On the eve of Israel taking possession of the promised land, twelve spies were sent into Canaan to gather intel on the enemy. When they returned, ten of the twelve brought the following report: “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.” That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud (Num.13:27-14:1).

The fear of ten men kept an entire nation and an entire generation from entering the inheritance God had given to them. Surely, Pharaoh and the Egyptian machine of conquest and enslavement had seemed impossible to overcome, but God had brought them out with miraculous plagues. Immediately they had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and seen the Egyptian army swept away by water. God had fed them and provided water in an impossible dessert. He had shaken Mount Sinai and given them the Commandments. Israel had done none of those things in their own strength. God had done it all. But, within a few weeks of the Red Sea crossing, no faith could be found in those ten men.

Check their focus. Their view was only on the natural and their assessment was based only on their own strength and resources. In their own strength, they could not overcome such an enemy with such great cities and, in their minds, God was never part of the equation. They acknowledged that God’s description of the land was accurate – a land flowing with milk and honey – but somehow, they did not envision him leading them to victories as he had done only weeks earlier.   In the mind of Caleb and Joshua, God was the primary part of the equation. The only other part was whether God delighted in them or not and that depended on their faithfulness.

I like what Graham Cooke has to say about the question of whether God will be with us or not. He says, “Joshua and Caleb manifested what God had put in them: courage and faith. They knew everything came down to one simple issue – “If the Lord delights in us.” That was the question they wrestled with. Is God pleased with us or not? If He is, nothing can stop us. I can answer that question for every believer. He is. God is very pleased with each and every one of us. Why? Because He only sees us in Jesus. He cannot see us separate from his Son. Why wouldn’t he be pleased with you?” (Graham Cooke, Manifesting Your Spirit, p.73; Brilliant Book House).

Of course, our flesh can come up with a dozen reasons that God would not be pleased with us and in that perspective our heart fails like the ten spies. We know our sins, our dark thoughts, and the weaknesses that we despise. We assume the Lord despises us because of those things and so we assume he will not go with us into battle. Whether we are battling enemies, poverty, disease, addictions, or loneliness, when we look at our condition and resources rather than the heart of God and his resources, fear will win the day.

John tells us “if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn.1:7). Walking in the light does not mean sinlessness because in his letter, John is clear that we all sin. The idea is that as long as our face is turned toward God and we are moving in his direction – regardless of how slow the progress – then we are still in fellowship and the blood of Jesus covers our sin.

In the temple, the ark of covenant was the centerpiece of all things. It contained the Testimony or the Law of God, a golden pot of manna, and Aaron’s rod that had bloomed confirming his priesthood. On the top of the ark were two golden cherubim surrounding the mercy seat, which represented the throne of God. Cherubim are fierce angels that are equivalent to the palace guard. Their job is to keep any enemy and any offense from the presence of the King. As they stretched out their wings over the ark, it was as if they gazed upon the Law inside of the ark so that anyone who had violated the law would be condemned and kept from God’s presence. On the Day of Atonement, however, the high priest carried sacrificial blood into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the ark. The symbolism, which pointed to Jesus, was that The Law was covered by the blood and it’s condemnation silenced. The cherubim could not see The Law for the blood. Any man represented by the blood could then continue in fellowship with the Lord.

As long as any believer still has his face or his heart pointed toward God, the blood keeps him in a state of perpetual purity. Therefore, God only sees the righteousness of Jesus when he looks at his children and, therefore, delights he in us. Because he delights in us, he is with us and will give us the victory. Like the ten spies, condemning, unbelieving, and critical voices can drown out our faith. Under the influence of those voices, we focus on ourselves and not the Lord and, by doing so, fail to enter his promises for us. He doesn’t keep us out; we simply won’t go in. The giants that we imagine and fear when we assess our own strength are like grasshoppers in the eyes of our Father – bugs to be stepped on.

As believers, we need to be aware of the voices we listen to. Fear and unbelief can be contagious. Find a few who are full of faith and focused on the Lord. They are the exceptions, so spend time with the exceptions not the crowd. Make sure you speak in faith and anticipation because of who God is, not because of who you are – except for who you are in Christ.

If the flesh does not agree with your declarations of faith and the goodness of God, don’t feel like a hypocrite. Paul himself experienced the conflict between his natural man and his spiritual man (Rom.7). Be led by your spiritual man and don’t count the natural man as who you are. Choose to focus on the character and capacity of God and you will not fall short of his promises. Faith is a gift and we need to guard it. We must watch our own words, our own reports and be aware of those being spoken around us. Seek out environments of faith and expectation, not doubt and unbelief. “For without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb.11:6).

As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you”; and their sight was restored. Matthew 9:27-30

The words of Jesus in the text above have always haunted me a little. “According to your faith will it be done to you.” In other words, Jesus clearly stated that faith is a condition of answered prayer and the answer seems to be proportional to the faith. This suggests that in many cases Jesus is willing to meet our expectations for him. If our expectations are low, then he will answer our prayers at that level. If our expectations are high, them he will also answer our prayers at that level. If we truly believe God for healing through doctors, then we are likely to receive our answer through doctors. If we truly believe God for supernatural healing, then we are likely to have our prayers answered at that level. If we don’t believe God is involved in healing at all, then he may well meet us at that level of faith.

When I write that, I hesitate because some were healed by Jesus who did not even know who he was or knew very little about him. The man born blind in John 9 didn’t seem to know much about Jesus, yet Jesus gave him his sight with a bit of a test for faith. After putting mud on his eyes, Jesus told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam and he would see. The man did as he was instructed and he saw for the first time. Jesus raised the dead for those who seemed to have no expectation that Jesus was going to do that. How could they? No one had seen the dead raised for centuries.

As I look at the gospels, in some instances Jesus created faith through miracles and at other times, faith is what created the miracle. It seems to hinge on whether or not a person should have acquired a certain level of faith through past experiences, religious culture, and the testimonies of others. Certainly, Jesus does not require perfect faith and is moved out of compassion as well as being moved by the faith of those who approach him. And yet, he still says that, in many cases, our prayers will be answered according to the faith we have for that answer.

For us, a scan of our faith might be in order. Like many things, we have an aspirational level of faith and an actual level of faith. I aspire to have great faith and so I often convince myself that I operate at that level of expectation. But the faith I aspire to have may not match my actual faith. The man in Mark 9, reflects where most of us are. “Lord I believe…help my unbelief.” I don’t believe that faith compels God to give us what we are asking for. He is still sovereign and our prayer may not be in our best interest, but our faith still pleases him. Faith certainly get his attention and a lack of faith disappoints. How many times did Jesus lament, “Oh you of little faith?”

In many ways, faith equals expectation. What is my expectation of God in any given moment? Do I truly expect him to answer my prayer or am I just hoping that he will without much firm expectation? If my prayers are answered according to my faith or expectation, and I know I’m lacking in some areas of my faith, how do I grow in that area?

I think there are some basic things I can do to grow in my faith. First of all, I can ask for a gift of faith and a greater measure of expectation. In his letter to the church at Rome, Paul said, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you” (Rom.12:3). If God gives us a measure of faith and faith pleases God, then we can certainly ask for more and he will be pleased to give it.

Secondly, our faith is ultimately based on the character of God because he always acts out of who he is. Spending time reflecting on the heart and character of God will increase our expectation. If he is good all the time, faithful all the time, and loving all the time then those traits give us assurance that he hears our prayers and answers those that are in our best interest. Love compels him to do so.

Thirdly, we need to hang around people with greater faith than we have. We need to go where God is responding to that faith with miracles. The more we see with our own eyes the more our expectations rise for what God is willing to do. Go to healing conferences. Go to prophetic conferences. Go to intercessory prayer conferences and hear the testimonies. Go on campaigns to third world nations where God is moving in powerful ways. Go to churches in your area where God is moving in power. Experience is a dynamic teacher that will raise your expectations.

It has been said that faith is the currency of heaven. If that is true, then we should pay attention to our faith and ask for more. We should put ourselves in places where our faith can increase. And we should spend time with people who speak the language of faith rather than the language of doubt. You will probably have to be intentional about all of that and a quest for faith may be involved that demands time and resources. However, the quest will be worth it. Be blessed today by His grace and favor.

The problem with grace is that it seems unjust at one level and too good to be true at another. It is hard to receive at a personal level because we know we don’t deserve it and it is hard to extend to those who have wronged us or wronged society because we definitely know they don’t deserve it. Yet it is the cornerstone of our faith. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph.2:8-9).

If you are like me, the following parable challenges you. “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.    He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you.    Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ (Matt.20:1-16).

We tend to see ourselves as the men who worked all day in the heat of a middle-eastern sun. The idea that some slackers hung around the marketplace all day and worked for an hour in the cool of the evening and got paid the same as us seems remarkably unjust. And yet this parable is about grace. The owner was a generous man and sometimes he was so generous that it offends us.

When God extends his grace to a person we think well of, we celebrate. But how do we feel about grace for a monster? Then we grumble about the wages. In the 1990’s, one of the icons of “monsterdom” was Jeffrey Dahmer. As a mass murderer, he had abused, killed, and cannibalized seventeen young men. He was caught and imprisoned and eventually killed by an inmate. Just as you read that, something in your heart probably agreed that justice had been served. Toward the end of his days in prison, however, Dahmer declared that he had come to faith in Jesus. The prison chaplain confirmed that in his estimation, Dahmer’s repentance was genuine and that he had become one of the most faithful worshipers in the church behind bars.

The thought that God would forgive this man who had done such terrible things, simply because he said he was sorry, was unacceptable to most – even to many Christians. In fact, the idea that, in eternity, a Jeffery Dahmer could walk the streets of heaven in good standing was almost scandalous. What kind of a God would forgive that? The same God who is willing to forgive me, no matter what, when I trust in his grace. If we wanted God to “draw the line on grace” so that the urge for justice within me was satisfied, where would that line be drawn and how would I ever know if I had crossed that line?

Grace can’t be measured or it becomes law. It’s there for everyone or for no one. If Dahmer can’t be saved by grace then neither can I. I can almost live with the abstract nature of that because I never met Dahmer and knew none of his victims. But what about those who have betrayed and victimized us? Can we extend the grace of God to them that has come to us? The extension of that grace is called forgiveness. Grace is not about whether anyone deserves it or not, it is simply about the infinite love of God. Ultimately, I can do nothing to cause God to love me more nor can I do anything to make him love me less. Jesus on the cross is the full expression of that truth.

The good news is that his love comes that easily to me and if I meet the conditions of a little faith and true repentance, then forgiveness and salvation come to me as well – to me and the murders, rapists, ex-spouses, abusive fathers, and bullies in this world. And yet when I say that, I can still feel the offense of grace somewhere deep inside. That pushback tells me that grace is not natural because my natural man isn’t comfortable with it. It is supernatural and can only be received when the Spirit of God opens my heart to it.

The capacity to receive grace and to give grace comes by the revelation of God’s love in my own heart. When I have a revelation of that love then I can celebrate grace, forgive those who have wronged me, and even rejoice in the salvation of the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world. Think about the freedom of living in that grace. Think of all the fear, bitterness, resentment, and offense in your heart just melting away like snow on a warm day. That is God’s will for your life. If I struggle, I can pray for a greater revelation of that love and grace in my heart. It is the very thing the Father wants us to have. It is the ointment that heals all hearts. Grace and peace to you today in Jesus.

For this reason, the most effective life of prayer to which God has called us is not a life of throwing up prayer requests and hoping that one will bring an answer. The prayer of faith that always gets results is the kind we pray because we have drawn close to his heart and heard him talk about what he wants to do. Then we can stand in the place of delegated authority as a co-laborer and declare what he has said over circumstances (Bill Johnson, Strengthen Yourself in the Lord, p. 87; Destiny Image).

I was browsing through an older book by Bill Johnson, looking at the passages I had previously marked, and noticed the above paragraph again. If it is true, most believers are not being very effective in prayer because they have been taught that God doesn’t speak directly to his people anymore but communicates only through his written word. It’s important to know if the above statement is true or not. If it is, we need to get busy hearing God. If it is not, we can continue to toss up to heaven those things that are important to us.

Let’s look at one passage in the book of James as a reference point. “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops” (Ja.5:16-18).

This is a cornerstone verse for powerful and effective prayer. In the days of Elijah, Ahab, an incredibly wicked king, ruled. As a judgment on Ahab and the nation, God had determined to send a severe drought and not one drop of rain or even a cloud appeared over Israel for three and a half years. Three and a half years later, the Lord told Elijah, “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land” (1 Kings 18:1). Elijah did as the Lord instructed and told Ahab, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of heavy rain” (1 Kings 18:41).

Elijah’s declaration to Ahab was spoken by faith because when he spoke of the sound of rain there were still no clouds in the sky. The text goes on to say, “So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Mt. Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. ‘Go and look toward the sea,’ he told his servant. And he went up and looked. ‘There is nothing there,’ he said. Seven times Elijah said, ‘Go back.’ The seventh time the servant reported, ‘A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.’… Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain came on and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. The power of the Lord came upon Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel” (1 Kings 18:41-46).

By the way, the distance from Mt. Carmel to Jezreel is about 25 miles – almost a marathon – but the old prophet outran a chariot trying to get there ahead of a heavy rain. There had not been a drop of rain or dew for 42 months and there was not a cloud in the sky when Elijah began to pray. There was no immediate evidence of answered prayer but he kept praying. Seven times he asked his servant to look for evidence of rain before he saw any. What prompted him to keep praying? He prayed for rain with faith and intensity because he had already heard from the Lord that it was God’s appointed time to break the drought.

There are many things, perhaps most things, that God chooses to do only after his people have prayed for them to happen. Elijah’s prayer was powerful and effective because he was certain his prayer was God’s will. When we hear from the Lord that he wants to do something, then we can have absolute faith for the answer because God has already revealed that it is his will – he wants to do the very thing we are praying for. We can even persevere if there is no immediate manifestation of his will because we have his word.

When he has spoken to us, our prayers send forth his word. Isaiah tells us, “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa.55:11). When we pray his specific will, we have certainty for the answer.

Jesus was clear that he only did what he saw the Father doing and only said what he heard the Father saying. He prayed what he heard from the Father. He is our model for the spiritual life. When we hear from the Lord, then our prayers are simply releasing the will of God on the earth and our prayers will come to pass as prophecies come to pass because God’s word and will have already established the outcomes. There are certain things in scripture that we can always pray for because we no it is always God’s will – salvations, holiness, wisdom for those in authority, etc. but those are general guidelines. Hearing more specifically what to pray and how to pray for one of those outcomes is still much more effective than just asking for something categorically.

Can we pray for something that God has not spoken about to us? Yes, of course, but we will not have the same assurance of his answer that we will when we have heard from him. Let’s face it; we often assume that our will is his will. When we pray out of that posture, we probably pray for some things that ultimately would not be in our best interest. When God does not answer those prayers, we begin to have less faith that God answers our prayers. We then begin to pray with more “hope” than expectation. If a desire is on our heart, it may well be that God has placed it there, but we may want to ask if that is his will for us before we start praying into that desire.

From time to time, I need to be reminded to ask God what he wants me to be praying for rather than just jumping into my laundry list of requests. Maybe you need that reminder as well. Be blessed today and consider asking the Father what is on his mind before telling him everything that is on yours.

Most believers do not practice agreement between themselves and the work of the Holy Spirit. They can be soulish, led mostly by their feelings, and heavily influenced by rationale thinking. They do not live by the Spirit because they usually use logic to talk themselves out of the spiritual dimension. But God rarely employs a logical plan. Often, He tells us things that simply do not make rational sense. While it resonates with the inner man of our spirit, it offends the soulish nature of our own mind. Our brain then spends the next few minutes talking us out if the plan. (Graham Cooke, Manifesting Your Spirit, p.27; Brilliant Book House).

I have to agree with Mr. Cooke. I know what he says is true because I have often experienced it in my own heart and I suspect that you have as well. We want to think of our faith as rational because our culture and even the church values what is rationale, logical, and scientific. But think about it. How rational is sending a wanted criminal back to Egypt at the age of 80 to lead a nation out of bondage? How logical is it to command an army to march around a walled city for seven days without saying a word and them to simply blow trumpets to bring down a massive stone wall? How logical was it for a young shepherd with no training and no armor to charge an armored veteran who stood nine feet tall with a slingshot? How rational was it for Jesus to raise the dead, impart sight to the blind, walk on the Sea of Galilee, and submit to utter defeat to secure victory?

It’s not that we have no hard evidence for the reality of our faith and the historical Jesus, but kingdom principles are usually in opposition to the principles of the world. In the kingdom, the first shall be last, the servant of all will be the greatest, the meek shall inherit the earth, and we are to give more away than we are being sued for. God doesn’t operate by earthly principles or perspectives but our rational minds do when they have not been renewed.

Paul instructs us not to conform to the patterns of this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom.12:2). To have a “renewed” mind means that we have learned to think as the Holy Spirit thinks. We think first in kingdom terms rather than in the natural realm. We exercise spiritual logic rather than our unrenewed logic and we don’t let our natural man talk us out of our Spirit-led impulses.

Agreeing with God begins by acknowledging that his ways are higher and more authoritative than our own and that we are ultimately spiritual people who need to live fully by spiritual principles. The Holy Spirit should rule over our thought processes rather than our natural man ruling over the Spirit’s leading. Then we should get busy learning God’s perspectives on every crisis, every challenge, and everything we encounter. We should then make a decision to begin to say what God says about those things, regardless of how illogical or unscientific it may sound to those who are not led by the Spirit of God. We should then ask the Holy Spirit to give us a revelation of those truths at a heart level so that God’s truth frees us from the narrow range of possibilities we perceive with our natural mind. Remember, Jesus said that all things are possible with God.

Agreeing with God is what unlocks the heavenly realm for us. It will be a process. We will agree with God on some things but then discover our faith failed as our natural minds overcame the leading of the Spirit. When that happens, repent and move on with a greater determination to believe God for all things. As we move into 2016, I encourage you to make this your Year of Agreement! May you be richly blessed in this coming year!

So…what do we do when the faithful fail? What do we do when we fail, when we slip back into a sin we thought we had left far behind, or when weakness overcomes our faith? There are many who would say that the cleansing of deep regret and overwhelming feelings of guilt are the right response to realign our hearts with the Father. Many of us believe that a sense of shame and guilt and the emotional pain of our failure will keep us from sliding into sin again. But there is an interesting passage in Nehemiah that raises a question about that course.

In the book of Nehemiah we find the prophet in exile. Jerusalem had been sacked and burned and the best and brightest of the Jews deported. When word reached Nehemiah that the city he loved was still devastated with the walls lying in heaps of rubble and the gates burned he cried out to God. God moved King Artaxerxes to allow Nehemiah to return to Jerusalem and restore the city. After a remarkable restoration project, the wall and city gates were rebuilt. Nehemiah and the people were certain that all the things that had happened to Israel were because of their sins, so when the wall was completed Nehemiah called for a solemn assembly to re-consecrate the people and the city. Ezra the priest stood and read the Book of the Law to all the people.

The text says, “They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.   Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh.8:8-10).

The natural response of the people to their sin and the righteous standards of their God was to weep as they felt the guilt and shame of their sins and the sins of their fathers. And yet, God instructed them not to weep but to celebrate. This is a clear picture of the difference between condemnation and conviction.

Condemnation is a tool of the enemy that he uses against us when we fail. Condemnation produces shame and shame pushes us away from the Father at the very moment that we need to be drawing close. Remember, Adam and Eve felt shame in the garden at the moment of their sin and the realization of their nakedness. That shame caused them to hide from the Father and to blame others for what they had chosen to do. Satan loves to come and condemn. In response to the enemy’s strategy, Paul declares that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom.8:1).

Shame is the very thing that drives many of us to sin in an effort to cover or medicate our sense of unworthiness. Our unbearable feelings of insignificance, defectiveness, and inadequacy drive many to substance abuse, sexual addictions, comfort eating, and so forth. Condemnation simply increases our shame and our need to medicate so that we get caught in a destructive cycle. Condemnation convinces us that even God can’t love and that being the case … we are on our own. When we are on our own we are dangerous to ourselves and others.

Even in the face of their sins, Israel was commanded to celebrate rather than weep. The celebration was not a statement that their sins did not matter, but rather a recognition that God’s love and grace were greater than their sin. It was a celebration of God’s love and mercy that draws us back to him rather than driving us away.

In the Nehemiah passage, God calls on us to focus on his grace rather than on our failings. Bill Johnson speaks to this when he says, “The real problem is not in what we lack, but how we respond to what God has said. Focusing on our problems more than God’s answers should be a dead giveaway that we’re really dealing with condemnation not the Holy Spirit’s conviction. Focus on God’s answers – not your problems. When the Holy Spirit shows us where we are falling short. The bigger reality is not the areas where we’re not yet walking in our destiny, but the destiny itself…The conviction of the Holy Spirit is actually a call to turn our focus away from our sin and our limitations. He’s saying, ‘You’re made for more than this. Lift your head and set your sights higher’” (Bill Johnson, Strengthen Yourself in the Lord, p.136-137; Destiny Image).

There is a time for godly sorrow, but the sorrow should quickly turn from our self- focus on our weakness to God’s strength, from our unfaithfulness to his faithfulness, from our failures to his victory, and from our discouragement to his grace. The joy of the Lord is our strength. We will have greater victories over sin if we focus on Him rather than us. The constant goodness of God and his willingness to forgive any sin as soon as our heart turns to him is a reason to celebrate. It does no good for us to wallow in our self-loathing or despise ourselves as if beating ourselves emotionally will pay for our sins or convince God of our sorrow. Our sins are already paid for and the proof of repentance is not found in self-loathing but in loving God.

When we fail in our walk with the Lord, we should own it, confess it quickly, and then get on to celebrating God’s goodness and love. There is joy in that and in that joy we find strength for the next stage of our journey wherever we are. Blessings today as you celebrate the goodness and grace of your Savior.

In my last blog, we reflected on the accounts of Christ’s birth as presented in the gospels. They barely match the idealized sweetness and serenity of our cultural version. In our scrubbed version, Mary peacefully sees herself as blessed above all women to be carrying the Son of God in her womb and Joseph serenely stands by as her faithful companion. Life is never that easy, even when you have had visitations from angels.

I try to put myself in Joseph’s place when I think of the story and I imagine that there were still questions in his heart about his bride. Did he really have a visitation from an angel or was that a dream manufactured from his subconscious to deal with her unexplained pregnancy? And what of Mary? Did she sense the doubts in her husband? Did they talk about it or just push ahead? Why would she travel so far from home in the last month of pregnancy to sign up for a census with Joseph? Her presence wasn’t required. Wouldn’t such a trip put the child at risk? Perhaps, it was just easier to travel than to endure the accusing looks of neighbors and relatives if she had stayed at home.

Philip Yancey puts it this way. “In contrast to what the cards would have us believe, Christmas did not sentimentally simplify life on planet earth. Perhaps, this is what I sense when Christmas rolls around and I turn from the cheeriness of the cards to the starkness of the gospels…Luke tells of a tremulous Mary hurrying off to the one person who could possibly understand what she was going through: her relative Elizabeth who miraculously got pregnant in old age after another angelic annunciation. Elizabeth believes Mary and shares her joy, and yet the scene poignantly highlights the contrast between the two women: the whole community is talking about Elizabeth’s healed womb even as Mary must hide the shame of her own miracle. In a few months the birth of John the Baptist took place amid great fanfare, complete with midwives, doting relatives, and the traditional village chorus celebrating the birth of a Jewish male. Six months later, Jesus was born far from home, with no midwife, extended family or village chorus present” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p.3; Zondervan).

This is not to say that God’s grace was not present for the couple but it contrasts our scrubbed view of “away in a manger” with the sacrifices truly made by those who carried the Living Word into the world. The traditional village chorus that gathered around a family when a son was born was provided by our heavenly Father in the fields outside Bethlehem when angels sang to shepherds. We have no record that Mary heard the chorus except through the report of shepherds she did not know. After signing up for the census, the gospel’s indicate that Joseph and Mary stayed on in Bethlehem rather than returning to their families in Nazareth. Perhaps, that is another indicator of how unwilling family and neighbors were to accept the story.

Matthew tells us that magi (wise men) came from the east to see this new king. These astronomer/astrologers had seen a new star and assumed it was a sign for a great king. They probably came from the area of Babylon where the prophet Daniel had prophesied that a never-ending kingdom would be established in the days of certain earthly kings. Perhaps their study of his writings led them to Israel when this “new star” appeared.

They first stopped to see Herod and ask if he knew where this “new king” was staying so that they could worship him. Herod blessed their search and asked them to let him know as soon as they found this child. The magi were warned in a dream and returned home without notifying Herod of their find, but Herod consulted his Torah scholars who suggested that Bethlehem might be a likely place. Herod immediately issued an edict to kill all the male children in Bethlehem under the age of two according to the time that the magi had first seen his star. That suggests that the Jesus was perhaps 18 months old at the time, since Herod would want to give himself a margin of error for destroying any potential rivals to his throne.

The magi found Mary and Joseph still in Bethlehem in a house, not a stable. By their gifts, God funded Mary & Joseph’s flight to Egypt to escape Herod’s death squad. And so, the King of Kings, born in a stable to poor parents, became a political refugee to Egypt to avoid death. So why did God choose this hardship for the birth of the Savior?

Yancey puts it this way: “Nine months of awkward explanations, the lingering scent of scandal – it seems that God arranged the most humiliating circumstances possible for his entrance, as if to avoid any charge of favoritism. I am impressed that when the Son of God became a human being he played by the rules, harsh rules: small towns do not treat kindly young boys who grow up with questionable paternity” (Yancey, p.32). When the writer of Hebrews says that we have a high priest who understands our struggles, he does not exaggerate. I also believe that the struggles of Mary and Joseph taught them to depend totally on God for direction, protection, and provision which was their legacy to this Son of God born into the world who also had to learn those things.

So I love the homey feelings of Christmas and even the idealized Christmas cards we see because they reflect the serenity that Jesus, through his suffering, has placed within our hearts. But the hardship of the first Christmas increases the value of the gift – a gift of love and sacrifice. It also raises the question of risk. God entrusted himself and our salvation to simple parents in a hostile world who still had the free will to ignore his directions and dreams sent their way or to simply refuse his offer of being God’s instruments for bringing his Son into the world. Love risks and so God risked it all and placed it in the hands of a young couple whose faith completed the task. May we have faith to complete the tasks he has assigned to each of us and let’s be thankful this Christmas for the gift that did not come easily. Blessings in Him.

In our final look at Gideon, we will gain some insight into how and why God works in certain ways. Remember, Israel had drifted into years of rebellion and idolatry. The oppression they experienced at the hands of Midian was a corrective measure sent by the Lord to call them back into relationship with him.

In Judges 7, we find that Gideon had mustered 32,000 men for the battle against Midian, who still greatly outnumbered them. God then began a sifting process to reduce Gideon’s ranks. He first had Gideon announce that anyone who was afraid should leave. Twenty-two thousand promptly left. God then had Gideon take his men to a spring to drink. Three hundred squatted down, filled their hands with water, and lifted the water to their mouths. The remainder simply got on their knees, put their faces to the water, and lapped it up like dogs. God had Gideon dismiss all those who had lapped up the water so that only the three hundred remained.

God clearly states why he reduced the numbers. “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands, in order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her” (Jud. 7:2). We leave God when we feel we have no need of him. Self-sufficiency is the seedbed of rebellion against God. It’s not that men don’t want to worship, because after leaving God Israel would always chase idols. It’s just that men want to worship a god that will feed their fleshly desires and not call them to holiness. They want a god that will give them wealth, power, fame, sex…you know, rock-star stuff. Or they want gods that they can control through witchcraft and sorcery. Again…they seek the things that will make them self-sufficient. Satan still whispers, “You will be like God.”

God’s strategy was to put Israel in a situation where victory and survival could only come through the Lord. When three hundred face tens of thousands, there is no room for self-sufficiency. He also wants to reveal those who have faith. The three hundred who remained with Gideon were brave, but not suicidal. To stay, they must have had faith in the God of Israel.

God works in our lives to remove our idols, erase our self-sufficiency, and reveal any faith that is left in us after we have drifted away. Our drift from God is not always so apparent. We may still be going through the motions of faith but our hearts may be feeling very self-sufficient and may be looking away from God to other things that we believe will give us what we need to be happy. We may not even be aware of our condition.

God directed the three hundred to carry trumpets and torches hidden under clay jars to the enemy camp around midnight. After surrounding the camp, they blew the trumpets, broke the jars, and revealed the torches while shouting, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” The Midianites panicked and in the confusion of darkness attacked and killed one another. The survivors fled into the night. No general on earth would have laid out that strategy as a battle plan, but God works in unusual ways in impossible situations so that he gets the glory.

God is not an egotistical tyrant who demands worship because it makes him feel powerful. God knows who he is. He seeks glory because it is in our best interest to see his glory. His glory draws us to him. Facing an impossible situation and then seeing his hand in the situation in unexpected ways diminishes our self-sufficient attitudes and rekindles our faith. God is love and, therefore, always acts in our best interest. God rarely puts us in bad places. We typically get there by our own choices or the choices of someone to whom we are attached. But God will use those bad places to call us back so that we might make life-giving course corrections for our lives.

We always want deliverance to come by the express lane. But Midian had been severely oppressing Israel for seven years. Sometimes we need to taste the fruit of our self-sufficiency long enough that it becomes so bitter that we won’t ever return to it. Sometimes, God is multi-tasking and working on others while he works on our hearts. It takes time to get all the pieces just where you want them on the chessboard. But the good news is that God is always calling us back, adjusting our focus, and redirecting our steps…even when we have not noticed how far our hearts have drifted from him.

When we find ourselves in impossible situations, we need to check the spiritual condition of our hearts first. Have we been turning our hearts away from God or has our faith been cooling? Sometimes, our spiritual condition is not in a bad place, but God is simply calling us to a higher place. In those moments, we must begin to look for the hand and purposes of God. He is very intentional. No experience is wasted if we cooperate. God is rarely angry but is simply disciplining us as a good Father or stretching us as a great coach. Either way, don’t resist but look for his glory and let his glory draw you to him.

When we encounter Gideon in the sixth chapter of Judges, he is hiding his meager harvest from the Midianites. He seems almost timid as an angel of the Lord begins a discussion with him and refers to him as mighty warrior. I’m fairly certain that Gideon had no military background and certainly would have not been thought of as a mighty warrior by anyone – especially himself. And yet, God sees us primarily as who we are going to be, rather than who we are today. The angel was making a prophetic declaration over Gideon, calling out God’s plan for this man by calling him a mighty warrior. We also would do well to call out goodness and greatness in one another instead of pointing out all the flaws and failings that we see. We can do so because we know that the Spirit of God is within every believer and it is his plan to make each of us both good and great in his Son.

The second thing the angel said to him was to “go in the strength that he had” and deliver Israel from the hands of Midian. The Lord new Gideon’s resources and capacity better than Gideon did. He will never send us to do what we have no capacity to do because he has already designed us for that very thing (Ps.139:13-16). We may be unaware of our ability but God is not. The Lord promised that he would resource Gideon for the mission by saying “Am I not sending you?” If the Lord assigns us, he will also resource us to complete the assignment. In the Lord, we are never on our own when we are walking in his will.

But, let’s be honest. Most of us don’t feel that way when we face a crisis, a hardship, or a challenge. Most of us feel just as Gideon felt when he responded, “How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (Jud.6:15). The Lord replied, “I will be with you and you will strike down all the Midianites together.” Remember that Gideon was not sure that the man speaking to him was an angel. He, perhaps, sensed that the man was a prophet speaking on behalf of the Lord, but it was a strange conversation all the same. At that point, Gideon asked a very honest thing – “give me a sign so that I can know it is really you (the Lord) talking to me.”

I think that he was not only being honest but also wise. God was asking him to step out into a life-changing assignment – even a life threatening assignment. In all likelihood, he had never heard from the Lord before, or at least rarely, so he was asking for confirmation. Asking for confirmation, is not doubting God, but is recognition that the voice we are hearing may not be from him or that our discernment may be faulty. It is one way to test the spirits (1 Jn.4:1). So, Gideon asked for a sign. The angel wasn’t offended. He told Gideon to place a young goat and some unleavened bread on a rock as an offering to the Lord. The angel then touched it with the tip of his staff and it was consumed by fire just as the angel disappeared.

Gideon’s response was a normal response in the face of a supernatural experience. He was afraid and thought that he might die because he had seen the angel of the Lord face to face. But the Lord spoke to him and told him not to be afraid. He first heard the voice of God through an angel and then directly so that he could begin to recognize and trust the voice. We have to go through a similar process. We will often hear from the Lord through another person first – a word of knowledge, a prophetic word, a teaching that we know was from the Lord just for us, etc. Eventually we will begin to hear his voice internally. We have to hear from the Lord often enough that we recognize his voice as sheep recognizing the voice of the shepherd. Then we can respond with confidence that the Lord has shared his heart or wisdom with us.

That same evening, while the voice of the Lord was still fresh in Gideon’s mind, the Lord told Gideon to tear down his father’s altar to Baal and to cut down his Asherah pole and then to offer a proper sacrifice to God on an altar Gideon built using the wood from the Asherah pole for fire. The text says, “So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and of the men of his town, he did it at night…” (Jud.6:27). Fear comes up three times in the story of Gideon so we know he was not a fearless, faith-filled warrior but a common man trying to serve God. Yet, in the face of fear he moved ahead in obedience.

There will be times that our flesh will be afraid but our spirit will move ahead in faith, choosing to trust God rather than to obey our emotions. Feeling fear does not disqualify us if we do not give into the fear. God also gives us time to grow in faith, which will proportionately diminish our fears. God did not rebuke Gideon for destroying his father’s idols at night. It was a next step in being used in even greater ways by the Lord. Our faith is also a series of next steps. If it fails, shake it off and move ahead. Ask for boldness as the first century church often did in their prayers. Determine not to give into fear next time.

We simply need to understand that fear comes in many ways and will probably always be with us. The fear of man, the fear of rejection, the fear of disappointment, the fear of failure, etc. will raise up its head against us. It resides in the flesh but it is also a spirit. We will have to learn to ignore the feeling, rebuke the spirit, and move ahead in obedience. In the process, God will be with us and will remind us, as he did Gideon, “Do not be afraid.”

IN our next blog, we will look at Gideon and the fleece.

The Book of Judges is a cyclical drama of Israel’s faithfulness and rebellion toward God that occurred after the death of Joshua. Israel would push through a few decades of faithfulness to Jehovah, enjoying the blessings attached to that faithfulness, and then would depart from his ways. Eventually, after a long season of idolatry and sin, God would bring judgment on them in the form of oppression from neighboring tribes until they repented. When their hearts and eyes returned to the Lord, he would forgive them, raise up a man or woman (called judges) to lead them against their enemies, and free them from their oppressors again. This cycle occurs over and over again in the book of Judges. One of the individuals he raised up was Gideon. I want to spend a few blogs finding some insights from his very unique story that we might apply to our own lives.

His story begins with these lines, “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites”… Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help. When the Israelites cried to the Lord because of Midian…The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” “But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his mighty wonders that our fathers told us about” (Jud.6:1-13)?

I like Gideon. He was not politically correct. At the moment he voiced that question, he was not yet aware that the man he was speaking to was an angel. The man was a stranger to Gideon and gave an unusual greeting – The Lord is with you mighty warrior! Gideon wasn’t sure who the man was but he gave a very honest response which amounted to, “If the Lord is with me, why am I hiding in this winepress trying to keep from starving and where are all the big miracles I’ve been praying for and hear about in synagogue?” It’s very possible that there have been times in your life when you were thinking essentially the same thing.

Gideon could have covered his thoughts and said something “spiritual” like, “Yes. God is good and his love endures forever. I know he is with us in ways we just can’t see.” All of that statement would have been true, but it would not have been an honest response from his heart at the moment. God loves honest conversation. He knows what is in your heart, so there is very little reason to give the “Sunday School response” instead of acknowledging what you are struggling with.

I believe Gideon had been struggling with the very thing he expressed. Where are you God? Don’t you still love your people? I know we have been out of line and deserve what’s happening, but I don’t know how much longer we can even survive as a nation. Couldn’t you just show us the same mercy you showed our fathers, even when they had been rebellious, and do something miraculous for us? We need a break and I know that would turn our hearts back to you…but all I’m hearing is crickets!”

For me, the question is why did God choose Gideon to raise up as a leader over unfaithful Israel? I know he often chooses the most unlikely so that he gets the glory, but he also looks at the hearts of men and I think he saw something in Gideon’s heart he could work with. I believe the first thing he saw was a man without pretense. He had honest questions and he asked them. He didn’t pretend to have great faith when his faith was starting to crumble. He didn’t throw out a biblical answer in an effort to cover up his doubt. Confession is good for the soul. God can work with that.

I think we often deny our own doubts – to ourselves and to the Lord – in an effort to avoid the truth that we are struggling with our faith, our concept of God, or our own sense of unworthiness and the creeping fear that God only answers prayers on the basis of our spiritual performance – which has been really lousy of late. Until we acknowledge our own thoughts, we cannot answer them with the Word or request a gift of faith from the Spirit. Sometimes our effort to have perfect faith, by denying our doubts, undermines our ability to have an honest conversation with the Lord or a faithful brother so that our thoughts might be clarified and a word of faith given to us so that we might resolve, rather than deny, our doubts.

Gideon just puts it our there. “If God is with us, why are things so bad?” The angel responds in a very interesting way. “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” In essence, the angel says that God is still in the miracle business and that Gideon is going to be his miracle. Sometimes, God is going to answer our prayers through us when we have been looking elsewhere for the answers. God is a “multitasker.” As he answers our prayers he also wants to accomplish something within us.

Many times we just want to be rescued but God is going to give us strength to fight our way out of something so that faith and character are developed in the process. He told Gideon to go in the strength that he had and that God would make up for whatever he lacked when the moment came. He will do the same for us when the time comes but often we must act on his directions rather than doing our own thing or simply waiting for him to solve the problem. Instead of crying, “Where are you?”, “we may need to cry, “What is my next step, Lord?”

God is not looking for perfect people or even perfect faith. He is looking for honest people with a willing heart and just enough faith to take the next step. Gideon will model that for us over the next few blogs.