Tag: faith

The Antichrist, the Scrolls, and the Coming of Christ

Posted on by Dorci

Many of us probably woke up this morning wondering what kind of craziness we’d hear about today. So much has changed in the last year, or maybe it’s just being revealed. 

We see anger, judgment, self-righteousness, violence, hatred, and so much more running rampant, and the basis for all these is one lie or another, but all stemming from the lie that Jesus is not the Christ, and there is no judgment or salvation in Him. 

Jesus stated that the devil “was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:44b)

Paul referred to the devil as “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience…” (Eph. 2:2b)

The Holy Spirit lives within God’s children, but satan’s domain is without. We see him at work more and more every day, lying and using others to spread lies. 

Though 1 John was written centuries ago, its author warned “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.”

The word antichrist, of course, means opposite, or an opponent of the Messiah. While we don’t know yet who the antichrist will be, the spirit of the antichrist has always been here and works in and through those who don’t believe in Christ as Lord.

As we watch the world spiral more and more out of control, and the enemy work harder to take as many with him while he can, we know these are the beginnings, the continuation, of birth pains. 

Jesus said no one knows when the day or hour of His coming will be, but we are to be ready, mind, body, and spirit. 

You might have read that Israeli archeologists have just uncovered dozens of new fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls in a cave in the Judean Desert. They include Greek translations of the Old Testament books of Nahum and Zechariah. 

Nahum and Zechariah were both prophets, and both are books of prophecy. 

Nahum is a short three-chapter book about his preaching to the city of Nineveh around 663 to 654 BC. 

You might remember God sent Jonah to Nineveh, courtesy of a giant fish, about 100 years earlier to tell them they needed to get right with God or suffer the consequences. The Ninevites heeded God’s word, and for a time, lived in obedience. 

But they eventually returned to their wicked ways, and now God’s sent Nahum to warn them of His judgment for their sin against Judah and Israel and their impending destruction.

Nineveh was destroyed in 612 BC. 

Zechariah, also a priest, received the first in a series of visions from the Lord almost 100 years later, following the return of the people of Judah from Babylonian captivity, directing him to tell God’s people that if they would return to Him, He would return to them. 

There are numerous prophecies throughout the book about both the first and second coming of Christ, like in Zechariah 9:9:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.”

And in Zechariah 9:14 and 16:

“Then the Lord will be seen over them,
And His arrow will go forth like lightning.
The Lord God will blow the trumpet,
And go with whirlwinds from the south.”

“The Lord their God will save them in that day,
As the flock of His people.
For they shall be like the jewels of a crown,
Lifted like a banner over His land—”

Is it a coincidence that fragments of two books of prophecies, one detailing the destruction of the godless, and the other outlining the coming of Christ, have just been uncovered?

Maybe. Maybe not.

What I do know is the spirit of the antichrist is working overtime, and we do not have a minute to spare. Even if Christ tarries, none of us knows how much time we have in this life.

If we’ve been away from Christ, it’s time to return. If we’ve been lukewarm, it’s time to be on fire. If we’ve let our faith be watered down by teachers who do not walk in the truth, it’s time adhere to truth. If we haven’t been using our spiritual gift, it’s time to use it, to build up the body of Christ, and to reach the lost and dying. And for those who have never believed in Christ as the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God who lived on earth and paid for the sins of the world with His own blood, it’s time to believe.

Above all, it’s time to pray in the Spirit with all hope, love, and fervency.   


Heavenly Father, forgive us for wasting so much time. Forgive us for taking the time we have here for granted, for getting so caught up in the world and not always walking with you, for not always abiding in you and living according to your will.  Thank you for your forgiveness, your grace and mercy, and for your faithful love that never ends. Please show us whatever we may have allowed in our lives that keep us from you and from doing your will, give us the strength to leave it and abide in you. Give us ears to hear you, and instruct us and teach us in the way we should go. In Jesus’ holy and precious name we pray, amen. 

 

 

Be Strong and Very Courageous

Posted on by Dorci
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Seventeen years ago this month my life turned upside down. Or more accurately, I was already upside down and God was turning me right side up. 

A lot has happened in that time. A lot of mistakes, a lot of learning, a lot of growing, and a lot of healing.

Not the kind of healing I originally wanted, but certainly the kind I needed. The kind a good and loving Father knows His child needs, and ultimately wants. 

In January 2004 I had some symptoms, but nothing too concerning yet. What did concern me is that I kept hearing one phrase from the Lord – “Be strong and courageous.” I heard it at church, on the radio, and in my own studies. Four times that month I heard “Be strong and courageous.” 

The first time: Yes, that’s an encouraging word.
The second time: Yep, I want to be strong and courageous.
The third time: Hmm… “Lord, what are you trying to say?”
The fourth time: A friend at church who I’d talked to about these repeated commands from the Lord turned around during the teaching and we just looked at each other. What could this mean?

Then, long story short, one Sunday afternoon in February, I found myself at the hospital being evaluated. 

“Be strong and courageous.” 

I have meditated on and prayed about these words ever since. And little by little, the Lord’s helped me understand them. The funny thing is, its meaning is so simple, yet the application can be so difficult.  

The phrase can be found eleven times in the Old Testament (and one time in the New, but that’s a slightly different story for a different day), most of them as Joshua was about to lead Israel into the Promised Land. 

Moses had just died, and God had called Joshua to lead His people. God speaks to Joshua, letting him know that without a doubt, through every obstacle they would face, He would lead them there. 

Joshua 1:6 – “Be strong and courageous…”
Joshua 1:7 – “Be strong and very courageous…”
Joshua 1:9 – “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

In each of these verses, the word “strong,” in part, means “to fasten upon; to seize…”

The dictionary says fasten means “to attach firmly or securely in place; fix securely to something else.”

Now, fast forward to Jesus talking to His disciples. 

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing..” John 15:5

During this conversation, Jesus uses the word abide, or remain, seven times.

The word “abide” means “to stay (in a given place, state, relation or expectancy): – abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain…”

He’s driving home the fact that, just as a branch must remain attached to the vine so the branch can receive life, grow, and produce fruit, we must remain in Him. Our growth and ability to produce spiritual fruit hinges on us continually abiding, remaining, making our home in Him. 

God told Joshua over and over to be strong, to fasten himself, to hold onto God who would do everything needed to ensure their victory as they crossed into the Promised Land. 

Jesus reiterated His Father’s words, telling His disciples, and us, to abide in Him, to remain in Him continually.

Don’t break off from Him out of fear, anger, anxiety, or just being plain confused and not knowing what to do. Remain in Him. Obey Him. Trust Him. Join with Him in prayer. Abide in Him as a branch abides in a vine, so we can grow and bear much fruit. 


The word courageous means “to be alert, physically and mentally, to be steadfastly minded, establish, make strong…”

The Israelites would meet enemies along the way, and so will we. As we abide in Christ, we must also remain alert and steadfast, remembering that though we have an enemy who will try to trip us up, the Lord has gone before us, and if we’ll remain in Him, He will make us more than conquerors. 

And one more note. 

I’ve been going through a group study with a book called Abide In Christ by Andrew Murray. I highly recommend it. It was what drove home the truth of what God was saying to me seventeen years ago, and how He enlightened and assured me further.  As I was praying during one of my study times, the Lord spoke to my heart and said, “I will sustain you.” 

You might guess what I did. Yep, went to look up the word sustain. I found it in Psalm 55:22:

“Cast your cares on the Lord
   and He will sustain you;
He will never let
    the righteous be shaken.”

Sustain means “to keep in; to maintain, be able to abide…”

Jesus said “Abide in Me, and I in you.”

The Lord’s promise to all of us who abide in Him is that not only will He abide in us, He will enable us to continue abiding in Him. He will maintain us, support us, bear us up under trial or affliction, just like He’s done for me the last seventeen years.

So be strong and courageous. The world doesn’t seem to be letting up on the crazy, and I suspect it won’t. But as we abide in Him, God Himself will abide in us and take us victoriously into the Promised Land. 

In Him,

 

 

Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Discernment

Posted on by Dorci

Heavenly Father, we praise your holy and precious name. We’re so thankful for your faithfulness and patience with us even when we are less than faithful. Thank you for holding onto us and never giving up.

Father, we pray today that you would enable us to discern good and evil. We know the enemy schemes against us, and he is able to take your truth and twist and turn it, add in a bit of untruth, and try to make us believe it and follow that belief away from you. 

Father, may it never be that way with us. We pray you would fill us with such a love for you that we would hunger and thirst for righteousness, that we would fervently seek you in your word and in prayer, that we would grow up in our faith, desiring and receiving the teaching of solid food. 

Mature us, Lord, so that we may be discerning and not allow the enemy to trip us up in even the slightest of lies, deceptions, twists of the truth, or anything that would give him a foothold in our lives. Give us discernment to resist him, no matter who he may be using to spread his lies. 

Give us ears attuned to your voice, and the wisdom to discern it from any others. 

May we be strong in you, Lord, and in your mighty power, alert and filled with wisdom, that we would never accept anything but the unadulterated, powerful truth that brings the spiritually dead back to life, that moves mountains, that brings healing, that gives us the abundant life you came to to give us.  

Thank you, Father, for your everlasting love. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. 


If you have a prayer request, you can leave a comment here, on Facebook or Twitter, or message or email me, and I would be blessed to pray.  

In Christ’s love,
 

 

Behind Enemy Lines

Posted on by Dorci

I recently watched Behind Enemy Lines again, and there were so many spiritual parallels I had to share what God showed me. 

Even though it’s a 20-year-old movie and surely the statute of limitations for spoilers must have run out by now, I’ll try not to give away anything too important in case you haven’t seen it. 

Owen Wilson plays Lt. Chris Burnett, an American naval flight officer stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Adriatic sea during the Bosnian War. 

For Lt. Burnett, being a soldier, so far, has been a lot of drills, training, exercises, and routine assignments and he resents it. It hasn’t been the thrill ride he thought it would be, so he’s handed in a letter of intent to leave the Navy to his commanding officer, Admiral Reigart, played by Gene Hackman. 

The admiral tries to make him understand the importance of his training, but Burnett’s not impressed. He’s done.

Admiral Reigart decides the lieutenant needs a little discipline, so he assigns him, along with another pilot, to a routine mission on Christmas day, but the situation soon turns into far more than anyone expected. 

The title says it all: behind enemy lines. 

When we look out at our world today we may feel like we’re behind enemy lines. There is warring all around us, fighting, hatred, violence, attacks on the Christian faith. The whole world seems out of control and we feel like we’re in a place we don’t understand and don’t belong.  

And the truth is we are behind enemy lines and we always have been. Much of the world has been experiencing it, and lately it’s become far more apparent to us than it was before. The curtain’s been drawn back a bit and we’re seeing the havoc wreaked by the enemy in the ugliness of the sin in the world on display in our own backyard. 

We’re seeing the spiritual warfare Paul talked about in his second letter to the church in Corinth.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds…” (2 Cor. 10:3-4) 

And because we’re in the midst of spiritual warfare, an object of the enemy of God, we are soldiers in that war. Paul reiterated that in 2 Timothy and in Philemon:

“You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who enlisted him as a soldier.” (2 Tim 2:3-4)

“…to the beloved Apphia, Archippus our fellow soldier…” (Philemon 1-2a)

If God has called us into faith through Christ, we are soldiers in a spiritual war that’s been going on since the Garden of Eden. 

As soldiers, God’s been training us, preparing us to be strong in the faith, to have courage to weather the battles. We grow from discipline to discipline until we are changed into the likeness of His Son, the perfect soldier, who was our example of enduring warfare.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4)

We’ve all read that and maybe, like Lt. Burnett, we haven’t seen how we can have joy in our training, how there could possibly be any purpose in our suffering. We haven’t fully understood that our trials are our testing, our discipline, teaching and training us to be mature in the faith, to persevere in trials, to trust God more and more to give us wisdom and understanding as we face the next hardship, and the next one, and the next… We don’t know what we’ll face, but God does, and He knows what He’s training us for. 

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.” (Hebrews 12:11-12)

Whatever trials we’ve gone through or are going through right now or will go through tomorrow, don’t let them be for nothing. Let them train us. Let us humble ourselves under our Father’s mighty and wise hand to make us disciplined soldiers in His army, fighting His way with the spiritual armor God’s equipped us with. 

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Ephesians 6:12-13

Let us then, in Christ, strengthen our feeble arms and weak knees. In other words, let us put aside our complacency, any weakness of faith, any unbelief or fear, put on our armor and be strong and courageous as we stand to face our spiritual enemy, knowing we’ve been trained and we are equipped, and in Christ we have the victory. 

Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Peace

Posted on by Dorci

Oh Precious Heavenly Father, we praise and magnify your name. You are mighty and holy and worthy of all praise. 

Father, we ask for forgiveness for our sins, and we thank you for giving your Son to take the punishment that should have been ours. 

Thank you for blessing us far more than we could ever deserve. A right relationship with you is all we need, but through it you’ve done so much more than we could have ever imagined. 

Father, I want to lift up our country again to you this week. We need you so much, and we know there is nothing we can do in our own strength to change anything. We desperately look to you and pray for your grace and mercy and the pouring out of your Holy Spirit as we walk into the events of the week. 

We pray you would go before us and bind the hand of the enemy, that you would let your peace and rest be in control of our land, especially in our nation’s capital. We pray your power would be felt and your light would shine in the darkness. 

This week and beyond, may your Church, with repentant and thankful hearts, constantly lift up our voices together to you, in faith, knowing you hear us and will answer us, as we pray for salvation among the lost and revival within your church, and that you would give us the wisdom, strength, courage, and hope we’ll need in the coming days and years. 

May we abide in you so we can be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, producing the fruit of magnifying and glorifying the name of Jesus wherever we go. May we do in our world today what the early church did in theirs, and be your witnesses in our homes, our neighborhoods, and to the ends of the earth.

In Jesus’ holy and precious name we pray, amen.