Author: Nick

Take up the whole armor of God . . . praying always . . . —Ephesians 6:13,18 It doesn’t take much reading of scripture to know that we are in a battle. We are referred to as soldiers. We are told to take on the whole armor of God. As soldiers we must know for whom and against whom we fight. We fight AGAINST forces that would keep us from Our God and His perfect will not against other of His children. We fight FOR others in intercession and in action as the Lord directs. What we should never do is wrestle WITH God.  If you ever do wrestle with God, you will be crippled for the rest of your life. If you grab hold of God and wrestle with Him, as Jacob did, simply because He is working in a way that doesn’t meet with your approval, you force Him to put you out of joint (see Genesis 32:24-25). Don’t become a cripple by wrestling with the ways of God, but be someone who wrestles before God with the things of this world, because “we are more than conquerors through Him . . .” (Romans 8:37). Wrestling before God […]

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth —2 Timothy 2:15 You don’t really know something until you can teach it to someone else. Many of the truths we claim to live by remain cloudy and undefined in our minds. Try to express verbally what you believe about Salvation or Sanctification, Baptism or Communion. If you find yourself mumbling, then you have some work to do. If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don’t, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you share it with someone else.  Much of what we believe is based on what we have been “taught” but have never really learned. You must struggle, experiment, and rehearse your words to express God’s truth clearly. Then the time will come when that very expression will become God’s wine of strength to someone else.  Sometimes we will come across a great expression of […]

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled . . . —John 14:27 The Great Life is a life of peace. It’s a gift of God to the disciples of His Son. God’s mark of approval, whenever you obey Him, is peace. He sends an immeasurable, deep peace; not a natural peace, “as the world gives,” but the peace of Jesus.  A life of peace, does not mean a life without trial or difficulty. But when problems come and we are right in our relationship with God, we know that He is in control and the sense of peace remains. It is helpful when our sense of peace leaves to go through a checklist to discover where our peace has gone. Check first the status of our relationship. Are we trusting God ? Are we following His latest direction for our lives. Or have we tried to wrestle the steering wheel from Him and move Him from pilot to co-pilot? Have our lives become complicated or chaotic? That’s always a sign orfour attempt to control or lives or the lives […]

. . . men always ought to pray and not lose heart —Luke 18:1 People describe intercession by saying, “It is putting yourself in someone else’s place.” That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God’s place; it is having His mind and His perspective. You may ask why is there a need for intercession? God already knows the needs and can intervene or not has He will. I believe it is for the intercessor. By having the mind and perspective of God, we become more of what we should be. It grows and matures it. By having His perspective we begin to develop just a piece of the love He has for His children.  Our natural tendency as “good” men and women is to try to “do” rather than intercede. When we “do” we artificially inflate our pride, forget the need for God, and often do damage to the one in need. In essence, we interfere. It is said that “Prayer changes Things.” And so it does, it changes us. Consider the privilege of getting just a piece of the mind of God and His perspective.  If we don’t intercede, we begin to be self-focused and circumstance […]

. . . that they may be one just as We are one . . . —John 17:22 It’s amazing how early personality emerges. My great granddaughter is two years old and has a very distinct personality. She is different from the grand kids I have been blessed with.  We all display personality; yet just some of our personality is known to others. Personality is the unique, limitless part of our life that makes us distinct from everyone else. It is too vast for us even to comprehend. An island in the sea may be just the top of a large mountain, and our personality is like that island. We don’t know the great depths of our being, therefore we cannot measure ourselves. Others have no chance of completely understanding us. There is really only one Being who fully understands us, and that is our Creator.   Personality is the characteristic mark of the inner, spiritual man, just as individuality is the characteristic of the outer, natural man. Unlike individuality, personality is impacted by our contact with others. I am a different, hopefully better, person because of my forty plus year relationship with my wife. Personality merges, and you […]

Jesus said to His disciples, ’If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . .’ —Matthew 16:24 At some point in my military career, I found myself in Newport, Rhode Island. That winter was the first time I had seen snow flakes. I was amazed by their size and the fact that each one seemed different. I like the saying under this image, “Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.”  It is a credit to our creator God that his imagination is so great as to allow Him to create billions of individuals. We should marvel at that and wonder that He loves us each knowing our differences. However, we sometimes mistakenly worship our individuality. Individuality sometimes shoves others aside, separating and isolating people. Our individuality must be yielded to God so that our spiritual life may be brought forth into fellowship with Him. Individuality counterfeits spirituality, just as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself, but individuality corrupts that human nature for its own purposes. We can be so caught up in doing our “own thing” that we never get around to learning and doing His thing. The characteristics […]

I remember many years ago I had a close friend who was baptized in the spirit. It was an incredible experience for him. We were at a men’s retreat and he lay in his bed for hours praying in the spirit. I will never forget a comment of his, “Everything is spiritual.” I remember it because it could be expected of someone experiencing a spiritual life for the first time. But I also remember it because it was wrong. My friend tried for some time to live “just in the spirit.” It didn’t work. The natural still exists and must be dealt with. Some of us are trying to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God before we have sacrificed the natural. The only way we can offer a spiritual sacrifice to God is to “present [our] bodies a living sacrifice . . .” (Romans 12:1). Sanctification means more than being freed from sin. It means the deliberate commitment of myself, body, mind and spirit, to the God of my salvation, and being willing to pay whatever it may cost. We are talking about that nasty word, discipline. We need to discipline our bodies and minds, controlling what they consume […]

Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires —Galatians 5:24 We seem to easily recognize that as followers of Christ we need to abandon sin. The more difficult truth is that it is not just a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence, and my self-will. This is where the battle has to be fought.  It is easy to share God at a prison. The inmates know they have sinned. They are reminded of it every day. It is much more difficult to share with “good” people. They like to grade on the curve. They believe they are better than a lot of other folks. The same is true of us who follow Him. We believe there are naturally good things we do but these things that are right, noble, and good from the natural standpoint are the very things that keep us from being God’s best. Once we come to understand that natural moral excellence opposes or counteracts surrender to God, we bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us would debate over what is filthy, evil, and […]