For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”
But you would not,
And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses”—
Therefore you shall flee!
And, “We will ride on swift horses”—
Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift! Isaiah 30:15-16

In the last devotional, I shared that God spoke to the Jewish people about returning to Him and resting in Him to be saved from the hands of the Assyrians. He told them that this should be their strategy for deliverance. However, the Jewish people did not want to have anything to do with that kind of strategy. These people were fearful of the Assyrians. They were too anxious to relax and be still. Consequently, they looked to Egyptians for support and help to protect them during this time. Although the Egyptians may have had natural strength, they were not Godly people and the Jewish people had to compromise their own beliefs to rely on pagan people.

Egypt is a symbol of past bondage and our carnal strength. We all have had our own versions of Egypt that we had to flee from in order to experience the freedom that Jesus bought for us. When things are going well spiritually, most of us don’t want to return to Egypt. However, under the pressure of life and circumstances, we begin to look back to our natural strength and reasoning to solve problems.

In our points of desperation, we may replace one version of Egypt to an updated version of another form of Egypt. Our addiction to bad relationships in the past, may have changed faces. Now, we have relationships with Godly people, but we still have ungodly expectations from them. We may have forsaken a demanding career as a form of identity, but we now found a demanding ministry or hobby that makes us feel needed and important. The pattern is that we are looking for carnal means as an answer to the dilemmas of life!

Have you been able to make time to be quiet and rest in the Lord? Where are you looking for your deliverance from your situation? As the weekend approaches, it is a good time to carve out sometime and settle down your heart and mind before the Lord! Take time to be quiet and rest in His presence. We don’t have to have all the answers, but we can look to the One who does! The Lord is our deliverer!

For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”
But you would not,
And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses”—
Therefore you shall flee!
And, “We will ride on swift horses”—
Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift! Isaiah 30:15-16

In the first devotional in this series I shared a few scriptures that could point to the fact that a born again believer has eternal security. In the second devotional and this current one, I have been sharing scriptures  that show enteral security is not guaranteed.  There are conditions that can lead someone to be in the danger of losing their eternal life.

For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.  For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. 2 Peter 2:20-21

It is dangerous for people to come to know Jesus as their Savior and then to walk away from Him. Each believer is accountable to the precious treasure and revelation that he/she has received. God invested in these individuals, and then they turn their back on His truth.

He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:7-8

Christians are called to live an overcoming life and not to give in to the passions of carnality. A Christian will, most likely, sin again after salvation, but if they choose to have a lifestyle of sin and are unrepentant, they are on a dangerous eternal path and can face eternal judgment someday! In reality, they have chosen to align their lives with the devil and his lies rather than living a life that reflects Jesus! 

He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. Revelation 3:5

Through the blood of Jesus, God gives each person the grace to overcome sin. The person who chooses not to be defiled, will be acknowledged by Jesus before the Father. In addition, the Lord prepares white garments for those whose lives are dedicated to God.

The above scripture infers that those who do not overcome, do not receive the white garments, and their name can blotted out of the book of Life. Jesus will not acknowledge these individuals before the Father. 

The scriptures I shared in these last three devotionals point to the fact that God remains the same and His standard for a living and loving relationship with Him does not change. On the other hand, man gets comfortable, proud, and presumptuous, and, in the process, he walks away from God and begins to live life according to his own pleasures and desires. All the while, he assumes that he is still in a relationship with God. When a person chooses to ignore God’s ways, they basically have chosen to dishonor the covenant they made with God and begin an idolatrous and adulterous life. They are the ones who choose to walk away from the covenant. The good new is that all of us have the opportunity to repent, allow God to restore our relationship with Him, and begin to walk in the ways that please the Lord. 

I shared in the last devotional that the issue of enteral security is a subject that is often neglected in teaching and informing God’s people. Many people believe in eternal security and defend their position with various scriptures, which I shared some of them in the last devotional. In these next two devotionals, I am going to share a few scriptures that point to the fact that eternal security is not guaranteed, and there are conditions that might cause someone to lose eternal life.

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matthew 6:15

Our God has forgiven our sins, and the high price of that forgiveness was Jesus being sacrificed on the cross for us! Therefore, He has the right to expect us to forgive others. Sometimes we encourage people to forgive, so they don’t have to carry the load of hurt and resentment. However, we neglect to tell them that God requires us to forgive! If we want the mercies of the Lord in our lives, God expects us to be generous and merciful with our forgiveness toward others.

And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. Matthew 10:22

“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.  But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10:32-33

The Lord expects us to withstand tribulation and to be courageous enough to confess His name even if costs us something.

And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more. Luke 12:47-48

If you read the entire passage, Jesus is telling a parable about a master allowing his property to be stewarded by his servant. The servant took advantage of the fact that the master was gone, and neglected his responsibilities. As Christians, we are accountable to what we know our responsibilities to be. Some take pride in having various versions of the Bible and/or attending various Bible studies, but they can neglect obedience.

The above scripture tells us that the more we know, the more accountable we are in obeying His word and stewarding our knowledge. We need to shy away from being sloppy with our obedience or doing it only when someone is watching us. The Lord sees everything we do when no one is watching, and he knows if we have been faithful to what we know.  I don’t think we can make the excuse for our lack of faithfulness by pointing at others around us who are lackadaisical with their obedience. If we claim to have a personal relationship with God, then we are also personally accountable to His convictions and unction to do right!

In the next devotional, I will share a few more more sobering scriptures that are critical concerning the issue of eternal security. 

Eternal security is an important subject, but we don’t hear much teaching or preaching on this significant issue. The reason could be because it makes people uncomfortable, or it might sound religious. However, in the absence of those discussions, many believe that Christians have eternal security, but live their lives according to their own ideas and pleasures.

People on both sides of isle use scriptures to support their position on this eternal security. Today, I will share scriptures that advocates of eternal security use. In the next devotional, I will share scriptures that point the fact that eternal security is not guaranteed unconditionally.

What is eternal security? Some call it, “Once saved always saved!” It has to do with the belief that once a person has prayed a prayer of salvation, they are saved and will go to heaven regardless of how they live their lives. Those who believe that we have eternal security would point to the following scriptures to support their views:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.  And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.  My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.  I and My Father are one.” John 10:27b-30

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2Corinthians 5:17

This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. John 6:39

Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies….38For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:33 and 38-39

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,  just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,  having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,  to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. Ephesians 1:3-6

The above scriptures speak of God’s faithfulness and His power in regards to our eternal security. We can conclude the following from the above scriptures: First, it is God’s heart for people to come to salvation. Second, Jesus has paid the price for the justification of our sins, and His blood is sufficient to buy eternal life for us. Third, we become a new creation through salvation, are born again, and sealed with the Holy Spirit. Fourth, God adopted us and accepted us through the work of Jesus on the Cross. Fifth, Jesus has taken personal responsibility to be our Good Shepherd and to lead and guide us in life. He watches over His sheep, and the enemy does not have the power to snatch them out of His hands. Sixth, God’s love has no bounds, and the devil, death, or any other situation cannot separate us from the love of God. His love is unchanging.  

The above scriptures show that as far as God is concerned, He is faithful, and He has the power to lead and guide us through life protected from attacks of the enemy.

Hebrews 11 recounts the lives of the heroes of the faith who testify to the above scriptures. God led them through difficult and impossible situations, but He ushered them to their eternal home. When we submit ourselves to God, He is able to keep that which we have entrusted Him.

I will continue with this subject in the next devotional. 

When believers experience vexation for long periods of time, they can feel stuck and not know what they should do. As I shared in part II of this devotional, we need to reclaim our identity in Christ and not allow people or the circumstances define who we are. In addition, we need to regain hope!

Regaining Hope

Then Job answered and said, How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?

These ten times have ye reproached me: ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me. Job 19:1-3 (KJV)

Job was vexed in his soul as his friends continued to throw their fiery darts at him. Not only he had to go through the pain of losses, but he also had to listen to his friends condemning him for everything that was going wrong in Job’s life. Their words broke him down!

Chapter 19 of the book of Job continues with Job recounting his multitude of struggles and the fact that even his friends had turned against him. However, Job suddenly shifted his focus from speaking about his predicament to asserting his confidence in God!

Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!
That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead, forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me! Job 19:23-27

Job did not waver in his faith and believed God was  is his redeemer! This was so important to him that he ensured his declaration of God was written down and never forgotten. Job had the expectation and the hope that when it was all said and done, he was going to stand before a holy God and see Him face to face!  He knew that all his issues, as painful as they were, someday were going to come to an end, and he was going to receive the most important thing, which was his redemption from this broken world.

Job looked to God when he was vexed by all kinds of circumstances, and he knew that the Lord ultimately would come through for him. In time, God restored Job’s life, and he regained much of what he had lost earlier. 

Today, if you feel vexed by the circumstances of life, find scriptures that declare your victory and give you hope for your future. Exercise your faith by declaring what God says about you and your circumstances. Don’t let weariness shake your identity or cause you to give up on hope! Recognize that the enemy comes to steal and kill your hope, but hope is a gift that God gives in abundance. Below is a powerful scripture on hope to meditate on:

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

As I shared in the last devotional,  after 400 years of oppression, the Israelites lost their identity as God’s special children, and instead they settled to be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. Under relentless pressure, they were vexed, which caused them to forget about who they were in God’s eyes.

Reclaiming Our Identity

In order to combat vexation, we need to reclaim our identity in Christ. 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,  just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,  having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. Ephesians 6:3-6

The Bible tell us that the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His purposes in the life of His children remain the same regardless of difficulties. If we continue to walk in the Lord’s ways, there is nothing that can separate us from His love! If we have fallen in sin due to discouragement, we should repent and ask the Lord for forgiveness, so we can maintain the right relationship with the Lord.

Our spiritual blessings and our place in God’s kingdom is reserved for us, and it is unshakable. The Lord is continually at work  in us to form the image of Jesus and to produce the fruit of the spirit in our lives. We are no longer orphans, but we are adopted as God’s children, and He has taken personal responsibility to develop us into the original purpose that He created us for. This is God’s pleasure and His delight!  

The Lord accepts us as His beloved and dearly loved children. Because He is love, He continues to embrace us with His acceptance because He is not intimidated by our flaws. Instead, He has a long-term plan to see our issues dissolved in the ocean of His love and surrendered at the Cross.

These truths establish the identity of God’s children and solidify the truth that the Lord has not forgotten about them. Today. spend some time meditating on the scripture and who you are in Christ. Don’t allow the circumstances of life or the people around you to derail you from your true identity. You are His, and He has the ultimate say in your life!

We are closer to the end times more than ever before, and that means there will be more darkness in the world. The scripture tells us that people’s hearts will be hardened.  The ripple effect of hardened hearts brings about suffering and oppression to those subjected to it. This leads to vexation. 

How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians vexed us, and our fathers: Numbers 20:15 (KJV)

According to Strong’s dictionary, the following are some of the definitions of Vexation:

To spoil (literally, by breaking to pieces); figuratively, to make (or be) good for nothing, i.e. bad (physically, socially or morally):—afflict, break (down, in pieces), displease.

The Israelites had been under slavery for about 400 years in Egypt! That’s a long time! The blessed children of Israel who immigrated to Egypt under the protection of Joseph were long gone. For the new generation of Israelites, the promises that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would have sounded like a fantasy or a myth when recounted. Now these special people were not so special anymore. As a matter of fact, they were despised by the Egyptians and were in bondage to pagan leaders who led Egypt.

The Israelites came to Egypt to escape the famine that was going on in their country, but now they were experiencing a different form of famine. They had a famine of hope and identity as a result of being slaves in a foreign land. This experience broke down the Israelites’ identity, injured their spirit, soul, and body, and vexed them. They became weary, and many of them could not see the light at the end of this dark tunnel. Suffering seemed to be their identity and destiny, and they had no way of rising above this oppression.

Have you ever felt vexed by the circumstances of life? This could be a financial situation, a tough marriage, or a difficult family member or a friend. These types of situations are very difficult to deal with. Sometimes you may think that just speaking the truth would fix the situation, but you find that it actually makes the matters worse. If you try to withdraw, you realize that you would lose a relationship with someone you dearly love. On the other hand, you cannot accept the relationship the way it is.

Sometimes we may feel powerless to change the situation, or we may not willing to accept the consequences of that change. At other times, we may feel stuck and not know how to get out of the bad situation, so we just surrender ourselves and accept that nothing can be done about it. Those are the kinds of situations that bring vexation.

Vexation sucks faith out of the life of the believer and makes one feel helpless and powerless about the circumstances. When one is weary, it is easier to give in to the oppression and pressure, and the spirit of vexation becomes stronger in oppressing and injuring one’s identity and hope.

Is there anything that is vexing you right now? Are you feeling hopeless and oppressed? Begin identifying those areas of vexation and bring them to the Lord.

I will continue with this subject in the next devotional.

Year ago, I heard a statistic that for every new church that is planted, three churches close down.  I wonder if God attempted to prune them, but they resisted it. Just as the Lord prunes an individual’s life, He also has a pruning process for a church body.  If we are not sensitive to God’s activity, we lose the opportunity for God to heal, restore, strengthen, and make the body fruitful again. 

In some ways, a church plant is easier to go through than a pruning process. When a new church body begins, those who come together have a vision from God, and they try to establish the ministry from the ground up the best way they can. While there might be hiccups along the way, the experience is full of excitement, change, and transformation as new people come to the house of God, get saved, delivered, and begin a new walk with the Lord. Over the years, relationships get established, ministries develop, and traditions are created. Those can all be good things until they dampen the courage to do what God is asking for a church to do. 

Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” Matthew 9:17

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8

Jesus spoke about the fact that new wine has to be poured into new wineskins. Jesus came with a new move of God on the earth and the old wineskins would not have been able to contain the gospel. People had to let go of their old mindsets that were established on the Levitical Law and the associated rituals and ceremonies and embrace the message of salvation through the cross.

I wonder how we would have responded to Jesus’ message as a Jewish person at that time!? Could it be that in the name of being faithful to God and honoring our traditions, some of us could have rejected the gospel? It took courage for those who forsook their old wineskins to follow Jesus. Following the New Testament era, God continued to move upon His people in different ways in various seasons of history for His purpose. For example, Martin Luther had to challenge and forsake the Catholic teachings that twisted God’s word to benefit the Popes’ pockets. This cost Luther everything, but it opened the door for people to hear the truth from someone in power!

When Jesus spoke to the seven churches in John’s vision in the book of Revelation, His overall message was that the churches tried to do good, but they either strayed from their first love or allowed mixture with sin. I would imagine that those churches did not intend to disobey God outright, but their disobedience came by gradual compromise and fear of offending leaders or members. Maybe their sense of loyalty blinded them in protecting what God desired to cut off. 

If we are going to stay in step with God, we must listen to His voice and allow Him to take away anything that cannot be part of the new season. This requires paying attention to His voice rather than being comfortable with our ways. Most people don’t like to rock the boat because the consequence of that could be the loss of relationships or ministry.

If the Lord shows us something is not fruitful any longer or causing harm to the body of Christ, we must be courageous enough deal with it. This means allowing God to prune what He deems necessary to be pruned. This would be difficult and painful, but the alternative would be to stay in comfort and reject God’s leading to become healthy again. The truth is that most churches don’t die overnight, but they die a slow death because they neglect the promptings of the Lord when He asks something that is hard.

We live in a culture that is focused on success and increase. The only thing that people might be interested in losing is weight, but they are not interested in any decrease in lifestyle, wealth, comfort, or pleasure.

He must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:30

The word “decrease” in the above scripture is about decreasing in popularity and authority. How many people would willingly want to decrease in popularity or authority!? Many Christians pray the above prayer,  but I am not sure if they truly have grasped the consequences of declaring it in their lives. This scripture invites a difficult pruning that gives room for God to cut off what is unnecessary or harmful in the life of a believer.

The ministry of John the Baptist had become popular, but once Jesus’ ministry began, he knew that his ministry would have to take a backseat to what Jesus was doing. If John the Baptist had not chosen to decrease, it could have brought confusion to the people. Furthermore, John the Baptist was in need of the Savior as well. Therefore, he had the courage to be in tune with God and accept that his ministry had an expiration date. Unfortunately, he was killed during the years of Jesus’ ministry. Nevertheless, during the season that John was alive, he chose to decrease in popularity and authority in order to point people to Christ.

Sometimes believers are so bent on fighting the devil that they are resisting God’s pruning process. In the process, they fight to keep things  in their lives that God wants to prune. Pruning is a serious matter, and if Lord desires to cut something out of our lives, we should pay attention to it. The devil wants to steal something, but God prunes with a purpose! To distinguish the difference, we need to seek the Lord not our emotions. When we abide in Him and remain neutral, we can gain the Lord’s mind  about the situation and give Him room to work the way He desires.

The good news is that God’s pruning lasts only for a season and then the new life appears! Pruning allows us not to rely on external factors such as our image, wealth, or position for our identity or confidence, but it allows our roots to go deeper in God! When the new season brings fresh growth in our lives, we have the opportunity to have increase of spiritual fruit that tastes so much better!

Do you want greater fruitfulness in your life? Do you allow God to prune what is unnecessary, fruitless, or diseased?