Calvary Chapel

by

Urgent Prayer for America, the Church, and Our Families!

Last week I spoke about how important it is for the church to ask the Lord to intervene in preventing evil schemers from carrying out their goals to destroy humanity. I shared a specific prayer backed up by several Scriptures that we can use to appeal to our mighty God. You can pick up a hard copy Sunday at church or you can download your own copy. We are headed into unprecedented times predicted by the ancient Hebrew prophets, by Jesus, Paul, and other writers of the Bible. Hopefully, God will hear and answer our prayers according to these Scriptures and give us time to get our lives in order, to witness to family and friends, and to prepare our hearts for whatever may happen. The Scriptures will serve as our Prophetic Watch this week.

Heavenly Father, we ask that You remove all workers of wickedness from positions of power and influence. Prevent them from carrying out their evil schemes any further!  Replace them with those who stand for truth and righteousness in places of authority and governmental positions,

In the NAME of JESUS!

Psalm 50:15 – Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.” [This is a promise that lays the foundation for praying the following Scriptures]

Psalm 7:6,9 – Rise up! O Lord, in Your Anger, lift Yourself up against the fury of my (our) adversaries; awake for me according to Your judgment . . .Bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make (us) the righteous secure

2 Chronicles 14:11 – Then Asa called to the Lord his God and said, “Lord, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. Lord, you are our God; do not let mere mortals prevail against you.” . . . Our eyes are on You! (Dr. Lutzer writes about this promise in his book, “We Will Not Be Silenced!”)

Psalm 21:11-12 – Though they plot evil against you and devise wicked schemes, they cannot succeed. You will make them turn their backs when you aim at them with drawn bow. (NIV)

Psalm 33:10 – The Lord frustrates the plans of the heathen (nations/leaders); He keeps them from carrying out their schemes. [“nullifies their counsel” – NASB; “thwarts their plans”] (HCSB)

Psalm 74:22 – Rise up, God, defend Your cause! Remember the insults that fools bring against You all day long.

Psalm 44:7 – For You have delivered us from our oppressors/enemies and put to shame those who hate us.

*Psalm 140:8 – Do not grant the wicked their desires, Lord; do not let their plans succeed. (Selah!)

**Psalm 141:10 – Let the wicked fall into their own nets, but let me (us) escape.

***Psalm 146:9b – “. . . turn the plans of the wicked upside down”

Isaiah 8:10 – Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us. [“will not succeed” (NLT); “will not happen” (HCSB); “it will fail” (CEV); “it’s all useless” (GNT);

Psalm 75:10, “I will cut off the horns (power) of the wicked, but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up!

In the meantime, claim and meditate on Deuteronomy 31:6,8 – “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. . . The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged”.

 

 

by

Daily Encouragement “If I Had Known”

By Oswald Chambers

If you had known…in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. —Luke 19:42

Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly and the city was stirred to its very foundations, but a strange god was there– the pride of the Pharisees. It was a god that seemed religious and upright, but Jesus compared it to “whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27).

What is it that blinds you to the peace of God “in this your day”? Do you have a strange god– not a disgusting monster but perhaps an unholy nature that controls your life? More than once God has brought me face to face with a strange god in my life, and I knew that I should have given it up, but I didn’t do it. I got through the crisis “by the skin of my teeth,” only to find myself still under the control of that strange god. I am blind to the very things that make for my own peace. It is a shocking thing that we can be in the exact place where the Spirit of God should be having His completely unhindered way with us, and yet we only make matters worse, increasing our blame in God’s eyes.

“If you had known….” God’s words here cut directly to the heart, with the tears of Jesus behind them. These words imply a responsibility for our own faults. God holds us accountable for what we refuse to see or are unable to see because of our sin. And “now they are hidden from your eyes” because you have never completely yielded your nature to Him. Oh, the deep, unending sadness for what might have been! God never again opens the doors that have been closed. He opens other doors, but He reminds us that there are doors which we have shut– doors which had no need to be shut. Never be afraid when God brings back your past. Let your memory have its way with you. It is a minister of God bringing its rebuke and sorrow to you. God will turn what might have been into a wonderful lesson of growth for the future.

by

Devotional blog

Scripture states, the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps, a man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. See the Lord is the God of disruptions. He is in control of all things and he is the great Messer upper of human plans. Noah was going along minding his own business when God stepped in,  disruptive whatever plans Noah had and told him to build an ark to reboot the whole world. Hey Tower of Babel under Nimrod’s rule  the whole world had a plan believing they were building their own utopia, but God came down, messed up their plans and disrupted all of their lives with a humble restart. Abraham was chilling in his land of idolatry, until God disrupted his life of ease and told him to get going and keep going until the lord told him he’s arrived. Moses was enjoying his retirement hanging out with someone else’s sheep when God disrupted his life, messed up all his plans and sent him on an extraction mission in Egypt.  David was playing his music thinking about his next composition to guide his father’s sheepDavid was playing his music thinking about his next composition to guide his father’s sheep when the lord anointed him king and took him from leading sheet to shepherding the Lords chosen people. Mary was doing whatever she was doing in preparation of her marriage to be, when she was told that she had been chosen to give birth to the Messiah, Jesus God the son in the Flesh. And Saul was on his way to murder some more Christians when the Lord stepped in knocked him down, messed up all his plans, and changed his name to Paul. When the Lord brings disruptions, He alters the entire course of human history; however, it has not been since Genesis 11 that the Lord is messed up the plans of man at one time on a global scale. Right now the Lord is acting on a global scale according to his own plans and disrupting every plan of man. He’s destroying the idols and everything mankind trust for comfort, security, pride, and the illusion of power and control. Now that He’s gotten the world’s attention with the coronavirus, the Lord is calling us to look up, but He’s commanding true believers in Christ to unity and faithfully show the unbelieving world Jesus is the Way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through Christ Jesus.  The Lord created one race of humans and His heaven  will be fulfilled with nothing but true believers from every nation, tribe and tongue under the sun. The Lord through this virus is showing us that He is not interested in the color of your skin{ it’s dust}, He’s concerned about his glory. He’s not partial to our cultural traditions, He’s concerned about the truth of His word and salvation found in Christ Jesus alone He’s concerned about the truth of His word and salvation found in Christ Jesus alone. The Lord’s judgment begins first at the house of God and He’s calling us to forsake our idols,  our compromise, our pride, and slandering our brothers while trying to draw o our compromise, our pride, and slandering our brothers while trying to draw others to ourselves in an effort to build our own empires under the guise of being torchbearers of all that is right. John 13:35…” by this, all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another”. Galatians 5:15-16…” But if you bite and devour one another, beware least you be consumed by one another! I say then: walking the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh”. So, we all have this choice, I can trust the devil I know and stay the person I’ve always been,, or I can trust God to become the person I’ve never known or have ever been. Sounds 34:8 says, “oh taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trust in him”! Jeremiah 17 :5 says,” blessed is the man who trust in the Lord and whose hope is in the Lord.”                                                                                                                                                          Pastor  Joe Bell