Category: resurrection power

Praying From a Dark Pit

“I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
    and he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
    out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
    and steadied me as I walked along.”

3″He has given me a new song to sing,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
    They will put their trust in the Lord.”

Psalms 40:1-3, NLT

Psalm 40 is jam packed with great and wonderful truth. It contains freedom for the Christian– a way out for the broken believer. We do well when we use it, and that’s what it’s there for. The deep pit has been used over many centuries as the way God teaches us to sing certain songs. But that doesn’t make it easier, does it?

Verse 1

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry.

Waiting is a critical word, it should not be regarded as perfunctory or a trivial word. In our daily walk we must be patiently seeking the Lord, that comes first. Admitting you need help is the first step. And guess what? You need help. :-)

The word ‘wait’ is special, it’s kawvah in Hebrew. It can mean ‘to bind together by twisting.‘ It can be used with the idea of braiding strands of rope together. It is never a passive act that just happens. Waiting on God is to be done with intentional purpose.

Remember that the Lord is not some distant deity on a hill far away.

He is closer to you than you think. He is responsive and aware. He hears your cries and wants to act; He is not deaf, but our patience is critical. Waiting on Him is crucial to being free. We must bind and twist our hearts and live our life to His desires.

Verse 2

He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.

The seeable terrain can be awful. There are muddy paths and mucky pits. Things that pull you down and suck you in. They’ll trap the traveler. But the Holy Spirit is quite able to lift us out. He picks us up and secures us. He uses the rope of God’s Word.

He is way more willing to save us, than we are to being saved.

Solid ground is where we are meant to be. It’s become a place of firm standing and secure footing. He makes us steady and He keeps us safe. The Holy Spirit now has intimate care over your soul.

Verse 3-4

“He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God.

“Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord.“

Some of the greatest songs are the ones that come from those just delivered from the pit. These ‘pit songs’ are offered to God from sincere and true hearts that have once been trapped. There’s something solid heard from the hearts of those redeemed from disaster.

These songs no longer sound religious or contrived.

“YOU CAN SEE GOD FROM ANYWHERE IF YOUR MIND IS SET TO LOVE AND OBEY HIM.”

A.W. Tozer

From our deepest pits come our greatest praises.

There is a passionate quality that saturates these ‘pit praises’ that is highly treasured by God, and esteemed and valued by the Church– a sense of authenticity starts to be finally heard. We can finally start to see that our pits become ‘launching pads’ of true songs of deliverance.

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Our Heavy Weight

“The bridge of grace will bear your weight, brother. Thousands of big sinners have gone across that bridge, yea, tens of thousands have gone over it. Some have been the chief of sinners and some have come at the very last of their days but the arch has never yielded beneath their weight. I will go with them trusting to the same support. It will bear me over as it has for them.”

CH Spurgeon

Quite often many of us deal with guilt and condemnation. We live in sinful bodies, and it seems that we actually cherish things that God has told us are wrong, and not part of an authentic Christian walk.

We’ve got an enemy that condemns and accuses. Our sin can be compared to “hooks” that Satan can latch on and pull us toward dark things. I personally don’t believe that a Christian can be demon-possessed. The Holy Spirit resides in the believer–He protects us with His presence.

The believer can be oppressed but never possessed.

Life can be very challenging when we choose sin over holiness. Often we really don’t have a fear of God. A healthy believer knows that he or she will stand and give an account of the way we live. Rewards will be given, and judgment will be passed on all that we’ve done.

When God saves a person He really does save a person.

We need not feel condemnation or guilt, Jesus was punished for our sin. His poured out blood is sufficient for everyone. He died so we won’t. He was risen to give us power over all of these nasty dark things. He becomes the bridge that holds our weight.

Be encouraged saint, as His holiness is given to each of us. We must choose it.

Jesus Is Pretty Big

Jesus is pretty big. Among a few other things He created the genome, our minds, the human body, the realms of quantum mechanics and the cosmos, the plant and animal kingdoms, the earth and its ecosystems and matter in its myriad forms. Perchance you’re tempted to think you have His mind you may want to review that list.

Jesus is bigger than the US federal government, all the combined national governments, the weather, the magnetic orientation of the earth, our expanding universe, New York abortion laws, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, pornography, international boundaries, cancer, gender confusion, genocide, and evil.

And He still reaches out for the weak and needy. His hands were ‘pierced’ for you.

I hope my point is self evident.

Your brother,

Les

The Breath of Jesus

breath
artist unknown, but greatly appreciated

“When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

John 20:20-22, ESV

Here we have an eye-witness account of the most amazing event in all of human history!  The risen Jesus, who definitely is not dead flesh, appears in a locked room that the stunned disciples hid out in.  He is now flesh and blood, as real as you or me.  The disciples are pretty much freaked out by all of this.  Fearful mutterings can be heard, “What is this… who is this…who unlocked the door?”

The risen Lord walks in with 22 eyes fixed on him.  He is confident,  and walks with resurrection authority.  He holds out his hands–they see for themselves the wounds the nails made.  He lifts his robe, and they kneel down to see for themselves the holes.  In spite of His brutal wounds, He shows He indeed is the Lord Jesus Christ, the living Savior of the world!

The disciples are ecstatic!  They are spontaneously laughing and crying and leaping around the room.  It’s like they just won the World Series, (but without the champagne!)  Pure joy pulsates through them.  He is very much alive! (Hey, isn’t that Andrew, doing a backflip?)

It’s in this ‘gonzo-intense’ moment, Jesus speaks–and they become very quiet.  He proceeds to impart peace into their hearts and minds with a simple command, “Peace be with you” verse 21.  Peace is a vital ingredient in the humble heart of every faithful disciple.

He then directs them to complete the work that the Father gave him to do.  He now extends the torch of evangelistic work to them. Seeing the resurrection up close like this will drastically alter your life’s trajectory. (They’ll be further fortified by the coming of Holy Spirit at Pentecost described in Acts 2:1-4.)

It’s now the time for the excited emotion of the moment to put on ‘work gloves.’

In this Jesus had does something unprecedented, He leans over each disciple and exhales on them. Now this is more than just a really weird ritual.  You see, His breath is saturated with resurrection life, and they inspire into their lungs the life of a risen man!  They now carry his ‘life essence,’ and in the light of Jesus’ previous statements to them are any indication, they will need it.

When God created Adam, he gave him his breath (Genesis 2:7).  Life is more than existence; it is the energy to “live.” When you really experience the resurrected Jesus, you will need more than good and noble ideas.  You’ll need Him, and you will need to rely on his breath to lead you to wherever you’re sent.

Jesus breathes on all His witnesses–those who have been picked to follow.  His breath fills our lungs, his oxygen enters our blood stream, where it now powers us on a biochemical level.  You can never, ever be the same again.  Never, even if you tried.

“If anyone belongs to Christ, there is a new creation. The old things have gone; everything is made new!”

2 Corinthians 5:17

 

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