Fresh Fire Ministries

“Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven.” Psalm 119:89 (NKJV) During most political campaigns, the rhetoric and responses to the debates, speeches, and interviews are much more numerous than could be counted. Everyone has their own view, take, or interpretation of what the other candidate or party representative has to say regarding a particular subject matter. At the end of each debate an area of the debate arena is designated as the “spin zone.” This area is designed to accommodate the media, politicians, pundits, and prognosticators as they attempted to explain to their candidates benefit or advantage, the various positions articulated by their candidate during the debate. Some of those interviewed will cloak the truth, embellish certain episodes, or attempt to say what the candidate said when they really didn’t say it. Then they wait to see how their “spin” would impact the polls for that week. One of the most powerful things about the truth of God’s word is that you never have to put a “spin” on it. The truth is the truth, and that’s just the truth. Those who declare the word of God through preaching, teaching, and witnessing never have to put a “spin” on it. The psalmist in our devotional passage explains to us exactly why. The word of God is “settled” in heaven. It must be settled in heaven before it can be settled in our hearts. In other words, amid change, challenge, compromise, conflict, and catastrophe the word of God “stands firm.” Not just today, tomorrow, or next week but forever. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8 (NKJV) The foundation of the word of God stands firm for us so that we can stand firm on it in our time of need. It does not have to be recited in rhythm or rhyme. It doesn’t have to be screamed or shouted from the rafters of the church to be effective. As we witness in real time, the erosion of our society, the decay of our moral values, the destruction of the family, the implosion of conscience, the degradation of the human condition, the dilapidation of truth, and the waning of the desire of man to just simply do what is right. Rest assured that after it is all over and the dust clears, the word of God will be just as settled then, with no spin, as it was on the first day that God spoke it into existence. It’s settled. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away.” Matthew 24:35 (NKJV)

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“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matthew 6:14-15 (NKJV) The spirit of unforgiveness can adversely affect our relationship with God, not to mention that it can bind us in the chains of bitterness, hostility, and animosity. Left unchecked and unconfessed it cultivates a root system that ultimately affects our personal testimony and relationship with others. "Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble; and by this many become defiled." Hebrews 12:15 (NKJV) Unforgiveness has a first cousin named hatred. When hatred is manifested as a result of our failure to forgive, it is then that we can no longer say that we love God whom we have never seen and then harbor hatred toward our brother whom we interact with daily. (See First John 4:20) We must forgive those who have committed "any" trespass against us. In our devotional passage "trespasses" are those sins towards another that cause "a lapse or deviation from truth or uprightness", or to put it plainly, a sin or misdeed. If we fail to forgive God will not forgive us. This is so critical because we cannot reconcile our relationship with God unless we first reconcile our relationship with our fellowman through the act of forgiveness. Once we forgive others, we must willingly receive God's forgiveness through the blood of His son Jesus Christ our Lord. It does not matter what we have done nor how long we have been bound within it, the blood of Jesus has the power to forgive us, but we must be willing to receive it. There is no need to continue to rehearse our past mistakes. "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to His grace." Ephesians 1:7 (NKJV) Most importantly, after we have forgiven our brothers and sisters who have wronged us, and then received God's forgiveness, then we must forgive ourselves. The memories of our past may continue to haunt us, and we may "feel" that we are not worthy of a continued relationship with God. We must understand that nothing can be further from the truth. Stop trying to remember what God has already forgiven and forgotten. God wants us to be forgiven and free. "How much more shall the blood of Christ, whom through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Hebrews 9:14 (NKJV)

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“Bless me, bless me. Oh Lord bless me indeed, enlarge my territory, Oh Lord bless me indeed. I pray for increase. I pray for increase. Oh Lord bless me indeed.” Good Morning our most holy and sovereign Heavenly Father. What a wonderful day that you have given to bless us with life and that more abundantly. We praise, honor, adore, extol, and magnify your holy and righteous name. Thank you for blessing us with all things that we need to live this life until Jesus comes. We pray this morning that we will decrease and that you will increase in us. May there be more of you and less of us ruling the affairs of our life. For it is Christ that now lives in those of us who believe. Increase our faith, increase our worship, increase our praise, increase our understanding of your word, and increase our knowledge of who you are so we may serve you with everything that is within us in these last and evil days. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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“Yet I will rejoice in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation.” Habakkuk 3:18 (NKJV) The devastation that the prophet Habakkuk observes in Chapter 1, during the historical period of his writing is almost beyond human comprehension. His observation reveals the captivity of his people at the hands of the Babylonians. The strife, contention, violence, iniquity, and trouble that he sees bring tears to his eyes. He is in dire need to know how long he will have to cry and why has God allowed him to see such a tragic level of calamity and his people, God’s people to suffer. Have you ever asked the same questions? You are in a situation. It has come upon you so quickly you are not even quite sure how you got there. Your back is against the wall, you see trouble, tribulation, and temptation all around nipping at your heels. You need to know how long you will have to endure, and why you have come to this point in life. Amid despair, the Lord who knows how much we can bear can quickly move us from the devastation of our circumstance to revelation. Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision and make it plain on the tablets that he may run who reads it.” Habakkuk 2:2 (NKJV) God can always give vision or revelation to those who are willing to run with it. Devastation can never prohibit God’s revelation. What is it that has you bound, in captivity struggling and fighting to be set free? You will find your breakthrough contained in the revelation of God’s word. When God speaks to us, when He reveals himself, there will be no need to try and prove, test, or fleece what He has revealed. His revelation will always come to pass all we need to do is wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. It’s easier said than done. There is a unique difference between receiving the vision and the vision coming to pass. Wait for it. Habakkuk received the revelation, but the time of its fulfillment remained unknown. He had no further information other than what the Lord spoke in Chapter 2. Write the vision, run with it, and then wait for it. Waiting is never passive, but it is always active. We run with full trust, belief, and anticipation of what God’s revelation has in store for us. While we are running, we cannot endure without faith. Faith is the cornerstone of our trust and without its God will not be satisfied.

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Then Job answered the Lord and said, "I know that you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Job 42:1-2, 5 (New King James Version) These powerful passages of scripture are often lost within the spontaneous celebration that takes place in Job 42:10 when we discover that after all that Job went through, that God gave him twice as much as he had before. Some often sermonize this passage to say that Job received double for his trouble. Yet, the revelation that Job received in our devotional passages overshadows in comparison, the double fold blessing. Through trial, trouble, and tragedy, Job discovered something about God that no one else could have ever revealed to him. He had come to know God through his own personal experience with Him. It has often been said that a man with experience is never at the mercy of a man with an opinion. Job had been subjected to the thoughts and opinions of others including his so-called friends. They gave Job all the reasons why he was going through what he was going through and even his wife in a moment of human despair, concluded that he should just curse God and die. What if Job had listened and acquiesced? Suppose his friends were able to convince him that he had indeed erred and therefore deserved everything that was happening to him? There could have even been the slightest possibility that Job could have settled for less by making everyone else's experience his own. Yet and still, there is something about knowing God for yourself. It is the experience of a lifetime and one that can never ever be taken from you. Beginning with Job chapter 38 through 41, God silences the opinions of Job's friends by answering Job out of a whirlwind. At the end of God's discourse Job sees his relationship with God from a totally different perspective. He now concludes that God was sovereign and that He could do everything. What a revelation that transcends all human comprehension. We must be careful not to ride the coat tails of someone else's experience with God. While it may encourage us, inspire us, and uplift us; it can never take the place of knowing God personally and experiencing Him for yourself. Job's personal revelation of God helped to deliver his friends. "For I will accept him lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has." Job 42:8b (NKJV)

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“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9 (NKJV) You can rid the world of every gun, rifle, and assault weapon, and any other device that can be used to destroy, maim, injure and kill. When you do that there is still something that will remain that must be dealt with; the human condition, which finds its origin in the heart of man. That, meaning the heart, is above all else even more dangerous, and just as deadly as a physical weapon. Behind every weapon there is a human being, infected and in many cases desensitized by the human condition. This is not a new phenomenon. God has been uniquely aware of this acute condition shortly after the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Genesis 6:5 (NKJV) Man’s plunge into degradation has been clearly chronicled throughout the course of human history. One fall after another, one crime after another, one massacre after another, one episode of every kind of abuse after another. Man is trying to legislate, regulate, mandate, and alleviate the things that only God can do and accomplish when man acknowledges his desperate need and calls upon the name of the Lord for restoration, reconciliation, and redemption. “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” Psalm 50:15 (NKJV) Even though we know the cause man still has failed to uniformly call upon the name of the Lord. The prophet Jeremiah poses a question in our devotional passage concerning the heart of man which represents the human condition that thankfully does not have to go unanswered. “Who can know it?” Thank God that He knows the exact extent of our heart and the human condition that it contains. And since He knows all about it He must act according to His loving-kindness and grace to save us from ourselves. But we must come to Him, and we must call upon His name. It takes calling upon Him to help rid us of our pride, arrogance, and selfishness that is always associated with sin. How can we know? It comes by way of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and His Holy Word. When we read it, speak it, mediate on it and let in cleanse our hearts, then and only then can the human condition be healed and made whole.

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“Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me; I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem; nor was there any animal with me, except the one which I rode. Nehemiah 2:12 (NKJV) God has a purpose and plan for your life. It takes it shape in the form of your vision and assignment from God. No one else has the exact same call or mandate. No one else can do what God has called you to fulfill. No one can. “For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarry wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Habakkuk 2:2 (NKJV) But you must be keenly aware of those who may not have your best interests at heart. Sure, we don’t want to believe that this is true, but it is. Vision killers are lurking about unaware. Often within very close proximity to where we abide. It was no different with the Prophet Nehemiah during the return of the children of Israel from Babylonian captivity. Their return has been met with devastation and despair. The walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed. The gates are on fire. Nehemiah is in great mourning and travail from what he has heard regarding the condition of the city. “So it was when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” Nehemiah 1:4 (NKJV) The stage was set. Now all that would be required is that Nehemiah follow the plan of God to fulfill his purpose. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.” Nehemiah 2:5 (NKJV) As with any assignment from God that results in our purpose and vision being fulfilled, it does not come without opposition and resistance. Often from “secret enemies.” Many will even encourage you, smile in your face, and some even have the audacity to tell you that they are praying for you. Do not be deceived and most importantly always remember that you cannot always tell everything that God has placed in your heart and what He has called you to do. The plan of God for your life cannot be stopped or invalidated. Not by mere men with clandestine and ulterior motives. You cannot be defeated.

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