Fearlessly Courageous
From the Desk of Dennis Piller
8 3 2023
We can’t make life happen…It happens by Grace!
I continue today dwelling on the prophecy that God has something big for us to do…something more than where we are…That He wants to enlarge our territory, 1 Chronicles 4:10 but it cannot be done in the flesh…Only in the Spirit and He wants us to open our eyes and see what He sees.
I read John 6:63 last night and it struck me hard. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all, the flesh profits nothing; Human effort accomplishes nothing.
The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
I took the Flesh portion from three different translations so we might get a stronger emphasis on the sternness of his meaning as it relates to His prophecy.
I read in a short devotional from God’s Holy Fire that said:
“We can’t make life happen. We can live with purpose, but life happens by grace. Our willpower can’t bring genuine life into being, and we can’t work hard enough to make life happen. We can assemble the pieces of a great life, but someone greater has to step in and breathe life into those pieces.
Jesus is that Someone.
He stepped into our world and lived life, demonstrated life, shared life, and promised life. And Jesus’ words, empowered by the Holy Spirit, give life. They are life-making because when we partner with those words by believing them and obeying them, the Spirit inspires life in us”.
Isn’t that exactly what John 6:63 is saying to us? Or look at Zechariah 4 1 “I asked the angel who talked with me, What are these, my lord?” He answered, “Do you not know what these are?” “No, my lord,” I replied. So he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: `Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.
I know that I can slip in and out of my walk in the spirit. I am so immersed in the world that it taints me, and tries to dilute the focus of my walking with God in the Spirit. Walking and breathing in America is not what God or scripture calls life. Without the Holy Spirit we cannot walk with God or perceive the things of God… That is not life!
He says, in John 14:17 “This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for.”
When we allow ourselves to drift from God. Stop reading his word. Stop walking by faith in obedience, we too cease to hear and see what God sees.
2 Tim 3:5 brings it home in a piece of the prophecy “Invaded our Sanctuary” It says, “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. [6] For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, [7] Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”.
I think we deny his power by not walking in it…by not spending time with God and in his word and in so doing we stop calling on God and His promises to live life in the Spirit. I think we can become so comfortable in our Christian walk that we think we are pretty good where we are. But the word is clearly telling us this week that we need to fast and pray, draw closer to Christ, and He will do a new thing in us and for us. But we must stop and listen!
I think some of us get so constipated with a portion of our life in the world that it requires a breakthrough in the spirit. Your answer may not come today or this week. Daniel waited 21 days for the Angel of the Lord to arrive with the answers to his prayers. But he kept praying and believing. I am on day 3 of my fast to hear the new things he has for me. My wife asks this morning, how long will you continue with your fast. I said I don’t know…I am waiting on the Lord.
Let me encourage you today to listen to his word again…Press in by Faith. Do not get discouraged. Growing is always uncomfortable and at times painful. But the prize is so worth it. Getting closer to the light, immediately dissolves the darkness around you, thus illuminating what might be already there.
Daniel 10: vs 12 “2-14 “‘Relax, Daniel,’ he continued, ‘don’t be afraid. From the moment you decided to humble yourself to receive understanding, your prayer was heard, and I set out to come to you. But I was waylaid by the angel-prince of the kingdom of Persia and was delayed for a good three weeks. But then Michael, one of the chief angel-princes, intervened to help me. I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia. And now I’m here to help you understand what will eventually happen to your people.
The vision has to do with what’s ahead.’
What God is calling us to do is in the deeper waters right before us. Press in my friend and do not grow weary.
Even if you are just starting today…
You are not too late to step into his Spirit.
Riley Clemmons – Broken Prayers
