PUT HIS SHIELD ON!!

Put His Shield On!

Verse for Today: Friday, March 16, 2012

Psalms 18:35 – You give me Your shield of victory, and Your right hand sustains me; You stoop down to make me great.

It is not difficult to understand that a shield will help one to escape defeat. Any one who is willing to use the shield of God is considered to have already been declared victorious because the enemy’s darts will never penetrate the shield. This shield is God Himself. If we allow ourselves to be covered with the power of God, we can be absolutely sure about safety, security and sustenance. As we hide behind God who is our impenetrable shield and allow His awesome and mighty hands to hold us, we would not have any room for fear, anxiety and apprehensions in life. When we face the enemy of our soul with his agents, we would be confident because of the great protection through God’s shield. But we will enjoy the cover of the divine shield only when we are willing to wear the shield by faith. We are behind this shield positionally, but we must use it practically to make it a reality in the various avenues of our everyday life. It means that we confess that we do not have the capacity to weather away the darts of the enemy. We must confess that we are weak and helpless without His shield. If we confide in our own smartness to escape the enemy, we would find failure and loss. Only when we accept our emptiness before the Lord and ask Him to come to our rescue will His shield becomes a reality in our lives. All our competencies must be broken into pieces, declared powerless and absolutely ineffective. All our skills must be crucified and declared dead and buried when we seek God to become our shield. Our Lord stooped down to make us worthy to wear His shield. We cannot wear His shield as long as we are proud and unwilling to admit our spiritual poverty. He helps us only when we stoop down, confess our inadequacies and uselessness. When we crucify ourselves with Christ, our weapons of self also get crucified and declared null and void.

Dear reader, are you confronted by the enemy with his darts of doubt, unbelief, confusion and self-sufficiency as you walk along the pathways of life? When you doubt your Lord, you become increasingly cold hearted in your relationship with Him. These darts are the enemy’s strategy to keep you from total dependence on the Lord in the challenging situations of life. Today the Lord is near you to reveal His armor of the shield of faith to you and encourage you to put it on. He wants you to take full cover in His hands for total sustenance. He is challenging you to see how He stooped down to give you greater privileges in life because He loves you. Positionally you are covered by Him and are in His hands. But practically you must make it a reality by putting all your trust in Him. It demands that you recognize yourself weak and helpless. You must admit that weapons of your flesh are totally ineffective and useless. These weapons of the world will give you a false sense of safety and courage, but will surely lead you to defeat. Your Lord wants you to go to Him to admit your helpless estate and declare yourself defeated in all that you are and have and surrender it all to Him. He will then put the divine shield on you and keep you under His shadows. As long as you depend totally on the Lord, you will be able to enjoy the safety of His shield. You will experience the power of His hands only so long as you take refuge in Him. Today it is your blessed privilege to see the Savior who has stooped down to make you victorious. He is near you and wants to help you to march from victory to victory. Those who have depended on Him have never been ashamed or forsaken. Their hearts will be kept safe from the darts of doubts, confusions and unbelief and they will be sustained in fearless walk with Him.

Psalms 18:2 – The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Thought for Today

God comes down to make me great and takes me to greater heights of trust and faith in Him.

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HIS TESTING HANDS!!

His Testing Hands!

Verse for Today: Thursday, March 15, 2012

Psalms 66:10 – For You, O God, tested us; You refined us like silver.

Our God is interested in refining us so that we would be without blemishes. He is committed to testing us in our faith and trust in Him. His knowledge about us is perfect and He knows all our strengths and weaknesses. His tests are for our own sake. He leads us through tests that He has ordained in our lives. He teaches us trust as we go through the tests. He helps us to evaluate ourselves through these tests and learn lessons about the trustworthiness of our Lord and the lack of faithfulness on our part. As He tests us, He sends us through various experiences which are new every time. He proves to us that we need to put our total dependence on Him in all our situations. As we progress in our sojourn, the intensity of tests will be greater. But the Lord expects us to grow in our dependence on Him to weather away the challenges we face during the tests. As we go through tests, our enemy sends temptations to us to quit or to denounce our faith. He sends doubts and confusions our way to make us waver in our trust in the Lord. But our Lord reminds us that His intentions in the tests that He sends our way are for our good. These tests are meant to refine us so that we would glow for the Lord. When there are blemishes of sin, mistrust and lack of faith in us, the Lord would not be able to use us for His cause. So He sends us through fire or water to purify us. He turns the thermostat of our situations up and intensifies the heat. But we must realize that throughout the process of purification, our heavenly Silversmith will not leave us. He will be with us to strengthen us. He will cheer us up and tell us that this heat is good for us and that we will be in the heat only for a little while. He will also tell us that the more He purifies us, the greater will be our usefulness for Him. The heat of the refining process will be offset by the comfort our Lord pours into our hearts. He will teach us patience as we go through the refining process. After we go through it all, we would certainly see that it was good that we had gone through the heat and the flood of His tests.

Dear reader, are you going through some tough tests today? Is the heat increasing hour by hour? Are you feeling alone when you go through the present tests that the Lord sent your way? Remember, the Silversmith is always with the silver as it is in the fire. He never takes His eyes off or keeps away from you while He purifies you. The heat is just right to purify you and will never be more than the grace He gives you to take it. He cannot use you unless He keeps sanctifying you through His methods. Well-meaning silver will never fear fire because it is imperative that you are purified by it. Our Lord purified Job and he came out blameless even in the eyes of Satan and Job’s friends. The process of purification increased the usefulness of Apostle Paul. The greater the heat, the sweeter were the songs of praise that came out of David. The purification process through the Red Sea made Israel sing a sweet song of praise. Joseph had to be prepared through intense tests for greater responsibilities in Egypt. Through it all, he became mature, patient and conscious of the pathways the Lord allowed him to go through for the preservation of the lineage of the Messiah. Dear reader, the world has yet to see why you are going through the present experiences. But your Lord knows what He is doing in you and why He has been allowing the heat of the tests that He has sent your way. But through the tests, He will also give you the grace to bear the heat and come out purer and nobler for His name’ sake.

James 1:3 – Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

Thought for Today

The Lord is with us through the tests and keeps us in His hands so that we will not know the weariness of the process.

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IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES 'HIM'POSSIBLE!!!

Impossible becomes ‘Him’possible!

Verse for Today: Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Romans 4:18 – Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

When he met God, he was an ‘exalted father’ Abram. God lifted him up to become Abraham, the ‘father of many nations’, but he was still a childless ‘father’. But when God called him a father, it meant that he was going to be a father by faith. Abraham had to experience the reality of the meanings of these two names at God’s time for which he had to wait by faith. He waited until it was absolutely impossible for him to become a father. But God kept His promise to make him a father in its true sense by giving him and Sarah a son by the name Isaac. Isaac was both a son by promise and a son by faith. Isaac was a miraculous gift Abraham received from God. Isaac was the link for Abraham to find the meaningfulness of his new name that God gave him. Isaac was the channel God prepared to bring Jesus to this world to save mankind. So Isaac could not be born like any other child, but had to be born strictly as a child of God’s promise. Isaac was born when all hope about his birth was gone. But it was a time of hope against hope for Abraham to believe that all promises of God will be fulfilled. It was not easy to believe that this promise would be a human reality. It was beyond human capacity. But when human capacity failed, divine capacity came alive. When it was impossible to believe, God gave Abraham the enabling to believe. When it was meaningless according to human standards to keep on waiting and believing, God gave them the faith to wait with patience and hope. God proved through the life of Abraham and Isaac that His promises are always ‘yes’ in Him. Just as Abraham said ‘amen’ to it wholeheartedly, He expects us to believe in His promises and live to practically demonstrate our faith, belief, hope and patience.

Dear reader, you might be waiting for a long time for God’s promises to be fulfilled in your life. You are probably challenged by the environment to think that it is unreasonable to expect these promises to come true in your situation. Remember, faith starts operating when reason fails. Faith is proved right when all else fails. Faith finds it possible to believe in the most unreasonable things in life because the God of the impossible has promised it. God’s Spirit fills us with the capacity to wait and continue to believe without giving up. There is no need to have faith if something can be done by human effort. Nothing can be done through human effort to bring faith to fulfillment. When faith works, reason will argue against it. It was impossible to think that a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seah of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria. It was impossible to think that five small barley loaves and two small fish will feed five thousand and odd people. It was totally unreasonable to think that a dead man would rise up again or a dip in river would bring forth healing. It is unreasonable for a man to stay overnight with hungry lions and come back unhurt. Today God leads His children through such experiences which are unreasonable to human mind. The world laughs at us when we say that our Lord will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory. Modern technology or educational system mocks at a child of God who believes in and waits for God to work things out which are impossible and unscientific. But today that is how He leads each of His children and supplies our every need. He wants to challenge us to believe on His promises. Our lives become a challenge to science, technology and reason to believe that our God reigns in the seemingly impossible realms of human life.

Romans 4:20 – Yet Abraham did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.

Thought for Today

God promises to do the impossible and the unreasonable to accomplish His purposes in our lives.

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GLOOM TO GLORIOUS HOPE!!

Gloom to Glorious Hope!

Verse for Today: Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Acts 7:55 – But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

When the enemy stands around with the intent to commit atrocities against us, it is likely that our spirits sag and we fall into depression. When the world gnashes its teeth at us, we become bewildered and exasperated. Their threats send shock waves to us and grip us with the fierce consequences of their wrath. Sometimes we take a flight and run away from the scene. At other times we try to fight with them. But when the enemy thus becomes successful in attacking us emotionally, we still have a more powerful anchor to depend upon. Our anchor is in heaven and we have the privilege and opportunity to look unto Him for help. Thus when we focus our attention on the Lord and not on the power of the enemy, He will show us His glory and power and generate faith in us. We will then be in a situation like that of Jacob in Bethel where he saw the angels coming down and going up on a ladder. It took away all his fears and uncertainties. Stephen was given a great vision of the Lord Jesus and His glory which made his face shine like an angel. The vision took away his fears and pain. The power of the threats and the gnashing of teeth of the enemies vanished from his eyes and instead the power of the glory of the Lord filled him. It made him worshipful and forgiving. He had no animosity or ill-will towards his detractors and he was filled with the joy of the Lord. When we are confronted with angry mobs who try to annihilate us, it is our blessed privilege to look unto the Lord and see that our pain and anxiety melt away in the power of His glory.

Dear reader, does your stand for Jesus annoy the mob around you? Are they using all the arsenal in their possession to destroy you? Perhaps they have found you a great inconvenience and want to get rid of you. Perhaps your saltiness and Christian character have irritated them and made them uncomfortable. Such forces are probably busy right now at your work place, school, neighborhood, family at large or even in your Fellowship. You are probably experiencing threat to your very existence. They tried this against Joseph several times and found success to some extent, but eventually Joseph became the boss of all of his detractors. They used this technique against Daniel and his brothers in Babylon and thought they achieved their vicious goals, but failed miserably. Their detractors went down the drain just as they planned it for God’s children. Haman tried this unsuccessfully against Mordecai and found fatal reversing from the hand of God. Jezebel tried it against Prophet Elijah, but while he went to heaven, she proceeded to eternal hell through a miserable death. But what our detractors receive from God does not comfort us and our response has to be prayer for salvation for their souls. The challenge for us today is whether we will have the grace to look unto heaven at such times of intense tension, pressure and fear. We need the Lord’s grace to pray for our enemies and those of our associates who desire our doom. When we pray for those who threaten to annihilate us, our focus is on the salvation of their souls and on the grace of our Lord towards them. This will break our bondage of emotional entanglement of fear and craving for retaliation. It will release us from all anxieties about the consequences of their anger at us. Ultimately, no matter what the enemies try against us, our Lord will rule and overrule the situation to take us forward according to His plan and program.

Psalms 34:5 – Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

Thought for Today

When we are tempest tossed by the treachery of the enemy, our look unto the Lord will fill us with His glorious hope.

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WATERWAYS TO WALK!!

Waterways to walk!

Verse for Today: Monday, March 12, 2012

Psalms 77:19 – Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.

Waterways are not for walking, but for sailing. But God makes it possible for His children to walk through turbulent waterways without fear or anxiety. These volatile pathways are created by God and so they are bound to obey Him to allow His children to walk on it. Jesus showed that it is possible to walk on water and made Peter walked on it. The paths through rough seas and mighty waves are a training ground for God’s children to learn trust and faith in Him for the impossible. We are led by the Lord through waters and seas to learn faith in His power. In order to give us firm footing on water, our Lord who created water walks in front of us to mark out His footprints. He alone is able to control its volatility for us to tread on it. It is a walk by faith because sight will keep us off and kill our courage to even attempt to walk that way. The pathways the Lord paves for us on these waters are invisible for others. But He makes our spiritual eyes see His footsteps on it. Our faith in His power to pave our ways through these waters of life will open our spiritual eyes to see His footsteps on the waves. His light and lamp will work as our road map for us and His beacon will be our guiding light to go forward. But He shows us only one step at a time which is sufficient for us as we are expected to travel by faith alone. If our trust on Him is genuine and sincere, there is no need for us to see the second step until we would have covered the first step that He has shown us. There are always pressures in these sea billows which threaten to swallow us up. But the Master of the seas holds us in His mighty hands and so sea or waves will not swallow us. The fierce waves will only threaten to make us afraid and shake our faith. Our travel through these billows is a great challenge to our faith which we can take boldly as we cling on the author and finisher of our faith. We move forward according to His travel plan and pace. It is a joyride with Him and not a series of steps in hesitation and doubt.

Dear reader, are you aware of the ride you are taking with Jesus through the swallowing waterways of this world? The billows might threaten you and shake your standing. These waves will try to create fear and anxiety about the consequences of the rolling billows over you. But they will not swallow you because your Lord will not allow it. You are safe in His hands and carried on His shoulders. He will not allow you to sink in the deep waters because you are precious to Him. When the billows threaten to role over you, the Lord will give you the strength and courage to face it with a smile rather than fear and anxiety. He will give you joy in your heart and praise in your mouth even for the waves. If there are no waves, you will not learn how to face the challenge to travel through it. When waves beat on you, it is your privilege to demonstrate the Lord’s strength in your life to weather away its threats. The smaller waves are a training ground for you to learn how to expect and face even greater billows. As you make progress on the waterways of the Lord, the enemy of your soul will send greater waves to increase his threat to your faith. But when the pressure of the billows increase, there will be abundance of greater grace, peace and joy in your heart from the Lord. Joseph, David, Nehemiah and Paul experienced series of rough weather in their walk of faith, but the Lord equipped them to face it all and strengthened the muscles of their faith in Him. Today the Maker of the universe is walking in front of you to show you His footsteps on the sea billows to train your feet to walk through it all by faith.

Psalms 94:18 – When I said, “My foot is slipping,” Your love, O Lord, supported me.

Thought for Today

The Lord opens my eyes to see His footsteps on the waters of the seas of life to walk on it by faith.

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PILLAR OF GOODNESS!!

Pillar of Goodness!

Verse for Today: Sunday, March 11, 2012

Psalms 27:13 - I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

The greatest antidote to despair and despondency is to believe on the goodness of the Lord. When we look back to the years that we have trod with the Lord, there are enough and more reasons to put all our trust in the Lord. The miles we had walked with Him only leave us with adequate reasons to keep trusting on Him to lead us further. Sure enough, there were ups and downs in the past. We would have sailed on the billows of rough seas and traveled through dark valleys of life. There would have been experiences of fire, flood, wind and waves, along with times of threat from people who behaved like wild animals. It is likely that we had several experiences of uncertainties about livelihood, health, family and children, but the Lord led through it all with His goodness. These are the milestones for us to remember the faithfulness of God in our lives. When we passed through tempests and earthquakes in life, our Lord was with us to protect and preserve us. When the enemy fought us tooth and nail in the emotional and spiritual realms of life, our Lord kept us under His wings. When the heat of the desert was so high as to parch our throats with thirst, our Lord comforted us under His cool shadow and gave us the living water to quench our thirst. When we are under the juniper tree with all hope lost, He came to us with comfort and encouragement to keep going. When all seemed lost, our Lord was with us to reassure us that nothing good will ever be denied to us. He confirmed to us that if we had lost anything for Him, He will compensate it all with interest when we reach the Father’s House. So if despair knocks at the doors of your hearts today, answer the knocks with a long list of faithfulness of our Lord in the past and His innumerable promises for our future.

Dear reader, are you experiencing increasing hopelessness in your life? Are your circumstances such that the future looks bleak? This is a terror tactic that the enemy of our soul uses often to make us bewildered about our future and push us into despondency and loss of faith. But the Lord wants you to take a walk with Him in the memory lane of your life to see the milestones of His faithfulness to you. Start counting these milestones of blessings, deliverance and victories that He had blessed you with. It is time to once again praise Him for the past provisions that you enjoyed from Him. When you start praising Him for the past, the enemy will flee from you and you will once again be relieved of the fear that gripped you about your future. It is an undeniable fact that the Lord who has brought us so far will not forsake us on the way today. The enemy only tries to tear us down and frustrate us to despair and despondency. He will never build us up, but will only try to steal away our peace and trust in the Lord. So let us be confident in renewing our faith in the Lord who sustained us and brought us so far. He who is faithful to bring us so far will be powerful enough to take us forward to our eternal destination. So we can be confident in our Lord and renew our faith and allegiance to Him for all our present and future needs. If you are in the ashes of your burned up plans and desires, you are challenged to believe like Abraham in the Lord who can bring beauty from the ashes. He will continue to shower His goodness on us in the days to come and hold our hands to walk the miles of His faithfulness in the future.

Psalms 31:19 – How great is Your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear You, which You have wrought for those who take refuge in You.

Thought for Today

God’s goodness in the past is assurance enough that more goodness is on the way all the days of our lives.

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DISMANTLING HINDRANCES!!

Dismantling hindrances!

Verse for Today: Saturday, March 10, 2012

Hebrews 11:30 – By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.

Consistency in faith is the evidence that faith is strong and relentless. True faith doesn’t fall back with time. True faith gives us hope for the future as God’s promises are fulfilled in our lives. True faith is full trust in the power of God to perform the seemingly impossible things in our lives. True faith doesn’t withdraw after attempting to do something for the Lord because the task seems insurmountable. True faith can penetrate the toughest hindrance that comes our way. Human wisdom would have identified several smart ideas to defeat a strong city like Jericho with thickest possible walls. It would have meant toil, sweat, persistence in battle, bloodshed and loss of lives on the part of Israel. But true faith accomplished victory without the loss of a single drop of blood on their part. For the impatient and impulsive mind, seven days are too long to simply walk around a strong city wall without any battle. For those without faith, the seven days of walk would have been a sheer waste of time and energy. It would have meant granting the enemy seven days to prepare for battle against Israel. But little do they realize that the seven days of persistent victory march would have demoralized the enemy and increased their fear. The persistent faith of the people of God is a result of ardent trust in the words of the Lord in whose power and strength they started the circuit ride. Today we are challenged to possess such persistent faith in the power of the Lord to hunt down the greatest hindrance in our walk with Him. When God performs great victories for His children, He often makes us partners in the spoil. So when God accomplished victory against Jericho, He gave the people persistent faith to walk around and capture the city and thus become participants with God in this great miracle. Jesus made a little boy a partner with Him in feeding the five thousand. He wants us to take the step of faith and go forward as partners with Him in handling the hindrances. Doubt has no room in the realm of faith because God has already accomplished victory for us and it is only a matter of time for us to go forward and appropriate it.

Dear reader, are you wonder struck about the mammoth walls of hindrances that are in front of you? Is there any doubt creeping in your mind about how to circumvent these walls, mountains, seas, rivers and deserts? Caleb climbed Mount Hebron by faith in his old age. Noah escaped the perils of flood by faith through the building of an ark which took several years to complete. Abraham became the father of the multitude by waiting in faith for a quarter of a century. Joseph put his trust in God and kept himself in faith for thirteen years for his dreams to be fulfilled. It was the same challenge the people of Israel had when they had to capture Jericho. God had already fixed a time frame for them to capture the city of thick and strong walls. All they had to do was to put their wholehearted trust in God until His moment of truth was reached. Seven days and thirteen marches around the city would need a lot of persistence. But the enabling comes from the Lord to circle around the city on those seven days, trusting in His power by faith. He gives patience to keep marching without seeing any visible mark of progress except that the finishing line was fast approaching. He gave hope and filled their sanctified imagination with a preview of the fall of the city by faith. Today the Lord gives us hope to put all our faith in Him to accomplish great things in our lives. If we trust Him, we will receive the faith and hope to obey His commands to capture what He has promised and penetrate the thick walls of hindrance that we see in front of us. Let us commit ourselves to put our faith to action to govern all our activities, plans, priorities and desires for God to accomplish even the seemingly impossible things in life for His glory.

2 Corinthians 5:7 – For we walk by faith, not by sight.

Thought for Today

Faith leaves all hindrances to God to handle and wait for His finish line.

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