THANK
GOD FOR YOUR TRIALS
By Dan Luehrs
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18
NAS).
I was lying in bed the other day
thinking about my life and the trials that I have been through and how they
have made me into the man I am today and if I had lived an easy lifestyle I
would not be able to go through the things God allows me to go through today
without fear and worrying. I thought when I was young like any kid I guess,
that had my parents been rich I could have had many more things given to me,
but I would not be the person that I am now with a strong work ethic. I thank
God for the parents that He gave me and for the upbringing that I had for it
could have been so much worse!
Then I also thought about us becoming
sons of God and how we are called to walk with Christ in ruling and reigning
with Him throughout eternity and how God has not given us everything quickly or
easily, but has allowed us to go through many tribulations to prepare us
through humility for this great calling in Him. Could you imagine someone
having such power with Christ and not having been through the hardships of life
like He did? I am telling you the gospel truth, your trials are preparing you
for this great glory that is about to unfold upon the earth. God will use His
people who have come through the fire and flame.
The very day August 12, 2010 that the
Lord had been speaking to me about this, David Wilkerson sent me this article
by the way of email.
TAKE HOLD OF
YOUR TRIAL BY FAITH
If we didn't have conflict, pressure, trials, wars, we would become passive and
lukewarm. Decay would set in and our temple would lie in ruins. We wouldn't be
able to handle the territory we've gained. That's why the enemy's plan against
us is clear: He wants to take us out of the battle. His aim is to remove all
the fight from us. We find all our resources for maintenance—strength to go on,
power over the enemy—in our spiritual battles. And on that day when we stand
before the Lord, he will reveal to us: "Do you remember what you went
through on that occasion? And in that awful battle? Look at what you
accomplished through it all. It was all secured through the battles you
won."
The simple fact is, God has put his treasure in human bodies. He has made you a
temple, a house for his Spirit to dwell in. And you have a responsibility to
maintain that temple. If you become lazy and careless, neglecting the
maintenance work needed—regular prayer, feeding on God's
Word, fellowshipping with the saints—decay will set in. And you'll end
up in absolute ruin.
As I look back on my own fifty years of ministry, I recall many times when it
would have been easy for me to quit. I would pray, "Lord, I don't
understand this attack. Where did it come from? And when will it end? I don't
see any purpose in it at all." But over time, I began to see fruit from
those trials. And that fruit—resources, strength, spiritual wealth—supplied me
in a way I couldn't have gotten through any other means.
I urge you: Take hold of your trial by faith, and believe God has allowed it.
Know that he's using it to make you stronger…to help you take spoils from
Satan...to make you a blessing to others…and to sanctify it all to his glory.
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the
power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not
distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair" (2 Corinthians 4:7-9).
"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are
seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal" (2 Corinthians
4:17-18) (End of quote).
BEING EVICTED
One day every person will be evicted from our
earthly temporal bodies (God’s temple) because these bodies are not our own, we
have been bought with a price, which is the precious blood of Jesus. Whether we
like it or not we will one day be evicted out of these bodies because of age or
sickness. God has warned mankind over and over through the word of God that we
will not remain in these bodies and that one day we will have a new spiritual
body that will not die, yet most will not listen to the word of God to be
prepared themselves for that day. People worry more about their earthly
retirement than they do about their eternal rewards that will never fade away
or grow old. Almost everyone’s earthly retirement will be spent by another when
they die, but not so with their eternal rewards that will follow them
throughout eternity.
I knew of a person that rented a home but did not
pay the rent after they moved in and one day she got an eviction notice to
leave the home, but she laughed at it and said arrogantly, “You don’t know who
you are dealing with here!” Then the sheriff came with a letter and put it on
their door and gave them twenty-four hours to vacate the home. She too mocked
at this also and said that the manager did this her self to scare them out of
the home. The next day the sheriff came and kicked them out of the house and
they were to only take in hand what they could carry at the time and lost all
of their other personal and household possessions which all went into the
garbage.
You might be asking how this relates to you and the
trials of your life. Most people live with a sense of entitlement, meaning,
they think they will keep everything they have, including their bodies. But God
tells us over and over in the Bible that one day we are going to die and our
spirit man will be evicted from the body whether we like it or not. Most people
live in such blindness and darkness that they do not even realize that they
have a spirit man living inside of them to be prepared for death or life ever
lasting with Christ and that one day everything they have worked for all their
lives will be sold off or thrown into the garbage. The sad fact is that if they
do not serve Jesus with their whole life now they will be cast into the garbage
pit of hell to suffer terribly what Christ already paid for them.
“For we are
not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents],
but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who
are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of
wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere” (Eph 6:12 AMP).
We know from the Scriptures and from just living on
this planet that there is darkness (evil) and light (truth) presently at the
same time on this planet. The question that always comes to my mind is, why
does God allow all this evil and darkness if God is love and light? I believe
that there are answers to this question in the Bible that will help shed some
light on why God allows this to take place at the same time. We must first
acknowledge that God is the one who separated the light from the darkness,
because in the beginning in the book of Genesis the earth was in darkness, not
light. This darkness was not only the darkness of night, but was spiritual
darkness (sin and death) from the fall of satan and the curse that he brought
on the earth which is the opposite of the light of Jesus Christ.
“In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness
was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the
surface of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there
was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light
from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called
night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day (Gen 1:1-5 NAS).
As stated before, these verses are not addressing
the physical light and darkness alone. God created the sun, moon, and stars in
the fourth day for the natural lighting of the earth. But on the first day He
separated truth (light) and the lies and deception (evil) from each other as He
did with the natural light in making night and day. One part of the earth is
now in darkness while the other is in light. Most people on earth live in
spiritual darkness while few live in the light of Who Jesus Christ is. The
first day of light on the earth Jesus was revealed as the light of God, for He
is the first born of creation, not that He was literally born then, but
revealed from the Father to the earth as light (Truth) for all mankind. We know
that many angels fell into darkness with satan and are held in the captivity of
darkness “And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their
proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of
the great day” (Jude 6 NAS). Its not that the fallen angles are being held in
some prison somewhere in hell, but that they gave themselves over to darkness
and evil which is the opposite of Who and What God is and are now being held
under the power of what they obeyed. They are just like people today, some give
themselves to hatred, others to lying, lust, greed, and the list could go on
and on that people are held in bondage too. So these demons are helping mankind
in their efforts to sin against the light of God and to be held in darkness
with them! Demons are like people, “Hurt people, hurt other people” this is how
they get revenge.
The Spirit of God is still hovering over the
darkness of the earth today, but now He penetrates the darkness through a
people that is pure and holy with the light of Jesus shining through them. Do
you not know that you are the light
of the world? “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be
hidden” (Matt 5:14-15 NAS). Our calling and election is greater than we can
fathom!
Then the question comes to mind, where did all the
darkness come from? We know from Scripture that satan was once a great angel of
light that filled the earth and was named Lucifer, meaning “Light bearer.” God
did not make satan in the book of Genesis, but was found there trying to
deceive Adam and Eve. So where did he come from? There must have been a
pre-Adamic world that satan abided over as a light bearer and fell from the
true light which is in God to go into darkness of lies and deception over the
earth. This brought such a great cataclysmic event on the earth that it put the
earth in darkness for maybe millions and even billions of years before God
separated the light from darkness. Darkness reigned on the earth for a long
time, how long there was light and darkness before Adam, we do not know, just
that there was. There yet remains a place of eternal light in God if we will go
high enough in Him to abide there.
BEAUTIFUL IN ELEVATION
“A Song; a Psalm of the sons of Korah. Great is the
LORD, and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God, His holy mountain. Beautiful
in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion in the far north,
the city of the great King (Psalms 48:1-2 NAS).
There is a place above our earth that never sees the
darkness of night because there is nothing that blocks the sun’s rays from
penetrating forth into the atmosphere. I think of summers in Alaska for
instance, they never see the full darkness of night because of where they are
on the globe and if we could go high enough northward in space, night would
never come. Mount Zion is a city in the far north that never sees the darkness
of night!
God never wants night to come into our spiritual
life if we will go high enough in Him and stay there in the light of truth
rather than sin! “For you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of
night nor of darkness” (1 Thess 5:5 NAS). Darkness is for people who do not
know Jesus Christ; they live in the lies and deceptions of satan and are
surrounded by depression and fear of their future. But as children of light we
see our future in Christ and know that we are secure in Him no matter what
comes on the earth.
God’s view of eternal things is beautiful in
elevation. For years I have wondered what Psalms 48:2 meant when it says,
“Beautiful in elevation” until recently when I was in the Northern California
Mountains which are about seven thousand feet in height and then a few months
later I was in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado which are about fourteen
thousand feet. Within that same year I was in the North Carolina Mountains
which are about three thousand feet high when it dawned on me that no matter
the height I was at in the earth it was all BEAUTIFUL IN ELEVATION! When I was
driving to the two thousand foot level I thought, “This will be nothing
compared to the fourteen thousand foot level.” But when I got there it was
beautiful also.
That is how it is with God and spiritual things, no
matter what level you are at in Him it is beautiful for elevation. I can take
all the pictures I want and show them to you and tell you how great it was to
be up there, but until you experience the different heights yourself you will
not completely understand. The same is true of understanding spiritual things;
God must enlighten our spiritual eyes to spiritual things to experience Him. “I
pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what
is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance
in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18 NAS). I can only tell you about how I have
experienced Jesus to place a hunger within your heart to search Him out for
yourself. You can lead a Christian to the water of life, but you cannot make
him drink, they must drink for themselves.
Climbing mountains is a lot of work and takes lots
of skills to do so if you are going to climb into the high places and if you
are not properly trained, it could cost you great injury and possibly your
life! There will be a people who meet on the summit of Mount Zion with Jesus,
will it be you? Will you pay the price of climbing with Him to the top to be
changed by His glory and into His likeness? The price is dying to self and
living your all for and with Jesus.
“And I looked, and behold, the Lamb was standing on
Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His name
and the name of His Father written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from
heaven, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder, and
the voice which I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps”
(Revelation 14:1-2 NAS).
These who met the Lord on top of Mount Zion are the
great overcomers throughout the ages who have paid the price of following the
Lord wherever He goes. They have come through much tribulation and have
overcome self and sin to be the dreaded champions of sin and death, defeating
satan and all his demon powers to be worthy to rule and reign with Christ in
this life and the life to come. I do not believe that we must wait till we die
and get to heaven to be an overcomer, but we can overcome in this life time and
rule over sin now! “For sin shall not be master over you” (Romans 6:14). Jesus
paid the price for us now to overcome sin, which is darkness and death. Jesus
is now sitting on the throne because He overcame and if we are in Christ and He
is in us then we are now sitting on the throne with Him in heavenly places!
That is why we must spend time in His presence everyday and breath the air of
heaven.
LIVING FROM THE THRONE
Those who make it to the top of Mount Zion can live
from the throne level as overcomers throughout their life-time on earth because
they now have access to the throne of God to come boldly each and everyday
before Him. Every Christian has this right in Christ, but few take God up on
His offer for them to come into His presence. Many think they can do so in
theory because the Bible says so, but few come and spend time there with God
and drink of His life giving presence and power. How do I know this? Because so
many Christians live defeated lives by the enemy and live in fear and
depression, rather then living in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost. We can go through any trial with joy and peace if we are living from the
throne level because there is no darkness or defeat in God and if we are
feeling defeated in our faith it is because we have failed to access the air of
heaven and breathe its life giving power for each and everyday.
The throne of God is not some big chair in heaven
where God just sits and judges everyone; it is the realm where God rules from
over all. “The LORD has established His throne in the heavens; and His
sovereignty rules over all” (Psalms 103:19 NAS). This is where all the power
and glory reside in Him and when we access the throne we too are filled with
His power and glory. But the enemy will distract us with all kinds of problems
and worries that keep us looking at ourselves until fear and defeat take over
us and we quit trying because the heavens seem like brass that we cannot
penetrate and receive His anointing power. But if we will learn how to fight
spiritual warfare we can easily defeat our enemy with the word of God as our
sword and faith as our shield. This takes time to learn, but once we learn not
to be offended at God when things go wrong and praise Him in and through the
trial we will come out victoriously over the enemy. We must first learn to
forgive God when things go wrong because He has never done anything wrong, but
only for our good interests. Then we must forgive ourselves and others if we
are going to make it to the top and stay there in His glory and breathe the air
of heaven.
We are to be living our daily lives from the throne
room where we are called to be, we are called to be like John the Revelator who
saw the throne and received much revelation for himself and for us. “Let us
therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16 NKJV). This is where we are
to receive God’s strength to live everyday from! Just as our body needs sleep
to be strengthened for the next day so our spirit man needs the grace of God
infused into it as we wait in His presence each day. If the battery in your
cell phone does not get a charge it will go dead and so will you spiritually if
you do not get a Holy Ghost charge everyday. So take time, make time to be with
the Lover of your soul each and everyday, you will be amazed at what God will
reveal to you from the throne level.
FROM THE THRONE PROCEEDED
LIGHTNINGS
“And from the throne proceeded lightnings,
thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the
throne, which are the seven Spirits of God” (Revelation 4:5 NKJV).
Still to this day lightning (Revelation) is
proceeding from the throne of God. God is in the present; He is the Great I Am,
not I was! “… Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4 NAS). Just as we need our
daily bread (food) to live a strong physical life on earth, so we need to have
fresh spiritual bread (Revelation, present truth) from God to live a vibrant
spiritual life with Him. We live by the words that proceed out of the mouth of
God for us today! What is past is past and we cannot eat fresh bread from
yesterday, it is old and pasted. But today’s bread is fresh if we will take the
time to get it. The making of fresh bread takes time and the receiving of fresh
manna from God takes time to gather it and to eat of it.
When lightning flashes it gets your attention as it
lights up the evening sky, so revelation (Truth) from God’s word lights up our
heavens (Our mind) to see Jesus in a whole new light. When we receive a deposit
of truth into our being from the throne, we received a little more revelation
of Jesus Christ’s character and likeness into us. And if we will water that
seed of the word in our heart it will grow into His likeness and He will
manifest His glory through us. This is what the revelation of Jesus Christ is!
We will then hear the thunder and the voices from
the throne within our being and we will be changed a little more into His
likeness. Thunder comes after the lightning because the very atmosphere has
been affected and the rumblings from the shock waves goes forth throughout our
very being. I know from my own experiences when God reveals truth in my inward
parts I just vibrate on the inside and then all I can think about is what He
has spoken to me for many days. I recently heard that scientists have found out
that rocks from our planet and others are still vibrating from the day of
creation. The rocks are also crying out about the power of God’s revelatory
word from the day of their dawning. “So then faith comes by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God” (Rom 10:17 NKJV). The word “Hearing” means the
revelation that comes to us when we hear and understand with our spirit man and
not just having head knowledge that makes us look good in the eyes of others.
Receiving revelation from God causes our faith to grow in Him so that we can
live more pleasing to God.
COME UP HERE
“After these things I looked, and behold, a door
standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the
sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, "Come up here, and I
will show you what must take place after these things” (Revelation 4:1 NAS).
John was able to see the throne and hear revelation
because he went into the realm of the spirit through the open door that was
before him. John was obedient to the Spirit’s leading because he was a son of
God and the Spirit will always lead us to the throne, which our home and it is
eternal! The door of heaven was opened to Him and the manifest presence of God
was upon him to see, hear, and understand the truths of God and this too will
happen to us if we are obedient, we will inherit the good land (the throne)
that God has promised to all those who would follow Him.
Some of the most important words in this verse are,
“After these things I looked, and behold.” The question to Bible scholars’ is,
“After what things?” I believe the answer is simple when you look at Revelation
3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice
and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with
Me.” No doors in heaven opened until John opened the door of his heart to the
Lord and then the Lord open the realm of the Spirit to him. Most Christians
want to have throne room experiences, but few want to pay the price of getting
alone with the Lord in daily fellowship because they think they are to busy and
have excuses. “… Come; for everything is ready now.' "But they all
alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, 'I have bought a
piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.'
"And another one said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to
try them out; please consider me excused.' "And another one said, 'I have
married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come” (Luke 14:17-20 NAS). The
revelation of God’s glory awaits all who will hear His invitation and respond
with an open heart to dine with the Lord on a daily basis, and then the door of
heaven will be opened to you also.
The greatest revelation we can receive from God is
for us to come and dine with Him, which will cause some of our greatest trials
in our life because the enemy will oppose us at every turn if he can. Until he
sees that we are determined in our decision to seek God with all of our heart
everyday. But when we learn his tactics we can take the spoils war and use them
against the enemy to set other people free from the devils power. God has
chosen us to be light in the midst of great darkness, but unless we come to the
light and continue to abide in the light daily we too could become darkness and
needing light. That is why the five virgins missed the Lords coming, because
they did not have oil (light) for their lamps and missed the open door
invitation to their wedding with the Lord. How tragic! “Later the others also
came. 'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the door for us!' "But he
replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.' "Therefore keep
watch (Guard), because you do not know the day or the hour” (Matthew 25:11-13
NIV). It is not that the Lord did not know who they were, but that He did not
know them intimately as a husband knows his wife and thus they were left
outside the door begging to come in.
Our time is short, no matter if the Lord comes first
or we die to be with Him we do not have time to waste because we only have a
few short years to prepare to be made into His likeness. Be a rare diamond on
the earth today and seek God with your whole heart until you come forth in His
glory and likeness.
Dan
Luehrs
PO Box 341
Intercession
City, FL 33848
www.churchinhispresence.org