Meditation

Ephesians 4:7—Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of the Messiah’s gift.

Ephesians gives us a powerful apologetic for the true meaning and application of grace.  Too often we hear preached today the message “God loves you and all you have to do is tell Him you are sorry for your sins, place your faith in His Son, Jesus and you will be saved.”  This incomplete statement pales in weight to the message that follows—“Don’t worry about your sin, God has taken care of it.  You just do the best you can.  God wants to bless you.  You don’t need to suffer anymore.  Just claim your blessing and live your dreams.”   Both messages are well-received and both carry with them an implied assurance that so long as we believe in Jesus we can live our lives in pursuit of whatever pleases us.  But watch the progression of truth about grace the Apostle Paul teaches the Ephesians and see if it differs profoundly from what we often hear taught today.

2:8—“For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift.” To properly understand grace we must understand faith.  Nowhere in the gospels (with the obvious exception of the thief on the cross) is it implied that saving faith constitutes a one-time statement of trust in Jesus.  Faith is an ongoing process whose authenticity is established by our willingness to believe in Jesus as our Savior and Lord. A single declaration followed by a lifetime of ignoring Him is an impotent Savior-formula and does not demonstrate faith or lordship.  That this is so is demonstrated by His words to those who on their own terms considered themselves His followers—“Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!” (Mat. 7:23)  Grace is God’s gift applied to sincere (persevering) faith.  Never presume God will give grace to one who initially trusts Him only to go on to a life of willful disobedience and wanton disregard for His authority.

3:8—“This grace was given to me—the least of all the saints—to proclaim to the Gentiles the incalculable riches of the Messiah.”  Paul understood God’s grace was extended to him and that he had a life-long obligation to share His grace with the Gentiles.

4:1—“I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received . . .”  Notice that no one walks with one step.  Walking is evidenced by continuous directional progress.  The point of grace is a life walked in worthiness to God’s extended calling.

4:17-19—“Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thoughts . . .” Paul makes it clear that to be a follower of Christ, we must not live impure, immoral lives.  Grace never excuses or sanctions sin.  Grace insists that we walk in a manner that is God-honoring.    This does not mean that we will never sin.  It means that we will not consciously justify sin and continue to err in defiance of God’s commands.

4:22-24—“you took off your former way of life, the old man that is corrupted by deceitful desires; you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; you put on the new man, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.”  To put on the new man, is to identify and live like Jesus, the New Man.  One receives grace from sin to put off sin.  One receives grace to walk as Jesus walked.

6:24—“Grace be with all who have undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The evidence of grace at work in a person’s life is “undying love” for Jesus.  Notice the whole purpose and point of a person clothed in grace is to love and obey the object of love—Jesus Christ!

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church . . . Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner . . . Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.[1]

If you hear taught from any platform, that you can sin without worry because grace is without limit; that you can live as you please, because grace covers your life; that you should never suffer as a child of God, RUN or stand up and rebuke the false teacher!  This is not the message that Jesus taught His disciples to teach the world.  This is the heretical teaching of those who have made a mockery of the spilt blood of Christ to justify the application of their will for their pleasure under the guise of heavenly blessing.

True grace is costly.  We embrace faith and we renounce identification with the world and our right to live as we please so as to identify with Christ and obey Him!  This grace does not justify sin, it justifies the sinner.  “The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ.”[2]

[2] Ibid

©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals send your name and email address to: dan@firstcause.org and ask to be placed on the distribution list.  You can also sign up at our website at Reveration Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth. (Holman CSB)

We may debate the ethical merits of Bonhoeffer’s participation in the unsuccessful plot to assassinate Hitler.  He paid for his resistance at the hands of the Gestapo who executed him by hanging just 23 days before the Nazis surrendered.[1] The world lost a brilliant theologian but it also watched a man whose courage inspired countless Christians.  His willingness to stand against strong opinions began early in life.  Against the advice and desires of his parents, Bonhoeffer decided as a teenager to become a pastor.  His older brother told him not waste his life in “such a poor, feeble, boring, petty bourgeois institution as the church.”  Fourteen year-old Dietrich replied, “If what you say is true, I shall reform it.”

Dismayed by how liberal theology degraded Scripture and the church, Bonhoeffer defended the veracity of God’s Word. Learning from his experience worshiping in the United States and drawing from his Sunday school teaching in the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, NY, he boldly taught the need to integrate the church.  Perhaps his greatest contribution to Christendom came from his well known book, The Cost of Discipleship.  In this study of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich provided a powerful warning against cheap grace.  This book is a must read for every Christian serious about his or her walk with God.

Meditation

Ephesians 3:20—Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think—according to the power that works in you—to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer exceeded pain, bested adversity, and inspired his countrymen because the power he drew from God bettered that of his fascist nation.  What we do or don’t do in life is defined by our source of strength.  The Greek word for power in Eph. 3:20 is dunamis.   Preachers often associate this word with dynamite.  While dunamis certainly can be defined by explosive strength or the physical exertion of force, there is an oft-overlooked primary definition of dunamis.  This power is “inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature . . . moral power and excellence of soul.[2] God’s power is not just His capability to zap us into vapor, it is His supreme character.  In the presence of His holiness we fall to our knees undone.  Did you know that by holding fast to virtue you radiate power?  The reason God asks us to be holy as He is holy is He knows that in doing so we will be powerful!

Inspiration

The most powerful people on earth are those who have been with Jesus. (cf. Acts 4:13).—Jack Deere in Surprised By The Power Of The Spirit

©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals send your name and email address to: dan@firstcause.org and ask to be placed on the distribution list.  You can also sign up at our website at Reveration Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth. (Holman CSB)

[2] http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=1411

B.J. wanted one of us to stay with her so Normi spent the night in her room while her other daughter Vicki and I took turns the next day.  Already, Dad had spent a night with his sister and my sister, Barbie, had come and gone from Oregon to give her assistance.

Meditation

Colossians 3:15—And let the peace of the Messiah, to which you were also called in one body, control your hearts.  Be thankful.

Saturday, B.J. felt and looked much stronger.  Towards late afternoon as I held her left hand (in the process of adjusting her pillow), she immediately began praying.  She mentioned to God that while unsure why He wanted her to go through what she was suffering she was nevertheless thankful to Him for His help and desired to be a testimony to others.  Then she proceeded to pray at length for me!

Lying in a hospital bed is anything but a pleasant experience.  It was hard for B.J. to sleep because nurses or doctors almost hourly entered her room to run tests, check vitals, treat her body or adjust her environment.  Craving food, fighting pain, low on rest and high on worry are not conditions that build tranquility.  Yet, B.J. steadily maintained a thankful demeanor.  She filled her anxious cup with faith and found serenity. One of her nurses commented, “If every one of my patients were like you, I would do this job for free!”

When tubes run in your nose and arms and noise is unabated; when your blood pressure rises as your body throbs in pain; when life seems more like death and lungs are lined with fluids; when why is missing reason and when cannot be measured; can you be thankful?  What’s your outlook when the prognosis is stormy?  If you can pray for others when your need is greatest, you have the peace of the Messiah and He has control of your heart!  Something to think about . . . in reveration!

Inspiration

My mind and heart are at peace; Jesus Christ is my all sufficient savior.—COL Joshua Chamberlain before his Brigade’s Civil War fight at the battle on Little Round Top

©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals send your name and email address to: dan@firstcause.org and ask to be placed on the distribution list.  You can also sign up at our website at Reveration Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth. (Holman CSB)

Meditation

Luke 10:15—And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven?  No, you will go down to Hades!

“Jesus spent more time in ministry in Capernaum than anywhere else in Galilee.  Yet, in their arrogance, the people of this city rejected Jesus and, as a result of their unbelief, would be sent to Hades”[1] that site of death and punishment past the tomb.  How remarkable that the perfect Minister suffered such imperfect results.  How disturbing that the One with astounding miraculous powers would find among His countrymen skeptical hearts.  How sick that the seeing were blind and the hearers were deaf to the Deliverer of grace and His message of life.  The Messiah must have shaken His head in disbelief at their rigid hearts.  Yet there are many lessons to glean from the Master’s warning to the unrepentant.

Jesus did not optimistically proclaim hope for the town He understood so well.  He knew their hearts.  Beware of preachers who have nothing but good to say to everyone.  They are not following Christ, they are pursuing popularity.  To proclaim goodness to those who refuse grace and blessing to those who prefer sin is like giving doughnuts to a diabetic.  If a man will not stomach Jesus, don’t feed him platitudes, warn him of dire consequences.

Jesus did not hesitate to pronounce doom.  He would be followed by His disciples who would be further armed with the great news of His resurrection.  It wouldn’t matter.  Capernaum, Chorazin and Bethsaida were towns who in rejecting them rejected the Son of God and in rejecting Him, rejected His Father who sent Him (vs 13-16).

Jesus significantly invested in that seaside town in Naphtali with anemic results.  We ought not to be so discouraged when fruit does not follow our sweat, tears and love.  When Jesus said “How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it” (Mat. 7:14), He meant what He said.  Stop pouring water in a cup the Lord reveals to be cracked.  Does this mean we leave Capernaum?  Ask God.  Do what He says and leave the results to Him.

We spend too much time fearing sorry results and the harm it may bring our reputation when our strength and purpose should be in the Lord.  It is a tragic thing to live among the unrepentant.  It is terrible to watch those we care about snub their Savior.  This ought to make us mourn and be devoted to prayer.  The wide road down to Hades is built on the stones of rebellion.  Plead with Jesus that your town will not be one of its mileposts.

Inspiration

I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.—C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals send your name and email address to: dan@firstcause.org and ask to be placed on the distribution list.  You can also sign up at our website at Reveration Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth. (Holman CSB)

Meditation

Mark 6:49,50—When they saw Him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw Him and were terrified.  Immediately He spoke with them and said, “Have courage!  It is I.  Don’t be afraid.”

It is easy to question the disciples’ mettle as we read about them from our sophisticated twenty-first century perch.  We wonder how they could be terrified; after all, who really believes in ghosts?  But think for a second.  How would you feel at three in the morning rowing against battering waves if a figure came walking towards you on waves?  I suspect there would be some screaming.

Never be afraid of fear.  Fear is a natural first response to the unnatural.  For example, a warrior being shot at should feel a certain amount of alarm.  That surge of adrenalin that pulsates in the face of danger quickens the mind.  Luke does not write that Jesus rebuked the disciples for being afraid or lectured them on the absurdity of ghosts.  He identified Himself.  He gave them courage.

God understands when you are afraid.  The question is what will you let fear do in you?  If it immobilizes you or causes panic, by all means cry out to Him.   Remaining on the path of fright, clinging to apprehension will not bring victory.  Saints walk in the assured trust that they can always cry out to the Lord.  In times of quavering we need to ask God to reveal Himself.  What we fear may be Him, what we cannot see He can reveal.  In Him we find our courage.

Inspiration

Courage never takes away fear; courage simply redistributes fear to get the job done.—Dan Allender in Leading With A Limp

©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals send your name and email address to: dan@firstcause.org and ask to be placed on the distribution list.  You can also sign up at our website at Reveration Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth. (Holman CSB)

Some employees do not like it that Lee makes public his testimony.  They will look for ways to discredit him or to accuse him of proselytizing as he lives out his convictions.  The challenge for Lee is to maintain his composure and not retaliate or be discouraged by those who question his every move

Meditation

Luke 6:7—The scribes and Pharisees were watching Him closely, to see if He would heal on the Sabbath, so that they could find a charge against Him.

Imagine how frustrated Jesus must have felt with the religious leaders.  Instead of cheering when He healed a man’s paralyzed hand they got angry!  They were so concerned with their picky laws they could not celebrate miracles.  They did not spend time with Jesus to learn from Him.  They followed Him so as to scrutinize His every action and charge Him for any wrong move.   They watched without learning and observed without caring.  Their problem was their allegiance—they spent time with the Savior serving Satan’s agenda.

Are you willing like Lee, to let your every move be watched knowing that some simply hope you will err so they can harm you?  Often it is those we would think would appreciate our values who are the first to cast stones.  Don’t despair.  Jesus did not stop ministering because He did not have the approval of the religious elite.  He was following His Father’s agenda.  Nor did He take on a martyr’s complex.  We can become so proud of the fact that we are picked on, that we make our reputation more important than our mission.  Jesus did not let this happen.  When we identify with Christ, He blesses us.  We may find opposition and trouble on earth, but in heaven we will reap the reward of an approving Father!

Inspiration

People are looking for a demonstration, not an explanation.—Robert Coleman in The Master Plan of Evangelism

©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals send your name and email address to: dan@firstcause.org and ask to be placed on the distribution list.  You can also sign up at our website at Reveration Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth. (Holman CSB)

Meditation

Matthew 2:3—When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.

King Herod found out from unexpected wise men from the east, that the King of the Jews was born.  “So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born.  “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet” (2:4,5).  Herod was disturbed because his reign was threatened by the emergence of the unexpected King.  All he wanted was for the wise men to reveal the location of Jesus so he could destroy Him.

Does anything strike you as odd about the religious leaders?  First, unlike Herod, why didn’t they join in the excitement of the wise men?  As the nation’s religious leaders supposedly waiting for the coming Messiah, shouldn’t they have been the first to jump with joy?  Why didn’t they join the search for the One Micah prophesied over 700 years earlier?  Unlike the Magi who traveled over 800 difficult miles, all they needed was at most a two hour walk of six miles![1] The fact that they knew Scripture yet were uninterested in accompanying foreign worshipers is quite telling.  Either they were skeptical of the reported Savior, or they were smug in their own religiosity.  Their actions foreshadowed what Jesus would experience thirty years later.

Never let what God reveals in your heart to be dampened by the skepticism, apathy or opposition of others.  If the Lord reveals something new or important, revel in your discovery.  Too often we take our cue from the response of people and in the process lose the joy of what the Holy Spirit inspires.  Don’t be surprised when the people you would expect to support you are the least helpful.  If God reveals to you a star, follow it!  Thank God the wise men did not take a survey before they decided to mount their camels!  You may face ridicule and scorn but your quest is to worship not to be popular.  Beware of those with false agendas and those who quote Scripture but have no intent of following it.  Take your joy in Jesus and enjoy the journey!

Inspiration

Objective truth is something we grip but religious truth is something that grips us. It is appropriated and not merely acknowledged.  It is discovered by commitment and not by any alleged correspondence to the world.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics

©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals send your name and email address to: dan@firstcause.org and ask to be placed on the distribution list.  You can also sign up at our website at Reveration Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth. (Holman CSB)

Jeff and Candace wonder why their child had to be different.  Their dreams for their firstborn girl were thrashed against the cold rocks of reality.  There is no pill or exercise or magic word to end Down Syndrome. Yes, they fiercely love their brown-haired girl with the crooked smile and almond-shaped eyes—whose undying quest is to please them.  They laugh when she giggles and ache when she suffers.  Aside from the wallet-draining trips to the doctor, their big challenge is dismissing the questions.  What if she had been “normal”?  Why are people mean and insensitive?  Does anyone truly understand our world?  Why did God let this happen? . . .

Meditation

Zephaniah 3:19—Yes, at that time I will deal with all who afflict you.  I will save the lame and gather the scattered; I will make those who were disgraced throughout the earth receive praise and fame.

Unless Jesus returns first, the day will come when Jenny dies. Then she will face the greatest Lover of all time.  He will fill her new body with unspeakable joy and wrap her in a hug that takes away the breath of the nearest angels.  She will take His hand and walk the gold streets to the applause of an inspired multitude. She will give voice to the words she knew in her heart and now can sing with the choir, “Great and awe-inspiring are Your works, Lord God, the Almighty; righteous and true are Your ways, King of the Nations” (Rev. 15:3).

Who is afflicted?  Who is lame in walk with ridicule dogging every step?  Look up!  The Lord who understands will deal with the afflicters.  He will gather the scattered because He can.  Don’t let faith waver.  Don’t drink the cup filled with pity’s tears.  Drink deeply from the Living Water.  Faith in the Lion finds in His glory the eternal antidote to affliction.  Walking with Jesus is walking to fame.

Inspiration

I believe in the name of the Son of God.  Therefore I am in Him, having redemption and life by His Spirit.  And He is in me, and all fitness is in Him.  To Him I belong by purchase, conquest, and self-surrender; to me He belongs for all my hourly need.  There is no veil or cloud between my Lord and me.  There is no obstacle to His indwelling and infilling.  I yield my entire being to Him; and what I cannot do He can.—F.B. Meyer in Meet For The Master’s Use

©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals send your name and email address to: dan@firstcause.org and ask to be placed on the distribution list.  You can also sign up at our website at Reveration Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth. (Holman CSB)

Meditation

Nahum 3:3,5,6—Charging horseman, flashing sword, shining spear; heaps of slain, mounds of corpses, dead bodies without end—they stumble over their dead . . . I am against you.  This is the declaration of the LORD of Hosts.  I will lift your skirts over your face and display your nakedness to nations, your shame to kingdoms.  I will throw filth on you and treat you with contempt; I will make a spectacle of you.

Contorted body images flash across the screen of those watching the news.  Daily protestors fall slain in streets before the bullets of tyrants.   Cries for freedom are met by ruthless rockets.  Syrian President Bashar al-Assad refuses to allow democracy but as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, his rule will end.  Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens to build nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.  Iran supplies weapons and trains fighters to kill and terrorize any who oppose her agenda.  How long before God lifts her skirt and shames her kingdom?

Whenever a nation embraces wickedness know with certainty that God is against her.  The main theme of the book of Nahum is God’s impending judgment of Nineveh—the powerful Assyrian capital.  God paid her back for her ruthless treatment of her enemies and for mocking Him.   His past hand of judgment is not presently asleep.  God does not let evil run completely unrestrained.

To be made a spectacle; to be treated with contempt by heaven is a sure indicator that God is provoked.  He does not destroy righteous nations.   Countries beset with strife and ablaze with chaos reflect the shame that comes from feeding evil.   There is no such thing as an enduring immoral empire—the cost of iniquity is eventually paid by the blood of its perpetrators.

But what nation on earth is righteous?  The problem so often with those of us who love God is that we like to cheer when the bad guy gets what is coming to him.  Would the charging horseman God hates begun riding if there had been fasting saints alert to manifest His love?  Whenever there is a spectacle there is always a story behind it.  Over a hundred years before Nahum, Jonah shared with Nineveh of God’s impending judgment and the people repented.  What happened?  Were there no righteous people to continue speaking? Nahum wrote, “The LORD is good, a stronghold in a day of distress; He cares for those who take refuge in Him” (1:7).  Too bad the Assyrians lost that truth.  May we fear God’s hand and pray that before any are shamed, they might be saved.  Spectacles are nothing to celebrate.

Inspiration

In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. —C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory

©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals send your name and email address to: dan@firstcause.org and ask to be placed on the distribution list.  You can also sign up at our website at Reveration Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth. (Holman CSB)

Again Dad challenged Vlad with the test of 1 John 4:2,3—“This is how you know the Spirit of God:  Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.  But every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God . . .”  Vlad lunged at him, his eyes full of evil, stopping as if hitting a wall inches from his face.  A voice taunted Dad that he did not have the authority to cast him out.  He responded that by himself he did not have authority but by the name of Jesus Christ and in His power he held authority.  He then commanded every demon in Vlad to leave.

The most horrible, foul cursing filled the air and again, Vlad was thrown to the ground where he coughed and wrestled with his unseen tormentors.  This time, they all came out.  Vlad was in his right mind and was filled with peace.  That same day he put his faith in Jesus and today he remains free of demons who inhabited him during his life of wickedness.

Meditation

Luke 1:1-4—Many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us. It also seemed good to me, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first, to write to you in an orderly sequence, most honorable Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.

We should be highly encouraged when we read in Scripture that Luke wrote two books in the Bible, Luke and Acts, so that his friend Theophilus would “know the certainty of the things” believers taught him.  The Bible is not fiction.  It is not the fabrication of deluded men or the conjecture of superstitious simpletons.  It is an amazingly accurate narrative of eyewitnesses.  It is the recorded words of prophets, sages, kings and workers inspired by the Holy Spirit; committed to telling the story of the world’s Creator who made us to love us.

I have watched God do miraculous works.  I am convinced He is real.  Dad and the three men with him who confronted Vlad’s demons are certain of the reality and power of the Lord.  But it is not our job to convince others.  It is our privilege to believe.  We are called to report the truth we have experienced.  Only God can reach the heart of people.  But God expects us to share our lives.  There are Vlad’s all around us.  There are skeptics who dismiss the reality of what they cannot see or do not wish to believe.  In most parts of the world, people are very aware of demons—they know what it is to live in fear of evil spirits.  In America, demons are far more subtle.  They hide in plain sight fed by the sophisticated lie that they don’t exist.    If you want to be convinced, start asking people to confess Jesus Christ.

©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals send your name and email address to: dan@firstcause.org and ask to be placed on the distribution list.  You can also sign up at our website at Reveration Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth. (Holman CSB)