Author Archives: valsonabraham

What if the Promise takes 40 Years?

Have you prayed for, and received, promises from God for certain matters, but after many years, even decades, those promises remain unfulfilled? You know you have the promises, but now you worry: has God forgotten? Have I sinned and lost them? If so, read about Caleb.

The Bible tells us Caleb possessed a “different spirit.” Only he and Joshua trusted God to help Israel overcome the Canaanites. While everyone else said, “We are grasshoppers in their sight,” Caleb and Joshua said, “With God’s help, they will become our bread.” The enraged people almost stoned them, but Caleb and Joshua held fast to God’s word.

Israel’s failure of faith delayed their entering the Promised Land for 40 more years. Only Caleb and Joshua of that generation entered. They had to wait those 40 extra years because of everyone else’s unbelief. By the time they crossed the Jordan River into Canaan, Caleb was 85 years old, and he still had to fight for his promised territory like the others.

Joshua 14 reveals that God never forgot His promise to Caleb. Caleb was just as strong and vigorous at 85 as he was 40 years earlier. God rejuvenated him, enabling him to win all God promised him, including Hebron which was to play great significance in coming days. The scriptures do not tell us how long Caleb lived, but he certainly lived many more years to enjoy his long-awaited inheritance on this earth.

Caleb won because he never wavered. He never let time, age, other men, or circumstances sway him from his trust in God. 

Caleb’s faith inspires us all who wait for God’s seeming delays. We must never waver in our certainty that God is faithful to all He promises. To think otherwise is to slander God’s character and invite disobedience. God’s promises depend upon our trust in Him no matter what. 

Lack of trust needlessly delays or even cancels the promise due to unbelief. Think of the Exodus generation, or King Saul who went his own way and lost a kingdom. Think of the people of Nazareth who viewed Jesus as only “the carpenter’s son,” not God’s Son. Think of Judas Iscariot who saw Jesus’ miracles and even worked miracles, yet betrayed Him.

God announces His intentions toward us with His promises, but He requires our faith in His integrity to follow through. Caleb’s experience reminds us that we must persevere and wait upon God no matter the seeming delay.

Caleb had a “different spirit,” even though his family were outsiders adopted into Israel. In Numbers 32:12, he is called a “Kenizzite.” According to some, he may have descended from Esau’s grandson, Kenaz. The name “Kaleb,” means “dog.” In the Semitic culture of that day, this name represents his father’s prayer that his son’s life will reveal a dog’s absolute loyalty faithfulness, endurance and integrity. 

God’s grace toward Caleb is evident here as He adopts outsiders into His family and richly rewards them for their unshakable faith. Our background alone never excludes us.

Not always do families of spiritual heroes win God’s approval. Think of the sons of Aaron, Eli, Samuel, David who failed. Our bloodlines alone mean nothing. Our loyalty means everything.

Many more Calebs in India await adoption into God’s family. May we not let them down!

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

When God Gives You More Than You Can Handle

One of the greatest leaders we find in the Bible is Joshua.  He demonstrates courage, faith and total obedience to God.  He submits himself to God with humility.  He is a servant-leader who faces many challenges both among his own Israelite people and from Canaanite enemies.  He becomes God’s catalyst for victory after victory.  He shows himself both spiritual and practical.  

He also plans for a future day when he will no longer lead his people.

In Joshua 13, we find Joshua in the latter years of his life, “old and advanced in years,” perhaps nearing the age of 100.  In spite of all the battles fought and victories won, the Lord reminds him that “much of the land remains to be possessed.”

God has given Joshua a great work, and he has done it well, relying on God all the way, defying the naysayers who threatened his life (see Numbers 14).  But he cannot and will not fulfill the whole task himself.  He must soon pass the torch to the next generation.

God always gives us more than we can possibly do alone.  The vision He gives to us is larger and greater than we are.  He expects us to do our part and prepare others to take it from there.  If Joshua had done it all himself, he would have gotten a “big head” and thought, “Look what I just did!”

Our prayers and actions are never in vain.  Combined with the prayers and actions of past and coming generations, they produce what others have described as “generational synergy.”

At this stage, Joshua had to trust God to complete through others what he, Joshua, had begun.  Perhaps, it has taken longer than he thought it would, but God is never late.  He is preparing Israel—and the world—for an even “greater miracle” that Joshua could not fully understand.

The plan of God would continue its fulfillment through people like the Judges, Samuel, David, the Prophets, John the Baptist—and Jesus.  Through Jesus’ death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit and the ekklesia (that’s us), we would do our part.  Each generation prepares the next generation for the next stage in God’s great redemptive plan.

The Book of Judges is a grim reminder of what happens when one generation fails to pass the torch of faith to the next.  A later generation failed to pass on its spiritual history so that their children did not know the Lord and what He had done.  They became like pagans, worshipping false gods, living as victims and cowards rather than victors.

So far, our present generation has lived with little value for history or knowledge of those spiritual giants who went before us.  Too many believers in Jesus act more like victims than the victors Christ made them to be.

Bobb Biehl has written and spoken of a “500 year plan,” a vision God gives to us toward which we can pray, work and pass along to those who come after us, even those who come long after us.

What preparations are you making now for that “greater miracle” in your own life and ministry that gains the whole “Promised Land” God has in mind for you, your children and grandchildren and for the world in which they will live?

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Learning to Laugh at Giants

How well do we “think God’s thoughts after Him” (Isaiah 55:8-9)? Our willingness and ability to do so determines our destiny to face life’s challenges. Otherwise, we will tend to live more like victims than victors.

We find a good example of this truth in Joshua 12. The Israelites have just faced the greatest challenge of all, the combined armed forces of 31 kings. Those kings included the dreaded King Sihon of the Amorites and the giant King Og of Bashan, known also for his strength, military prowess, handsome looks and charisma. He was so tall he needed a 13-foot bed. Their brutality and arrogance were enough to throw fear into ordinary people.

Ordinary people—that is, people who do not “think God’s thoughts after Him”—simply waver and walk away from such challenges. They doubt promises God gives to them of their Promised Land. They allow visible circumstances to define reality.

But these 31 kings took counsel against the Lord and His people, the Israelites, who had 400 years of the Lord’s promises behind them. What kind of God did the Israelites trust? Psalm 2 tells us that God regards anti-God kings with scorn. Think of a three-year-old child who crowns himself with a paper crown, robes himself in his “blankie” and proclaims himself king of the universe. Even this ridiculous image can never match our Lord’s scorn for 31 godless rulers.

Through many trials, the fickle Israelites under Joshua were coming to think God’s thoughts after Him. What a victory they won!

God looks for those among us who will trust Him for the impossible (1 Chronicles 16:9; Jeremiah 33:3). How often do we laugh in mockery at today’s enemies of God? Or do we merely tremble at them and pray for an escape hatch?

Do we lose sleep over godless enemies’ arrogance, or do we laugh at them knowing that their weapons really come from Satan and are no match for the weapons God has already given us through the cross of Christ? Do we know what our weapons are?

William Carey, the great pioneer missionary of India, preached, “Expect great things of God; attempt great things for God.”

That can happen only when we expect God to do unconventional things with and through unconventional people. Israel’s history is unconventional history. Israel’s history begins through a man and his wife who have a child at 100 and 90 years old. Later, we see Joseph rise from prison to power far from home. Think of the Red Sea miracle, and Joshua’s victories over Jericho, Ai, Adoni-bezek, and the 31 kings. How unconventional can you get?

God specializes in the impossible. He loves for us to trust Him for it. He loves to take weak and foolish people (like us) to confound the “mighty” Sihons and Ogs around us. He seeks weak, foolish and unconventional people, filled with Holy Spirit treasures in their “earthen vessels” to help defeat Satan and his arrogant puppets.

As we face life’s challenges, we do well to remember the example of Joshua and look back at times in our own lives when God did unconventional things in us—how He healed, saved, restored what seemed lost.

Let us think on these things, view our enemies with God’s eyes—and laugh!

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

When Faith Brings the Walls Down

Hebrews 11 portrays the miracle of Jericho in Joshua 6 as one of history’s greatest examples of faith.

Perhaps even more miraculous is that this is not just a record of what happened to Israel 3000+ years ago. The miraculous fall of Jericho becomes a template for our own day when we are linked in covenant with Israel’s God through the cross of Jesus Christ. It becomes a timeless model from a timeless God of how we can face our own “Jerichos,” those seemingly impossible foes and insurmountable odds, whatever they may be. Our weapon is our faith in Him.

We all know the story. The Israelites, led by Joshua, approach the walled, fortress-like and hyper-evil city of Jericho. They have no battering rams, catapults, ladders or anything else to break through city gates or scale those high walls. 

In obedience to God’s command, the people march in silence around the city once a day for six days, seven times on the seventh day. At the sound of the priests’ trumpets, they shout a great shout, and the walls fall flat. The city is taken and all its unspeakably demonic inhabitants are slain.

This great act of faith did not just “happen.” It resulted from the Lord’s preparation of His people beforehand. It resulted from God’s discipline of His people. It involved remembering prior acts of God’s provision and taking account of the evidence. It involved parting with past sins, setting themselves apart for God alone, separating themselves from a victim mentality. We, too, must prepare ourselves ahead of time.

We often say that “God is in control,” but He does not choose to act alone. He did not make those walls crumble until His people got involved in the process. They were not just passive observers of God’s power. Also involved were the angelic armies. But they did not get involved either until God’s people first got themselves right with Him and became willing to obey God. Only then did He and the angelic hosts act.

To have faith meant they had to obey God even when His orders didn’t seem to make sense. Until the miracle at Jericho, no city walls ever fell, or were city gates broken through except with battering rams and other instruments of war. The Israelites could have resisted this seemingly irrational command, but they obeyed. Will we obey God’s sure orders to us when they appear foolish to our families, and even to other church people
and pastors?

In a sermon on Joshua 6, Charles Spurgeon boiled down the essence of faith to three words: work, wait, win. The “Jerichos” that challenge us in life are not the result of men but of our ultimate enemy, Satan. God gives to us weak and flawed people the privilege of joining with Him to defeat that evil one who enslaved us. He wants us to get involved in winning back our own lost “Promised Land.”

In 3000+ years, God has not changed. We are still made in His image. He still requires of us the same kind of faith He required of the Israelites at Jericho. When we prepare ourselves ahead of time as did the Israelites under Joshua, God will, in the words of Paul, “crush Satan under our feet” (Romans 16:20).

Tagged , , , , ,

When God’s People Stand in His Way

Sometimes God’s worst enemies are His own people. Joshua 5 underlines this troubling truth. To understand this, we must remind ourselves of a vital principle:

God’s words of blessing and covenant to us are sure. That is, as long as we fully agree to them, trusting God to do what He has promised. 

The Israelites utterly failed to trust God. Forty years earlier, at the last moment, they got cold feet and threw away everything God intended for them.

Recall from Numbers 13-14 how twelve spies entered Canaan, their Promised Land, and ten spies reported of the Canaanites, “We are grasshoppers in their sight!” Only two, Joshua and Caleb, declared, “Trust God! He is on our side, and our victory is sure!” 

The Israelites believed the ten naysayers. They came close to stoning Joshua and Caleb, groaning, “What are we doing here? LET US RETURN TO EGYPT!!” In short, they believed the Canaanites were stronger than God. They believed this even after they witnessed the ten plagues that got them out of Egypt, the Red Sea miracle and experienced God’s help in defeating the Amorites. 

They displayed sheer unbelief after witnessing overwhelming evidence that God was with them.

This unbelief denied the Israelites’ entry into the Promised Land until that unfaithful generation died off (except for the faithful Joshua and Caleb). They needlessly remained homeless slaves in a trackless wilderness for 40 years, never realizing God’s promises. What a total tragedy!

By God’s grace, a new generation of Israelites arose to receive another chance. But first, they had to renounce the unbelief of their parents and grandparents before they could move forward. They had to take tangible steps (circumcision) to demonstrate they were still true covenant people of God, not infidels like their forebears. They partook the same Passover meal eaten by their parents before they left Egypt.

Only then did they cast off the spirit of Egyptian slavery that still haunted them because of their parents’ unbelief. Only then could they expect God to lead them to victory over the Canaanites. Now, the Israelites learned their lesson. Now, the captain of the Lord’s host (Jesus?) appeared, ready to assist their victory with angelic power.

Joshua 5 is both a promise and a warning to us. If God’s chosen people could fall into gross unbelief, what about us? Whatever our level of spiritual maturity, each of us is conceived in sin, easily subject to doubts and unbelief. 

Unbelief takes many forms, even deceptively spiritual ones. We live in troubling, violent, times. We face personal difficulties. Do we become easily shaken by these things? Even dearly held theological convictions may result because current events appear stronger than the eternal Word of God and His personal promises to us.

We all do well to come often before God to renew our covenant with Him, even forsaking subtle forms of unbelief passed on to us by beloved parents and grandparents. We all do well to pray along with David, the man after God’s own heart, “Try me, and see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:24).

May we all renew our minds before God so that we will cling to the promises God has given us, bringing blessing to us and to multitudes in our generation. A blessed Christmas to you!

Tagged , , , , , ,

You Can’t Have a Relationship With a Myth

How does Christian faith resemble world religions? It doesn’t, and the Book of Joshua shows us why.

In Joshua 4, the Israelites have crossed the Jordan on dry land into the Promised Land. The priests continue to stand in the dry river bed with the Ark of the Covenant, bearing the Lord’s presence. The Lord tells Joshua to pick 12 men representing each of the 12 tribes, and command them to take up 12 stones from the river bed. They are to carry those stones to where they will lodge that night and set them down as a memorial. 

In verses 21-24, we read that these stones will memorialize God’s actions:

• The day He enabled Israel to cross the Jordan on dry land into the Promised Land.

• The day He dried up the waters of the Jordan until all had crossed.

• How He enabled an earlier generation to cross the Red Sea on dry land.

The Lord required this memorial:

• To exalt Joshua’s leadership in the sight of all Israel even as they revered Moses.

• To remind future generations of Israelites how He faithfully intervened to save them.

• To proclaim to all peoples everywhere of God’s mighty hand and inspire their reverence.

The stones tangibly reminded Israelites that only God could make a way where there was no way, to lead them to a future and a hope they never could dream or reach on their own.

Many people, including those in liberal churches calling themselves “Christian,” often claim Christian faith as teachings, philosophy—and myth. But Joshua 4 reminds us that Christian faith is founded on acts of God in real time—acts to remember and cherish. 

All people in the Bible from Genesis through Revelation gain their significance from God’s acts in their lives. Biblical accounts of Creation, of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses—and Joshua—all have their origins in acts of God, not of their own. So, too, of David, the prophets, and later, of Jesus Christ Himself in obedience to His Father in Heaven in His life, death and resurrection. 

This historical foundation of the Bible, based upon acts of God, sets Christian faith apart from all other religions. 

All other religions are teachings, philosophy and myths. One can never have a personal relationship with myths. That is possible only with a God who enters human history. 

Because relationship with God is what we are made for, people within our spheres of influence will truly come to Christ only when they personally encounter God in tangible ways. Intellectual approaches alone will not persuade. Only God’s acts in and through His children set Jesus apart.

How true this is in IGO’s ministry! Our evangelists, students and many Indian believers testify of personal healings, deliverances and other encounters with God, convincing them of His authority, power and love through Jesus Christ.

Historical Bible events, centered in acts of an unchanging God, serve as templates for our own day. Our faith and stability grow when we see and hear of God’s acts in our lives and others. When we forget these things, chaos reigns (see the Book of Judges).

When Christians increasingly demonstrate that God’s acts are for today, not just for ancient times, revival and awakening will sweep the nations. That day cannot come soon enough!

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Preparing for God’s Promise Lands

The people of Israel reached their most critical hour. They failed once, wasting 40 years of wilderness wandering. Now, God had graciously granted them a second chance.

When the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, they would begin to fulfill God’s promises first given to Abraham. Everything would change. They would no longer be nomads and former slaves but a nation, God’s nation.

Israel’s preparation to cross the Jordan River into Canaan (their Promised Land) models what we must also do to successfully enter God’s “Promised Lands” for our lives, families, churches and societies.

At this critical time, the Israelites had lost the only leader they ever knew—Moses—to be replaced by Joshua. Was he up to the task of leading them into their Promised Land against the wicked and formidable Canaanites? Was he truly God’s chosen leader, the man of the hour? The Israelites needed assurance of this to move forward with boldness, knowing that God Himself appointed him.

They were headed to Jericho where they needed to know that victory was inevitable over the formidable strength of the foe.

God gave them needed assurance by sending the priests with the Ark of the Covenant (and His presence) ahead of them. His very presence would open the Jordan River, backing it up for miles, allowing the Israelites to cross on dry land even as they crossed the Red Sea.

God’s promises to them would become a “done deal” depending how they cooperated with God to make it happen. This demanded that they set aside every hindrance to faith and obedience. They had to ready themselves to see God work in miraculous ways never even imagined before. It was an unprecedented hour demanding utmost confidence in God. They had to stop thinking of themselves as nomads and slaves and think of themselves as a nation.

This was the moment for which God called them. It was a holy moment demanding full commitment and a dramatic shift in self-perception. This is why Joshua told them, “Consecrate yourselves.” By doing so, they would participate in the miracles God was about to work. God didn’t tell them just what He would soon do, but He gave them the assurance they needed to advance in confidence.

In short, God did not require blind faith from the Israelites, but action based on evidence that things not yet seen would become reality. This is the essence of the faith that pleases God which we find in Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the assurance [or evidence] of things not seen.”

This should encourage us as we enter new chapters in our own lives. God never requires our blind faith. When we face life’s challenges and tests of God’s promises to us, He welcomes our requests for assurance that we are on the right path to victory. He requires us to rid ourselves of strongholds. We may not know just how He will fulfill His promises, but He wants us to know we are on course.

We live in a time of unusual shaking with challenges to life, ministry and nation. But His promises still stand. Let us consecrate ourselves, put aside past habits of limited or faulty thinking and seek Him for assurances we need to trust Him as we join Him in His miracles of redemption and justice.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

The Scarlet Rope of Grace

Is the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New Testament? Some people think so. They see God’s judgment of the Canaanites as the work of a vindictive and bloodthirsty spirit.

The story of Rahab in Joshua 2 destroys that narrative. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God always looks for people He can save. He often finds uncut gemstones even in the filthiest muck. He found it in Rahab, the harlot.

At first glance, Rahab seems an unlikely candidate for God’s favor. Some people rationalize that Rahab was an innkeeper, but other references in both Old and New Testaments indicate she was indeed a prostitute. She plied her trade in the walled city of Jericho, destined for destruction by God through the Israelites.

So why would God save Rahab whose life represented the depravity that God wanted to destroy? Was it because she risked her life in helping to save two Israelite men who came to spy out the land? Was it because she recognized the sovereign power of the Israelites’ God?

Yes, but I believe there was even more: Rahab and her household were saved because she joined in the covenant of faith with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob right along with the Israelites.

When Rahab begged the two spies to save her life along with the lives of her family members, the two spies told her to hang a scarlet rope outside her window to identify her living place. The two spies vowed that the presence of the scarlet rope would save from destruction all those she gathered with her.

That scarlet rope became to Rahab and her family like the Passover Lamb became to the Israelites when God led them from Egypt to the Promised Land.

Her act of faith in God separated her and her family from the doomed people of Jericho. That scarlet rope was visible for all her people to see. Rahab acted in faith that God would faithfully save her and her family from His judgment—something she did not deserve but acted to claim for herself. Her family members acted with that same faith when they gathered with her.

Such faith and obedience were counted to Rahab and her family as righteousness just as real as the righteousness of faith that separated Abraham from his pagan society. Rahab was later entered into faith’s hall of fame (Hebrews 11:31), a woman of good works (James 2:25) who even entered the family tree of the Lamb of God Himself (Matthew 1:5).

If more of Jericho’s people had demonstrated the faith of Rahab the harlot, they, too, would have been saved. We can say that from what happened later with the cruel and wicked city of Nineveh that came under God’s judgment but repented in sackcloth and ashes and were all spared (Jonah 3).

God’s grace is greater, more inclusive and more ingenious than we know. This should give us great encouragement as we pray for wayward loved ones, nations and radical haters of the gospel who seem totally resistant and “impossible” to change.

May each of us learn to think more like God thinks so that we will pray with greater faith and expectancy for Him to work His grace in ways beyond our understanding.

Tagged , , , , ,

3 Ways to Conquer What Looks Unbeatable

What does it take to defeat an enemy?

The Canaanites were not ordinary enemies. Few peoples in history have matched Canaanite depravity. They comprised a body of various peoples who became so devoted to evil that God decided they must go or they would corrupt the whole human race.

They practiced every kind of twisted sexual immorality, child sacrifice and idolatry. They were proud of it. Their ethic was violence. They were physically large, abnormally strong and lived in fortified cities no one had conquered, not even the Egyptians with their mighty armies. An earlier generation of Israelites saw them and felt like grasshoppers in their sight.

The Canaanites had never been brought to account for their depravity and thought they were stronger than God. Even after they heard how God delivered the Israelites at the Red Sea, they refused to repent. Things were getting worse, not better.

For 400 years, the Canaanites tried God’s patience, but even God’s patience wore thin. He called upon the Israelites to destroy them. For their trust and obedience, the land of the Canaanites would become their own “Promised Land” forever.

By worldly standards, the Israelites were an unlikely people to do this. They were former slaves, nomadic shepherds and wilderness wanderers, not military people. But even the Israelites could conquer the Canaanites and take their “Promised Land” if they fulfilled the following conditions:

  • They were to be strong and of good courage. They were to be strong and courageous in God, convinced He would do exactly what He promised them because He was stronger than the enemy. They were inadequate in themselves, but they were not to fear the ferocity of the enemy because God would never desert them.
  • They were to observe all of the Law. They were to remember the covenant God made with Abraham and Moses. They were to obey God in everything He asked of them. They were to learn how to think as God thinks, not follow their own instincts. They were to heed all God told them, even when it did not seem to make sense. They were not to get distracted by other things but always hold the promises of God before them. Faithfulness to obey all of God’s word to them would prevent needless heartaches and setbacks.
  • They were to know that wherever they went, God was with them to bring success. To stand together in unity and trust God alone and not their own ways was the only sure way to success, even against a fierce and evil enemy like the Canaanites.

God’s word to the Israelites in the face of a vicious foe remain true today as we work together to take the Good News to all of India. We face many foes who defy God and are stronger than we are, with vastly more resources than we. Yet God guarantees victory as we remain strong in Him and think His thoughts. We have His promise that through us, the Great Commission will be fulfilled, and the knowledge of the glory of the God will fill India and the whole earth.

May God’s words to Joshua also encourage and strengthen you in these days as you remember His promises to you in the midst of your own challenges from seemingly unbeatable foes.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

God’s Unchanging Plan for His People

“For I the Lord do not change…,” Malachi 3:6 tells us.

God’s plan has never changed. As God’s redeemed people, how we live our lives means we must know what an unchanging God has always intended for us. Our salvation comes through the cross of Christ and has restored us to what God always intended for us before Satan robbed us by deceit.

To know what this means in its fullness means we can better join God in His work of redeeming all of India and the entire world from the power of Satan. So, what did God intend from the beginning?

In Genesis 1, we learn that God made us “in His image.” Often, we interpret this to mean moral, ethical and intellectual abilities. However, a more accurate view, based upon better understandings of ancient Middle East culture and Hebrew grammar, suggests a deeper meaning.

A more accurate reading of this text is, “Let us make man AS our image.” In ancient days, a ruler’s image in the town square signified that ruler’s sovereignty over that town. In other words, God created humanity as a sign of God’s rulership over the earth.

“According to our likeness” indicates that God has assigned to us an active role in rulership alongside Him. God has designed us to become His regents in the earth, to keep the world in order according to His will. To have “dominion” means to rule as God would rule, with wisdom, reason, good judgment and careful management over all things. Adam’s fall disrupted all of this. History records how we have failed miserably in our assignment.

Through His life, death and resurrection, Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). All that Satan stole from the first Adam and his descendants (us) is returned to us by the Second Adam, Jesus Christ. By His authority, He has restored to us our lost authority as His image, according to His likeness, to have dominion. We are empowered through the Holy Spirit (John 14-17), spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12) and the keys to the kingdom (Matthew 16).

Through the cross, these already belong to us. All we must do now is claim and use them.

With our authority, granted by Christ, we are to use them to complete the full defeat of our adversary, Satan. Of course, Satan wants to blind us to our authority so he can continue to steal, kill and destroy. But in the end, God will still crush Satan under our feet (Romans 16:20).

As restored sons and daughters of our King Jesus, we have the opportunity to join Him in restoring the earth to its former glory—occupying until He comes, declaring the gospel of the kingdom, discipling the nations, preparing the way for the kingdom of heaven on earth where the knowledge of the glory of God covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. Paul tells us in Romans 8 that creation groans, waiting anxiously for the revealing of the sons of God.

May our generation not let the groaning continue! Once again, by God’s grace, we are His regents on earth. Let us learn by His Spirit to fully incorporate our unchanged assignment into our lives to His glory and for the blessing of the whole world!

Tagged , , , , , , , ,