It is undeniable that God allows for extreme circumstances to find His children. He is a protector - but He only protects us from that which would ultimately harm us. He is not obligated to protect us from extremes that serve to develop us. In fact, He harnesses difficulty in order to fashion us into His own likeness. When a distress or difficulty accomplishes His purposes for us, God enacts powerful reversals. He literally overhauls the circumstances and brings forth treasure from the trial. For those who are oppressed, smothered, persecuted or opposed, God will take care of what threatens you and accomplish a full and final deliverance. This Psalm reveals what this process often looks like in the life of a believer.

Hezekiah knew by this time that his enemy was ruthless and relentless. Accusations, threats, blasphemies and psychological warfare had all been released by the wicked ones who opposed Hezekiah’s godly mission. Now it was go-time. The enemy needed to be dealt a final blow by the people of God so that they could resume the worship and work assigned to them by Him. What would Hezekiah do in the final stages of the collision between himself and the king of Assyria? He would fight in the Spirit, partner with God in prayer, welcome angelic help, and stand still to see the salvation of the Lord against his enemies. From his ancient approach to warfare, we modern believers can be strengthened in our own commitments to wage warfare against Satan and his demons to send them running from the territory assigned to us by God for His own glory.

Satan knows that godly leaders remain vigilant and aware of his constant attacks. Godly leaders walk in personal purity which results in elevated spiritual discernment and power. Their hearts are clean from bitterness and selfish ambition. Godly leaders have robust prayer lives which keeps them ready and equipped for spiritual warfare. Because Satan and his demons cannot always defeat human spiritual leaders who are prepared for war, they intentionally target the hearts and minds of followers to poison them against their spiritual leaders. Sadly, this attack has a frequently high success rate in churches and other Kingdom works. In this portion of 2 Chronicles 32, we learn the tactics of the enemy’s ministry of accusation through the strategy of wicked King Sennacherib as he seeks to destroy the leadership of Hezekiah. The modern Church needs to know of this type of warfare, and to be prepared when it comes against a Kingdom movement that God is seeking to release through their leaders, through their Church and through them.

Some Christian tend to believe that God is only eager to help those who get in a difficult circumstances due to the fault of others. Maybe the devil attacked and made life hard. It could be that some other human made a mistake that put us in a major challenge. When the fault is someone else’s, most of us believe God will almost always come to our rescue. But what about when we ourselves blew it and are now reaping what we sowed? Should we expect God to help us then? This portion of Psalm 107 highlights the goodness and willingness of God to come to the rescue to deliver us from our self-imposed messes and distresses. We need relief from our troubles, and only God can meet our desperation with Heavenly intervention and powerful remedy. The question is whether or not we posses elevated confidence to expect Him to come to our rescue when we are in trouble due to our own poor decisions and sinful actions. This is a Psalm of hope for that very issue!

It is not difficult for us to understand that God will rescue His children from the attacks of the enemy. It is easy to grasp how He swoops in, destroys what threatens us, and then brings us back safely to His appointed places. Yes, God clearly protects and rescues His own.

But how eager are we to believe in a rescue from trouble that we ourselves have created? Should we expect God to move win the same zeal to bring us out of messes that arise from our own sin and rebellion?

This portion of Psalm 107 reveals how our Redeemer moves in grace and mercy to bring us out of some awful circumstances that come about because of our own failures. If we cannot envision His love and kindness to us when we least deserve it, then we do not yet comprehend the fullness of His merciful heart.

Nobody enjoys the feeling of helplessness. We much prefer feeling large and in charge. Weakness, lack, dependence and hungers are not the things we desire to describe the core of our daily lives. Yet, for those who live by faith, it is nearly impossible to experience spiritual growth without God allowing these types of elements to cycle in and out of our lives. God does not wish for us to live in our own strengths or sufficiency. As we begin to explore the 107th Psalm, the first nine verses remind us that, apart from the Father’s intervening grace and supply, we are all lost, spiritually homeless, scattered, troubled and destined for distress. The joy of these verses is that we are NOT forgotten by the Father and left on our own. His compassionate heart goes after all wanderers. He moves when we cry out to Him for help. God will not forget you.

The dark, sad secret in the Church is that many Christians rarely pray. All of us as Jesus-followers began our journeys with the understanding that praying is vital and healthy. Yet, as time went on, many believers just let prayer fade away. For many, the reason they stopped praying is because of their experience of routinely unanswered prayers. Why bother praying if God doesn’t respond the way I desired? This message takes multiple bible passages to help us understand the massive promises attached to our prayers. It also reveals some painful reason why many prayers do not and cannot get answered by God. If we can understand what potentially wrecks our prayer life, we will be emboldened to address these issues and become again a praying Christian who calls out in confidence to God.

How we respond toward God when we have failed is a deep indicator of what we believe about Him. Sin separates us from God. While the relationship remains intact, sin separates and breaks off our sense of closeness with God. He works hard to allow the discomfort to find us. He does not gloss over our sin. He seems to take a step back. Why? Because we won’t likely return to Him apart from His allowing us to feel the damage done when we disobey Him. God is a good Father, and He takes each of us through a similar process when we experience a moment or season of ignoring His ways and His word. When we recognize our sin, we are able to immediately make it right with Him. This message walks us through the aftermath of David’s great sin with Bathsheba, and reveals to us what we can know about God’s heart when we also fail Him. We should grieve over our sin, but we must learn to rejoice in the grace of God which abounds above the level of our sin. God is a forgiving, restoring Father when we confess and forsake our sins.

The greatest storms to ever hit the Church are still future. Jesus said so. Paul said so. Peter said so. John, in the book of Revelation, clearly said so. Before eternal rescue, relief and reward there will be an unprecedented span of intense storms that Jesus-followers will be called to endure. So the question for us all is, “Am I ready?” In this message, Jesus offers a prophetic warning for us to examine what our lives are currently founded upon. Sinking sand will never support us in the coming storms. We must know beyond a fact that we are anchored upon the rock, and wisely building thereupon. Without intentional inspection of our life-foundation, we are presuming to be able to endure what is coming. Jesus calls us to be intentional, ask the tough questions, and come away knowing we are prepared.

Most devoted Christians will admit that wrestling with the timing of God has been occasionally difficult as they seek to live by faith. We understand that we are to seek to discern the will of God, operate in the ways of God and complete the works of God as He leads us in life. It is not uncommon for us to wonder why God does not move at what seems to us like a logical pace. Why does God sometimes seem to spring big events on us before we feel ready? Or, more commonly, why does it seem like God drags His heels when we feel like the clock is ticking too fast? We cannot always know the answers to these questions, but we CAN become more resolved to learn how to devotedly align with God’s timing. When He moves quickly, He is wise. When He seems to go to slowly, He is wise. He knows what He is doing as He leads our steps and He will always give us understanding later on as to why He determined the pace in which He leads us. Our job? Follow Him, wait on Him, trust Him and obey Him.