Author: Christine Wyrtzen

So this is what the sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be shaken. Isaiah 28:16

Unbelief leads to despair but faith leads to hope. If I do not trust Jesus, I will be unwilling to be yoked to Him. I know in my head that God’s Word is true. I can quote this like I was giving a right answer on a test. Yet inwardly, I can still fight severe unbelief. The battle to trust His Word in the face of what appears to disprove it brings me to a crisis of faith.

Peter said that Jesus can be a rock of offense over whom people stumble. What makes each of us stumble is usually different. For many years, I stumbled over the issue of God’s expectations of me. When I go out to teach, I have a group of intercessors who pray for me. They labor in prayer, some even fast. Now, I would feel the pressure of that and think, “You are now fully equipped, Christine, to teach under God’s anointing and powerful things should happen.” When a group failed to respond like I anticipated, I took that as my failure. I believed that the intercessors did their part, gave me everything I needed for a harvest, so I must have failed mine. See the yoke? I forgot that the harvest is not up to me.

I will be shaken if I believe a lie about God. The journey is steep and I must fight for faith. Unbelief assaults me from two places; my own thoughts and the arrows of an enemy who never stops trying to corrupt my trust and connection to God. What will overcome these inner minefields?

“For the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Cor. 10:4-5

The weapons? Scripture and the Spirit. The fortresses? Lies that have become entrenched over time and become strongholds. Speculations and every lofty thing? The mindset that I formulate over a lifetime that is ironclad and hard to budge. Only the Word can demolish it and re-write it.

What lie holds you captive? To find the answer, look carefully at the places you consider hopeless. Ask yourself why you believe that? State the lie and form a battle plan with the Word of God. Come at it with sharp arrows of truth ~ asking the Spirit of God to write His Word on your mind and heart. Fight the battle until you begin to know, and feel, the freedom from the yoke of deception.

You and I may temporarily teeter, wrestle like Jacob, but God’s foundation will hold if we take our mutinous thoughts and override them with His word. As long as we wear a yoke of deception, we render ourselves incapable of ever seeing a kingdom outcome. A glorious plot becomes a tragic and that is never what God had planned for His children.

Lord, you know what tempts me to stumble over you. But I’m choosing to believe that the redemption of this pain must be more beautiful than I can imagine. Break the yoke of unbelief. Amen

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Romans 4:7-8

Every person is born with a sense of shame because of Adam and Eve’s sin. We know we are flawed and are therefore shy before a holy God. The more we add sin to our resume, the more shame grows and the heavier the yoke becomes.

I have fought my own internal battle over the years. I have asked myself repeatedly, “How can I get over what I’ve done? Has Jesus totally forgiven me?” The yoke had me by the throat.

Worshippers in the ancient world knew shame well. They would bring their sacrifices; animals, even newborn babies, to kill at the altar; all because they had a sense that they needed to calm angry gods. Their faith was in the wrong god but their conscience was keen in sensing that there was One higher than them who was just and holy.

Are you living out a life sentence of depression as you rehearse your failures? Does your track record haunt you like a ghost? If you have confessed your sin but still feel guilty, realize that when God forgives, he separates your sin from you. One of the words for ‘forgive’ is to ‘send away’. God took that ‘thing’ for which you repented, took it off of you and put it on Jesus. When you can’t hold your head up, you must remember that you are not your sin.

Satan accuses. People name call. But Jesus calls His forgiven children ‘righteous’. The beautiful names He confers on us form an umbrella under which we live and enjoy peace with God. The names are numerous, each one meaning something beautiful, and it is each one of these that I must rehearse when I am weighed down by shame. Whether people-inflicted or Satan-inflicted, shame need not be my yoke. It was Jesus’ yoke when He died in my place. I am to live like Abraham. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Romans 4:20-21

How do I take off this yoke? Believe God. See yourself standing in the flow of God’s forgiveness and then walk by faith.  Be sure to have a plan. Satan is the perpetual accuser of the brethren. He will come at you again with old tapes. Be ready with scripture. You will have to quote it out loud and be assured that he will flee. Remember, you are forgiven whether you feel like you are or not. Feelings are unreliable but the Word of God is true and abides forever.

For every one who is deciding to walk in forgiveness, by faith, remove the yoke of shame from their shoulders, Jesus. Amen

So that’s what I’ve decided this morning.  I’m a faith wimp.  I’m not ready to embark on Hebrews 11 because it’s too weighty to take on right now.  There are so many heroes of the faith — so many more than are listed in chapter 11.  I want time to read about them and digest how far and wide they had to trust God in circumstances much more difficult than I’ve ever faced.

Faith, the kind of faith that is on four-color display in Hebrews 11, is built on a relationship with God. Radical trust and obedience is not the result of reading words on a page.  It is not the result of hear-say nor does it come from second hand faith.  It comes from current revelation and communion.

So, I’m going to take some of the summer off before continuing on with Hebrews.  I’m responding to Jesus’ call to come away and rest.  I will be jumping into Hebrews 11 for myself ~ savoring it, wrestling with it, growing into it….and the writing will resume when my heart is so full I can’t keep it in any more.

In the meantime, I will be sharing various devotionals from the many years we’ve been on this upward climb together.  Maybe you’ll see one of your favorites come across your inbox.

Taste and see that God is good.

Christine

Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words became a delight to me and the joy of my heart, for I am called by Your name. Jeremiah 15:16

For yet in a very little while, the coming One will come and not delay.  But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him. Hebrews 10:37-38

Righteous people live by faith.  Unrighteous people take care of themselves.

Righteous people recognize their need and humbly ask for God’s strength.  Unrighteous people are proud and are repelled by the thought of dependency.

Righteous people prove their faith by persevering in tribulation.  Unrighteous people embrace apostasy when, under pressure, they go back to their old lives.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been surprised more than once by who is strong and who is weak.  I remember childhood bullies.  I’ve had a few of them and I saw them as giants; strong and formidable.  With hindsight though, I see that my bullies were never strong enough to act alone.  They needed to have a group around them to empower them.  Weak indeed.

When I became an adult, I learned more about the strong and the weak through watching good and bad leaders.  I surmised that those who had unwavering opinions and were unwilling to compromise were strong.  People who worked for them had to agree with them on every policy and doctrine.  I know now that these characteristics were signs of weakness.  The louder the bullhorn and the more demanding the tyrant, the weaker they probably were.  Under pressure, everyone knew to duck.

I believed that the weak people were the quiet ones in the group.  They listened more than they talked.  They spoke of their hard times.  They weren’t above asking for prayer. They weren’t the first ones to volunteer to lead but when asked, they did it well and without fanfare.  Under pressure, they remained steady and everyone knew they could trust them.

Today’s scripture reaches back to quote the book of Habakkuk where God is speaking.  What does it mean when God says that someone will draw back, only to experience His displeasure?  This refers to people who appeared to be true in their faith but with the advent of persecution, they threw in the towel and went back to their old lives.  They quickly embraced apostasy.

There’s a lot to think about here.  How do others experience you?  Would they call you strong because you seem self-assured?  Would they call you weak because you are quiet and often share your struggles?  The bigger question is this ~ How does God experience you?  Does He see you as beautifully dependent on Him or does He see you as angry and entitled when things don’t go well for you?  Yes, the journey of faith takes us all through some bad days.  We can have some fainting moments.  True believers lose heart but we don’t defect.  Wouldn’t think of it!  God’s displeasure is reserved for those who pose as believers but suffering proves them to be otherwise.

My strength is real when my strength is in You.  Amen

So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.  For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised. Hebrews 10:35-36

I can be confident my 401k will stabilize but it may not.  My confidence will not yield any reward and was really wasted.  I can be confident that my house will sell quickly and a move to another state will come off without a hitch.  But when it doesn’t unfold that way, confidence was empty.

A well-placed confidence births endurance because there is never any doubt about the outcome.  What I can be sure of here on earth is a short list, is it not?  But with God, every word He speaks, I can fully trust.  Every promise He makes, I can rest in.  Every prediction that rolls off the pages of scripture, I can count on coming true.  With such 100% assurance, endurance need never erode.  God is good for whatever He put in writing.  No deal is ever broken.  No promise is ever reneged.

If my confidence ever wanes, it is not due to a flaw in God’s character nor is it because anything He has spoken has been disproven.  Though at times it may appear that way, time and history will reveal that the pain of my doubting was completely unnecessary.

But I can be sure of this.  Satan knows God’s character.  Satan knows that what God says is true.  He fears any child of God who trusts God and who challenges his lies with the sword of the Word.  Satan is the great deceiver whose mission is to shake the confidence of God’s children.  If he can cause us to doubt our Father, he has destroyed the quality of our life here and sent us to a lonely place. While heaven is not in jeopardy, peace on earth can be destroyed if we let it him do it.  The essence of faith is trusting what we cannot see.  Our enemy capitalizes on that and argues that if we cannot see it, it must not be true.  Never is his argument more compelling than when we are in pain and find ourselves weary in the waiting.

There is some ‘thing’ that is testing our confidence today.  It is different for each one of us.  As I’m writing, I’m aware of my ‘thing’ and I awakened this morning to face another day of battling for my faith.  I review the scriptures, I meditate on the promises, I listen in the stillness to the reassurances of the Spirit, and my shaky confidence is restored for another day.  I will not ever throw it away because I chose to believe that the middle of my story is really the end of my story.  I live in the middle of the plotline.  So do you.  God hasn’t finished writing the novel yet.  We can be confident of a glorious conclusion.

After watching a great movie, we tell our friends ~ “Wait till you see how it ends!”   Indeed.

I’m watching and I’m on the path. Amen