Daily Devotions

Archive for March, 2019

No Weapon Formed

No weapon formed against you shall prosper (Isa.54:17). This is the reason why:  No matter the size or type of weapon, it is soooo inconsequential in comparison to your God. Everything He is and everything He can do overwhelms it and engulfs you and the weapon. “For [in comparison with the Lord they are so weak that things as insignificant as] the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool. But My rightness and justice [and faithfully fulfilled promise] shall be forever, and My salvation to all generations.” (Isa.51:8, Amp)


Stay Thankful

(Kathy Gabler)—Stay Still had been only the first instruction. The second was, Stay Thankful.  That seemed somewhat of a contradictory challenge because it involved facing the troubling again that I had turned from to get still.  Sometimes we can simply walk forward and leave past conditions behind, but this time I had to go back to find where I had exchanged or laid aside my, ‘Thank you, Lord’.  Genuine thankfulness required that I go back and find God’s goodness and mercy and presence and purpose there among the unanswered prayers and unchanged issues.  This time I could not wallow in my emotions but rather stand separate from them and find God in the mix.   I gathered the truths out of the rubble.  Even in the unchanging daily grind, He was there and aware because He is God.  He was looking out for me during the struggles and fears because His love for me is constant. He had good plans for the outcome of each concern because He is good.  He would never leave me to Trouble’s threats or whims because He is faithful.  I had to look again to see Him there, and to see Him there reminded me that He is aware and He is good and He is faithful.  That made me thankful.


Aim for the Bullseye

The enemy knows that if he cannot kill your dream, it will do him damage. The Egyptians made the Israelites’ lives “bitter with hard labor” and the “Egyptians used them ruthlessly”. (Ex.1:14) Pharaoh also came up with a plan to abort the possibility of deliverance. His plan for the midwives was to slay all promise and even hope of deliverance. He wanted them to stay at it, be vigorous, don’t let up, slay them all. I am reminded at this point of Jesus’ words “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy (Jn.10:10).” The enemy quietly made a deal with the midwives to go about their destruction as quietly as possible – hopefully unnoticed (cf.Ex.1:16). The devil wants you to die in quiet desperation, preferably completely away from spiritual help and fellowship. He wants your dreams and visions to die unshared, unvoiced and most definitely…. unfulfilled. Just as a sheep is ever searching out life-sustaining grass, it seems that we are ever searching out God’s will. God’s plan is ever to reproduce Himself in us. That’s why He gives us dreams and visions. He puts a “bullseye” out there, aims us at it and desires we move in obedience toward the center of the target. (From Marty Gabler’s book “Why Sheep Have Short Legs”.)


Our Confidence is His Portal

(Kathy Gabler)—Our complete confidence in Him is like a portal for His entry and workings in our life, and that pleases Him. Recently, the Lord illustrated this vividly for me. I awoke from a nap hearing the Holy Spirit say, “Kathy, your confidence in me becomes my access to you and your situation.”  Immediately, I saw a cylinder around me.  It was bright white in its interior circular wall.  Although I could only see so far up into the distance above my head, I knew the cylinder stretched into the heavens.  The corridor seemed to be a straight shot from me to God and I had a knowing that it passed right through second heaven without interference.  Being in that cylinder was like being in a gigantic artery from my heart to His, and the artery had no plaque build-up, fear or doubt or unbelief that could block His supernatural flow. The vision convinced me that my complete confidence in God forms an unhindered path for Him into my life, and confidence filled my being.  Stillness seemed definitely doable.  


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Edification in Prayer and Word


Dates and Groaning

Dates, predictions and signs come and go in every generation and during and after the book writing and prophesying and after the hubbub, fear and debates subside, creation is still left groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God. For many, these things are not about Jesus, they are about events. We must get back to a Christocentric message and lifestyle (one in which Christ is central, not just a ticket out of here). ”[ The Centerpiece of All We Believe ] So, my dear Christian friends, companions in following this call to the heights, take a good hard look at Jesus. He’s the centerpiece of everything we believe, faithful in everything God gave him to do.” (Heb.3:1, Msg)


Faith is Stand of Agreement

(Kathy Gabler)—Faith is the key to His pleasure (Heb.11:6) because faith is how we receive the deposits of His love or the changes His will causes or the manifestations of His Original Intent in our lives.  It brings God pleasure for people to experience His good will toward men and His beauty for ashes and His making the impossible possible.  Our faith and trust in Him is our stand of agreement that opens the earth and the circumstances and the day and the moment to Him.  So, our complete confidence in Him is like a portal for His entry and workings in our life, and that pleases Him.    


Rest in Safety

As the people of God assemble may they encourage one another to hope in the Word of God and the God of His Word. May they be reminded of the unfailing Word of God and find rest in safety and fear none. “And you shall be secure and feel confident because there is hope; yes, you shall search about you, and you shall take your rest in safety.” (Job 11:18, Amp)


Year of Extraction

(Melissa Gabler)—First, I would like to warn you of the graphic nature of this article.  It may cause unpleasant pictures in your head while reading.  So, read at your own risk! What has the beginning of this year been about? We are in a Drawing Salve season. The reason drawing salve works is that it softens the skin around the splinter, or whatever else is in there, and this then enables the body to more easily eject the foreign object.  This is something that the body does naturally anyway, but by moisturizing the area and using anti-inflammatory agents you simply encourage this to work more quickly before the wound closes over it. At the same time it can encourage blood flow which will also help to create pus and as the pus is ejected from the body so too will the foreign object.  That stuff has to come out! This year of extraction also includes our being extracted from captivity with all the bells and whistles God installed!  


Our Value to God

(Kathy Gabler)—Hebrews 11:6 also says that “without faith it is impossible to please God.”  Our stillness may be challenged if we misunderstand that part of the scripture.  We must understand that pleasing our loving Father is different from pleasing others.  Pleasing God is not the same as pleasing the boss or pleasing a task-master or pleasing a judge or pleasing the powers that be in the human realm.  God is not affected by humanness, and He is not so shallow that pleasing Him is about emotions or preferences or moods that humans or Greek gods seem to be fraught with.  Neither is pleasing God a matter of our worth or value to Him as is the case in a master-slave relationship. (Sixth excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)


Engaging His Design

2019 is the time period the Lord has made (Ps.118:24). We will rejoice because the Lord has made it in keeping with His purposes and plans. It is a time period that we may not thoroughly understand nor have a complete grasp of. Yet, the times are in His hand (Ps.31:15). Throughout 2019 we will continue to rejoice because the all-wise God is not behind the times nor even trying to catch up. He has already stepped out into tomorrow and bids us come and partake in His worthy enterprise and we will engage His design with energy and expectation of the extraordinary. May the Lord grant you every enabling blessing for His Kingdom purposes in 2019. 


Standing Strong

(Kathy Gabler)–Trust is not refusing to think or just being purposely passive.  It takes deliberate effort not to teeter-totter in the contrary winds of circumstances or emotions.  In order to stay in the steadiness of trust, we must choose to ease down from uptight stress or climb up out of the mulligrubs of disappointment.  If you picture a sure-footed stand on either side of that middle balance-point of a seesaw, you can see that standing strong and keeping your head straight (not leaning to our own understanding but trusting in the Lord with all our heart, Pro 3:5) involves a bend of the knee while you counter the ups and downs of life.  The effort is outward, but the rest from threats and what-ifs is inward.  So at the very least, stillness that comes from trusting God can bring us to physical healing just because it brings relief from stress.  Trust is being still because you know He is God, and trust works in tandem with faith to experience God’s will being done.  I believe we can see it in Heb 11:6, Anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.  We believe He exists because we have faith in His word, and trust is our confidence that He can be approached and will respond.  Sometimes I think our trust in God is shaken because we don’t see the results we thought faith promised.  At those times, being still and refusing to be shaken may boil down to holding on to God more than what we thought He said or what we thought He meant. (Fifth excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)


The God-Cloaked Answer

(Melissa Gabler)—(Melissa) Have you ever had times when a revelatory nugget pops up, then within days you hear the same nugget from other sources? That’s been happening as of late and I’m learning to pay attention to those! Following is one such instance that has been not only ringing in my ear, but answering some of those seemingly unanswerable questions.  While in conversation this was quoted to me from a book, “God hides some things for specific times so that the enemy cannot destroy them.” That stuck with me, and a couple of days later I read a quote from someone else that was expressing the exact same thought! Well, that really hit me between the eyes, especially because these came from trusted sources.  It was an “Are you listening?” moment. 

The God-cloaked answer is not about God withholding an answer because we don’t get it.  This is not about Him being mean or cruel.  He is indeed right the opposite. “It is because of the Lord’s lovingkindness we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.” Lam. 3:22-23 (AMP).  This makes me cry.  Our God is so faithful to sustain us through these battles to our answers.  In fact, His goodness NEVER runs out! This scripture tells us they are NEW EVERY MORNING! There is new strength and grace to be set free right now.  Y’all, He NEVER gave up on plan A which is the John 10:10 abundant life.  We choose to live plan B simply because we don’t have a grasp on His love and true intent for us.


A New Place of Trust

(Kathy Gabler)—It took a few weeks for me to realize that in order to stay still I had to get to a new place of trust in God.  I had to willingly and actively keep trust in the cross-hairs of my awareness.  I began to picture trust as that middle point on a seesaw where you are neither up nor down.  In that place, circumstances cannot get you uptight in high anxiety with your whole body stressed and straining, nor can the situation cause you to hit the bottom in despair or discouragement or depression.  Trust is a place where you do not live by what you SEE or SAW but by confidence in God and His steady, unmovable faithfulness.  From that early morning conversation, I had learned that I would have to stay alert and rein in my thoughts in obedient follow-through daily, if not hourly.  (Fourth excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)


Hear Distinctly

As the people of God assemble today, may they hear distinctly as they are taught the Word of God. May the preachers and teachers give them the message in such a way that the people can get the sense of it, understand it and apply it with powerful effect all week long.  “So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading.” (Neh.8:8, NKJV)


How to Pierce an Atmosphere

(Kathy Gabler)–Jesus demonstrated how to pierce an atmosphere.  He did it when He acknowledged the woman with the issue of blood.  His acknowledgment, without condemnation, pierced the atmosphere of traditions that limit life and steal destiny.  He pierced the atmosphere that was filled with the fear of death when He spoke to Jairus of his daughter saying, “Do not be afraid any longer; merely entrust this to Christ, and she will be made well.”  Jesus’ words pierced the atmosphere and served as a heads-up to the prince of the power of the air over Jarius’ region.  That atmosphere filled with unbelief was about to shatter.  The stronghold of experience and natural limitations was crumbling, bowing to a Higher order.  Jesus set the rules of engagement in Lk 8:51 “ When He came to the house, He did not allow anyone to enter with Him, except Peter and John and James, and the girl’s father and mother.” Then He pierced the powers-that-be again, “He said, “Stop weeping, for she has not died, but is asleep.”  The first blow shook every power of darkness lurking in the smothering, toxic air, and then He delivered the second blow in verse 54, “He, however, took her by the hand and called, saying, “Child, arise!”


Become Less Tense

(Kathy Gabler)—If I heeded the Scriptures, refraining from rehearsing my troubles would keep me from getting peace-depleted!  The second scripture that came to me was Psa. 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.”  “Be still” there means “to loosen up or become less intense”, so that was the second positive step I needed to take.  The Message puts Psa. 46:10 this way,  “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.  Getting to stillness would involve focusing on Him instead of the unanswered prayers and nagging changelessness.  I was on the way to getting still, but staying still would prove to be another challenge. (Third excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)


It May Look Like Ordinary Ground

Where you are standing may look like ordinary ground at first glance. Where you are presently, may seem like a wilderness without purpose but there is an all-wise, loving Father who in His wisdom and within His customized timetable of events says, “Take off your shoes so that you do not tread thoughtlessly on ground and time that I have set apart for a purpose.”  “Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” (Ex.3:5, NKJV)


First Hurdle Was Stillness

(Kathy Gabler)—After waking in a funk, stillness was my first hurdle.  Two scriptures came to mind.  The first was Jn 14:1, Let not your heart be troubled.  I had taught on that scripture a few times and knew it meant “don’t let your heart be agitated, tossed to and fro, restless, perplexed with doubt, stirred up, struck with fear and dread or anxious and distressed”.  Since I had woken up in that very condition, my challenge was to find a way out of the troubling.  After rereading my own notes, I knew one positive step was to hold my peace, or keep my mouth shut.  Peace leaves our heart on the wings of our words and all that is left is trouble’s rubble.  (Second excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)


Wind of Opposition

This is the day the Lord has made so…
I will rejoice and bless the Lord at all times, especially in the face of the driving wind of opposition. I will just bless Him louder!  “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” (Ps.34:1)
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How do I Deal With the Troubles?

(Kathy Gabler)—I awoke in a funk.  When my eyes opened, the weight of unresolved situations and unanswered prayers was already smothering my hope for the day.  I sat up and said, “Father, I’m not going to whine and list the stuff that is squeezing my heart.  Neither will I foolishly demand that You do something quick or I quit, but I do honestly want to ask:  How should I think? How do I deal with the troubles in my face this morning, long-standing issues that have not the slightest evidence of even being on Your radar?  I see no hint of things in motion or even the slightest chance of change.  What do I do?”  He answered immediately, “Stay still and stay thankful.”  His answer was both sudden and surprising, but the instructions were clear.  I embarked on a journey that morning, one of those unmapped trips that bring you to intersections you did not anticipate.  I was about to discover that some foundational concepts in my Christian world, like peace and trust and faith, connected in ways that I had never realized. (First excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)
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Ekklesia of God

As the people of God assemble today may they realize that they are the Ekklesia of God and that they have the authority of God on earth to execute the Word of God and the purposes of God in their generation. May they stand together in covenant relationship and not be moved by what they see in their environment but stand upon the solid Rock in spite of wind and storms. (Matt.16:18, KJV)—‘…upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’


Glory of God Through Us

The glory of God through us, His creation, is not our putting forth effort to hit an ideal or to align with a creed or even getting to heaven. It’s accomplishing things that show His character, His Name in this earth in spite of the influence of culture. That which is in heaven comes to earth through an earthen vessel (Jer.18:4-6; Matt.6:10) and continually points back to its Source in heaven (Matt.5:16).


Renewing Your Mind

(Larry Burden)– In Paul’s letter to Timothy, he instructs his son to “call to remembrance …” (2 Timothy 1:5) The words, “remembrance” and “remember” in scripture come from a root that means “recite or invoke”. Simply put, remembering results in action and as such becomes a power releaser in your life. If you rehearse a memory, you empower it! Scientific study has shown that whenever a thought or event occurs, it immediately is processed through a part of the brain known as “the memory gateway”. Each time you recall that thought or event it becomes more and more activated to the final point of becoming “set” in your mind. If you focus on negative thoughts and events, your words and emotions will become governed by negativity. If you focus on positive thoughts and events, then the opposite occurs. The good news is that whenever negative thoughts are revisited and truth is added to them, truth will SHIFT the mindset and alter your perception. It is called RENEWING YOUR MIND!  (LARRY BURDEN is speaking this morning at Kingdom Congress) Watch live on the Facebook page of Grace International Church Willis,TX)