You have incredible power! Do you know that the single greatest power in your world lies right there within you—at all times? It is the power of choice. God says in Deuteronomy that He is calling heaven and earth to witness against us (since we keep denying we have this power) that He has given us the power to choose LIFE or to choose DEATH. He wants us to know that we have the power.

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. Deuteronomy 30:19-20

Centering clay on a potter's wheel is a messy and very demanding operation—lot's of concentration is required! Why? Basically, because the clay doesn't want to be centered. It resists "surrendering" to the potter's hands. Don't you?

I learned pottery during my hippie years one summer when I was trapped in DC, trying to get to the West Coast on my motorcycle, but with never enough money to leave town. I had no idea in those days how terribly resistant I was to the Potter's Hands. I thought that life was just against me at times, but at other times I lucked out. I never saw the spiritual analogy to the pottery I was learning to do and the work of the Potter I was experiencing. Back then I had no spiritual life with the Lord to compare things to.

Last night I was browsing through notes that I had taken in my first year as a Christian exactly 29 years ago. The amazing thing for me was seeing how many of those early truths are still the truths that I am digging into today, truths that I am trying to do my level best to get across to others each and every day. Sure, I have learned lots of facts and many bits of valuable knowledge along the way that weren’t in those early lessons, but it sure seems that the Lord couldn’t wait to rush the delivery of the main revelations during that first half year. We don’t walk away from truth; we walk more deeply into it—and greater liberty, praise and devotion perpetually flow from that same inexhaustible fountain: grace and truth.

One note I found was on Israel's three great pilgrimage festivals and how they relate to us. I had Passover = salvation; Pentecost = baptism in the Spirit; but for Tabernacles I literally just drew a blank line. That was early in 1983. God filled in that blank 8 or 9 years later when I was reading a commentary on Leviticus as a bedtime devotional (you should try it sometime). Suddenly, I saw it! The clue was that it HAD to be about the Father, since the first two festivals were about the other two Persons of the Godhead...See where you fit into the Great Pilgrimage!

Are you aware that there are three pathways to healing? Although they are quite different, they share at least one very interesting characteristic--I will get to that in a moment. First let's delineate the three: for years we have believed that if we pray to God and go to the doctors then we are doing all we can. But modern medical science has conclusively shown us that as many as 80% of our diseases are coming from emotional stress (see The Emotional Roots to Disease). That gives us three God given ways of mending us that are totally legitimate and desirable for Christians to pursue:

1. Doctors and medicine. God gives us both the Lukes (aka the "beloved physician" of Colossian 4:14) and the "balms of Gilead" (Jeremiah 8:22). Clearly he wants to heal us through doctors and medicine and at times that's all that is needed. However, we should keep in mind that the Bible consistently takes the position that the spiritual relationship of the sufferer is far more important to the outcome than simply tending to the body alone. You hear it in the way the Lord is calling His people to repentance in these two passages from Jeremiah: since the usual way of seeking healing isn't working, shouldn't you be seeking the Great Physician?  

I have been doing this for years. Try it--it really works! A.C.T.! fast is just an easy way to remember the needed steps to take. Every fresh challenge or temptation presents us with daily opportunities to grow spiritually into Christ or to fall back in reliance upon self. Remembering this, recognizing the opportunity and taking advantage of it, means that we need some principle of simplicity to ingrain the new ways. You have an enemy actively “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8)—always wanting to separate you from your God and His ways by breaking the trust connection or disrupting your path of obedience. You have to be ready to “plug back in to the Lord” whenever you start losing the peace and confidence He gives you.

Here is an example of a typical episode: The peace of Christ is given to you as you surrender, trust and follow Jesus. So now you feel confident in God and are: 

I wish you could have come with me up onto the highland ridge in the NC mountains I visited last last fall. You would have seen a wonderful sight. Each morning the awakening dawn revealed verdant valleys far below engulfed in billowing seas of fog. It looked for all the world as if clouds had fallen from the sky! Yet it was the rainforest itself which was generating those dense morning mists. One dawn the mists overflowed our ridge and captured us in a perfect white out. The light of the rising sun was getting in--but no light was getting out! I couldn't see past the back porch. It was altogether marvelous!

Not so marvelous are the kinds of fog that confusion generates in our lives. The Lord says that His people are carried into captivity, even destroyed, for lack of knowledge (Isaiah 5:13; Hosea 4:6). What we don't know about this new life in Christ that we are being offered not only can keep us from entering into blessing, it also opens doors for the enemy to prey upon us. In the spiritual life ignorance is not bliss--it quickly becomes bondage!

What is the Problem?  We all know there is a problem, but it's not what you might think...The problem is:

          Not you
          Not God
          Not others
          Not the world
          Not your flesh
          Not the devil
          Not your sin
          Not your past
          Not your circumstances
          Not your weaknesses
          Not your 'personality'
          Not your addiction

The problem is the "disconnect." The problem is what you choose to believe in your heart of hearts about yourself, your God, and your world. Believing the truth will always work to set you free. Believing a lie, any lie, will always work to destroy you. That's the disconnect--believing some version of the enemy's lies as if they were the truth. It will disconnect you from peace and joy and the power of the Holy Spirit as quickly as pulling the plug on an electric drill. What you choose to believe determines three things that encompass the whole of your life:

1) Your immediate and future emotional state(your inner world). Realize this truth: your present emotional state is built upon your past beliefs; your future emotional responses can be built upon your new beliefs. 
2) Your level of contact with REALITY(others, all of creation, God--your outer life).
3) Your consequences. You are not the only player: God, the devil and all of creation are responding to choices you make based upon what you deep down believe.

I have such a concern that has been growing inside of me as the current economic situation continues to worsen and it is this:  if so many people were finding it hard to trust God and live in peace, under the previous conditions of greater prosperity and stability, what will become of them now?

This was apparently a question that exercised Jeremiah. He looked around and saw the conditions oppressing Israel and how the people were struggling. He knew his own struggles with trust and despair. He also knew, as a prophet, what was coming down the road. I believe that it was into his this area of his own need that the Lord spoke to Him:

Waiting doesn't seem like much of a weapon, but it is. It breaks down many a hidden obstacle. Israel waited a LONG time for their Messiah to come to them. That should tell us something: Jesus will seem to us at times to be the slowest Person we could hope to have come to our rescue! I read that thought in a book as a young Christian and it really scared me--I needed immediate results from my Rescuer! I have learned since then that His timing is not always "right now"--He has also been known to say "I'm coming soon. Wait and watch." So this Christmas, I'm including these thoughts to help us all learn to wait upon the Lord and perhaps like it a bit better. 

Consider these negatives which require our "waiting upon the Lord" for Him to remedy: tiredness, weakness, brokenness, woundedness, emptiness. What could possibly be good about them? A lot as it turns out--these are our secret weapons! Where for instance does the Lord say He desires to dwell? That's right. With the ones in touch with their brokenness, the ones who have been humbled by their emptiness, weakness and powerlessness.

The self-emptying of Jesus is one of the great wonders of His Incarnation--and it is also highly instructive for us, since we too must learn the way to decrease, so that He can increase. Here is the "Why, What and How" of it as well as I can make out. Just remember please that trying to peer into a Mystery is like walking into a fog. Sometimes all you get are vague impressions. Fortunately, for the sake of our adoration, devotion (unlike doctrine) doesn't feed on details. Let this posting be for your devotion and feast your eyes on His matchless humility.

Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:5-7 ASV