The Nails of Calvary

He Came!

 

From a Staff to a Scepter

We decree that God is greater than our failures, the injustices inflicted on us by others, and our pain.

The Great Quest

 

God Has a Sense of Humor

From Dutch Sheets:

I want to share one more post on forgiveness and being released from past hurts. I have posted on the subject during the previous two days - however, this one reveals, to some extent, the sense of humor God has.

A couple of years after insisting that I forgave the man I held responsible for so much pain in my family, and enabling me to do so, (,read about it here), the Lord led me to Christ For the Nations Bible Institute in Dallas, Texas. It was there that I became much better grounded in the Word of God, learned to pray, became a true worshiper, embraced a heart for the nations, and met my lovely wife, Ceci. It was a great two years.

Shortly after arriving, to my surprise I ran into the son of the man I had hated so strongly. His son was also there as a student. Tom (not his real name) happened to be in the cluster of 15 or 20 students that became my inner circle there. I wouldn’t say he became a best friend, but we were definitely friends. He was a few years younger than me and had no idea of the past hatred I once held for his dad. I’m sure he was completely unaware of what had even taken place a few years prior to this. Tom had gotten into drugs and alcohol while in high school and became horribly addicted. He had come to Christ and was attending the Bible institute to help firm up his walk with the Lord. I found it very encouraging that I could relate to this young man with no feelings of awkwardness or resentment.

About six months into my time there, Tom had a bit of a relapse and used some recreational drugs, which was obviously against the very strict policy of the Institute. The Institute wasn’t legalistic. However, it was not a rehabilitation center and was not equipped to deal with drug addiction and rehabilitation, so they were very firm in their stance. To violate the policy meant dismissal, with their help in finding a place more suited to ministering to them.

The Dean of Men, who would be making this decision and doling out the consequences, called me to his office. I knew him somewhat from some on-campus prayer meetings I had attended. He was very strict regarding the school’s policies, but was also very prophetic. He prayed regarding situations of this nature, asking Holy Spirit to give him wisdom and guidance. I had no idea why he was summoning me to his office.

He explained what happened with Tom, and spelled out the normal consequences for the offense. “I want to give him another chance, however,” he stated. “I believe his heart is right. He is a friend of yours, isn’t he?” he asked.

“Yes” I said, “he is a friend.” I felt truly spiritual being able to say that, and was very satisfied with myself. Not that I was proud, you understand. My assumption was that the Dean was about to ask me if I thought it was a good idea to give Tom another chance.

NOT!

“I have noticed you in the prayer room and observed you praying on occasion,” he began. I was, indeed, attempting to become an intercessor. I certainly wasn’t an expert, but I was passionate. “I am willing to give Tom a second chance,” he said, “if you are willing to take him on as a personal assignment. You must take him to the prayer room every day and pray over him, teaching him to pray, and helping him get free from his addictions.”

Did I mention that this Dean was very prophetic?! He knew nothing about my past with this young man‘s father. But had he ever heard from God! I said yes, and left the room astounded. I’m not sure what my exact words to the Lord were when I left the dean’s office, but it was something like this, “Well, God, You sure do have a sense of humor.”

“I do,” He said. “But I’m doing more than being humorous. I’m finishing the job. Drive the nail into the coffin of your past. Make satan pay. Overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21) You are free in your heart; now seal it with your actions.”

I was able to do what I had been assigned to do. I dragged this young man to the prayer room every day - actually, he had no choice - and prayed over him, as well as making him pray, for an hour or so. Surprise, surprise! It worked…for both of us. We chased off his demons and buried my past pain. Only God. Tom became free and was able to remain free - to this day, I trust.

Overcome in the above verse (Romans 12:21), is the Greek word, nikao. It means “to conquer, prevail, overcome; even legally - to win in a court of law.” It’s a wonderful word describing our God-infused ability to be overcomers in life. There is one place, however, where Holy Spirit evidently decided this word was not strong enough to describe the overcoming nature He has given us.

Romans 8:37 tells us: “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us,” (NASB). It is almost as though as this revelation is breathed into Paul by Holy Spirit, so he can pass it on to us, he is overcome by the strength of what he is seeing. As he searches his mind for the correct word, Paul comes up empty and finally has to take two words and make them one: hupernikao, translated above as “overwhelmingly conquer.” This Greek word is used nowhere else in the New Testament.

The prefix huper means “overwhelmingly, over, beyond, exceedingly, excessively, more than.” Our English word, hyper, comes from this Greek word. Paul, overwhelmed with emotion and excitement, shouts with his pen, “We are hyperconquerors! We overwhelmingly conquer! Our conquering ability is excessive, over the top!”

Holy Spirit wants you to win over, conquer, your past. “Through Him who loved us,” Paul goes on to say (Romans 8:37b). Everything God does is motivated by His heart of love. He’s a giver, a blesser, a healer, a destiny-provider. When He asks us to release, let go of past offenses, He is actually saying, “Here’s how I can get rid of this pain. Let me have it.” Forgiveness, releasing the person who hurt you, is one of the ways God erases the negative side of the ledger. He moves your pain into the asset column, making it serve you!

You can do this. Let it go!

Pray with me:

Father, we thank You for Your determination to heal, equip, and strengthen us for success. You have a plan for each of us and You are determined to accomplish it. We pray the prayer of the Psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way” (Psalm 139:23-24). (“Hurtful way” could be translated “way of pain.”) Show us any pain in us that could keep us from accomplishing everything You planned for us.

We want clean hands and pure hearts. We pray now for our brothers and sisters who struggle with things they have experienced in the past. Help them to let go. Pour Your grace into them, enabling them to release it all to You. You are such a good Father. You will release and heal them completely.

And we pray that in the coming revival, we will be healing agents. We ask You for wholeness, and an anointing to produce wholeness. We can be the generation that heals our land of racism, division, and strife. Start in us, Your people and anoint us to be Your “able ministers of the new covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:6). Expose all evil that is used to divide us as a nation. Expose those with wrong motives, who do so. Raise up leaders in all segments of our society who are healthy and whole, not bitter and determined to live in the past. They try to divide us, not heal us. Deliver us from their leadership, we pray. And we ask it all in Christ’s name. Amen.

Our decree:

We declare that we will walk in the wholeness of Christ, and minister His wholeness to those in need.

Copyright © 2022 Dutch Sheets Ministries, All rights reserved.

The Atonement

Our distorted perception of God's intentions is well illustrated by the urban legend of a woman driving home alone one evening when she noticed a man in a large truck following her. Growing increasingly fearful, she sped up, trying to lose her pursuer, but it was futile. She then exited the freeway and drove up a main street, but the truck stayed with her, even running red lights to do so.

In a panic, the woman wheeled into a service station, jumped from the car, and ran inside screaming. The truck driver ran to her car, jerked the back door open, and pulled from the floor behind her seat a man hiding there. The woman was fleeing from the wrong person. She was running from her savior! The truck driver, perched high enough to see into her backseat, had spied the would-be rapist and was pursuing her to save her, even at his own peril.

So often we run from God, fearing His wrath, while He is pursuing us to save us from destruction. Instead of seeing Him as our Savior, we sometimes see only the promise of loss and a lack of fulfillment. I urge you - if you have sinned, stop running from Your Savior. Return to God; allow Him to forgive and heal you. He's waiting with His atoning blood.

God's Word for Sunday, 10/20/19

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Psalm 51:7-12 KJV

Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean, scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don’t look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I’ll let loose with your praise.

Psalm 51:7-12 MSG

God's Word for Tuesday, 5/28/19

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 5:19-21 KJV

But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right. All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

Romans 5:19-21 MSG

God's Word for Saturday, 5/4/19

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 KJV

If I ever shut off the supply of rain from the skies or order the locusts to eat the crops or send a plague on my people, and my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I’ll be there ready for you: I’ll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health.

2 Chronicles 7:14 MSG

God's Word for Monday, 3/25/19

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9 KJV

If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.

1 John 1:9 MSG

God's Word for Friday, 3/15/19

Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Acts 4:10,12 KJV

By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the One you killed on a cross, the One God raised from the dead, by means of his name this man stands before you healthy and whole. Jesus is ‘the stone you masons threw out, which is now the cornerstone.’ Salvation comes no other way; no other name has been or will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this one.”

Acts 4:10,12 MSG

God's Word for Friday, 7/20/18

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

1 John 1:7 KJV

But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.

1 John 1:7 MSG

God's Word for Sunday, 3/25/18

But if we freely admit our sins when his light uncovers them, he will be faithful to forgive us every time. God is just to forgive us our sins because of Christ, and he will continue to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9 (TPT)

God's Word for Tuesday, 1/31/18

Lord, you are so good to me, so kind in every way and ready to forgive, for your grace-fountain keeps overflowing, drenching all your lovers who pray to you.

Psalm 86:5 TPT

God's Word for Monday, 10/23/17

Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

Galatians 6:2 MSG

God's Word for Thursday, 10/5/17

Seek God while he’s here to be found, pray to him while he’s close at hand. Let the wicked abandon their way of life and the evil their way of thinking. Let them come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.

Isaiah 55:6 MSG

God's Word for Tuesday, 9/26/17

If we give up and turn our backs on all we’ve learned, all we’ve been given, all the truth we now know, we repudiate Christ’s sacrifice and are left on our own to face the Judgment—and a mighty fierce judgment it will be! If the penalty for breaking the law of Moses is physical death, what do you think will happen if you turn on God’s Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit? This is no light matter. God has warned us that he’ll hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit: “Vengeance is mine, and I won’t overlook a thing” and “God will judge his people.” Nobody’s getting by with anything, believe me.

Hebrews 10:30-31 MSG

Are You Broken?

A friend asked me to write about the question, “What if I stopped trying so hard to hide my brokenness? What if we all did?”

Good questions, both. Why are they good?

Let me ask, why are you trying so hard? Is it a shame to be broken by life, by hardship, by circumstances?

Here’s an answer you won’t expect: “Yes, it is.” We’re not called to be under the circumstances. We are more than conquerors in (and through, and because of) Christ Jesus! (Romans 8:37) We supposed to be ABOVE the circumstances!

But of course we’re broken, because humanity is broken! That’s why we need Jesus so badly. God’s love, given so freely through our acceptance of Him as our savior, is available. He Himself will fix our brokenness.

What does the Bible say about it? I’m glad you asked:

"Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.

"Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again. (James 5:13-18, MSG)

So why do we try to cover our brokenness? Why do we pretend to each other that we’re okay? Because we’re ashamed or embarrassed that we can’t control all the circumstances of our lives?

Who can?

God the Father, and His Son, Jesus – that’s who. Our brokenness is proof positive that we need Him. Let His healing of you, both inside and outside, be proof that we don’t need to be broken … and proof that we don’t need to pretend to each other.

Grandpa God?

A friend just read a passage in an inspirational message: "....you can't get to heaven on someone else's coattails...." and asked me to write about it.

It's true: God doesn't have grandchildren. No nieces or nephews; no aunts, uncles, or anything other than sons and daughters.

The Bible says we are created to be sons and daughters. Galatians 3:26 says, "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."

You can't get to Heaven on someone else's salvation. Each of us has to meet the Lord ourselves, and we must each make the conscious decision to invite Him to come in. It's a relationship thing.

We have to remember that Jesus wasn't sent to us to establish a religion. He came to repair the relationship between God the Father and mankind. We ALL need to take that step of faith, asking God to help us, forgive us, and save us from sin ... and from ourselves.

God's Word for Sunday, 6/10/17

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Colossians 3:13 MSG