Author: Allen Forte

The Lord’s insight. Vote for the person who will not defy the God you serve.

Joshua 24:15: “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served… but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Luke 23:42: “Then he said to Jesus, Lord remember me when You come into Your Kingdom. And Jesus said to him, assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

In the book of 1 Samuel, we have the story of David and how he fought and killed Goliath. Goliath had defied the Army of Israel. To defy is to challenge the authority or the very essence of something. Goliath had defied the Army of Israel and thus he had defied the living God. He wanted the people to serve the Philistines.

It looked like the choice for Israel was to fight or not, but it wasn’t.  Their choice was to serve God or not. The Israelite Army and its leaders didn’t see this, but David did. He made the right choice for them.

We have just gone through an election. The people running for the right to be our leaders condition us to think we must make a choice to elect the person who will serve us and our needs. They want us to defy what looks bad for us and to choose what looks good for us.

Joshua challenges the people, after they had conquered the Promised Land, to choose whom they would serve. Would they choose to serve what would give them all they wanted or would they serve Who was all they needed? Joshua 24.

On the day Jesus was crucified there were two robbers also crucified with Him, one on His right and the other on His left. One of the robbers blasphemed Jesus by saying “if you are the Son of God save Yourself and us.” But the other one respected Jesus and said, “This Man has done no wrong. Lord remember me when You come into Your Kingdom.”

Two robbers. One blasphemed the Lord and died apart from the Lord that day. But the other one glorified the Lord and went with the Lord that day to paradise. In some ways we sometimes must choose between two robbers.

We must be wise in the choices we make about who will lead us. The Goliath’s, fighting for our votes should be obvious to us. But those who a more subtle than goliath may not be as evident. God does not always send us the perfect person to lead us or to help us make the best choices.

If person looks good and sounds good and makes us feel like they are a choice that will give us more of what we want, they may just be the thing that draws us away from God more than chasing us towards the Lord.

We must be wise in what we expect from our elected leaders. The person who is against the Lord and against the things of God is not going to tell us that openly. They will never serve the Lord. They will twist things so that we will serve everything and anyone but the Lord.

They will lead us astray or more astray than we are now. When we give them position, power and authority over us they will make us become more like they are.

The person who looks like a bank robber can be redeemed and will not likely ask us to become bank robbers. A bank robber does not want a nation of bank robbers. Instead, they will likely fight for us to serve the Lord in Truth.

Those who defy God or bank robbers. Sometimes those are our choices. One will for sure lead us away from the Lord and the other just may lead us to Him.

Choose for yourself the one that you will serve. And choose for yourself the one who is likely to serve the Lord your God. Be wise in the choice you make.

Live a Delivered Life.

Strong Enough for You

The Lord’s insight. Come and take. Leave where you are and leave what you bring.

Matthew 11:28-29: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Many people live cluttered lives. They keep adding more things to their lives, but they never get rid of anything. Over time, their lives become so full of clutter that they are burdened by life itself. Many believers are this way too. We want everything the Lord promises, but we don’t realize some of the Lord’s promises cannot exist with some of the things we have.

When we are burdened by what we have and by what we want, life becomes more difficult than it should be. We don’t have the strength to live this way on our own. But the clutter of life keeps us from realizing what we should do. I’m embarrassed to say there was a time I didn’t know how to respond to the Lord’s call to “come unto Him,” for rest.

How can a man leave the burden of sickness with the Lord when he is in pain every day? How can a man leave the burden of a job loss when bills are due tomorrow? We cannot clearly hear His call to come because we are always dealing with the clutter and the weight of the burdens we have.

I have learned that because of the clutter in our lives, we often think the Lord does not see our circumstance we way we see it. A life of clutter is like wax in our ears. With a life of clutter and burden, even the Lord’s voice becomes clutter and unclear to us. The Lord never asks what we do not need to be asked. He never offers what we do not need to have.

The Lord offers clarity around all this in Matthew 11. But we must be willing to clear up some of the clutter of life that keeps us from clearly hearing Him when He speaks. He wants us to come to Him with our struggle with pain, with our worry over job loss, and with our exhaustion with burdens so that He can give us rest. Then He offers to each of us His yoke so that we can be joined with Him in life.

When we are joined with Him, He does most of the work pulling us through the toils of life so that even with our pain, and even with our job loss and even with our burdens, we live each day rested and ready for whatever may come at us. We don’t have the strength to do this ourselves, but He is strong enough to do it for us.

So, when He calls you and offers you rest, get up and go quickly. Take your worry with you and leave it with Him. Take your struggle with pain with you and leave it with Him. Take your need for work with you and leave it with Him. Don’t keep your life cluttered with stuff that makes life harder than it should be.

He is strong enough for you. When your life is cluttered, you want Him to hear you clearly. But clear up your life so that you can respond to what He asks you to do. When the Lord says come to Me, you must leave yourself and go. Go to Him. Take your burdens with you. Leave where you are and leave your burdens with Him. Then you will have rest for the life that comes at you.

Your burdens are too much for you, but they are not too much for the Lord.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. Your belief is the signal that you know you are lost.

Luke 19:10: For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

We are not like a piece of paper.  A 50-dollar bill blown around on the ground doesn’t know it is lost and it cannot find its way back to its owner on its own. But we know when we are lost because we can see where we are and we wonder about where we belong.

But like the 50-dollar bill, we cannot find our way to where we should be. Our owner must find us.  And our owner is either the world or it is the Lord. The signals we send determine who will find us.

In Luke 19, Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, probably knew everyone who was someone. Perhaps in his role as a tax collector, he had heard many things about Jesus, but he didn’t know Jesus. So, he decided to try to see Him and to learn about Him. Zacchaeus’ curiosity about Jesus would be enough to for him to learn that he was lost.

Some of us spend a lifetime trying to learn who we are, trying to know who others are and trying to know where we belong. When we live like Zacchaeus did, we can never know these things because we are lost. We send signals to world, and the world cannot find us. It can only keep us.

We must learn to start living the way Zacchaeus did when he started seeking to learn about Jesus. He had lived on his own, and by his own ways, and towards his own desires but he had come to learn that he was lost. How he had lived is why he was lost. It’s that way for us.

But Zacchaeus changed; he stopped living the way of the world and wanted to live the way of God. We must change. If we want to be found, we must come to know we are lost:

• Jesus is looking for you to signal that you are lost. It is your realization that you are in the wrong place that lets Him know you are looking for Him? The Lord wants to change where you want to live long before He changes where you are living.
• Jesus wants to save you.  Your belief in Him is your signal to Him that you want to be saved. Jesus wants to take what you want more than taking what you have. Give Him the things you want first.
• Jesus wants you to give Him what keeps you from knowing Him. Do you know what keeps you from knowing the Lord. The Lord speaks to what you are thinking before He responds to what you ask Him. Give Him your thoughts then you will know Him.

Like Zacchaeus, get yourself into a position to see the Lord. You cannot see the Lord when you live in the world. The world will give you things that make you important to the world. But seek the thing that He gives you that make you important to God. Stop looking for a place to visit and look for a place to stay.

Look at where you are and wonder about where you should be. Understand that all you have is little compared to all that you could have with the Lord. By your belief in the Lord, you position yourself to be found. Until you do that, the world will keep telling you that you are not lost so you do not need to be found.

Make sure you are always sending the Lord your belief in the Lord. It is your sure signal to Him that you know you are lost and are waiting for Him to find you. He will always find His way to you.

Live a Delivered Life.

Deep Roots Good Fruit

The Lord’s insight. The deeper your root, the better your fruit.

Isaiah 37:31: “And a remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.”

Mark 4:20: “But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the Word, accept it, and bear fruit.”

In one case, the Lord tells us things must do. And in another, He tells us things we should not do. A believer must not choose to do one or the other. We must do both. To do this the Word must have deep roots in our lives.

John the Baptist warned the Jewish leaders of this very thing when they came to hear him preach. They withdrew from obvious sin but did not fully accept living a life of repentance. John 3:8.

I struggle with this very thing. And I imagine many others do too. We gladly accept the Truth of the Word, but we do not reject all that the world stands for that is contrary to the Word. I call these worldly Christians. The worldly Christian has shallow roots that produce unsweet fruit.

In Mark 4:20, Jesus describes four types of people and the fruit they produce. Our lives are either:

• Wayside lives. We hear the Word but not much of it sticks. When things get tough, the devil can take away what we had heard. The soil of the wayside life is too superficial to hold the Word.
• Stony lives: We hear the Word with gladness. But we are also made glad by lots of worldly things that are not of the Word. So much of our worldly life remains that the Word doesn’t have enough soil to grow. The soil of stony life allows for too much worldly soil.
• Thorny lives: We hear the Word, but we care more for things of the world like riches and honor and belonging. The thorny life produces more thorns than fruit.
• Good Lives: These hear the Word, accept the Word and bear fruit of the Word. The soil of the good life accepts more of the Word and rejects more of the World.

Believers must take root downward so that we can bear fruit upwards.  Good roots bear good fruit. Perhaps it would be easier to take roots downward if we allowed our lives to be sown into the Word more than simply allowing or hoping to have the Word sown into our lives.

When we allow our lives to be sown into the Word, the Lord will make sure that our lives take deep roots in the Word. And by taking deep roots, we will produce good fruit that comes from the Word. The more fruit the Word produces through us, the less worldly fruit we will produce.

When we allow our lives to be sown into the Word, we will no longer live by the wayside but on the inside of the Word. We will no longer live stony lives that find more joy for things of the world more than for the things of the Word.  And we will no longer live thorny lives that find our identity in the things of the world than more than in the things of the Word.

When we allow our lives to be planted in the Word, we will grow deeply rooted lives that produce good fruit that others will see and glorify the Lord.

Deep roots produce good fruits.

Live a Delivered Life

The Lord’s insight. Grace is a reminder that the problems you have do not have to have your life.

2 Corinthians 12:9: “And He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you. For My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

I was sitting one day minding my own business when this question or challenge came to my mind. What would my life be like if I lived without grace? Well, I realized I already lived way too much without acknowledging the Grace of God.

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul had a similar conversation within himself. Paul had a problem he couldn’t solve so he asked the Lord to fix it. The Lord didn’t fix the problem the way Paul wanted. Instead, He told Paul “My grace is sufficient for you to deal with this problem.”

Sometimes the fix to what challenges us is to learn to live with so we can deal with what challenges us. When I’m coaching people, especially those who are anxious or who are controlling, I share a simple way for them to overcome what has overcome them. It is a way of living that simplifies your life and allows you to move forward rather than to be pushed back.

I tell them this:

• There are things in life we can control – control those things.
• There are things in life we can impact – impact those things.
• There are things in life we can influence – influence those things.
• Then there are things outside of those three things – leave those things alone.

This works in our secular lives. But it still lacks the absolute power to fix problems. It cannot fix what ultimately cannot be fixed. Only the Lord can do that. When we allow our spiritual lives to lead our carnal lives, we open a way to receive and understand the power of the Grace of God. 

In November 1862 a lady names Julia Ward Howe wrote the song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”  She and her husband were in Washington DC visiting when they saw the Union Troops singing a battle hymn as they readied to go to a battle knowing that many of them would be killed. Some of the words of the hymn say:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

These soldiers were saying, if it be the case, we will gladly give our lives to save the lives of others. So, we will march out and control the things we can control. We will impact all that we can impact. We will influence what we can influence. And all else we will leave to the power of the Lord and by His grace we shall not be overcome.

But for the grace of God is a gospel song written by a man name Bill Gaither.  He is quoted as saying “But for the grace of God, there I would be. The beggar on the street, the homeless and the weak, the sick and the needy could each be me, but for the Grace of God.

There are things in life we can control but give control of your life to the Lord. There are things we can impact, but let the Lord impact your life. There are things in life we can influence but let the Lord influence your life. Then there are things we can do nothing about. Let the Grace of God do for you what you cannot do.

But for His grace there you would be. But by His grace, here is where you are.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. The Lord will remember for you when you cannot remember for yourself.

Psalm 119:49: “Remember the word for Your servant, upon which You have cause me to hope.”

Psalm 130:5 “I wait for the Lord. My soul waits. And in His word, I do hope.”

I studied for nine months for this comprehensive exam to achieve a certification in human capital. On the day of the exam, I was in a room with over 200 other people like me. We had four hours to answer 300 questions. We were told to answer the questions we were sure of first and then go back to those we didn’t know.

Nine months of study. 300 questions. I did not want worry and anxiety to cause me to forget what I had studied so I remember praying “Lord help me to remember.” Then it came to me. Even if I forgot what I had studied, the Lord would remember for me when I waited for Him.

Psalm 119 is remembering for us.  It is saying to us we can even remind the Lord not to forget His own Word and the promises He has made towards us because it is in His Word that we have placed all our hope. Yes, even if we forget what we should know, the Lord will never forget the promises He has made to us.

So, when we are faced with difficult stuff today and we don’t know if we can make it through, we can always remember that the Lord will remember for us all that He has promised us.

When we are faced with fear and we don’t know what to do, the Lord will remember for us, that fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and knowledge will show us what we should do.

When we are faced with a loss and we feel all alone, the Lord will remember for us that He will never leave us nor forsake us.

When we are sick and we don’t know what more to do, the Lord will remember for us that our faith in Him is more than enough to make us endure.

When we are faced with a goliath of a problem and we don’t know if we can defeat what comes at us, the Lord will remember for us that He will fight our battles when we stop fighting for ourselves.

When we are faced with uncertainty about whether we have done enough, the Lord will remember for us that we can do all things through Him as He gives us our strength.

So, let this be your prayer today. That when you are faced with what might overwhelm you, that you will not forget that the Lord Himself will remember for you all that He has promised you even when you might forget.

When we wait for the Lord and when we place our hope in His Word, He will be there for us. He will remember for us when we cannot remember for ourselves. He will go for us when we cannot go for ourselves.  He will remind Himself of His own Word for us when we cannot remember to remind ourselves of His word.

Lord, remind Yourself of Your Word that we your servants have tried to store in our hearts through our hope in You. Remember for us Lord and bring what You remember for us to our hearts and to our minds that our hope may be strengthened and that our souls are nourished by what You have promised to each of us. We know there is nothing You are not sure of and there is nothing good for us that You will forget.

Lord, remember for us even when we cannot remember for ourselves.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. He who has believed thinks of Jesus in the past. He who is believing thinks of Jesus always in the present moment.

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Acts 16:31: “And he brought them out and said, sirs what must I do to be saved? So, they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, and you and your household.”

John 3:16 is perhaps the most quoted and clearest expression of what we must do to be saved. In this scripture Jesus wasn’t talking directly to believers or to the lost gentiles, He was talking to a lost ruler.

You see, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus secretly and told Him that they knew Jesus had to come from God because no one could do that things He did unless God were with Him.  Nicodemus didn’t see Jesus as God, he saw Jesus as the evidence of God.

At this point, perhaps Nicodemus wasn’t talking about being saved. He didn’t even know he needed to be saved. Still, he wondered enough about the Lord to talk to Jesus secretly about what he knew. Perhaps Nicodemus found himself believing what he knew about Jesus. He could have been afraid of believing.

In Acts 16:31 a jailer wanted to know what he had to do to be saved. The disciples made it clear to him. It wasn’t enough for the jailer to know what, he had to believe what he knew to be saved. The Lord was clear to Nicodemus back then. Jesus told him he had to be believing of what he thought was only information.

Until he talked with Jesus, Nicodemus didn’t allow the knowledge he had about Jesus to bring him to a place where he was believing in what that knowledge really meant. Nicodemus knew if he started believing in what he knew it would change who he was. He would indeed be born again.

Could some of us be like Nicodemus? We hang onto what we know but we resist allowing ourselves to start believing what we know because believing means changing. What we know about Jesus is not the same thing as believing in what we know about Jesus.

James 2:19 tells us “You believe there is one God.  You do well.  Even the demons believe – and they tremble.” I don’t believe the demons’ belief will get them everlasting life. Demons believe but they are not believing. They don’t change.

Perhaps there is more to John 3:16 than we have allowed ourselves to see. God says whoever believes in Him will have everlasting life. Unlike demons, our belief should move us to become believing. We can believe the facts of what God says or we can be believing in the facts of what He says really means to us.

To have eternal life, we must come to a point where we stop and say we believe in the Lord. Then we must leave that point and start believing in what it means to believe in Him. Perhaps to believe that Jesus is Who He says He is and believing what all that means about us and for us is what Jesus is after.

He is our life in the present moment when we are believing in Him in the present moment. If we want what Jesus promised Nicodemus, we must believe and we must be believing. You may not enter the womb again, but when you are believing in your belief in the Lord, you will live each day like you are born again and again and again, dying to what you know and living to what is at work in you about the Lord.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. Expectation should come with tolerance. Tolerance should never be without expectation.

John 8:10-11: “Woman, where are those accusers of yours?  Has no one condemned you? She said No one Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”

John 5:14: “Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, see you have been made well.  Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.”

Recently, I was walking into church and ahead of me was a teenage girl who was dressed like she was just born. Her diaper didn’t cover much of what it should have covered. She walked with what I believed were her parents. I must confess. I was appalled at how she was dressed entering the church.

I know, I know, some of you might say to me, lighten up a bit. At least she was at church. That’s a good thing. I don’t disagree with that. Still, church hasn’t been the same for me since I saw that. I have prayed about me more than I think about her. I want to make sure I am not judging someone by the way they dress.

I have examined myself inside out. I have asked the Lord to examine me inside out. If there is something lurking within me that would make me question another person’s belief and faith, I want to know that. I want to root it out of me.

I don’t want to excuse my own behavior and thoughts about that young girl by saying I’m no better than she is because we all have our faults. Most believers would say something like that. But they would still have a judgmental view of that young lady.

So, this message is about me and my conversation with the Lord about how that young girl made me feel about me.  When it comes to the church, I don’t care for pastors and church staff who do trendy things like wear skinny jeans, tight clothes, men who wear shoes with no socks, ladies who wear jeans with holes in them, men who wear hats in church.

Yes, this is me. But it is also me to accept that my belief and my walk is mine and yours is yours. I do not want to judge anyone before I let myself be judged by the Lord. Still, there are some things I would rather not see as a part of the church where I choose to worship.

A church can be welcoming. I guess the opposite of that is the church that stands out and points fingers. A church can be tolerant. I guess the opposite of that is the church that is so strict the people faint. A church can be loving, and I guess the opposite of that would be the church that loves only those who love like the church.

For me, after praying about my heart, here is what I believe works for me and perhaps it might work for many of us. I came to the Lord many years ago just as I was at that time. That is the only way you or me or anyone else can initially come – just as we are.

But I have learned that I don’t keep coming just as I was. When Jesus said go and sin no more, when He said, sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you, He was saying I have expectations that you will change so I will be tolerant and understanding and patient and noncondemning while I wait for you.

The church that works best for me is the church that expresses its expectation by showing its tolerance. Love without expectation is harmful. Mercy without expectation is harmful. Acceptance without expectation is harmful.

It is through my expectation, first of myself, and then towards others, that I will show my love and tolerance and acceptance and grace and understanding.  Jesus does this for us all day every day. I pray I can do it for more days than not. Consider allowing your expectations to reflect your tolerance.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. Itching ears will be drawn to a perverse conversation.

Genesis 3:4: “Then the serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

2 Timothy 4:3: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth.”

A few years ago, while I worked in an office setting, a young lady came to me and told me she was a witch. She went on to tell me of all the things witches worshipped.  She told me that if I didn’t start deferring to her that she would cast a spell on me.

Well, I didn’t know what to say.  I didn’t know anything about a witch except for what we see in the movie “The Wizard of Oz.” But I didn’t care to know anything about them or her. So I told her, she could cast all the spells she thought she could cast.

I let her know while she worshiped a lot of things, that I tried to serve the creator and maker of the things she worshipped. I told her I was sure, the Lord Whom I worshipped and served, would take her spell and cast it back on her.  And even if He didn’t, she would not get any more respect from me by threatening me with her foolishness.

That was the end of our conversation.  We never had another conversation about me allowing her to have the spotlight on our team. I guess I didn’t react the way she thought I would react.

I have always thought that we have two ears so that we can hear more of what the Lord wants to say to us.  And we have only one mouth because its easier to keep it closed and listen before we speak. We will have better and more fulfilling lives when we learn to listen more and to speak less.

Listening is how we come to get perverse thinking into our lives.  Perverse listening leads to perverse thoughts.  Perverse thinking is cunningly evil. It takes a fundamental truth and twists it into a tantalizing lie. It its easy for us to fall for perverse talk because we may have itching ears.

Eve didn’t need to respond to the serpent but she did. She wanted to hear what he had to say. And even when he twisted God’s command into a perverse idea of some other truth, she listened even more. She fell from the truth for a lie because she had itching ears.  Ears that wanted to hear the possibility of something different.

Paul warns Timothy of a coming time when people would no longer listen to sound teaching. Instead they would listen to stupid stuff that would reshape their desires to hear more stupid stuff.  They would listen for those things that aligned with their worldly thinking and fall away from Godly thoughts.

Perhaps we are in that time today. We should watch that we do not have itching ears.  If a person tells you they are a witch if might be better for you to simply ignore the foolishness and move on.  If a teacher tells you there are more than two sexes, it might be better for you to simply ignore the stupidity and move on.

If a doctor tells you a man can have a baby, it might be better for you to ignore the stupidity and the doctor, and move on.  Perverse talking is disguised as enlightened talk by enlightened people.  Learn never to listen to foolishness especially when it comes from an expert in a field of fundamental truths.

So keep yourself guarded from foolish conversations.  Guard what you hear and what you actually want to hear. If an astronaut tells you he saw the sun rise in the west, tell him he was obviously looking at things upside down and move on.

The Lord doesn’t want our witness of Him to be watered down by itching ears just waiting to hear something perverse so we can show how smart we are. Our greatest witness is this. To stand firmly on the Word of God and by listening to that only, we speak more boldly of our Lord by refusing to engage in the foolishness that comes from a perverse generation of people.

Perverse people will say a lot of perverse things. Let them talk to themselves. We don’t need to defend what the Lord has said.  He needs no defense. We proclaim the truth. We don’t ever need to defend it from perverse talk.

Live a Delivered Life.

The Importance of Little Things

The Lord’s insight. Sometimes, we think the Lord must part the sea just so we can step out of our bathtub.

Matthew 17:20: “So Jesus said to them, because of your unbelief.  For assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you.”

2 Kings 5:13: “And his servants came near and spoke to him and said, my father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, wash, and be clean?”

In Matthew 17, the disciples wondered why they could not cast a demon out of a young boy. When they asked Jesus, He told them it was because of their unbelief.  They expected they had to do something great to deliver something great.

Then in 2 Kings 5:13, Naaman, was seen as a great, honorable but proud man, but he had leprosy.  He had gone to see the prophet Elisha to seek healing from God.  He was told to go wash himself in the Jordan river.  He was offended by being asked to do such a simple thing. He expected God Himself would have appeared to do something great to bring about something great.

Sometimes we need to remember, we don’t need to face the big things in life with the biggest things we have.  Perhaps we must remember it’s the little things we are willing to give up that move the big things in life that need to be moved.

The disciples had walked with the Lord daily, yet they saw more of their unbelief than their faith. They needed to give up a place for unbelief to live so that just a tiny bit of faith could thrive.

Naaman was a big man who thought big things had to happen in a big way to deliver him from the incurable disease of his day. Naaman had to give up his pride so that a little bit of humility could thrive.

Unbelief never brings relief to us; it keeps us from having what we want to have.

Pride never delivers us from anything; it makes us the incurable thing of our time.

The Lord gives us many of these little things so that we can enjoy lives that are free from the cancers of the day or so that we can overcome the big things we think we face.

Before we set out to do anything for anyone, let’s check ourselves to make sure we have allowed the little things the Lord wants to do in us to thrive.

Often times it is pride, unbelief, anger, selfishness, condemnation, and things like these are the very things that keep us in the mess we live in. We cannot see how we will get out of the tub of water because we refuse to open the drain.

If you want your child to be protected from evil, is it too little a thing for you to accept that the Lord might ask you to stop playing with evil?  If you want someone to be delivered from alcoholism, is it too little of a thing to accept that the Lord might ask you to stop drinking?

When we learn to give up the little things, we allow the great things to happen.

Live a Delivered Life.