He’s Coming

“…for I have provided me a king among his sons”  (I Samuel 16:1c).

These are days of immense significance to the Christian Church.  Any of us with discernment cannot but believe the truth of the Word of God, that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back soon to take His people home and thereafter establish His kingdom.  Yet how few of us relate our lives to this significant truth!

The church machinery is working overtime at a very severe strain trying to keep things going.  There is a great denominational cry for production.  Yet there is very little heavenly reality attached to the product.  The lasting quality of the goods is subnormal, and even borders on abnormal.

The Lord is still looking, as He did in David’s time, for a man after His own heart.  This ought to be the cry in prayer for the Lord’s work and Word to find such a man.  In these times, before the coming of the Lord, we should be bound to pray for a life that can stand the fiery trials and that can stand against the times.  It is through a Spirit-filled man that is the fastest way to evangelism.

Remember that the Lord is coming.  He said that the last days would be days of great trial and savagery.  The flesh is more prominent today than ever and yet we are told that “greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.”  Don’t stand down.  That’s cowardice!  Don’t stand aside.  That’s compromise!  Don’t stand against.  That’s contention!  Stand Up!  That’s conviction and courage!

Similar Posts

  • Get In Shape

     

    “So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days” (Nehemiah 6:15).

      The enemy doesn’t mind if you are spiritually active. He just doesn’t want you to be spiritually effective. One may be active in church, doctrinally pure, serving on the church board, teaching, etc…. but if one is not involved in the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life then that life is at a minimal. Minimal in church and minimal in the family.

         “What are the spiritual disciplines?” you ask. It is the reverence for God’s Word and the power of effective praying. We owe to Scripture the same reverence we owe to God. The Bible is revered but it is not read. There is low reading of the Bible by believers.

          “Sine qua non” is a Latin phrase which means “without which, nothing.” Without a good diet of Scripture and an exercise in the effectiveness of praying, you’ve got nothing. You and I cannot finish the Christian marathon without true prayer. We cannot even enter the race without the Word of

  • Influencers Who Refuse to be Influenced

    “You are here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage” (Matthew 5:13, The Message).

    You know that salt seasons and stings. When you go to the movie theatre and order a drink you have to get popcorn and you want it seasoned with salt and butter, lots of it. It just makes all things taste better. Then you chase it down with an extra-large Coke that you pay too much for that cost them pennies on the dollar.

    You also are aware that salt stings. If you step into the ocean water after a scratch or cut to your body, you realize quickly that you do not have to go far into the shallow water before you wince with pain. It burns and it truly stings.

    You and I are to thirst after God. We are to craft our lives in such a way that our thoughts, our habits, our actions and reactions make people who know us simply crave God. We are salt in a dying society.

    Even if others do not want our God, our lives will cause others to feel the sting inwardly of rejecting the One who loves them. If you live for the Lord Jesus you will encounter those who do not appreciate those who live and tell the truth. It is a stinging rebuke to their godless life, and inside, they wince in pain.

    We are called to be salt – and not sugar! – in our world. We are called to season and to sting. It is good to be in a big salt shaker known as sanctuaries, huddled in fear of a big, bad world. But salty people do not need seasoning! It’s the ones who are headed to Hell who need to know there is a God who lives in us. It’s the blind who need seeing! We are not to be the bland leading the bland.

  • The Up-and-Outer

    “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).

    Confession means to simply admit unfaithfulness to God through your sinful thoughts and actions; to totally agree with God’s point of view regarding your thoughts and actions as inexcusable; to humbly accept any consequences brought about by those thoughts and actions; to diligently act in renewed faithfulness toward your gracious, forgiving God.

    The Son of Man majors in sinners.  He doesn’t major in sin — He majors in sinners.  But then, everybody’s a sinner, right?  Then what kind of sinner does He focus on?

    Hungry ones.  Desperate ones.  And still today, Jesus gives His attention to sinners who desperately need Him to address their sin because of who they know He is.

    Could it be that many of us are just too righteous for Jesus?  You know…we’re too “okay” for Jesus.  We’re part of the crowd.  We have not broken loose to go climb the sycamore tree as Zacchaeus did.  We just haven’t realized, as of yet, that unless we’re galvanized into Jesus’ mission, we’ll miss Jesus.

    How hungry are you?  How bad do you want Him?  That’s what God wants to know from us.  Are you up in a tree looking for God?  Are you out of fellowship with God?  Then look no further for God is passing by and He is passing for you and me.

  • The Feast of Tabernacles

    “And on the third day eleven bullocks, two Rams, fourteen lambs of the first year without blemish” (Numbers 29:20).

    There is coming a day of remarkable position for the nation of Israel. The Feast of Tabernacles prophesy to the day when the Kingdom promises and the beautiful bountiful land of Israel will be fully restored and enlarged.

    All promises and prophecies of Scripture are fulfilled in Christ. God’s blood accomplished what the animal sacrifices could not. All sin is forgiven and God is able to move in and make a way.

    You and I cannot live without the intercession and ministry of our Great High Priest, the Lord Jesus. He represents us before the Father. He is our advocate, mediator, and intercessor. As the day approaches to the coming of the King we need to spend much time in His presence depending upon Him for His work in us and through us.

    The sacrifices given during the Feast of Tabernacles were expensive. The grace of God is given to us because of the great value and expense of God’s sacrifice of His only Son. We should be thankful and offer all we are and have up to Him.

    May we not give to the Lord that which costs us nothing (2 Samuel 24:24; Malachi 1:6-11). What great joy to know the Lord of lords and the God of glory is going to return to set up His Kingdom forever!

  • Prayer That Works

    “To him whom my soul loveth, who wakens me morning by morning and helps me rise with “wings as an eagle.”

    It takes prayer and it takes work to meet with God.  Prayer and Work seem to be an oxymoron.  What are they doing in the same sentence?  The two words together seem so contradictory, like jumbo shrimp, civil war — or child safe!  Prayer and Work seem to be opposite concepts.  Yet we have discovered that prayer that doesn’t work, doesn’t work!

    Think about it:  it takes work to step out of time to enter into eternity.  It takes work to learn the art of leaving things undone so that the greater thing can be done.  It takes work to miss a meal to take special time to pray.  One might even lose some sleep to learn that prayer is work.  Prayer that works is work, and those who work at prayer realize that prayer works.  That’s not just a play on words, it is the concept of what it means to pray.

    Prayer itself is a gracious gift of God.  He made it possible for us to walk right into his presence and talk to him as our Father.  Every child of God has the right and the privilege to come into His presence.  God is available and ready to meet with us at the drop of a hat.  But Satan has a way, for he desires to get into your devotional life, for he wants you to let go of your devoted life to God.  As the little couplet says, “The devil trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.”

    He will do anything to keep you from loving your Savior.  He wants you to stay in bed until the last moment and he wants you to rise not with the “wings of eagles” but with the “forlorn look of a tired soul.”  Find in Jesus your all in all.  Develop your fellowship with Him through your prayer conversation with your God and your Father.

  • A House of Prayer

    “And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold in it, and them that bought, saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but you have made it a den of thieves” (Luke 19:45-46).

     

    The place was filled to overcapacity. The service at Central Baptist Church in Moscow, Russia was anticipatory. The invitation was given, many stood to come forward, but because of tightness of quarters, they rose together and there from their seat or in the aisle received Christ, repenting of the sin of unbelief.

     

    Billy Graham had preached the Gospel in Moscow in 1984. Now Franklin, Billy’s son, shared the Gospel some thirty years later, a few weeks ago, 2015. The Russian churches who once under communist rule were closed and bulldozed to the ground but now are being rebuilt and reopened. The hearts of many in Russia are being prepared by God for God. Suppressed for nearly a century because of Satan’s doings someone is praying and God is opening doors. This is His work.

     

    We must pray for the nations of the world. God has set our churches in America and other places to pray. But we have become imploded with our own self importance and needs. God has commanded that Christians salt the earth (Matthew 5:13), and it has not been repealed. The local church was created by God, not man, to achieve His purpose in the world. God has entrusted His reputation to ordinary people.

     

    As we read the headlines may we pray for the nations. May we pray for God’s missionaries as they are ambassadors for Christ in foreign lands. And may we never forget that God has called us to meet at His throne of grace together beseeching Him in His purpose for His glory. He is waiting for us to come to Him and ask.