It’s one thing to trust God to provide for our present needs (Matthew 6:33). It’s another to presume upon Him by dictating (via a decision to incur debt) the terms of His future provision. By choosing to go into debt, we twist God’s arm to provide not only for our needs but also our wants.

Do we believe God knows best what our needs are? Debt spends money we don’t have. So isn’t our decision to go into debt proof that we believe we need more than God has given us? If we don’t have the resources to buy something, and if we feel such need for it that we’re borrowing to get it, aren’t we saying God has failed to meet our needs?

If God knows best, and if He knows what we need, then why hasn’t He provided sufficient funds? Is He encouraging us to pray for provision rather than take things into our own hands by borrowing? In this age where we seem unwilling to wait for anything, does God want us to learn what it means to “wait on the Lord” (Psalm 27:14; Isaiah 30:18)?

Before we go into debt, we should ask ourselves the following questions:
1. Is debt our way of getting around depending on God? (Why trust God to provide when we can get a loan?)

2. Is debt our means of short-circuiting the God-created means of acquisition—including work, saving, planning, self-discipline, patience, and waiting for divine provision?

3. What message are we sending to God when we go into debt rather than live on what He has provided? What are we really saying when we take out a loan? How does it reflect on our view of God? What are we saying about His sovereignty, goodness, wisdom, or timing?

4. What effect will be going into debt today have on our ability or willingness to tithe and give voluntary offerings tomorrow?

5. What effect will today’s decision to go into debt have on tomorrow’s freedom to follow God wherever He wants us to go?

6. By taking out a loan that commits us to make payments over a number of years, are we presuming upon God? (Certainly, if we will require more income to make the payments, we’re presuming on God. We may “know” that we’ll receive a promotion and pay raise in September, but God hasn’t guaranteed it. Plans change, companies go out of business, and employees fail to get “certain” promotions.)

7. Although our income today might be enough to make debt payments over the next twenty years, is it right to assume that we’ll continue to generate the same level of income? (Many people’s income increases over the years, but many others’ decreases. Many incur increased financial commitments beyond their control, such as health-related expenses or caring for an elderly relative. People get laid off. Has God promised that can’t happen to us?)

8. Are we mortgaging the future to pay for the whims of the present? Are we mortgaging God by supposing to commit Him to pay off something He may disapprove of?

9. Is debt our way of getting around depending on God? of circumventing prayer, patience, and waiting on God to provide?

10. If we “must” go into debt to provide for our “needs,” is it because our “needs” are really wants in disguise? Have we spent so much money on our wants that there’s not enough left for our needs? Have we robbed God and forfeited His financial blessing by failing to give Him the firstfruits?

11. Have we really exhausted all other avenues to avoid going into debt? Have we given up expensive activities, hobbies, and memberships, and liquidated valuable possessions? (Often, we think we have no choice but to go into debt, when in fact we’re making many unnecessary choices that drive us toward it.)

One of the strongest arguments for not going into debt is that we’re not God. We’re not sovereign, omniscient, or omnipotent. James 4:14 warns that we cannot know what will happen tomorrow. And if we don’t know and cannot control all that the future holds, how can we be sure that we can pay off new debts? We can be certain that God will provide for our basic material needs if we seek first His kingdom (Matthew 6:25-34), but where does the Bible promise that God will provide for all the debts we incur through our own greed, impatience, or presumption?

If we are seeking first His kingdom, will we put ourselves in bondage to debt?

© Copyright 2016 Eternal Perspective Ministries

The Holocaust has been described as the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and mass murder of European Jews and other groups carried out by Nazi Germany and its allies between 1933 and 1945. In fact the term Holocaust comes from a religious term referring to sacrifices totally burned on the altar and offered to God.

Many researchers and historians have spent lifetimes attempting to make sense of the Holocaust, and we believe the search for answers will continue to not only remember and honor the victims, but through trying to comprehend how a civilized and most educated culture could lose all sense of humanity.

The truth is Jews have suffered greatly throughout the ages and many others have also been victims of indescribable brutality. Winston Churchill described the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the Final Solution as probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world.

Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt points out two reasons why the German program of genocide remains in a class by itself as an example of evil:

It was the only time in recorded history that a state tried to destroy an entire people, regardless of an individual’s age, sex, location, profession, or belief. And it is the only instance in which the perpetrators conducted this genocide for no ostensible material, territorial, or political gain.

So what does the Jewish Holocaust teach us? In his book, When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons we must Learn from Nazi Germany, Dr. Erwin Lutzer warns that if we think there is nothing to learn from it the Holocaust or Nazi Germany, we should think again:

When truth is rejected in the public sphere, the state will either turn to some semblance of natural law or more ominously to lies. Secular values will be imposed on society, and it will be done in the name of “freedom and tolerance.

It has been said that that this is an age of tolerance–tolerance for everything except Christianity. The so called social planners who are reshaping Western society according to purely humanistic values agree with Hitler that God and religion must be removed from all spheres of life. Religion most notably Christianity must be ousted from government, law, education, and the workplace.

At this moment we can see from what is going on in most of our nations that politicians have turned away from God as the source of salvation, life and liberty. We are calling evil good and good evil, lawlessness, immorality and evil is encouraged in society, there is injustice, and the law has been perverted. As families, churches and other Christian organizations, we should be prepared to defend truth, justice and righteousness when our turn comes to stand.

Secondly, it matters to learn from it because the Jewish Holocaust happened to people like us, not just because the Jews are perfect people. Not at all, we are all fallen human beings who need the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ but the Lord promised Abraham that through him all nations and families of the earth would be blessed.

The whole world has enjoyed many blessings through the Jewish people. But the greatest blessing is the gift of salvation through God’s Son Jesus Christ. There will be other great blessings that are yet to be fulfilled when Jesus Christ will be King over the all the earth and of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. (Isaiah 9:7)

All nations of the earth will be blessed under the reign of Israel’s Jewish Messiah from Jerusalem. It is an undeniable fact that the destiny of every human being alive today and every nation on this earth is linked to the destiny of this tiny nation.

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (Genesis 12: 3-4 KJV)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer prophetically warns us:

Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah of the Israelite-Jewish people, and for that reason the line of our forefathers goes back beyond the appearance of Jesus Christ to the people of Israel. Western history is, by God’s will, indissolubly linked with the people of Israel, not only genetically but also in a genuine uninterrupted encounter. The Jew keeps open the question of Christ. He is the sign of the free mercy-choice and of repudiating wrath of God Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. (Romans 11:22) That is why an expulsion of the Jews from the West must necessarily bring with it the expulsion of Christ. For Jesus Christ was a Jew.

Thirdly, one of the most important lessons history teaches is never to dismiss anything as impossible. Perhaps the most terrible sin of all is not that those who murdered the Jews said what they planned to do, but that the world didn’t listen. Maybe we’ve got to learn to hear even the things we don’t want to hear.

In his book, The Oak and The Calf, Alexander Solzhenitsyn who sustained long years of imprisonment and exile in Russia wrote that:

I may say that my whole life has trained me to expect the worst much more often than not, I am always readier, more willing to believe, the worst. In the camp I took to heart the Russian proverb: “Don’t let good luck fool you or bad luck frighten you.” I have learned to live by this rule and I hope never to depart from it.

May be we should learn to live by that rule as well, and respond to evil before it is too late. 

Finally, the fourth lesson is that many people are saying that that the Holocaust never happened and there appears to be a return of anti-Semitism in Europe and other nations. The Jewish people once again are quickly becoming the scapegoats of humanity. Why the hatred, yet there is overwhelming evidence of what really happened? In a speech delivered in 1985, Richard Von Weizsaecker the President of Germany made this thought provoking statement:

The Jewish nation remembers and will always remember. We seek reconciliation. Precisely for this reason we must understand that there can be no reconciliation without remembrance. The experience of million fold death is part of the very being of every Jew in the world, not only because people cannot forget such atrocities, but also because remembrance is part of the Jewish faith.

According to the Holy Scriptures particularly the Torah remembrance is part of the Jewish faith. Over and over again, as the nation of Israel prepared to cross the river Jordan and enter the Promised Land, Moses solemnly charged them to remember. They were to remember where they came from and how God delivered them:

And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:15) There were to remember how they had come: And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. (Deut.8:2)

The Lord warned them that even in prosperity and success they were not to forget the Lord who brought them out of Egypt. But this lesson wasn’t learned, and this attitude of independence, pride and ingratitude was repeated.

You shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: (Deut. 7:18) Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. (Exodus 17:14)

The history of Israel proves that the sin of forgetfulness is a deadly sin, both to an individual and to nations. We should be deeply disturbed by how quickly many people have forgotten what happened. It’s even appalling and shocking that when you ask what people know about this dark period in human history, many are completely ignorant. George Orwell is quoted to have said that,

Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past.

Yet history that’s being ignored is very useful because it is the only way we can learn from the past which is gone but our future which is still a mystery. That is one of the lessons history teaches. Remembering the past always helps us to understand the present. And to make the most of the present, we’ve got to try to use the knowledge learned from the past to create a better future.

That is why the Bible speaks in the language of remembering. God kept on reminding the Jews to remember what happened. What their ancestors taught them so that they could teach it to their children and eventually to the whole world.

The Bible tells us “The human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17: 9) Here again, Dr.Erwin Lutzer reminds us that:

Evil held in check by God often erupts when the conditions are right. When the restraints are gone, when people are desperate, and when power is up for grabs, the human heart is laid bare for all to see. We are naive if we think Nazi Germany cannot happen again. In fact the Bible predicts that it will…

We should not believe that the anti-Semites of yesterday are completely different human beings to the ones of today. Something to think about!

The premise of my last Prophetic Bulletin on the five trends that would change the natural world in 2016 began unfolding faster and with more impact than I expected. I wrote that it would happen in the first quarter of this year, but I honestly did not expect it to begin on the first day as it did. My prayer now is that what I’ve been shown that will unfold in the Spirit will likewise come faster and with greater impact. What is coming in the Spirit is the antidote to the troubles of the world. It is far more exciting than anything the world has seen.

We all “see in part,” but these are the five most important trends I saw unfolding that we will begin to see emerging this year:

• A new reformation of the church will begin to take definition.
• Councils of leaders will begin to form with true apostolic authority.
• A kingdom economy will begin to form.
• A new generation of prophets and teachers will begin to emerge with unprecedented authority and influence
• So many Christians will rise up in Europe and North America with zeal and focus that it will be recognized as another Great Awakening, while the moves of God in the rest of the world will gain new traction.

A New Reformation of the Church Will Begin to Take Definition

I have been seeing and speaking on this for many years. Over time, I have seen more of what this will look like. One of the biggest changes with the greatest impact will be the body of Christ beginning to take on the military aspects we are called to have to become the army of the Lord we are called to be. I just published a book on this entitled, Army of the Dawn. One pastor just told me he thought this was my best book yet. That is a matter of perspective and also timeliness, but I know its message is on time. We will see the greatest force for the gospel since the Lord Himself walked the earth. Since this book has already received wide distribution, I will not say any more about this here.

The second aspect of this reformation I was shown is how the body of Christ will become the “city” it’s called to be. A change is coming to church life that will be more profound than we have yet seen. It will be based more on koinonia than ecclesia. This does not negate the need for ecclesia (the government and structure of the church), but according to I John 1:7, we abide in the light by having koinonia, not ecclesia. Koinonia determines if we are walking in the light because it is based on love first, not organization first. Again, this is not negating the need for organization and government, but it is a matter of getting the horse in front of the cart and building on the right foundation. The result will be spectacular.

The fellowship and union coming to the body of Christ will cause the church to be the “city set on a hill” that gets everyone’s attention. It will be the greatest society the world has seen since the first century, eclipsing even what was experienced then. “The glory of the latter house will be greater than the former” (see Haggai 2:9), causing the church to become the light it is called to be in the dark and confusing times the world is sliding into. This fellowship will become so wonderful that Christians will want to meet every day. Christian communities will begin forming again, having their own infrastructure, and ultimately, their own economy.

Of course we won’t see this happen in a year, but we will see the beginning of it. Ultimately no sporting event, entertainment, or other event will compare with the life and excitement found in the church.

Councils of Leaders Will Begin to Form with True Apostolic Authority

I was first shown in 1987 that this was coming. I think this has happened to a degree in some places, but not on the level that I saw. This year we will begin to see the real thing, but in its formative stage. Ultimately these councils will help release extraordinary authority and life in the church. They will moor the church to its right biblical foundation, giving it the stability that some of the greatest missions and ministries will be built upon.

This year we will see increasing grace on leadership meetings, especially those that cross denominational and movement boundaries, beginning to bring the necessary interchange and cross pollination in the church.

A Kingdom Economy Will Begin to Form

Ultimately the body of Christ will have its own economy that will grow with consistency and strength. Because of this, no Christian will need to be concerned about the mark of the beast. However, this is not just about having an alternative to the beast—it is laying a foundation for the economy of the coming kingdom of God, one built on the greatest economic principle: “Love never fails” (see I Corinthians 13:8).

As world markets continue to shake, plunge, and collapse, the kingdom economy cannot go down because “there will be no end to the increase of His kingdom” (see Isaiah 9:7). Whatever is truly built on the kingdom has to increase. For those looking for a safe place to put investments, it won’t get any safer or better than this emerging kingdom economy. For those saying, “Where is it?”, you can’t see it if you do not see the kingdom. If we can see His kingdom, we will see its economy as it emerges.

We must be born again to see the kingdom, but not everyone who is born again sees the kingdom. To see the kingdom we must use the key to the kingdom. That key is Matthew 6:33: “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

A New Generation of Prophets and Teachers Will Begin to Emerge with Worldwide Authority and Influence

The Holy Spirit is moving. One characteristic of every true move of the Spirit is a growing love of the truth and an increasing love for the Scriptures (the Holy Spirit’s bestselling book). At the same time, many called as teachers to the body that have devoured the Word of God and accumulated knowledge and understanding on a host of topics will be used to build the church, preparing it for what it is called to be in these times. The Lord really has saved His best wine for last. The quality of what He will serve His people will eclipse anything ever experienced before.

Knowledge has greatly increased in the natural. What is about to be released in the Spirit will mirror this. For those who love knowledge, truth, wisdom, and understanding, there has never been a better time to be alive. This increasing love for the Scriptures will be contagious, helping to feed and strengthen every move of God now unfolding.

Prophetic revelation will also eclipse anything God’s people have experienced before. As we are told in Acts 2:17-18, “in the last days” the Lord will pour forth His Spirit, resulting in “dreams, visions, and prophecy” upon the old and young, men and women. We will begin to see a new wave of the prophetic released. This happens “in the last days” because in these times, we will need this kind of specific direction and guidance. At times it may be life or death to hear Him say to us not to go somewhere, or to go where we are not intending. We will all need this kind of sensitivity to the Spirit in the times to come, and we will get it.

I saw the emerging prophetic ministers as mountain climbers. They would go up a little bit and secure their new position with stakes driven deep into the rock, fastening themselves to the mountain and to each other. Then they would go a little higher and do the same again. This time will not be like having a lot of individuals scattered all over the mountain climbing virtually alone. The emerging prophets will be secured to each other and to the mountain of the house of the Lord.

So Many Christians Will Rise Up with Zeal and Focus that it Will be Recognized as Another Great Awakening

The plagues that came upon Egypt parallel the ones in the Book of Revelation. This is because the plagues at the end of this age have the same purpose as the ones that came upon Egypt—to set God’s people free. For the last few years, some have awakened and begun to seek the kingdom first above anything else. These will be powerful messengers who will help wake up the rest of the body of Christ.

An awakened, encouraged church is also the most powerful evangelistic force there has ever been. As this Awakening continues to unfold, there will be many new believers. We are entering the first stages of the great harvest that is the end of this age. This will be the greatest ingathering there has ever been. It will change the spiritual and moral fabric of nations, profoundly changing the church throughout the earth. The church is then going to help change the earth and prepare the way for the coming King.

© Copyright 2016 MorningStar Ministries Prophetic Bulletin

I’m spiritually stuck. We are stuck people. We get distracted, pulled down, undone. God feels distant and irrelevant. Dane Ortlund says, “You are not abnormal. So relax. We all go through this from time to time.”

Seasons of spiritual darkness are common — even when many pretend it’s an anomaly. Even when indifference pirates our most pious intentions, and we surrender ourselves to isolation in our lack of holy zeal, don’t be deceived: Gloom in the Christian’s heart is common. It does often look and feel different for different people:

• Your daily fear of future tragedy erodes your affection for God.
• Your experience in corporate worship is empty and distracted.
• You feel unimpressed, aloof to the things of God.
• Patterns of repentance crumble and fade.
• The preached word seems boring.
• Hymns prompt only an irregular cadence of exhausted sighs.
• Spiritual advice trips over its own triteness on its way to cynical ears.
• Christian blogs induce more guilt than help.

Day after day, sermon after sermon, small group after small group, we’re discouraged and frightened by a widening gap between the desired self and the real self. We feel the torque pulling between our desired relationship with God — the desired emotions, the desired disciplines, the desired relationships — and the real.

It feels like the solution should be simple — another round of repentance, a worship song, a Paul Tripp devotion. Something. Anything. But those things either don’t feel effective or mysteriously elude us.

Here are six places to start — intentions to experiment with — when you feel spiritually stuck and alone. “Intentions” are things that we easily lose. They are good, but they can be slippery. You should find yourself in one, or a few, of these intentions. They’re not all right for you. But you should discover which one might be most relevant to you now. Read through them, and search for words for your heart. Read them in sequence, and look for the helpful nutrients you need.

1. Be honest about your heart.

We read, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog” (Psalm 40:1–2). Well, then. What a wonderful experience for David. #Blessed. But not all of us have yet been pulled from the bog.

Let’s be honest about what we feel toward God — our tangled thoughts, our slogging feet, our raw experiences, our dulling passions, our disappointed expectations. Anyone who gives you a single answer for all of humanity — to fix every single sorrow — is a fool. That’s what makes us wanderers. You can’t podcast away sin’s tedious yoke. What, then, does it look like for us to encounter Christ when we cannot yet praise God for pulling us out of our emotional marshland? It begins with honesty.

Ask yourself, “If I had absolutely nothing to lose, what would I say to God?” Or, even further, “If I had total domain over my personal spiritual life, what would I want it to look like?” More than that, “How do I feel about how that compares to my real spiritual walk?” Keep digging. Honesty is difficult, because sometimes it’s buried beneath our own spiritual pretensions. Find the honest in you — sift through your own heart like you’re sifting for gold.

2. Complain out loud to God.

Now, speak your honesty. We need the blessing of God’s fatherly ear toward us, inviting us to speak what we might not say out loud in church:
“I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with weeping.” (Psalm 6:6)
“I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.” (Psalm 69:3)
“I am weary, O God; I am weary, O God, and worn out.” (Proverbs 30:1)

Maybe perseverance in praying out loud — or starting to pray embarrassing feelings out loud to learn that God has no pretense — will be your means of blessing and freedom.

If you’re angry at God, say it with David. “Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice.” David has replaced his meal-time prayers with complaining to God, and he doesn’t apologize for it. He says, “I’m talking to you three times a day, and I know you can hear me.”

3. Complain out loud to others.

If you want to double down with a high-risk spiritual investment portfolio, say these honest things out loud with other people. “Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high” (Psalm 7:7). Revival may be found in community. This isn’t meant to justify whining. Don’t whine. Complain until you expect, again. Complain until you find yourself bringing your spiritual dryness to God: “Over it return on high.” “Return.”

Complain to others, “Is my complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient? Look at me and be appalled, and lay your hand over your mouth” (Job 21:4–5). Job is saying, “I don’t care if this scandalizes your pristine, glass-encased view of prayer. He can’t use traffic as an excuse for his absence — he is all places at all times with all knowledge and all power — so I’m asking him to show up right now and get me out of this rut.” He just might.

4. Get out of your own head.

More knowledge may not be the solution to your problem. In an age of career-design, lifestyle-engineering, and life-hacking, that may seem ridiculous to you. But if you’ve tried everything, consider this thought: It’s possible you may not even need to repent of anything in order to “fix” your feelings. You might just need to get out of your head.

To a certain extent, your current spiritual emotions may be the circumstances that you’ve been given — the cards you’ve been dealt — and faithfulness does not look like scrubbing your soul of any indicators of unrest or grief, but of letting those indicators help to lead you into being more comfortable in your own skin, and as an extension, a deeper, more real relationship with the God who made you and gave you this story.

The uncontrollable spinning of thinking about God and the Bible can distance you from yourself, from people, and from God (attention: seminary students). If you don’t know that you can think too much about theology, you’ll just feel guilty for not being able to think your way out of a problem that is caused by overthinking to begin with.

Turn off your phone, go to the nearest open field, kick off your shoes, and lay in the grass. Do it right now. “Your righteousness is like the mountains” (Psalm 36:6). I have an inkling that this prayer has roots in a completely non-intellectual, nature-enjoying, social-media-absent experience in David’s life — looking at mountains, perhaps. Lay back in the grass and, gazing at the sky, allow your mind to wander there. “Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down” (Psalm 144:5). And maybe you will find enough rest in that moment to sink down a few verses: “Stretch out your hand from on high; rescue me and deliver me from many waters” (Psalm 144:7). And maybe he will.

Let the entire industry of trivializing Jesus Christ through list-formulations dissolve out of your mind. Let the expectations of virtual communities be silenced. The distant vision of an infinite, glorious, compassionate, and satisfying God — increasingly a pipedream — it is real, and it is available to you today.

5. Get back in your head.

God also heals us through remembering. The entire book of Deuteronomy is about how Israel needs to remember God if they are going to find satisfaction for their souls and be fruitful with what God has given them. Remind yourself that nothing you’re experiencing is surprising or disappointing to God. The best, most faithful, happiest Christians in the universe have experienced spiritual darkness, and it doesn’t necessarily say anything about you.

God intimately cares about and knows:

• your every deliberate sin (Psalm 32:5)
• your every stubborn turning away (Psalm 139:2–4)
• your every desperate moment (1 Samuel 2:8)
• your every unmet hope (Proverbs 13:12; Psalm 34:18)
• your every cynical thought toward him (Genesis 6:5)
• your every crippling fear (Psalm 56:3; Psalm 77:16)
• your every lonely moment (Psalm 25:16; Psalm 102:7)
• your every overwhelming crisis (Isaiah 43:2)
• your every despair (Psalm 69:14–15)
• your every feeling of rejection (Psalm 147:3)

He knows everything about us. And he still sustained us today. He still gave us breath. He still woke us up. He still gave us what we need to live a full, 24-hour day. For some purpose, in his knowledge that is greater than ours, and in his care and provision and compassion that is more imaginative and sufficient than we could conceive, he has not allowed the atoms that hold us together to dissolve. That would be terrifying, knowing we live our lives teetering on the cliff of non-existence at the whim of a more powerful, all-righteous being, except that he tells us why he gives us another day, another breath, another reason for hope:

He loves us.

6. Practice receiving the love of God.

This is the most important thing you can do. Without this, all the other spiritual exercises you could possibly integrate into your personal life will quickly disintegrate. So let’s have at it.

God loves you so much. He loves you. He loves you. He is with you in the dim and the dark. He sings songs about you.

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

It’s so easy to trust our reflex — that God is big, and therefore removed, distant, and has better things to do than care about our daily anxieties. Sure, he “cares” about us. But he cares about everyone. So, his generic providence can feel like a cheap consolation prize to forgetful people — a happy meal toy that punishes us when we do bad and pats us on the head when we do right.

The beauty of God’s love is that it survives spiritual dry times. Don’t let the lie sink into your mind that spiritual dryness indicates that God has gotten over you, or that he’s tired of working with you. Far from it.

Think of a moment in your life when you were brought to tears — when you were overwhelmed by your body’s desire to cry, because you felt so deeply. God feels that about you. The Bible tells us that “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence” (Hebrews 5:7). Jesus, who is God’s perfect expression of his attitude toward you, cries over you. He doesn’t just love in action. He loves in emotion. God is upset by you — in a good way. It can’t be overstated: He loves you.

We live in a frightening world. Life threatens us with loss, with decay, with slow suffering, with aging, with slipping into a place we don’t want to be. God is beyond and above romantic love; he doesn’t have it — romantic love merely depicts the commitment and intensity of God’s love. “God is in love with you” isn’t saying too much, but not enough — God is in love with you. God is utterly devoted to you. He’s fascinated with you like a father with his daughter. He’s brought to tears by his love for you. If something tangles you up and distracts you from that, cut it loose.

Start there, end there. You don’t need more good news than this, whether it’s the first day you belong to Christ or the fiftieth year you walk with him: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

© Copyright 2016 Desiring God

America has entered into some time machine and is playing with technologies and multi-dimensional realities that it does not understand. It’s as if we have activated live streaming from the fourth dimension, which has brought back the ghosts of the past into our present reality.

The fleeting images of Nazi Germany keep entering a kind of collective consciousness in the American soul with major motion pictures like Star Wars, with what look like Nazi storm troopers in white body armor gathering at a massive Hitler rally with a giant symbol that looks like a Swastika.

Countless other movies and television shows churn out a 24/7 cycle of cop shows, surveillance shows, military and “special ops” and spy movies, so that all you see is a stroboscopic bombardment of images of guns, surveillance technology, large black Suburban SUV’s with dark tinted windows, terrorists, militarized police, bomb plots, and suitcase nukes.

The Hunger Games movies, including the latest, Mockingjay, whose title is a subliminal wink to the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird, which involves planting information, themes, and messages into films, entertainment, music, and television, shows Nazi motifs very similar to the latest Star Wars movie.

What we have is the militarization of American consciousness and the revving up of a “will to power” to confront ISIS and the hordes of Hell getting ready for their orgy of slaughter, death, and destruction across Europe and America. In the book Mass Awakening I outline the dynamics of both evil and good mass awakenings.

Storm clouds from Hell are blowing over the soil of the America first planted by Native Americans, Pilgrims, and Puritans and then toiled upon by slaves from Africa brought here by “Christian” plantation owners. Digital American generations blinded to reality by their social media, cell phones, and iPods cannot see what the Indians, Pilgrims, and slaves knew: what you say, think, and do matters.

Deceived by their unseen puppet masters they think that they are they are gods of their own universe and the center of the world. When multiple nukes go off on this precious American soil and human bodies light up like the Christmas trees they have censored from the public square, they are going to have what they call in the American secular corporate world a “come to Jesus meeting.”

2016 will be the most pivotal year in the history of America. In 2016 America will either experience some form of Great Awakening or America as we know it will die. We are one mass terrorist event away from a police state. The seismic pressures upon America are about to erupt with volcanic force, and as they do America as a free nation will be plunged into chaos and totalitarianism.

The seductive, magnetic power of this Nazi nightmare pulls upon each of us, and if we yield to it we will enter destruction.

Is our destiny to be inevitably pulled into the chaos with no way out or do we have some degree of choice? The newly released movie, The Force Awakens, sends out a duality of messages. George Lucas, the film’s creator, was clearly depicting a mystical force with its roots in Hinduism, Shamanism, Taoism, and witchcraft. The “Force,” according to Lucas, is neither good nor bad; it is a duality. It is the Yin and the Yang in Taoism. While acknowledging the intent of Lucas, it is possible to lift the words and change the narrative of the film.

This is not a blending or synthesis of New Age and Biblical thought. It is simply a technique of communication, borrowing a term from popular culture or “jacking” the narrative. Just as when in corporate culture they talk about a “come to Jesus” meeting, it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ; it is simply using revivalist language to communicate.

Thus, the term “the force awakens,” although intended to be mystical, can be used to illustrate the spiritual concept of a Biblical revival or “Great Awakening.” There is a power that can be accessed that is more powerful than nuclear weapons, terrorists, the schemes of the banking cartels, shadow governments, social engineering, and the seduction of totalitarianism. What power is this?

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