Carter Conlon | Daily Devotionals

Today I want to remind you that Jesus could not carry the cross to Calvary in His physical strength alone. God sent Simon of Cyrene to help Him to finish the journey. If the Son of God needed strength beyond Himself, then so do we. The call to take up the cross is not our call to self-powered endurance. It's an invitation to dependence. God always provides strength for the journey that He ordains.

Stop trying to carry what God never intended you to bear alone. Receive the strength He provides and continue forward in His power, and His power alone, today.

Join with us every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, where people at itstimetopray.org are gathering together and we're believing God for the strength that we will need in this final generation to become the people He's ordained us to be. Above and beyond everything today, it's time to pray.

Colossians 2:14 says, "blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, nailing it to His cross." You may say, I have a past, I have a record, I've done things that cannot be undone. But when you come to Christ, something supernatural happens. What was written against you is literally wiped away by the blood of Jesus. 

You may still remember it, but heaven doesn't hold it against you. The enemy will try to bring it back to remind you of who you used to be, to convince you that you're still disqualified. But the cross speaks a better word. What was held against you has been nailed to the cross and is now covered by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

You are no longer defined by your past. You are now defined by the mercy of God. 

Stop looking back at what he has already erased and step forward into the life that God has now given you. 

It's time to pray.

Psalm 71:17-18. "Oh, God, you have taught me from my youth, and to this day I declare your wondrous works. Now also, when I am old and gray-headed, Oh, God, do not forsake me, until I declare your strength to this generation, your power to everyone who is to come." 

This is the mandate given to us now, to show the next generation the power of God, not just to talk about it, but to show them that when we go to the throne of God, God will hear us, God will answer, God will save, Christ will deliver. 

I believe that you and I are going to live to see a mercy moment in America. I don't know what the future holds, or what the nation is going to look like when this is all over, but I do know that God's mercy is from age to age and from everlasting to everlasting. 

It's time to pray.

Mark 9:23-24. Jesus said, "If you can believe, all things are possible to Him that believes." The reply was, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief."

There are moments when you've done everything you know to do and still nothing changes. You pray, you speak, you stand in faith, and yet the situation remains the same. You wonder if even God will move. 

That's where this father stood, and his cry was at least honest. Lord, I believe as much as I can, but my faith has fallen short. That's where many of us are today.

You cannot manufacture more faith than what you've been given. You've come to the end of yourself. But the good news is the end of yourself is not the end of God. When your strength fails, His power takes over.

Bring your weakness honestly before Him and let Him meet you there. Don't walk away in discouragement. Stay and ask Him to do what you cannot. 

It's time to pray.

Psalm 78:19 says, "Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" This was a question of the people of Israel. They'd seen the power of God bring them out of captivity, but when they stood in the wilderness, they began to doubt that He could bring them into the place He had promised them. 

The situation looked so hopeless that the thought came into their minds, maybe even God can't do anything with this.

Now, many of you know what that feels like. You're no longer what you used to be, but now you stand in a place where you don't know how to become what God has called you to be. 

The struggle is not coming out of captivity, it's going into the promise of God.

I refuse to believe that God brought you this far just to leave you where you are. He's still able to prepare a table, even in your wilderness. Stop measuring your future by what you see, and now trust God to finish what He has started in your life. 

It's time to pray.

You must stop listening to every argument that tells you your life will never change. The voice that says you'll always be stuck, always be limited, always be defeated, must be confronted. You cannot continue to entertain those thoughts and expect to walk in freedom. 

There has to be a decision to reject these thoughts completely. Don't give them any space in your mind any longer. When those thoughts come, answer them with the truth of God's Word. Refuse to believe what God has not spoken. Walk away from the lies and begin to stand on what He has declared and is declaring about your future. 

Freedom begins when you and I stop agreeing with what's trying to hold us back. Join with us every Wednesday night, 7 p.m. Eastern time at itstimetopray.org, where people from all over the world are laying hold of this truth and God is raising up a new testimony one more time. 

It's time to pray.

Hebrews 3:15 says, "Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your heart." Don't say, "No, God is not for me." Do not say, "I'm too dead. I'm too far gone. I'm too far back." Do not listen to the voices around you that are chirping away everywhere, saying there's no hope for you. You'll always be like this. Your dad, your mom was like this, and you'll be like this as well. No, no, no, no.

This is not a season to draw back. It's not a season to hide behind a stone. It's a season to hear the voice of God that is now calling to you, even in your weakness and hopelessness. It's the time now to come out of every place of darkness and death and weakness.

What do I do, you say? Get up and move towards the sound of God's voice that is calling you.

It's time to pray.

We knew the Word of God in this nation. We knew what God said. We knew the warnings of God. There were voices that were raised to caution us, just as in Acts 27, with the Apostle Paul that said, don't take this journey. If you do, it's going to result in the loss of everything.

And now here we are with that loss. The loss of our military, our might, our civility, our economy, our morality. It seems today that everything is being thrown into the wind.

It's time that you and I cry out to the Lord and ask Him to restore us again. The cry of our heart in this generation is, God Almighty, would You help us to pray again? You and I need to understand that if we cry out to God, that God will be God one more time.

If ever there was a time to cry out to God, my brother, my sister, it's now.

It's time to pray.

Romans 8:11: "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal body.

The whole of creation is groaning, the scripture tells us. The whole world is now yearning for something that only God can give them. There's a cry in the hearts of many today who do not know Christ. They're looking everywhere and not finding what they need. Creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God.

Jesus Christ is calling His church today out of death and lethargy and into new life in Him. If you can hear His voice, get up and go forward. Talk to Him about it today.

It's time to pray.

John 11:43. 'Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.'

When Jesus stood at the tomb of Lazarus, many voices were already speaking. Some were weeping, some were mourning. Some were saying it's too late. Lazarus has been dead for four days and a stone covers the grave. Every voice around that tomb was declaring the situation final.

Then one voice rose above all the others. Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." His voice was stronger than death, stronger than the stone, stronger than the hopelessness surrounding the grave.

He doesn't call when you have the strength to get up on your own. He calls when you have no strength left, when every other voice tries to tell you there is no future. Today, if you can hear His voice, don't harden your heart, move towards where He is calling you.

It's time to pray.