much less than a good and loving God.

As soon as Eve entertained the possibility that God wasn’t so good after all, she took and ate.  Her doubts about the goodness of God created distrust in the goodness of his commandments because she had begun to distrust his character.  Once we take the step of doubting God’s goodness then everything unravels.  If we can’t trust God to be good all the time then we can’t trust his commandments to be good for us all the time. When we arrive at that perspective, we will feel compelled to pick and choose the commandments of God that we estimate will be in our best interest while leaving the others alone.  We will have to serve God with reservations and maintain control over the most critical parts of our lives because we won’t be confident that he will always act in our best interest.

I’ve discovered through the years that Eve’s distorted view of God seems to be indelibly imprinted on our fallen nature so that even believers often filter out the goodness of God written on every page of the Bible and camp on those moments when his righteousness and the persistent rebellion of men forced him to release judgment on a man or a nation.  That post-sin filter from the Garden casts God as a perfectionistic, authoritarian Father who gives gifts grudgingly and only to those who have recently earned his approval. He is seen as a Father who gladly sends hardship or even illness to teach us a lesson so that we might do better next time.  He is often seen as a father who delights in “taking off his belt” and dealing out his “righteous” judgments.

When that view overshadows the true revelation of God’s goodness, our trust can only be sporadic, our expectation for answered prayers will vary with our perceived personal “spirituality and goodness,” and we will often view every hardship and loss in life as something God has “done to us.”  Obviously, our walk with the Lord and growth in the Spirit will not flourish in such a mental environment.  These misperceptions of God are the very strongholds (see 2 Cor.10:4-5) that keep us from healing, freedom, and moving powerfully in the gifts of the Spirit.

Those things are predicated on trusting that God is always for us; believing his truth about who we are and what Christ has done for us; confronting the enemy with the confidence that Jesus is who he says he is and that he will back us up with his own power and authority. To receive those gifts from God, we must at least begin to remove fleshly filters that deletes all evidence of his goodness and begin to see the goodness of God through the revelation of the Spirit.

If God is good by nature, then he can only do good things.  He can only treat us in good ways.  He can only send us good gifts and he can only want good things for us.  If he is good by nature then he never lies, never breaks promises, never manipulates, and never discards us.  If he is good, then he opposes evil and delights in helping us overcome the enemy in our own lives. If he is good he always meets our needs and always does what is best for us – even when we can’t see it in the beginning.

Is God good?  Jesus said he is. Is Jesus good?  If you said yes then remember that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father (see Heb.1:3). Once I commit by faith to the proposition that God is good all the time, then my eyes will begin to see his goodness in everything.  I will not blame him for the consequences of my own bad decisions or the bad decisions of Adam.  I will not blame him for the works of Satan and I will not have to stand on my head to explain why a good God would seemingly do such bad things – because he doesn’t.

If you honestly struggle with the goodness of God in your life then take Jesus as his word.  Choose to believe that God is good and always wants what is best for you. Then ask the Holy Spirit to begin to enable you to see his goodness in everything and to discern where God is interjecting his grace and goodness even in tragic circumstances created by sin not by God.   Look for his goodness.  Confess his goodness. Confirm his goodness. Celebrate his goodness.  It will change your life and open the doors to your healing, freedom and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life. Be blessed by his goodness today.