Author: Christine Wyrtzen

FIXING IT MYSELF OR TRUSTING GOD

When he [Abram] was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you.  Genesis 12:11-13

         Abram makes a surprising choice, really.  He believes he’s got to fix things himself.  It was common for the powerful to seize and plunder another’s wife and belongings.  Surely an Egyptian king would take beautiful Sarai for his own.  To protect her, Abram sees deceit as the only answer.

         Why wouldn’t he count on God to change the king’s heart?  He had already made giant steps of faith to trust God with bigger things.  He had stepped away from everything familiar and comfortable to a life that could only be revealed by someone more powerful than himself.  On something this petty, by comparison, he will take control?

         While it may seem ludicrous when it’s about Abram, it’s not when it’s about me.  If I have a history of ‘making things work’ to go my way, I won’t even think of trusting God with something so small.  I’ll force things, make a mess emotionally, and then when relationships unravel and the stakes are high, I’ll turn to crisis prayers.

         There may be a situation today where I say, “Something has got to be done now!  I can’t let this go!”  It will probably be similar to other things in the past that I’ve stepped in to control.  But there will be a new choice available to me.  Instead of forcing people to comply, I can turn to God in prayer and wait for him to change another’s heart.  The first option brings stress.  The second option gives me wings.

         After Abram took matters into his own hands, things fell apart.  When it escalated to a life and death situation, then God moved.  How much suffering would have been avoided if trusting God had been his initial response.

You see my anxiety, Lord.  I want to do something rash to bring deliverance.  But I’m stopping.  I’m trusting You to and weave a plan that will bring wings to me and glory to You.  Amen

WHERE IS THE FREEDOM HE PROMISED?

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed on him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”  John 8:31

Abiding in the Word is not to learn a body of biblical knowledge.  There are many who fancy the stories of the Bible, are taken with the semantics and nuances of advanced biblical doctrines, yet they are not free at all.  Their personal lives remain unchanged.  Their family relationships are strained and impersonal.  Their inner world is fraught with deception and they are oblivious to it.  They are self-impressed and blind to their lack of spiritual power.  Because they are interested in spiritual things, they can not see their emptiness.  But just ask their spouses or their children.  They will tell you that they ache to experience Jesus in this person even though there is a lot of Jesus-talk.

Abiding in the Word is to live in Jesus, thrill to hear Him personalize His Word to my own life, and once spoken, to live in a new truth.  Freedom comes when I apply what I learned from sitting at His feet.  Here is the process of interacting with the WORD.

• I ask for Him to open my heart to His Word, to touch my ears, eyes, and understanding.
• I hear the Word and begin to meditate on it.
• I ask the Holy Spirit to personalize it to my current way of thinking, feeling, and living.
• Most often, I am put in conflict.  His Word challenges me and falls like a sword to my private inner thoughts.
• To settle the conflict, I abandon my way and embrace His way.
• I get up and apply His new way and only when I do that, does it become mine.
• Freedom is on the other side of application.

It is only as I make these steps a daily way of life that I will know freedom.  Many of God’s children believe that freedom comes simply by osmosis.  They are disenchanted with their lives and privately wonder why the claims of Christ haven’t brought them the freedom it promises.  They would argue that they occasionally read the Word, that they hearing rousing sermons on Sunday, that they ‘believe’ Jesus.  But there is no knowledge of what it really means to abide in the Word.  Freedom from our pasts, our guilt, our habits and addictions, our tortuous inner thoughts, will be elusive as long there is not consistent meditation and application.  Knowing a lot about Jesus just creates a divided kingdom between the head and the heart.  The head is puffed up and the heart is desperately wicked.

The Pharisees knew a lot but missed Jesus.  Their life-long spiritual education blinded them to a personal need of a Savior.

I wait for Your Word for today.  Search me, prove me, challenge me, and then give me the grace to apply Your personal message.  Amen

HEALING FROM HURTFUL WORDS
 
For thus saith the Lord, “Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous.”
Jeremiah 31:12

Truth and love are always paired in the context of the Gospel and that is the reason we are asked to speak to others in this way. It is because God speaks that way.  The only cure for the deep pain of others’ words is to allow God to speak the truth – and in the context of love and tenderness.  I must be willing to disown the hurtful words and no longer have them define me in any way. These injurious words should be dealt with severely at the cross, in prayer.

What do I do with the hurtful attitude of the one who originally spoke it?  I ask God to remove the injury of their heart’s intent.  If their comment came with anger or revenge, Jesus will deal with the spirit that came with the words and cleanse me from all their effects.

“Lord, nullify the effects of these comments under the power of Your shed blood. Take these words from my mind and my heart.  Remove the arrows that wounded my soul so deeply.   Make it as though the words had never been spoken.  I forgive the person who spoke them and give up my right to take revenge.  I put this person in Your hands for You to rule righteously.  Arise on my behalf.  Hear my prayer.  Hold me, breathe over me, kiss my heart with Your living Word and may I live in abundant life.  Because of Jesus, I pray…Amen
 
Lord, I stand today on Your promise.  “The Sun of righteousness will arise with healing in his wings.”  Malachi 4:2

FAMINE COMES TO YOUR PROMISED LAND

And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb. Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.  Genesis 12:9-10

         Abram finally arrives in Canaan.  He is anxious to make it ‘home’ for his people but it turns out they can’t settle there yet because there is severe famine. Talk about disappointment!  But there is no indication that Abram was confused and that famine shook up his faith. His faith sustained him when, at that moment, God’s character could easily have been questioned.

           Famine will drive Abram and his family to Egypt and his faith will be tested there.  Circumstances will present the ‘perfect storm’.  The one who has not wavered yet from an almost perfect obedience to God will falter.  Is this the reason God sent the famine?  Is it important for Abram to face a time of spiritual testing?

         I believe the answer is yes.  God is all about growing me up to a mature kind of faith, the kind Jesus had.  How does faith grow?  By testing what I know in the hard experiences of life.  I can say I trust God but to what extent is that true?  Under what circumstances will my trust erode?  I can easily tell others that God is a faithful Father but will I believe that when God leads me right into the center of a famine?  What would it take for me to malign God’s character?

         My first response to a famine in Canaan can be to second-guess the decision I made to obey God and move there.  That conclusion is spiritually immature.  God can, and has, made promises to His chosen servants that were accompanied by adversity.  He promised favor but led them to pitch their tent with enemies.  He spoke of blessing but led them to the place where giants ruled.  God spoke of a promised land but then afflicted it with famine.  What kind of God is this?

         Up to this point, Abram has been nearly perfect and someone hard to identify with.  That is about to change.  Our patriarchs were great men of faith but they were also human.  The scriptures don’t white wash their sins nor do they hide them.  The lives of our forefathers were as messy as ours and yet we get to see God bless, correct, forgive, and then restore, time after time.  It is a Father/child relationship after all.

         If I have heard God’s call, followed at great personal cost, and found myself in times of hardship, I know to hold on.  This is not the end of the story.  God is in the process of transforming my faith while still being good to His promise.

And I should know better than to expect perfection in Canaan.  Canaan is not heaven, after all.   Help me adjust my expectations, rise above blaming, and call You good.  Amen

MAKING A HOME IN HOSTILE PLACES

Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.  Genesis 12:6

         Many have prayed for the will of God, followed His voice, and experienced complete disillusionment when they found themselves in hostile surroundings.  They blame God for being unloving or they blame themselves for being poor listeners.  Hostility within the will of God is common and should not surprise God’s children.

         When Abram encountered the Canaanites, hostile company epitomized, he didn’t pick up and move on.  He settled there.  Though the only Yahweh worshipper, He built an altar.  With far less revelation of God than I have, he was strong enough in his faith to stand out and be different from everyone else.

         Some years back, our family lived in a hostile environment.  We begged, daily, for release.  We were willing to move anywhere and do anything to escape our surroundings.  Surely, we reasoned, God wouldn’t want for us to endure such a place.  Yet, every request for a move away was met by the silence of God.  One morning in prayer, the Spirit of God spoke to me through a verse in Psalms.  “Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.”  Psalm 37:3    We were to learn how to make our little home a place where the glory of God rested.  We were to understand how to eat the sumptuous spiritual meal God provided daily in the midst of our enemies.  We stayed three more years before God moved us out and that time proved to be one of the most formational times, spiritually, in our family’s history.

         Many live in the midst of hostility.  Unfortunately, it can be with a husband, wife, child, or aging parent.  It can even be in a place of ministry.  Scorn and ridicule are the backdrops of daily life.  Instinct says to escape.  Do anything to run from such discomfort.  But God’s way is for His child to learn how to make Him their home.  The glory of Christ can descend on the darkest environment.

Give your child today spiritual grit, a willingness to stay in a tormenting place, and peace in submission.  Amen

PROSPERITY AND DOMINION

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  Genesis 12:2

         Nothing in our Christian language is misunderstood more than the word ‘blessing.’  Because I am so prone to want earth to be my heaven, I assume it means something it really doesn’t.  When my expectations are shattered, I’m angry with God for supposedly breaking His promises.  What does ‘the blessing’ really mean?

         Blessing equals spiritual prosperity and dominion over what God has entrusted.  God blessed Adam and Eve, Noah, and now – Abram.  They were told to be fruitful and to reign.       I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies.   Genesis 22:17 

         To be fruitful is to apply the laws of heaven and see results.  That can mean as much internal as external.  To reign and have dominion is to enjoy the freedom Jesus won for me at Calvary and to enforce the victory He acquired on my behalf.  What does this ‘the blessing’ mean for every one who struggles today with their health, or finances, or broken relationships?  Is God not faithful to keep His promises?   Here is what two examples look like – and I’m asking God to drive these truths home to my own heart.

         1. I can live in a crippled relationship and still be fruitful, and still reign.  How?  My inner peace is not determined by anything external.  I plant the promises of God in my heart and they are fruitful because they produce peace, hope, and confidence that God is ruling well.  I can reign because, in prayer, I ask for divine healing for what is broken.  I use my spiritual authority to thwart all the schemes of the enemy to wreak more havoc in this relationship.  I speak scripture over every diseased part of the relationship.

         2. I can lie in bed with cancer and still be fruitful, and still reign.  How?  Though in pain, I remember that God is faithful to give me momentary grace.  I am blessed with a relationship that offers me access to an all-powerful God who promises spiritual stamina.  My relationship with Him is fruitful in suffering.  I reign when I take all my fears and doubts and subdue them with the power of the Word.  I preach to my own soul and defer to the hope Jesus offers.

         If I’m experiencing hardship, it’s easy to believe I’m not blessed.  I’m quick to compare myself to others and quote the promises made to our spiritual forefathers.  I forget that they, and the prophets, and the disciples, entered the kingdom through much tribulation – but held onto the promises of God with their faith in tact – throughout their journey.  Freedom from pain does not equal blessed.  In each place today where I groan under weight of living on a cursed planet, I choose to live in the hope that God will one day redeem it all.  In the meantime, my internal world can know blessing as I bear the fruit of living in the Word and reign over my flesh.

Reigning over my own despair is as much a miracle as reigning over people.  Your Word is a magnificent catalyst for all that afflicts my heart.  Empower me and bless me to rule over all You have entrusted to me.  Amen

A LIFE OF PILGRIMAGE

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  Genesis 12:1

         A father is given divine rights to exert authority over his child.  He shapes his identity.  He establishes parameters and boundaries.  He sets future goals for him.  He corrects and encourages along the way.  Obedience and honor are the responsibilities of the child – and while giving honor will last a lifetime – obedience will not.  At some point, that child, if he comes to faith, will gain another Father and everything will turn on its end.

         As an adult, I leave the authority of my earthly father for my heavenly Father.  God’s commands take precedence over all other influences.  As His child, I look to Him to shape me, establish parameters, set goals, and correct and encourage.  Obedience and honor are my responsibility.

         No wonder Jesus said that no one could follow him unless they were willing to leave father and mother, brother and sister.  The changing of allegiances is cataclysmic in families, especially if the earthly family does not know God.

         In this context, I am feeling the stress of Abram’s call. The LORD speaks.  He calls Abram to leave family and everything that is familiar.  This leaving will not be just physical, but spiritual.  He is to turn his back on the gods of his relatives and of his countrymen.  He is to do what no one has ever done by leaving everything to go west.  No concrete destination, just west.  And all because a God he didn’t know yet called him by name and gave him a command and a promise.

         There is always tension between the command and the promise.  My lifetime as God’s child is characterized by hearing a call, setting off on a course for which I have no roadmap, and trusting God for the next step on my journey.  My call cannot be second-guessed.  I never know what today will hold.  It unfolds as I listen and obey.  Even as the founder of a ministry, I do not set ten-year goals.  I cannot begin to guess where God will take me and Daughters of Promise.

         The call of God will also be cataclysmic, at times, when people who love me criticize, when family loyalties are threatened, and when church friends think my steps are too radical. The only one who hears the call and the daily revelations that go with it is the one to whom God speaks.

         A life of pilgrimage is not for the fainthearted.  Strength, direction, and endurance come to the pilgrim who knows he is a child on an adventure, holding the hand of a Father every step of the way.

When my obedience is tested with famine, breathe over me Your encouragement.  Amen

DOES THE PAST DESTROY MY FUTURE?

Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot.  Genesis 11:27

            Ten generations after Noah, through the blessed line of Shem, Terah was born.  Though Shem walked with God, it didn’t take long for his descendants to be become polytheistic.  Their prominent god was the moon.  In later times, with moon worship in tact, food was laid out at night to absorb the rays of the moon, which were thought to have power to cure disease and prolong life.

            Not much has changed, really.  One of the most beautiful and current songs of our day is made famous by the talented Celtic Women.  The name?  The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.  

            It was in this spiritual environment that Abram was born.  It was not ‘Yahweh friendly’ yet it was out of this line that Jesus would be born.  Can children with holy callings arise out of spiritual wastelands?  Yes!

            That answer should comfort any who fear that their past is too scarred for God to use them.  I can place far too much emphasis on my past in trying to determine the odds of future success.  I can fear for children who have unbelieving parents, believing that they are too scarred to ever hear the call of God on their lives.  Yet how many Christian leaders, like Abram, have come to faith simply by coming face to face with Jesus Christ!

            Once God decides to open the eyes of an unbeliever to the beauty and glory of His Son, Jesus, any degree of spiritual blindness is instantly cured.  Whom God has predestined to believe ~ will believe.  Nothing can stop or hinder it.

            A child of an alcoholic, a child of an atheist, a child of a pedophile, any of these will be the next evangelist if God calls them.  No toxic childhood environment can thwart the call.

            What kind of obstacles have me worried today about a relative, friend, spouse, or child?  Do I really believe that their spiritual condition is hopeless?  How small is my God!  How puny is my faith!  Abram, growing up with gods on the shelves on his home, is about to hear Yahweh’s voice for the first time.  Like Saul, it will be such a powerful encounter that he will sacrifice everything to follow.

Give me the grace to kill all despair with faith!  Amen

UNHOLY AMBITION

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Genesis 11:5-6

            What am I building today?  If it is something God does not like nor approve of, He won’t come (most likely) and destroy it while it is in its infancy.  My unholy ambition will prosper according to my efforts.  It will be a while before I see the unwelcome fruits of my labor.  God’s inspection, and/or judgment, may occur after my death.

            The towers of Babel reached high in the sky before God inspected them and pronounced judgment.  He marveled at their ambitious undertaking but in the span of His vastness and glory, it was laughable.

            What I build with my hard work appears to work for a while.  I might even be fooled by what I suspect is blessing.  Ambition does produce some stunning results on its own but self-made efforts and God-breathed success are two totally different things.  To know the difference, I must think with the mind of Christ.  And to have the mind of Christ, I must be humble, teachable, and ever immersed in the Word.

Give me your eyes for my work today.  Am I building a tower of babel or a temple?  Amen