We have all been shaken by the tragic events spawned by a  hundred-year flood in the Texas Hill Country this past weekend. We are especially impacted by the death of so many children and by the fact that so many were attending Christian Camps.  How do we reconcile those losses with the love and protection of God?

The enemy will take every opportunity to smear the name of God and his Son Jesus because he “allowed” these events to take place.  Satan will attempt to persuade people that God “took their children” or that he sent the flood. He will do so publicly and also in our hearts.  I can’t answer every question about these losses, but let me share some thoughts about what has happened.

First of all, when questions arise, we must begin with what we do know and believe.  Foundationally, we know that God is good and that he is love.  God so loved this world that he gave his only Son. Scripture does suggest that God sometimes takes the righteous to keep them from a great evil that is coming.  But, by and large, a loving God does not take children from their parents. Because so many died, we put this under the microscope and call such events an “act of God”…at least the insurance companies do.  But is it an act of God?

Our initial response might be that because God is sovereign, he should have stopped the floods, miraculously saved every child from the waters, or at least should have caused something to alert everyone in the path of the torrent. God is sovereign, but in hjis sovereignty he has place limits on his own control.  Remember, he entrusted the earth to man and chose to give man free will. There is clearly a down side to free will.  Man can choose sin and rebellion.  Those choices can hurt the innocent. Adam and Eve’s choice has negatively affected every human since then.

When a man chooses to drink and drive, he may kill the innocent.  When a man chooses to fire a gun into a crowd, he may also kill the innocent.  When a man chooses to molest a child, he leaves lifelong scars on some child who did not deserve that fate.   God does not approve nor support these acts of sin, rebellion, perversion, and violence, but he honors the free will he gave to man.

When the innocent are wounded or die, we need to know it is sin and the rebellion of man that take the innocents away, not God.  Yes, that’s true for men but what about natural disasters -floods, earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, etc.  When Adam and Eve sinned, their sin produced a curse on the ground itself.  In other words, the natural environment would no longer cooperate with man nor operate under his authority.  What once partnered with Adam to produce abundant fruit, suddenly opposed him. Sin damaged the environment so that thorns and thistles grew up and man would have to scratch out a living through painful toil.

When God brought Israel out of Egypt, he declared his covenant to them. Faithful obedience to his commands would bring blessings even related to weather.  The rains would come at just the right times and the temperatures would foster healthy crops. Insects would not devour their produce.  Rebellion, on the other hand, would bring drought and famine and hordes of insects.  The decisions of man to obey or rebel would directly affect the ecosystem – the natural environment. 

You might say that natural disasters are directly proportional to the wickedness of mankind.  The more man sins, the more destruction we will see in the world – both by man and by nature.  When man chooses sin and rebellion, he chooses natural disasters.  Unfortunately, the innocent may be swept away in those situations just as innocents may die at the hands of drunk drivers.  Galatians declares that whatever a man sows, that is what he will reap.  If he sows to the flesh he will reap destruction.  If he sows to the Spirit, he reaps life. In the wake of his decisions, others will also reap what he sowed for good or bad. 

Sin introduced death to the world.  Sin continues to bring death and destruction as its consequence.  God takes no pleasure in that equation but holiness and righteousness demand a consequence for rebellion.  In his love, God provided a solution to sin…the death of his Son. But until the world, by and large, accepts that sacrifice, sin will produce its consequences and many innocents will suffer because if it.

In the end, that curse will be done away with. For now, God carefully watches over the death of his saints and the innocent and the followers of Jesus are not left to suffer but are ushered into Paradise. The God of all comfort works to comfort those who are stung by the consequences of sin and tells us that we will still grieve, but not as others who have no hope.  Those families who follow Jesus will be joined together again.  But for now, we are not always exempt from the struggles and pain of life in a fallen world. 

Why were some saved and others lost?  I don’t know the heavenly calculus for that.  We rejoice with those who are saved and grieve with those who lost loved ones.  In the end, God will make everything new and those who live with Jesus will never face death, wounds, sorrow, betrayal, or violence again.  But in these moments when Satan wants us to blame God, let’s remember who God is and where death and destruction actually come from. In the meantime, we will pray for those who have been devastated by their losses. 

I want to remind us all of a truth we probably already know but often forget or, at least, don’t remain mindful of.  That truth is the enemy is always searching to find a legal basis in the spiritual realm to afflict, torment, or oppress God’s people.  He already has a legal right to do those things to the people who are citizens of the kingdom of darkness.  But he seeks to find a basis for attacks against God’s people. 

In Revelation we are told, “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God, day and night, has been hurled down” (Rev. 12:10).  Notice that Satan accuses (present tense) us before God without ceasing.  This verse and many others reference a courtroom scene where a prosecutor keeps constantly coming before the king with accusations that would allow him to arrest or punish the one he is accusing.  

If there is no cause for grievance, then the accuser is dismissed.  However, if cause is found, the judge, being just, must allow the accuser to have some access to the accused.  If you recall, Satan brought charges against Job and God, as the judge, set limits on the torment that the accuser could dispense.  In Zechariah, we find the enemy bringing charges against the High Priest. “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” (Zech. 3:1-2). Jesus alluded to the same process when he said, ““Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Lk. 21:31-32).

There are things in our lives that will not cost us our salvation but will grant the enemy some access to us because of laws established in the spiritual realm. All the way back in Deuteronomy 28, God established a system of blessings and curses.  If Israel was careful to keep God’s commandments, blessings would be poured out on them.  If, however, Israel ignored God’s commands…curses would be released over the nation.  I think the best way to understand that dynamic is that the disobedience of Israel would eventually give Satan a legal right to enforce a curse on the nation and bring torment and oppression. God would lift his hand of protection and let Satan have his way. The good news is that repentance and fruits of repentance brought forgiveness and once again closed the door on Satan. 

Persistent and unrepented disobedience will eventually give the enemy access to you and your family.  We tend to think that believers are not going to have that issue or open door in their lives.  But the one I see most often is unforgiveness toward someone who deeply hurt us or betrayed us.  Somehow the enemy convinces us that our grievance is the exception that permits unforgiveness…even for decades.  When we give in to his persuasion, Satan  eventually will gain access to us through that sin of unforgiveness.  Then there are past sins that we blamed others for or simply moved on and left those in our past.  Satan, however, is a great researcher and may find those past unrepented sins to use against us.

Another open door is the “sins of our fathers” that have not been dealt with and that give the enemy a right to afflict the children to the third and fourth generation (Ex. 20:5). It seems strange to us that we could be liable for the sins of our ancestors, but we are.  When we are aware of their sins, we need to repent on behalf of our bloodline and renounce the sins, pleading the blood of Jesus over those sins. We are not imparting salvation to our past relatives, but we are taking away Satan’s legal right to afflict us because of those sins.

Thirdly, spoken curses can give the enemy access…especially if spoken by ourselves or someone who had spiritual authority over us…a parent, a husband, or some religious leader.  Bad health, failing relationships, financial failure, etc. can be set in motion by their words…I wish you had never been born; You will never amount to anything; You’re such a loser; No one will ever love you; I wish you were dead; etc. If you are aware of words like that being spoken, then renounce them in the name of Jesus and cancel them by the power of his name after repenting of coming into agreement with those words.

All of these can create open doors for the enemy by giving him a legal right to afflict us.  You must perform an inventory of your life, your relationships, your family, and your words on a regular basis…confessing, repenting and renouncing the sins or words that have given Satan a right to attack you.  We may go through this process once, but then lay it aside forgetting that Satan is still researching, watching, and waiting for something he can take before the judge.  A regular Spiritual Spring Cleaning every six months would be a very good practice to keep the devil out of your house and out of your life.  If you have never taken that inventory or haven’t in a while, let me encourage you to do so right away!

If our sins are forgiven in Christ, then why do we need to confess them as believers.  After all, doesn’t the blood of Christ continually wash away our sins?  That is a great question and an important one.  I want to briefly look at that from several perspectives.

John tells us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9).  He is writing to believers in this text, not those he is trying to persuade to come to Jesus.  In John’s letters, he is often addressing what has been called the Gnostic Heresies.  There were individuals trying to bring a teaching to the church that what was done in the body had no effect on the soul or the destiny of the soul.  One brand of this heresy declared that we are saved by what we know, not by how we live. In his first letter, he reminds the believers to maintain an attitude of neediness in regard to the blood of Christ and the forgiveness it brings. He reminded them that their sins separated them from God not their intellectual weaknesses. Therefore, they should stay sensitive to the sin that cropped up in their lives and make a habit of bringing those failings before the Father.

John calls for a life of confession after salvation as part of a healthy sanctification process.  Many believers don’t maintain a life of confession.  None of us like to be reminded of our weaknesses and our failings.  Many of us learned from parents that we were only loved when we did all the right things and did them well. We anticipate rejection if we fall short, so we develop a defense mechanism that ignores our weaknesses, excuses them, or blames others when we fail.  We fear that God will reject us too if we acknowledge our sins. 

Other believers only confess on occasions when they have committed what they consider to be “serious sin.”  In their minds, that category might include adultery, abortion, extreme pornography, etc. After being discovered and feeling the shame of what they have done, they might confess over and over as they try to escape their feelings of shame and condemnation.  But other than on those occasions, they rarely confess sins they consider to just be part of the human condition. However, when we own our sin and confess it with godly sorrow or with a genuine desire to please God, he quickly forgives and is pleased with us.  When we deny or hide our sins, he is displeased. 

I’m not suggesting we should we should spend every day cataloguing each sin and offering up our confessions hour after hour.  To do so would give sin more power in our lives that grace.  However, asking the Holy Spirit to highlight attitudes and actions that are getting in the way of our relationship with Jesus or giving the enemy a legal right to afflict us, would be a prudent part of our quiet time with the Lord.

Even though sin in a believer’s life may not cost him salvation, it can hinder and even damage the relationship.  A marriage in which one partner continually wrongs the other but never acknowledges the wrongs or asks for forgiveness is not going to be intimate and fulfilling.  In the same way, unconfessed and unrepented sin will create distance between us and our Father in heaven

Secondly, sin that goes unconfessed is sin that is not acknowledged nor repented of.  Persistent, unrepented sin can give Satan a legal right to enforce curses in our life which hurt us and our families. Unconfessed sin is an open door for demonic activity.  We , like David, also need to ask God to search our hearts and show us anything we are unaware of that is offensive to God. 

Thirdly, when we don’t acknowledge the sin in our lives, and confess it, we become insensitive to that sin.  As we become insensitive, we will downgrade the wickedness of certain sins and rationalize their presence in our own lives.  Think of sins that are prevalent in our culture today: adultery, lying, fornication, homosexuality, dishonesty, gossip, slander, and so forth. A few decades ago, we were grieved and outraged by these sins.  But now, we may still disapprove of the sins but are no longer shocked or disgusted by them.  We make them a part of our entertainment without blushing and entertain them in our own minds without crying out to God to cleanse our thoughts.  We simply have been desensitized and Satan convinces us that God no longer finds them offensive either. 

When we don’t consider our own sins, ask the Holy Spirit to bring conviction, and confess where we have fallen short and rebelled, we become desensitized to the sin in our own lives and no longer speak out against these things in public.  When we tolerate these things as “normal,” we fail to be the conscience of our nation and our own conscience becomes dulled as well. 

If we reject his standards by excusing or minimizing our own sin, then we are declaring that his standards are not just and, therefore, he is not just.  That line is right out of the devil’s playbook. A failure to acknowledge the sin in our life also opens us up to discipline and even sickness.  Paul admonished the privileged in the church at Corinth who were taking the Lord’s supper while ignoring and disdaining the poor among them. He said, “That is why many among you are weak and sick and a number of you have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 11:30).  James also says, “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (Ja. 5:14-16). 

So let me encourage you (and myself) to build a little introspection time into our devotional time when we ask the Holy Spirit to highlight anything we need to confess and repent of.  To do so keeps our relationship with God offense free, keeps the devil at bay, and enables us to grow because we acknowledge our weakness in certain areas.  Just as important, It also keeps us sensitive to sin in our own lives and in the world around us.  Lord…help us to see sin as you see it, while at the same time celebrating your grace that frees us from the condemnation of sin!

Knowing who you are in Christ is more than half the battle of overcoming the world and the attacks and temptations of the enemy.  We subconsciously act out of who we think we are.   “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7, KJV). These “core beliefs” about ourselves go deep.  They have been with us so long they project what we believe to be reality, although they are lies from the enemy.  If we think we are unworthy of love, defective, and incompetent, due to early experiences of rejection or abandonment, an expectation of rejection and disappointment will flavor our life and affect every decisions. If we have been told we are better than other people and more deserving, we will approach life with arrogance and an expectation of entitlement.  I have met a few of those individuals, but most of us are in the other category.

If we were rejected, criticized, neglected or abandoned as children, then we had no father or had a father who was wounded and broken himself. He had no vision for loving, encouraging or  shaping a child into a healthy, confident individual. As we “learned” we were of little significance to our father, we also became convinced that fathers are angry, indifferent, distant, and rarely keep promises. Many of us have been afflicted by an orphan spirit that whispers we are still on our own and cannot trust other people to provide, protect, or care for us.  If we do experience care and comfort from someone, our core beliefs generate an expectation that the care and comfort we are receiving will still be withdrawn or taken away some day. 

The trap is our tendancy to take the template we have of our earthly father and project it onto our heavenly Father.  When we do so, we find ourselves serving a God that we view as angry, unreliable, rejecting, critical, and so forth.  In our hearts, we fear his love is conditional and we cannot meet his conditions. The good news that the blood of Christ washes away our sin doesn’t seem to penetrate our core beliefs, so we continue to anticipate rejection even by God. We may serve him out of fear or duty, but not out of love.  We pray with little faith and anticipate disappointment in our relationship with him.  We also take our view of ourselves as defective and unworthy of love into the relationship and Satan continually whispers that a holy, perfect God will not love us because of our failure to measure up to his standards. 

But the Biblical view is God is love.  He has always known our weaknesses and our failings but has pursued us none the less. The Psalmist declares, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sinsdeserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 

as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. 

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; 

for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (Ps. 103:8-14).

Our view of God must match the revelation of who God is.  He is holy and just, but also kind and compassionate.  He is the perfect Father who loves unconditionally but who also disciplines us when we need it as an expression of love. As a father, he has loved us before we loved him.  He knows we are weak and that we will stumble.  Yet he called us to be his sons and daughters in his foreknowledge, when he already knew of our sins, our selfishness, our “mess-ups,” and even our moments of rebellion before we were ever created.  He has pursued us, forgiven us, ben patient, and has been working to mature and guide us since the day we were born. 

We are his adopted children who are co-heirs with Christ, made righteous by his blood, sealed by his Holy Spirit, and loved more than we can know.  We will not be perfect and he does not demand that.  We, like children, will fall short on many occasions bur he will never leave us nor forsake us.  Like any father, he will provide what we need and forgive us on many occasions.  

What he wants from us is faith that he is good, merciful, loving and kind.  He is not an earthly father who gets up in a different mood each day or who catalogues our failings so he can remind us daily of how disappointed he is in us.  He is the God who remembers our sins no more.  He is a father who is preparing an unimaginable place for us and who will come and take us to be where he is.  We are his beloved children.  We are royalty in the household of God – kings and priests.  He sings over us and longs for us to be in his presence.  He is more than willing to answer prayers that will bless us in the long run and will rejoice when we return…even after being prodigals.  He wants the best for us and wants us to trust his forgiveness and mercy when we fail. We are his children.  

A primary key to victory over the enemy is spending intentional time meditating on God as your loving father and you as his child.  Satan spends a great deal of time trying to convince us that we must be perfect in order to be loved and blessed by God and that God is like earthly fathers who sometimes keep promises and sometimes don’t. He whispers God is constantly disappointed with us, often angry, and when angry stops caring for us. When we listen to those lies we no longer trust in his provision, his protection, and his favor.  We feel like insecure orphans who must control the world around us and forage for ourselves.  We live with anxiety and distrust and never fully experience abundant life.

Paul prayed that God would give the Ephesians a “spirit of wisdom and revelation that they might know him better and that he would open the eyes of their heart so that they might know the riches of his glorious inheritance in his people and the power he is willing to wield on their behalf (Eph. 1:17-19).  We actually need a revelation of who our Father is and who we are to plant that truth in our hearts. I would encourage you to pray that same prayer every day.  Knowing who God is and who you are as his son or daughter at a heart levelchanges everything. 

God wants to bless people.  It is his nature.  Just as a good father always wants the best for his children, our Heavenly Father wants the best for those he loves.  What we forget at times is that we are often his chosen instruments for doing so.

God’s original intent was to rule the earth through his children as his representatives. As he gave Adam and Eve dominion over the earth, he gave them authority to rule. Their words carried authority just as the words of Jesus carried authority.  I believe Adam and Eve, before their sin, had the same authority we saw in Jesus as he walked the earth as a sinless man.  I believe they could quiet the storms, walk on water, curse a fig tree, or give life to something just as Jesus did.  Jesus came not only to obtain forgiveness for our sins, but also to show us what we lost through our rebellion and what we could regain through an intimate relationship with the Father.  As Adam and Eve were to use their dominion to spread the culture of heaven over the earth, we too are to carry that influence.

Authority was given up through rebellion, but regained in Christ.  As his sons and daughters now, he still wants to rule the earth through his children who can represent him well.  Jesus told us that he only did what he saw the father doing and only spoke what we heard the Father saying.  He told Philip those who had seen him (Jesus), had seen the Father.  That is perfect representation.  In the same way, we are to be Spirit-led and do or say what our Heavenly Father would do or say if he were physically present.  When we pray according to his will, it is done because God honors the authority to rule that he has given us through Christ.  Our spoken words carry the same authority.

One of the privileges we have as sons and daughters of the King is the privilege of blessing.  In the epistle of James, he rebukes Christians for speaking curses over others or even over circumstances and directs them to speak only life-giving words.  He uses the analogy of a spring.  When fresh water flows out (blessings and truth), life is released.  When salt water flows from the spring (curses), death is the result.  James tells us that we are to always be sources of fresh water because that represents the heart of God.

Of course, Proverbs 18:21 comes to mind where the writer says, “The tongue has the power of life and death.”  When we speak life, we impart life.  When we speak death, we impart death.  Why?  Because our words have authority. In Ephesians 4:29, Paul declares, “Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up.” Jesus goes further and instructs us to bless even those who would curse us because we represent a Father who sends rain and blessing on both the righteous and the wicked.  He also sends discipline and judgment, but that is his business.  Our business is to bless through our prayers and our words.  Satan imparts death.  Jesus imparts life.

One of the priestly functions of the children of God is to impart blessings.  In Numbers 6, Moses was told, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites.  Say to them: The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.  The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.’  So, they will put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them.” Notice the Lord was willing and even desired to bless, but waited on the priests to declare the blessing before he acted.  We too are priests and God often waits on us to declare a blessing before he releases it. 

We are in a partnership with God for ruling the earth and dispensing blessings from heaven.  Blessings release good things on the earth.  The earth needs all the good things it can get…peace, health, provision, protection, justice, love, forgiveness, etc.  As we speak blessings, we impart life.  Paul tells us also that we reap what we sow.  We harvest what we plant and we plant by broadcasting seeds.  Blessings are seeds we are broadcasting and planting.  If we sow blessings, we eventually reap blessings. 

Now, I believe we are to be Spirit-led in our blessings.  Who are we to bless and how are we to bless them?  Blessings are valuable because they bear good fruit.  We should develop a habit of sensing who and how God wants us to bless. When Jesus sent out the seventy disciples to preach and perform miracles he said, “When you enter a house, first say ‘Peace to this house. If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them. If not, it will return to you.’” (LK. 10:5-6).  When in doubt, we still speak good things over people, but we tune in especially to those God puts on our hearts.

So today, be fresh water to those you encounter…not just those you know, but even strangers for they are not strangers to God.  Be sensitive to the Spirt and ask who he wants you to bless and what the blessing should be. Be a priest to those God puts in your path. Both you and the world will be better for it. May the Lord bless you today and meet your greatest need. 

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.  Numbers 21:4-7

This text regarding the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites is well known and, to many. it seems excessively harsh.  After all, we all complain from time to time.  In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul pens a warning to the church and reminds them of the sins of Israel that cost them lives and the first generation’s entrance into the promised land. He reminds them that some of the Hebrews died as a result of idolatry, sexual immorality, and complaining (grumbling) about their circumstances.  Perhaps, we can understand the seriousness of idolatry and sexual immorality, but why would complaining stir up the wrath of God?

Remember, the tongue has the power of life and death (Prov. 18:21).  Our words matter because they have spiritual implications.  One of the most subtle, but effective strategies of the enemy is to prompt us to speak words that invite destruction.  The complaining of the Jews was not a one-time event that stirred up God’s anger.  They often complained about their circumstances in the desert, grumbling that they would have been better off in Egypt as slaves.  

The complaining constituted an accusation against God. The first recorded temptation was an accusation against God.  Satan’s subtle questions to Eve in the Garden of Eden planted seeds of belief that God wasn’t all loving, all kind, and generous after all, but withheld the best things because he did not want Adam and Eve to achieve their full potential…to be like God.
When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they came in to agreement with Satan and accepted his accusation against God in their hearts.

Israel had cried out for centuries against their enslavement in Egypt.  God heard their cries and delivered them with plagues against Pharoah, led them through the Red Sea, and revealed himself to them at Sinai. He provided manna and water in the desert and led them to the land he had promised them through Abraham. The journey from Mt. Sinai to Canaan was actually only a few weeks.  That is all the time they had to live off manna and water, but their unbelief that God would give them victory over their enemies bought them forty years of wandering in the wilderness and forty years of manna

Their incessant complaints about their circumstances were actually accusations against God…his goodness, his provision, his protection, and his generosity. You can hear the accusations of Satan in their words.  It is not enough to believe that Gods exists.  Demons believe that. Faith believes that God is good.  He is faithful.  He is mindful of our circumstances, wants what is best for us, and is always working in that direction.

When we complain, we are subtly accusing God of not caring for us, not providing what we need, not meeting our deepest wants, being unjust in allowing our circumstances, or of not being involved in our iives at all. Our complaints shape our view of God and undermine out faith. Our complaints bring us into agreement with Satan.  That agreement invites him into our home and our families. 

This prohibition of complaining does not mean I cannot acknowledge hard circumstances or suffering in my life.  The Psalms are full of laments and cries for deliverance from persecution, but the prayers were based on the belief that God did care about their circumstance and because he was loving, merciful and faithful, the answers to their cries were in the pipeline headed their way.  

Paul suffered a great deal for his faith and yet he wrote, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength: (Phil. 4:11-13). 

Paul’s contentment rested in his belief that God was always mindful of his circumstances and was working in them to bring about good. Sometimes he was perfecting something in Paul’s spirit and character. At other times he was using Paul’s circumstances to reach others, such as the Roman guards who stood by him day and night with whom he shared the gospel.  

The art of contentment is a great weapon in spiritual warfare as we focus on what we do have rather that what we don’t have.  Thank offerings were part of the Temple sacrificial system where men and women offered a sacrifice as an expression of thanksgiving to God.  Our thanksgiving, even in hard circumstances, keeps the enemy at bay and prevents us from coming into agreement with Satan about the character of our God.  

A life of thanksgiving keeps us positive and expectant. We don’t have to thank God for our suffering but we can thank him for his grace to sustain us in that season and the promise that joy comes in the morning.  We can thank him that he has solutions to our crisis and that he will bring good out of every circumstance.  We can thank him that he cares for us and has compassion for what we are going through.  We can thank him that he loves us enough to die for us.We need to be cautious about our complaints.  We must be sure that we are not, in some passive-aggressive way, accusing God of not caring or keeping his promises.

Our salvation lies in a conviction that God is good all the time, not just sometimes.  Feel free to honestly present your pain and your fears to God, but do so because you believe God cares and can help rather than as an accusation against his love for you.  Satan loves to inch into your view of God, so don’t give him an inch.  Follow Paul’s counsel: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6t-7).

For many years, one of my touchstone passages in scripture has been Isaiah 61. Let me quote it for you:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor…And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God” (Isa. 61:1-6).

This is a Messianic prophecy that Jesus reads in the synagogue and applies to himself In Luke 4. It is important for many reasons, but the reason I want to highlight today is that it reveals the heart of God for his people.  Too many people, including many believers, see God as the harsh judge waiting to catch us doing something wrong like an angry parent.  This is the propaganda Satan works diligently to spread.  We often find this lie embedded deeply in people to whom we are ministering deliverance.  Because they view God through that lens, they have taken offense at him over some disappointment for which they credit him. You can easily see how that would affect your prayer and your faith. It is impossible to warm up to that kind of God, to be intimate with Him, or even pursue him.  That is the kind of God you want to avoid or hide from rather than draw close to. 

But Jesus tells us that if we have seen him we have seen the Father.  Whatever heart Jesus has is the same heart the Father has.  God is certainly holy and just.  God disciplines his children because any father who loves his children will correct them and direct them. But he is not a distant father just waiting for us to make a mistake so he can criticize, reject, or brutalize us. He is a loving father full of compassion for those who are hurting.

This Messianic passage clarifies that view.  First of all, God sent his son with good news not condemnation.  He sought out the poor and the broken first, rather than the rich and influential. As a good shepherd he sought first the brokenhearted who had been wounded by life, rejected and betrayed. He came with a priority to heal those hearts.  He also recognized the bondage and captivity many were experiencing – addictions, sin, demonization, and so forth. He came then and he comes now with an eye for us…not to criticize but to set us free; not to say I told you so; but to show us a way out. 

He also came to reverse our fortunes.  He didn’t just come to provide some abstract pardon which we will eventually experience in heaven, but came to change things for us now as well as eternally.  Notice the language: comfort for mourning; beauty for ashes; gladness instead of sorrow; and praise instead of despair.  His goal is to restore what is broken and return what has been stolen.  Ultimately, his heart is to give us a position of honor and service in the kingdom – priests of the Lord and ministers of our God

Satan would have us run from the Father, but the heart of God is that we would run to him…with our successes and our failures, with our strengths and our weaknesses, our joys and our sorrows and even our sin. 

When we are at our worst, Satan will whisper that we should hide from God, hide from his anger and his disappointment. But Jesus whispers he already came for us when we were at our worst…impoverished, brokenhearted, and captive to the flesh and the things of the world.  The prodigal son of Luke 15 sets the true tone.   There a son has left the house, walked out on his father and squandered his inheritance.  He came home  only out of a sense of shame and desperation, hoping only to be a hired hand.  But before the son could say a word, the Father ran to him, embraced him, and restored him to his former position of honor as a son.  That is our God.

We need to know who our Father is and the heart he has for his children.  God is looking out for the fallen, the weak, the broken, and the captive.  He meets us there but doesn’t leave us there and he always extends the invitation to draw closer.  Trust Jesus when he says he and the Father are one and they have the same heart for us.  

We just concluded our Spring Free Indeed session at Mid-Cities.  This is an eight-week class equipping people for healing and freedom followed by an all-day activation of everything taught during the eight weeks. The day includes inner healing, breaking generational curses, disconnecting from toxic and sinful relationships, forgiveness, repentance, as well as deliverance.  

Year after year, as we walk believers through this process, it is always evident that a person’s identity is a primary key to overcoming the enemy and that a shattered identity is an open door for the demonic.  The most broken people and the most demonized men and women are those who feel unworthy of love, who fear rejection and abandonment, and who walk with a crippling sense of shame about who they are. They know what the Bible says about who they are in Christ, but in their hearts, they still see themselves as unworthy, unlovable, and disqualified from God’s blessings and calling.

We also see an amazing amount of transformation occur when a follower of Jesus begins to believe in their heart who God says he or she is instead of who Satan, the accuser of the brethren, says they are.  He begins his work early by wounding children through wounded adults.  Children take on a negative view of themselves through abusive or neglectful parents, a traumatic loss of loved ones, hypercritical people, molesters, rapists, and so forth.  A child inevitably believes bad things happen to them because he or she is defective, bad, or unworthy of a parent’s care and protection.  Later those views can be reinforced through abusive, critical spouses or parents that keep up the rejection and demeaning words.  

Exchanging that negative view with God’s truth about who we are in Christ is critical.  But how do we get there?  I may know what scripture says about me, but actually believing that truth in my heart and making that truth my first thought when the enemy accuses and condemns,  is the goal.  Paul addresses the issue when he says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2).  We are transformed when we renew our minds with God’s truth.  Jesus said we will know the  truth and the truth will set us free.

The Holy Spirit, of course, works through the “living and active” Word of God to bear his fruit in our lives and to reform our thinking processes.  But we have a significant part in that process. Brain research over the past few decades has revealed some amazing things about God’s creation.  Thoughts and experiences are actually contained in brain real estate called neural pathways.  These pathways contain memories, emotions, beliefs, and so on sort of like a computer stores memory.  

A computer file can be filled with information, pictures, music, etc. but sits dormant until something in the operating system calls it up and activates it.  Our neural pathways can sit dormant until something happens that is directly or even indirectly  connected to what is stored up and then the neural pathway is accessed.  The memories along with beliefs and feelings attached to those memories, come flooding back.  We call those “reminders” triggers.  Triggers can be words, actions, a tone of voice, sounds, or scenes that have some similarity to the things that initially created the pathway. PTSD episodes for soldiers are a prime example.

Unfortunately, experiences that only vaguely resemble the words and behaviors captured in the neural pathway can also set off a cascade of hurts, resentments, fears, anger, condemnation, shame etc. so that the wounded person almost relives their past hurtful experiences.  Usually, the wounded individual then blames the person who accidentally tapped into that pathway with all the pain stored up there. They assign the same motives to this new person that the perpetrator of the wounds had and relationships are typically damaged. Those revitalized feelings can reinforce the beliefs about ourselves they initially established and Satan then uses that dynamic to great advantage.

The solution is found in weakening the pathway that holds false beliefs and replacing it with a new, stronger pathway containing God’s truth.  We can’t just decide not to think those negative thoughts about ourselves anymore, but must replace them with God’s truth about who we are.  That is where the power of meditation should be employed.  Neural pathways are established through the repetition and/or intensity of experiences, words spoken, etc.

Related to identity, we can intentionally lay in new pathways by meditating on what God says is true about us.  We should read it over and over.  When we read it aloud it adds an extra dimension to the meditation.  When we write it out, that adds one more layer.  When we talk about it with friends, it goes even deeper.  Even writing with colors or attaching music to the words helps to create the new pathway more quickly.  Memorizing the scripture adds another dimension.  

The discipline in renewing the mind is found in consistent, intentional meditation on the Word of God.  When the Holy Spirit joins in the process, he can write a revelation of God’s truth on our hearts.  That is when transformation takes place by the renewing of the mind.  If we have shame, unworthiness, and rejection deeply imbedded in us, it will take more consistency and intentionality on our part to create a stronger pathway.  The psalmist declares, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers” (Ps. 1:1-3). 

After the new pathway is sufficiently laid in and empowered by the Holy Spirit, when something comes up related to our value, worth, or competence our new neural pathway is accessed and we respond as a person who is confident in our worth, our capacities, and God’s love for us.  We no longer feel wounded again or experience the pain of rejection.  Satan labors in this field daily wanting us to believe we are beyond love, beyond God’s forgiveness and disqualified from his blessings and plan for our lives.  We must be diligent to say only what God says about us Satan will reactivate the old, decayed pathway full of his lies. 

If you struggle with your identity, your self-esteem, begin to read God’s word with an eye toward seeing who the Father says you are in Christ.  Find a half dozen scriptures the Holy Spirit highlights for you and meditate on them day and night.  To become who God has called us to be, we must see ourselves as that person.  Set a goal of reading these scriptures out loud, writing them down, talking about them, singing them, etc. every day for ninety days.  You will see transformation take place in your life. Have your children do it with you!

As a pastor, it is not uncommon to speak with believers who have been “offended by God” because he didn’t act in the way they thought he should. A child died, a marriage ended in divorce, a promotion was given to someone less deserving, and cancer was diagnosed in a young woman.  All of these situations and more challenge our faith.

Here’s what we need to know.  The enemy loves to whisper that God took the child, sent the cancer, and didn’t save the marriage when he could have.  One of his primary strategies is to plant a seed of doubt in our minds about the goodness of God.  That is the first diagram in his playbook.  To entice them to sin, he sowed a seed of doubt in the minds of Adam and Eve about God’s heart for them.  He insinuated that God might be withholding good things and even the best things from them because he didn’t completely love them.   In response, they took offense at God and ate the forbidden fruit. 

It is human to hope that God keeps every crisis and every tragedy from us from the time we are born until we step across the threshold of heaven.  But that is not what we are promised. Every person of faith in scripture dealt with trials.  Jesus told his disciples, “In this world you will have trouble (Jn.16:33).  Paul reminds us, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles” (2 Cor. 1:3-4). We will be in trouble.  We could list dozens of other scriptures that confirm our dilemma. 

Many times, God does keep tragedy and disappointment from our door.  But there are other times when we have to face the harsh realities of living in a fallen and hostile world. The promise is not a trouble-free life, but that God will meet us in our troubles and give us the grace to endure. He will then set us on a level place with seasons of blessing again.  

The difficulty is in holding on when what we are experiencing doesn’t make sense to us or rubs against our understanding of how God works. However, when things go our way and make sense, not much faith is required. Greater faith is required when we are facing that which doesn’t go our way or meet our expectations. What do we do when we believe we had faith for healing, but our loved one died anyway?  What do we do when we believe we stood on the promises of God, but our marriage dissolved in spite of that?  What do we do when we have cried out to the Lord for years but God has not yet sent us a mate or given us a pregnancy?

Those are the moments that Satan rushes in to accuse the Lord.  If we are not careful, we will believe the accusations, judge God as unjust or uncaring, and distance ourselves from him.  We may deny it, but somewhere deep within we may hold a grudge against our Creator. Our view of him will be tarnished and our prayers will lack conviction.

We will all have to face a mystery at some point about unanswered prayers.  So how do we face that moment?  We must learn to judge God on the basis of what we do understand, rather than on the basis of what we don’t understand.  When Satan comes to accuse, we must already know what we believe about God and stand on his Word and our past experiences with his faithfulness. 

I believe the definitive verse in scripture comes from the mouth of Jesus.  “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father” (Jn.14:9).  How much does God love us?  How much did Jesus love us?  How much is God willing to sacrifice for us to be saved?  How much was Jesus willing to sacrifice?  Is God willing to heal?  Was Jesus willing to heal?  Does God send tragedy?  Did Jesus send tragedy?  Does God drive away the imperfect and broken sinner?  Did Jesus drive them away?  

No matter what, our faith must rest not only in the power of God but also in the character and the goodness of God.  We must make up our mind about him before the accuser comes. We have to be able to say. “Even though I am disappointed and confused, I still believe God is good and that he loves me. He will see me through this and set me once again on a level place.”  

How often have we judged God to be unfair or unloving because of one prayer he didn’t answer while ignoring the hundreds that he did answer and the way he cared for us even when we had not prayed? Take note of God’s care now and all the ways he has loved you, so when the accuser comes, you can take your stand.

Job could make no sense of the tragedies that had come his way.  He asked lots of questions. He wrestled with the mystery of the loss and suffering he encountered although he was a righteous man.  But in the end, God declared that Job had not failed to speak the truth about God and so God restored his losses and blessed his life in greater ways than before his suffering. Remember the old saying, “God is good…all the time.  When we are not sure of anything else, we can be sure of that and, being sure of that, we can hold on through the fires. 

There is, of course, a great deal of discussion about “end times” right now.  Interestingly those discussions were going on even in the days of Paul. Writing to the church at Thessalonica he said, “Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thess. 2:1-4).

Jesus was clear that we could know the season of his return but not even he knew the day or the hour.  There are indicators that we are certainly in the season of the Lord’s return.  The most significant was Israel’s return in 1948 to the land God had promised them in the days of Abraham.  We sometimes forget that the world does not revolve around the United States, but in God’s mind, it revolves around the little nation of Israel that he chose millennia ago to be his special people. Believing Gentiles have been grafted into spiritual Israel, but God still has plans for the physical nation.  In due time, Jesus will return to Jerusalem and the veil of unbelief will be lifted from the physical descendants of Abraham.  

A second major indicator will be the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem from which the anti-Christ or the man of lawlessness will make his proclamations.  Orthodox Jews are on the verge of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, restoring the priesthood, and the sacrifices of the temple once again. We can expect animal rights activists to have a meltdown over those sacrifices.  But when the temple is rebuilt, another solid indicator that the Day of the Lord is near will be imminent.

A third indicator is what Paul called “the rebellion.”  The Greek word is apostasia from which we get apostasy.  Paul seems to be prophesying a time when the church would experience a great falling away and a rejection of essential doctrines and truths of the church. That’s where we come in.  We have seen such a falling away in American and European churches over the last fifty years. Over that time, increasing numbers of theologians in our universities began to deny the miracles of the Bible. They began to frame them as only mythological stories that carried cultural values much like fables.  Because miracles were not “scientific” and were not being witnessed today (by them), these men and women simply declared they didn’t happen.  

I remember one commentary on the gospels regarding the account in which Peter and Jesus needed to pay a temple tax.  Jesus told Peter to go fishing and when he caught the first fish it had money in its mouth that covered the tax.  The commentator boldly proclaimed such a miracle would never happen and that Peter caught the fish and sold it for the amount needed to pay the tax.  He wasn’t there, he didn’t witness the event, but spoke as if he had been.  In the name of higher education and science, these theologians have denied the flood, the plagues on Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the fall of Jericho, giants in the land, the healings of Jesus, the feeding of the five thousand, the virgin birth and ultimately the resurrection.  But if you take the miraculous out of the Bible, you have stripped it of any intervention by God in the affairs of men and the essential proofs that Jesus was, in fact, the Son of God.  You have stripped our faith of any personal relationship with God and, thus,  of our salvation.

Once theologians starting taking liberties with the Word of God, the trickle-down effect was that pastors and denominations felt they could also modify it as they saw fit.  So, in the past few decades, the “church” has felt free to change the definition of marriage, approve homosexuality, support transgenderism, question whether Jesus is the only way to heaven, and stand up for abortion on demand…even though scripture clearly calls these issues sin and even abominations. Once you deny the authority of scripture in any area, you deny it in every area. 

This has likely been the great rebellion or apostasy that Paul spoke about in 2 Thessalonians.  The church has compromised Biblical standards by giving into cultural pressures and a desire to be “intellectually acceptable” to the world.  John, however, warns us about such a move. He says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them” (1 Jn. 2:15).  He defines the world in this context as the cultures, systems, and values of the world that Satan promotes contrary to God’s truth.  If we deny the Word of God then we deny the one who spoke it.

As this “apostasy” continues in many places, we must accept the fact that we must speak out in order to be faithful representatives of Jesus and his truth. We must also accept that when we speak out, those who love the world will hate us.  We can speak the truth in love and still be hated because the spirit in them hates the Spirit in us. This is an “end times” reality we must embrace.  To be silent or compromise with the world opens the door for the enemy to establish a stronghold in our families, our nation, and our churches. We may have little to do with Jerusalem or the third temple, but we are those who are called to push back against the great falling away of the church.  

Our role is to be personally clear about biblical truth and to speak out when others want to deny it or compromise with the world.  We must avoid any arrogance or self-righteousness in our push back, but our silence will seem to them as agreement and so we must speak to city councils, school boards, church leaders, business leaders, and even family members.  If we love God we must speak up for his truth and his standards.  

To fail to speak up will be a form of denial, but we can take heart.  Jesus promised, “you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. This will result in your being witnesses to them. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist God’s truth to those who are not prepared to receive it.  As we move toward the return of Jesus, we need to ground ourselves in biblical truth and pray that God will prepare our hearts to speak when the time comes.