James 4:3 You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts.
John 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?"
Yeshua (Jesus) asked this man "Do you want to be made well?" Of course, he did! Wouldn't you? Why did Jesus ask a question like this when its answer was so clearly obvious? It seems the Lord wanted to hear him verbalize his need.
In the biography of George Mueller, a strong man of God who established orphanages throughout England in the 1800's and raised the kids up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, this amazing Saint relied upon God for every single need that he faced without making any financial appeals. He laid before the Lord every aspect of these orphanages. He prayed for the locations, the buildings, the furniture to fill them, the workers to run them, and everything else he could think of. When the first orphanage was ready, Mueller realized one major thing was lacking -- orphans!! He forgot to ask the Lord to provide the orphans!
Sometimes the obvious things just smack us in the face, don't they? On several occasions, I've found myself in this very position! Silly me -- I forgot to ask!
The Lord is asking us today, "Do you want to be made well?" Whether it be physical healing, spiritual, emotional or financial healing, no thing is too great or too small for our Lord! Perhaps we've just forgotten to ask Him!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]When the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians, he was speaking to a church that was surrounded with sexual immorality. The city of Corinth was a haven of hedonism where many temples hosted hundreds of prostitutes which were visited by vast multitudes of foreigners. In the ancient world, the term “Corinthianize” indicated a life of sexual promiscuity.
Judges 6 begins with an angel talking to Gideon saying, “thou mighty man of valor!” However, in this passage Gideon isn’t feeling very valiant — he’s consumed with his circumstances — how poor his family is and how he’s the least of his fathers’ house. He doesn’t feel he’s done anything worthy of being called valiant, yet the angel still addresses him “mighty man of valor!”
Every time I turn on the news it seems the new buzzword is – CHANGE! So how can we just shift gears and change? Let’s learn a lesson about basic automotive mechanics. Generally a car has between 4 and 5 gears. The first gear maximizes power in exchange for speed. As you move through the gears, you can continue to go faster, yet without using any more power, and before you know it – you have to look at the speedometer – cause nobody wants a speeding ticket!
This one of several theophanies found in the Old Testament of the “preincarnate” Yeshua (Jesus). In this story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. These three men refused to bow and worship another God besides the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. While they knew that God was able to deliver them, they also knew that He might choose not to do so–and whether He delivered them or not had no influence on their loyalty to Him. These three faithful Hebrews were convinced that idolatry was a non-starter for them, no matter what! Their unquestionable loyalty brought wrath upon their heads. Nebuchadnezzar’s violent rage moved him to increase the furnace fires seven times!
One thing I absolutely love about Israel is that fruit grows everywhere in abundance. Delicious citrus fruit, mango, pomegranate, grapes, cactus fruit, avocado — and much much more! It’s common to see people people pick and eat it as they walk by. And it doesn’t taste like your average western fruit either. It seems to be especially sweet. It must be because God has blessed the land it’s grown upon!
Sometimes it’s very difficult to rejoice in trials – especially when the trials affect ministry! Last week, one of our servers had a database server collapse, but after several days of work, the server is now back online. Although the damage was minimal, the time needed to spend researching the issue and then rebuilding the databases took days.
I’m not sure how much I enjoy the freezing weather here as we’re traveling across the United States, but I certainly can’t wait till Spring comes! On the Hebrew calendar Nisan is the month that transitions from winter to Spring.