Category: Guest Post

David Coffield, Featured Writers, Guest Post

Staying in Grace

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Letter from David C., used by permission.                                                                                                               

I was having lunch with my friend Drew today and he asked me a question (he is really good with questions).  How do you personally keep from drifting away from grace and moving into Law?  I don’t have well thought out answers.  I have a few thoughts though.

Embrace the brokenness.  I don’t care how sharp a person is, if they measure themselves against the absolute, holy Law and standard of God—they are toast.  In Galatians Paul says that one of the functions of the Law is to show us that we are lawbreakers and in need of Christ.  The more I see of the beauty and majesty and glory of Jesus in the scripture, the more I am aware of my tattered, shabby, grubby nature.  At my best I am a victim of the mercy and grace and love of God.

A proud person will have difficulty embracing grace.  They don’t need it.  There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance.  God is always opposed to the proud and He always give grace to the humble.

Embrace genuine fellowship.  Acceptance is hard to come by in a ministry committed to performance.  There are a few brothers I have with whom my life, in all of its brokenness, is accepted, cared for, encouraged.  Such people are a rich treasure.  The critical, legalistic, high performing people I try and avoid.  Paul says we are to accept one another as God has accepted us in Christ.  How is that for a goal to strive for?

Embrace the relationship through the Word.  The problem with the Scripture is that you can read it, study it, memorize it, just like the Pharisees did but they missed Jesus.  It is being willing to sit in the relationship at His feet and believe that we are wanted, desired, loved.  If the ministry is your preoccupation, your focus, your passion…it will be difficult to engage relationally with the Lord.  I am not anti-ministry.  It is an incredible privilege to participate with the Lord when we are invited into the process, but it is His work and His glory.  Paul makes the comment in 1Corinthians 3.  “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.  So, neither the one who plants not the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.”  Our value, I believe, is in our relationship with God as His sons and daughters.

Your brother,

David

David Coffield, Featured Writers, Guest Post

Ascribe To The Lord The Glory That Is Due His Name

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

This Letter was written by David C., used with permission.

The Army has a saying “embrace the suck”.  I think for me, a good saying in the Christian life would be “embrace the brokenness”.  We seem to be on a continual journey to improve, get better, fix stuff, shape up, get it right, etc.

Paul’s comment is 2Corinthians 4:7, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.”

There will always be a qualitative difference of the glory of God expressed within us and the flesh in which it is contained.  My desire is for personal glory.  I want people to look at my life and ooh and ah.  It is sin of course.  John the Baptist had it right when he said, “He must increase but I must decrease”.  We live in a narcissistic culture in which everything is about the person, their success, their glory, their accomplishments.  It is the Holy Spirit who helps us lift our eyes to Jesus and ascribe to Him glory and honor.  I like Psalm 115:1  “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory, because of Your loving kindness, because of your truth”.

It leaves me with 2 goals.  

One, is not to attempt to fix my brokenness for my glory.  I have flaws and brokenness that will be with me as I come into the presence of Jesus.  If I were to write a book, I would title it, “The Fellowship of the Broken”.  Some are more “healthy” than others but all are broken in some way.  Some things God works on, some He fixes, but most remain so that His glory might be displayed.  2Corinthians 12 is a good read.  If anyone had a reason for confidence and was sharp…it was Paul.  Yet he comes to the place where he will boast in his weaknesses.

Two, is to ascribe to the Lord the glory that is due His name.  I will speak of the goodness of the Lord, His majesty, His works, His power, His coming kingdom all the days of my life as He gives me grace.  Psalms 29 and 96 say basically the same thing, “Ascribe to the Lord the glory that is due His name”.  What do we talk about?  What speech fills our time?  What is our agenda?  No one gets it right all of the time of course.

David Coffield, Featured Writers, Guest Post, Jesus, Yahweh

How do we measure spirituality? Discipleship?

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

A letter from Dave C.

A metric is how we measure or evaluate something.  For age, it is about the passage of time, years, days.  For weight, it is usually about pounds.  For height, it is about inches.  How do we measure spirituality?  Discipleship?  What is our “metric”?

We used to work at the 7 basics of the Christian life—Quiet time, Scripture memory, Bible Study, Witnessing, Prayer, Application, Fellowship.  On my team we used to evaluate every week the quantity and quality of our engagement in those activities.  I often say that a Navigator would make a good Pharisee.  How do we evaluate if a person is a disciple?  It used to be the completion of the Design for Discipleship Series, the memorization of the TMS, regular participation in the group activities, and good progress in the basics.

Of course, John 8:31,32 is the only definition that Jesus gives of what it means to be a disciple of His.

Our couple’s study is looking at Luke 18 and I was struck hard by the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in 9-14.

The Pharisee was at the top of his game in terms of religious performance.  The best of the best.  He was religiously righteous, and he knew it.  He was outperforming everyone around him easily.

The Tax Collector was the bottom of the Jewish culture.  A person working for Gentiles who was taking money from his fellow countrymen.  Abhorrent.  Tax Collectors and prostitutes got along well.  But the Tax Collector’s statement was, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner”.

The Lord’s conclusion?  “I tell you the Tax Collector went down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee.”  

I am beginning to think that our metric ought to be the humility of the heart and not the religious performance.  Pride is a terrible thing, and I suspect we are often blind to it.  I haven’t plumbed the depths of this, but I sense something profound and powerful lies here.  May the Lord give us eyes to see our own hearts and the hearts of those around us and to walk in humility.

Your brother,

David

David Coffield, Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Guest Post, J3 Khai Ambassadors, J3 Khai Restoration, Jesus, Veterans, Yahweh

“God is interested in growing us up and it is going to be painful”

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Someone should inform new believers (and probably old ones as well) that God is interested in growing us up and it is going to be painful.  The writer of Hebrews informs us that God “scourges every son whom He receives”.  What!?  That is child abuse.  A writer in Psalms says, “You Who have shown me many troubles and distresses…”

Why would God do that?

I can think of 2 reasons.  One would be that we need it for growth.  I was reading in Proverbs 17 this morning, “The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests hearts”.  We don’t like the process of getting there but we like the end result.  The word “test” in this passage means that God is in the process of refining and developing our hearts.

When we come to Jesus, we are not ok as we are any more than a new recruit off the street is ok to deploy with an U.S. Army Special Forces team.  We are accepted as we are.  We are loved, embraced, and delighted in as we are but because God loves us, He wants to grow us up into the image and character of His Son Jesus.  The Christian life is about growth and growth means change.  We grow as we walk with Jesus.  It is what happens when we engage in a relationship with Jesus through the Word and prayer daily.

We also grow when God looks at our lives and decides to work on developing us.  Pain, trials, stress, troubles, sicknesses, conflict…it goes on and on.  Without the confidence that the sovereign hand of our loving God is ruling over it we can lose hope. [Note from Michael; and that he promised never to leave us for forsake us]

Another reason would be that it expresses God’s glory.  When you are suffering, and you rejoice—God receives glory, and the world sits up and takes notice.  When life goes poorly, and you give thanks—the world sits up and takes notice.  May the Lord give us the grace to give thanks in all things.

Your brother,

David

Featured Writers, Guest Post, Praying for America

History of the American Thanksgiving Holiday

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Posted on the Intercessors For America webpage dates November 26, 2024.

O Lord we give thanks to you for your many blessings.Thank you for the Pilgrims and their covenant with youand one another. May their devotion be a shining example for us to live and act in our world today. Amen.

With Thanksgiving upon us, our thoughts turn to turkey, pumpkin pie, football, and family. It’s a special day to thank God for all the wonderful blessings He has bestowed on us personally and as a nation.

Who is praying on the wall?

“O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.” 1 Chronicles 16:34

Thanksgiving is also a time to reflect on our country’s origins and how God led a small band of Pilgrims to the New World. We’re taught the highlights in school. The Pilgrims came on the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620. The native Wampanoag, Squanto, taught them how to plant corn in the Spring. Then, in the Fall, with Massasoit, the Wampanoag chief, and 90 of his men attending, they celebrated a harvest feast, which we now call Thanksgiving.

But the true Pilgrim story is so much more than a bigmeal. It began a decade and a half before, in 1606.The Pilgrims were members of a religious group called the Separatists who wished to separate from the Church of England, which was a crime.

The Pilgrim Covenant

As IFA founder Derek Prince noted in his book, The Pilgrim Legacy, “The Pilgrim wanted liberty forhimself, for his wife and little ones, and for his brethren,to walk with God in a Christian life as the rules and motives of such a life were revealed to him from God’s Word. For that he went into exile; for that he crossed the ocean; for that he made his home in the wilderness.”

The Pilgrims believed they received their spiritualfreedom directly from God through Jesus Christ, not thestate-run church. To help them live out their faith, they entered into a covenant in 1606 with one another.

William Brewster had opened up his home, ScroobyManor, as an underground house church. Here, thePilgrims agreed to obediently follow Christ and actively cultivate His presence among them.

Dr. Paul Jehle, pastor of New Testament Church andpresident of Plymouth Rock Foundation, in his bookJourney of Faith, described this early Pilgrim churchas a ‘Church by Covenant’. He states, “The Pilgrims formed a church through a commitment to one another by the direct authority of Christ who sat on the throneof their heart.”

Their covenant is known as the Scrooby Covenant, which promises…

“As the Lord’s free people joined by a covenant of theLord into a church estate, in the fellowship of the gospel, to walk in all His ways made known, or to bemade known unto us, according to our best endeavors, whatsoever it should cost us, the Lord assisting us.”

It Cost the Pilgrims Dearly

As a result of their faith, many were put in jail. Whenthe persecution in England grew harsher, the Pilgrim families sold their land, homes, and belongings to livein Holland.

During those 11 years, their children began leaving the Pilgrim faith for, as William Bradford described, “the great licentiousness of youth in that country, and the manifold temptation of the place, they were drawn away by evil examples into extravagant and dangerous courses… and departing from their parents”.

To save their children from sin and with a missionaryzeal to “advance the gospel of the kingdom of Christ inthose remote parts of the world… and be assteppingstones unto others for the performing of so great a work”, they decided to go to the New World.

The Pilgrims undertook a frightening journey. Fierce storms blew them off course, driving them northwardfrom Virginia to the frigid wilderness of New England.They landed in Plymouth on December 21, 1620.

Of the 102 passengers that set sail from England, only 52 Pilgrims survived the first winter – a heavy cost indeed.

In the Spring, when the Mayflower set sail for England, Captain Christopher Jones offered the Pilgrims free passage back. Not one soul took him up on his offer – so strong was the Pilgrims’ covenantal commitment to one another and to God.

God’s Covenants with Humanity

Covenants are as old as Genesis. God made covenants – or special promises – throughout history. God’s first covenant was with Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply” and to take care of His creation. (Genesis 1:28) Sadly, they broke their covenant with God, and sin entered the world.

God’s Covenant with Abraham was for the creation ofIsrael whose purpose would be to shine God’s light tothe world. I will make you into a great nation, and I willbless you. (Genesis 12:2)

God’s Covenant with Noah is the first Covenant of Grace, in which God promised to safeguard and bless the creation until the creation of the new heavens and the new earth Never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. (Genesis 8:21)

God’s Covenant with Moses and the Ten Commandments provided a framework for people tolive within the Covenant of God’s love, like this… If youlove me, you will have no other Gods before me… andso on. (Exodus 20:1-17)

God’s Covenant with David was one of hope and thecoming fulfillment of the law and the prophets in Jesus, the true Son of David. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever. (2 Samuel 7:16)

God then made a New Covenant, His ultimate promise of love, and it was to be written not on tablets of stone but on the hearts of His people. And it cost Him dearly – His very own Son. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son that whosever believes in Him will have eternal life.. (John 3:16)

The ‘Whatsoever It ShouldCost Us’ Generation

The Pilgrims saw themselves as the ‘whatsoever itshould cost us’ generation who, like Abraham, faithfullyleft their homes and families to follow God to an unknown land. Like Noah, the tiny vessel Mayflower became the ‘ark’ of their salvation. Like Moses, theywere prepared by God to form their church and community around a covenant that God Himself promised to uphold. Like the first disciples, they knew that they were bringing to a new land the great GoodNews of Christ’s New Covenant, that He commandedshould go forth into all the earth.

Today, we are privileged above all the peoples of the earth to live in a nation founded by free people whose freedom came from God. We are the legacy of those free people, not only for the nation but, more importantly, for the Church, which is the hope of this nation.

We have a sacred and solemn duty, as God’s freeCovenant people, to preserve and tell God’s story ofthese Covenant people, who followed God, whatsoever the cost, to plant a churchthat was the seed for a nation and a harvest of millionsof souls.

We’re indebted to the Pilgrims for their legacy as free people before God, who has guaranteed our right toworship him as our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer freely without any interference from the state.

This Thanksgiving, let us reflect on what it means to be the “Whatsoever it should cost us’ generation for our times. It will take all courage, faith, resolve, and absolute dependency on the Lord, which we must live out in spirit and in truth. Like the Pilgrims, we were born for such a time as this.

Every Thanksgiving, the Brewster clan offers a simple toast written by historian Dr.

Samuel Eliot Morrison…

To the Pilgrims,

A simple people, inspired by an ardent faith in God,

a dauntless courage in danger,

a boundless resourcefulness in the face of difficulties,

an impregnable fortitude in adversity:

thus they have in some measure become the spiritual ancestors of all Americans.

Let’s Pray

Oh Lord, may we as Christians today seek your faceand your will and have the ardent faith and dauntlesscourage to share the light and salvation of Christ to thelost. As your free Covenant People, today rooted and firmly established in your love by the unity of your HolySpirit, may we stand strong so that future generationswill stand on our shoulders.

Lead us as a nation as faithfully as You led the Pilgrims to America. May we boldly embark on the journey you have set for us whatsoever it should cost us, to move into the future of your Kingdom: lookingoutward and sharing the love You have given to us. May your Covenant with our nation, once again, be the cry of our hearts, for such a time as this, for the love of Jesus and for His sake. Amen!

Are you encouraged by the covenant legacy of the Pilgrims? This Thanksgiving, share this article with your friends and family to remind them of this legacy!

Belinda Brewster lives in Plymouth, MA, America’s Hometown, with her husband, Wrestling, an 11th generation direct descendent of Elder William Brewster, the spiritual leader of the Pilgrims. She and Wrestling attend Chiltonville Congregational Church which is the fourth daughter church from the first church established by the Pilgrims. Chiltonville has adopted the Scrooby Covenant as its own. Belinda is a contributing writer for IFA. Photo Credit: Robert W. Weir (photograph courtesy Architect of the Capitol) – Architect of the Capitol.

© 2024 Intercessors for America.

All Rights Reserved

David Coffield, Featured Writers, Guest Post

Do we measure the goodness of God by how we feel?

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

Written by Dave Coffield:

A friend asked me if I was encouraged.  I am encouraged to the degree that my eyes and focus are on Jesus.

David, the King, is encouraging.  There are days when he is in the pits, distressed, troubled, fearful, despairing.  There are also days when he is delighted, rejoicing, and grateful.

If we measure the goodness of God by how we feel in our circumstances in this life we will be forever on an emotional rollercoaster.  The tribulations with my neck and head pain in the last 9 months have led me to understand that God uses the pain and the suffering both for our good and His glory and we can rejoice regardless.

There is an element of Christianity that thinks that God wants you to be continually healthy, wealthy, wise, and successful.  Too bad it is not biblical.  Paul writes to Timothy and tells him to use a little wine for the sake of his stomach and his frequent ailments.  What?  Paul leaves Trophimus sick at Miletus.  Paul has his own issues with the messenger of Satan sent to torment him and beat on his body.

You can pack a church with prosperity gospel preaching.  Too bad it is not real life.  God is far more interested in our growth than our being happy.  I am ambivalent about that because I like happy.

If we want to be like Jesus, we should prepare ourselves to do a good job suffering.  The confidence that God is good when the sun is shining, and He is good when it is raining.  He is good when we feel well and when we are sick.  The words of Paul ring in our ears, “In everything give thanks for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”.  Or “Do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation…”

I like the way that the author of Hebrews says it, “Fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of faith…”  Our Lord is amazing, wonderful, marvelous, spectacular and worthy of our thanks and praise day by day!

You remain daily in my prayers and on my heart,

Your brother,

David

David Coffield, Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Guest Post, Jesus

God doesn’t need me…He wants me.

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

The question was raised at the Tuesday night Bible Study on Ft. Liberty, “Once we are saved, why does God leave us here?”  The easy answer is for the advancement of His kingdom.  But I think that leads to the mindset that our value resides only in our labor for the Lord.

I think He leaves us here for our growth in our relationship with Him and all that comes with it.

Jesus defines eternal life in John 17:3.  “This is eternal life that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom You have sent.”  It is also Paul’s passion in Philippians 3:8. “More than that I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…”.

I tell people on occasion that God doesn’t need us.  Navigators don’t like to hear it because we see ourselves as fulfilling a key role in ministry and the coming Kingdom.  I also occasionally tell Navigators that it is impossible to “make” a disciple, and they don’t like to hear that either.

Salvation is impossible without the work of the Holy Spirit.  A Christian desiring to grow in Christ in discipleship is impossible without the work of the Holy Spirit.  No one labors unless the Father moves them to do so through the work of the Holy Spirit.

God doesn’t need me…He wants me.  We have been adopted into His family precisely because it is a family.  I struggle with God wanting me because I know the dark parts of my life.  I struggle because all of my life performance has been the standard for acceptance and approval.  And yet it is true that He loves us and desires us apart from our performance.

God will on occasion advance His kingdom through us.  But it is never because of us.  If I read Revelation correctly Christians get run over in the tribulation.  We are triumphant in death, not overcoming in this life.  We have to go through the Antichrist and the tribulation to get to the return of our Messiah.

May the Lord grant us the same heart Paul had for knowing Jesus!

Your brother,

David

Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Guest Post, Testimonies, Uncategorized

Complete Trust

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

“He leadeth me.”  Complete trust in the Lord.

“God knows just when to withhold from us any visible sign of encouragement, and when to grant us such a sign.  How good it is that we may trust Him anyway!”  

In the classic devotional, Streams in the Desert,  Mrs. Charles E. Cowman shares this quote from C.G. Trumbull:  “He wants us to realize that His Word, His promise of remembrance, is more substantial and dependable than any evidence of our senses…Those who are readiest to trust God without other evidence than His Word always receive the greatest number of visible evidences of His love.”

How true.  The Great Cloud of Witnesses and the Heroes of our Faith in Hebrews Chapter 11 give testimony to this.

Written by Helen

David Coffield, Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Guest Post, Jesus, Mental Health, Messiah, Testimonies, Yahweh

Rejoice that through faith in Jesus your name is written in the Book of Life.

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

                                                                         

I get struck by things as I read.  Probably the Holy Spirit doing what He does so well.  In John 17:14 “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world…”  I don’t want to be hated.  I want everyone to like me.   Not going to happen.  There is animosity between the world and God, between the world and the children of God.  It is probably why Jesus tells His followers that He is sending them out as “sheep in the midst of wolves.  Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”  A sheep is wolf food.  The wisdom of the serpent (from my point of view) is that you don’t see it, it is camouflaged.

Luke 10:17-20.  Jesus sends the 70 out with unparalleled power and they come back excited and rejoicing.  The Lord’s comment?  “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven”.  I was speaking with my chiropractor this morning and we were discussing feeling loved and accepted by Jesus.  I told him that my lifelong struggle is embracing that I am loved and accepted by God just as I am, right now.  We are so performance oriented that it is difficult to believe that God accepts us unconditionally.  I continue to pray day by day, “Lord help me to believe that my value to you resides in my relationship with You as Your son and not in my labor for you.”

We were meeting with a couple yesterday and the wife is an incredible contingency planner.  She looks 10 years ahead or more.  The Lord ministered to me through Ecclesiastes years ago to help me settle in the day and enjoy it.  It is good to plan for the future, it is good to learn from the past.  However—this is the only day that God gives us.  The past is gone, and the future is forever one day out of reach.  5 times in Ecclesiastes it speaks of rejoicing in the day.

Your brother,

David

Featured Writers, Guest Post, Jesus, Mental Health

TWO DAUGHTERS

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet 23 and pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” 24 So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 

30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?'” 

32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”   (Mark 5:21-34)

This record in Mark chapter five of God’s word tells of a contrasting pair of incidents in the ministry of Jesus featuring two different daughters.  One, the daughter of a prominent member of their community who came boldly to Jesus on her behalf to plead for her healing to save her life.  The other a lonely, rejected outcast who approached Jesus secretly in a desperate attempt to be healed also.  The plea in both cases was the same: please heal her body; but the needs were entirely different.

The father came confidently to invite Jesus into his home while the lonely woman sneaked up behind Jesus only hoping to touch his garment without daring to even speak to him.  Without friends or family to help her, ashamed to even be seen in public, struggling just get some relief from her pain and misery, never daring to hope for anything more in life.

And Jesus responded to the needs of both daughters, not exactly in the way they expected.  Yet he provided them with so much more than they sought.  Even though neither one of these situations were on the agenda for that day, Jesus stopped what he was doing to go to the father’s home and heal his daughter until he was interrupted again by that touch on his garment from a bleeding woman who couldn’t even dare to speak to him personally.

But her need was so great that Jesus stopped everything to help her.  The bleeding stopped as soon as she touched his garment according to verse 29, but she still had other needs.  So, Jesus called out for her to come to him.  He knew who she was, but he was going to introduce her to the crowd that day.  Note that verse 29 clearly states that “she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”  It doesn’t say that she was healed.

Like many of us she still suffered from guilt, shame, rejection and neglect.  So, Jesus called her to him, gave her his undivided attention in front of the crowd, listened to her whole story and then gave her his approval and affirmation in verse 34.  (He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”)  Only then was her healing complete.

I believe the Holy Spirit inspired this record to teach us that we need to complete the healing process in our own lives by confessing the whole truth to Jesus about our lives and receive his blessing and affirmation after we have received his payment for our sins.  Freeing us from the guilt, shame, regret and despair we are keeping hidden from those around us.

As great as our eternal salvation is, there is still more that needs to be corrected in our lives to make us whole.  Making our transformation complete as children of God.  He doesn’t want to see us limping into eternity carrying the weight of the past with us.  He continues to call to us to come to Jesus and be set free from the chains of our own making.  Our offenses against our Heavenly Father may be gone but the damage of our mistakes and foolish choices remain until we confess the whole truth as that dear woman did.  Setting her free from the nightmare of her past once and for all.

Only when we bring everything to Jesus and release it to his loving mercy can we experience the true freedom and joy he is offering us.  A relationship with no hidden barriers or secrets that hold us captive to fear.  Trusting that he can heal us from it all.  That is the faith that will ultimately free us from the fear and despair that our guilt, shame and regret produce in our lives.  That woman’s bleeding may have stopped when she touched Jesus’ robe, but her healing didn’t come until she fell before Jesus and personally confessed everything to him, surrendering to all of his mercies.

And, yes, Jesus did go on to heal the other daughter that day in response to her father’s faith, even though she had already died.  In this case Jesus healed both daughters, freeing them from death and a living nightmare. Jesus met their needs  beyond the requests made that day in the same way that he stands ready to meet all of our needs today, if we just trust him.  

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us  (Eph 3:20)

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  (Heb 10:23)

By Gary DeRemer

David Coffield, Featured Writers, God Loves Us, Guest Post, Jehovah, Jesus, Messiah, Testimonies, Yahweh, Yehovah

“but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven””

Michael J. Weiss, Sr.

I have a sticky note on my desk speaking of Luke 10.  It struck me as I was reading through the gospel.  Luke 10:17-20.  Jesus sends 70 out and He gives them power over demons and to heal.  It would be the equivalent of waking up in the morning and discovering you had the powers of Superman or Spiderman.  What you could do was astounding, amazing, spectacular.  You were above mere mortals.

To that Jesus responds (my paraphrase), “You guys think that is something?  I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning”.  And then He says in verse 20, “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven”.

Our value and worth to God resides in our relationship with Him as sons and daughters, never in our abilities or strengths or accomplishments.  We are to rejoice in who we are to God, not in what we can do.

All of our culture, all of our upbringing, most of our experiences teaches the opposite.  People have value because they are important, intelligent, wealthy, beautiful, productive.  We have a book in the country entitled “Who’s Who”.  We have sports competitions, quiz shows, Mensa, Suma Cum Laude, advanced degrees, etc.

I don’t have to perform for God.  Not only do I not need to perform but there is nothing in me that can accomplish His work.  The Holy Spirit is the One accomplishing the building of the Kingdom of God.  He gives salvation, understanding, motivation, the desire to participate with our Father in what He is doing.  It is His desire to bring glory to Jesus and He is good at what He does.  

It is wonderful to rest in our relationship with Jesus.  It has been granted us by grace.  It can’t be earned, it can’t be bought, it can’t be lost.  We can get misguided, confused, and led astray which Satan delights in and works at.  But we can’t escape the loving hand of our Savior.  May the Lord give us grace to maintain that focus!

You remain daily in my prayers and on my heart,

Your brother,

David