1 Sam 17:48 As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him.

For Christians, victories are won in the depths of the valley for this is where strongholds are broken down and conquered. This is where the fight is taken to the enemy. This place is his dark domain. This is a place that we would never voluntarily go to. We would never come to this place willingly. Yet this place is where we see the gates of bronze broken down and the bars of iron cut in two. Perhaps you are in the depths of a deep valley today and surrounded by darkness? Be of good cheer and be encouraged, for this place where the enemy would see you destroyed is actually the place where you will see victory in Christ. Your mourning shall be turned in dancing and He will put upon you a garment of praise and this spirit of heaviness shall flee before His presence.

The Christian walk is a violent one spiritually speaking. There is nothing passive about what you have been called to. There is an enemy of your soul and the Lord is the Lord of your whole life. Under no circumstances will He allow a stronghold of the enemy to exist in the depths of who you are. Consider young David as he runs towards Goliath. David runs to where the enemy is and destroys him. The Lord takes us to places that in the natural we would not go. Confrontation is the way of the Lord. It is no surprise that most folks hate confrontation yet the Lord leads us into confrontations.

Will you confront your fears today? Will you stand for the truth today? As Christians we are spiritual soldiers. We have been called to battle. And even although much of modern Christianity has been feminized this does not change the true nature of who we are. There can be no co-existence between light and darkness, whether that is inner darkness in you or in the world. Light will have its way and in this place there can be no room for darkness.

Rev 12:11 ” And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Brothers and sisters, are you ready to wash your robes and make them white by the blood of the Lamb? How shall we overcome the wicked one? Rev 12:11 “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” The devil has a short time left. The Son of man, the Bridegroom is coming back shortly for His bride and the devil knows it. This is why a worldwide persecution of the saints is coming upon us soon.

Yet the devil is going to run head-long into a people prepared by the Lord through many trials and afflictions, refined by many fires, having been brought through many deserts. They are shining bright and they love not their lives unto death. Imagine an army of saints who would rather die than give one inch to the devil. They will reflect, in the very midst of the great tribulation, the glory of God in every nation. Out of every tribe and every tongue and every peoples God has called His remnant so that in martyrdom they will be a witness to every single person on the planet of God’s glory.

In this sense, God’s glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea in the very midst of judgement. For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea (Hab 2:14) How many of us know that when the sea moves it moves with incredible power? The waves rise higher and higher as the wind blows stronger and stronger. Can you see it saints? Can you see walls of incredible water rise up like the glory of God rising as the winds of the Holy Spirit roars. One can only look on in awe, nothing can stop these waves.This is our calling. We were born for such a time as this.

Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

God has called His children out of darkness into His marvelous light, the light of freedom. Religion is the deadliest enemy of Gods freed children. It spies out their liberty and seeks, with much patience, to again enslave and control them. In these days God is releasing a generation to come forth and live in the freedom that He has called them too. The shackles of the old religious systems are being exposed and broken down.

It can be scary to begin to think for oneself and to walk into open fields of freedom having been so restrained for so long. So confined by that pew that you sit on, year after year nothing but a spectator. Brothers and sisters you were called into a royal Priesthood. He who the Son has set free is free indeed. Free to walk with Him, free to be taught by Him, free to hear Him, free to be directed by Him. Our call is a radical one and it is to Jesus and Jesus alone. This is where freedom begins.

Many years ago I was walking in the suburbs of Kansas where I live. Walking through a wealthy neighborhood I saw gardens with meticulously planted flowers. A lot of work had obviously went into them. They had a design and had undoubtedly been measured exactly, every flower planted the exact distance from each other. Each home-owner knew what they wanted and it had been achieved. There was a regimentation in these gardens and they certainly had some kind of beauty. Then I heard the Holy Spirit telling me to look across the street.

There was a large field. At the far end of the field was an open drainage system for water run-off and a large culvert. All around this area was full of wild flowers of all kinds. No hand had placed them where they were. They were wherever the wind had blown their seed. It was truly a magnificent sight and had a beauty that was unmatched by the little regimented soldiers all standing to attention, watching from across the street, now seemingly entrapped and longing to breathe free.

Brothers and sisters, where are you? Did the wind of the Spirit blow in your life? Did He lead and guide you to where you are now? To be where the Lord wants you to be and to be part of a garden that the Lord Himself planted is to have ridden the winds of the Holy Spirit. Can you just stand and let go? Can you let the updrafts of His presence and Spirit carry you? Can you breathe free today? It is your birthright and that freedom from a crushing religious system of control and man centered activity was wrought for you on the bloody battle field of Calvary. To live in anything less than that freedom is a tragedy.

2Ch 5:14 So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God.

The world has such a low view of God. Some kindly grandfather? A benevolent Santa Claus? A buddy? Of course He is none of these things. For the most part Christendom also has a low view of God. Can I ask you a genuine question? The last time you went to church, were you actually expecting to encounter the Living God? I am not talking about singing loud and jumping up and down. I am not talking about being really interested in a sermon and taking notes. I am talking about meeting God almighty.

The God that is high and lifted up and the train of His robe fills the temple. The God that is majestic in holiness. The God that is full of awe and marvelous. The God that is so overwhelming that He floods our spirits with His glory and those around His throne can only cry out Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Is that what you were expecting? If not why not? Unless the people have an encounter with such a God, they will continue to have a low view of Him and worship some weak anemic cultural god of their own making.

What cannot be learned by a thousand excellent sermons can be learned in the genuine presence of God. Just one moment in His presence is better than a thousand elsewhere. If all of you are prophesying, and unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your meeting, they will be convicted of sin and judged by what you say. As they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed, and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring, “God is truly here among you.” (1 Cor 14 24-25)

The church in the west is starving to death and they are dying of thirst. The tragedy is, that for the most part, the majority that are called after His name do not even know that they are in the midst of a famine and a drought. I thank God for His remnant people who do know. Who agonize over the state of the church. Who cry out to God and who want nothing less than for the multitude of people to experience the majesty and the glory and the anguish and the joy of falling down before the throne. Who desire all men to be ruined for this life and to walk with the grand obsession of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is coming a time, and we may be there already, when God is calling His people, His remnant people who have experienced the presence of God, to rise up and testify to it. To testify of what they know of Him. Of how they come into the presence of a Holy and majestic God. Of how it ruins them and changes them. Of how they tremble before the throne of the almighty God.

This is what the people are starved of, this is what they are dying from. There is a famine of the Word of God in the land, not the Word preached, but the Word preached with the power and the presence of God. The crisis of the age is a lack of God’s empowering presence in our assemblies. May the glory of the Lord fill His house.

Psa 23:4  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

As I prayed this morning the Lord laid the above Scripture on my heart. The Holy Spirit spoke to me. From the moment we are born our life is the valley and death is the shade. As we walk through the valley, death is rendered to but a mere shadow to the saints. What is a shadow? What substance does it have? Is it the real thing or is it but a trick of the light? Death itself has lost its sting, where oh grave is your victory? And how could this be? “For thou art with me.” His presence destroys the power of sin and death and renders it to but a mere shadow. We often say that a man is a mere shadow of his former self. This is what it means when we speak of death for those who walk in the presence of God, for those who can say ” for thou art with me.” Can you say that?

Moses refused to go on in the desert unless the Lord was with him. The Lord said to Moses that He would do this thing because he had found grace in His sight and that He knew him by name. Brothers and sisters, our names are written in the Lambs book of life. We who know Him know Him by grace, through faith. We found grace in His sight, glory to God. Paul counted all of his trials and his impending death as mere rubbish, because? He was found in Him. Paul could go on in a perilous and persecuted journey because death was but a shadow. What creates a shadow? Light. We who stand in the light of Christ have rendered death to but a mere shadow of its former self. This is why we can walk through the valley. This is why we look not to this world but to the next. For thou art with me oh Lord through every valley. Every trial, every tribulation even death itself is but the means that draws us ever closer to the one who is with us.

We are more than conquerors in Him. When we suffer with Him we shall be glorified together. This is when all things work together for good to those whom He walks with who are called according to His purpose. What shall separate us from the love of Jesus? Trial or tribulation? Persecution or nakedness? famine or even the sword? For His sake we are killed all the day long, like sheep for the slaughter. Shall a virus or any pestilence or even death itself separate us from the one who is with us? No, nothing can, quite the opposite, it compels us to press on in. Saint, no matter what you are facing today, press on in to the One who is with You. He will see you through the fire. He will hold you in the flood. No matter how fierce the fire or how deep the flood, nothing can separate us from the Love of God which is in Jesus our Lord. –

Matt 6:19-21 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth

What are the riches of our dwelling place with the Lord? Out of the beauty of dwelling with Him do we have the finest gold of unconditional love? Are the walls of our dwelling place encrusted with the jewels of forgiveness and mercy? Are the windows of our dwelling places draped with meekness and humility?

Do trophies of grace hang on every wall? Are they framed with the finest materials of patience and kindness? Do we pursue the riches and the glories of heaven with the same vigor and single-mindedness that men here on earth pursue gold and silver? And the treasures that we have attained in Christ, do we protect them with all the resources that we have?

Do we value the treasures of our heart in the same way men value their wealth? There is a direct correlation between how much we value something and the lengths we will go to protect it. Guard your hearts brothers and sisters in Christ, for we have an enemy who seeks to steal and destroy what we have. Satan knows the value of what we have oftentimes more than we do.

Joh 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Are you wearied of living in fear? Fears of all kind are the enemies of our soul, indeed oftentimes fear is the opposite of faith. In the end, fear is actually sin. I do not say that to bring condemnation upon anyone, simply to identify it and highlight how it can separate us from our relationship with the Lord. God does not condemn us in this but He would that we would live in the freedom that He has made us free with.

When we run away from a situation or hide from it because of fear, it never solves the problem, it still lies in wait for us as we go around the mountain again. The obstacle must be confronted if we are to pass it by and move on upwards. Every single time we give into fear we are saying “Lord, you are not Lord of my life,fear is.” And in this we recognize the fact that we are slaves to sin and not servants of God.

We cannot be slaves and free men all at the same time. If the Lord has set me free, if He has come and opened up my jail cell, what was I doing still in the cell looking out through the bars at the world? Why had I not walked through the door that the Lord had opened? Was it safer for me to stay where I had become accustomed to?

There comes a time in our lives when we decide that we have to get up and get out of that cell. The Lord did not open it and free us just so that we could be technically free, He wants us to be actually free. I don’t know what is keeping you in that cell this day but we both know the Lord who opened the door. He bids us to step out of the shadows of the cell and slavery and to walk out and into the light of freedom. One step at a time, one day at a time, listen and follow Him one word at a time.

Step by step. As you overcome in Him you will be putting distance between you and your former cell or self. There will come a time when you will look back and be astonished how far you have come in Him and how by the power of His Spirit you have overcome. You were called to freedom. Take that first step this day and deal fear a lethal blow by being obedient to the Word of God and His still small voice.

Mat 25:21 His lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.

The seasons of God are good. One of those seasons is a time for weeping and mourning. Yet, if that is all that we have, if we live forever in a perpetual winter of weeping and mourning then nothing will ever grow. We will not grow and neither will our effectiveness for His kingdom. Neither will we grow in the knowledge of God. There is a time to rent our clothes and throw dust on our heads, yet if this one season becomes the whole then we render ourselves weak and ineffectual. Our real strength comes in the Joy of the Lord. If we cannot put on a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness then we will not be able stand in the evil day. We will be overcome by trial and tribulation and persecution.

When the Israelites were captured and taken from Jerusalem, their captors sat them down by the river of Babylon and taunted them. They said to them, “let’s hear your songs of Zion, let us hear your songs of victory now.” And the Israelites who were famous for their songs of praise to God, hung their harps on the willow tree, unable to sing, overcome in spirit in their defeat. The enemy had not only robbed them of their earthly freedom, they had robbed them of their joy, their essential core. They no longer had a song in their heart or on their lips. The willow tree upon which they hung their harps represented weeping. Their praise was silenced and only their weeping could now be heard.

Can I ask you something? Have you hung your harp on the willow tree? Have you suffered a loss or a defeat that has robbed you of your song? Do you find it impossible to praise the Living God? Has your mourning went on too long? When our mourning and weeping goes beyond what is natural we will find ourselves in trouble. Now, our hearts will be filled with something. If we have lost out song or our joy then our heart will be filled with some level of anger or bitterness or cynicism, perhaps all three.

The Apostle Paul and Silas shows us the way when we see them praising God in the midnight hour. They had been whipped and scourged and found themselves in stocks in the lower reaches of the dungeon. When they seemingly have nothing to praise God for they begins to sing His praises. And we see something very spectacular happen. The whole building shakes as the power of God falls upon that prison. The doors are supernaturally opened. What God done for Paul and Silas he can do for you. Will you praise Him today? Despite your circumstances will you praise Him today? If you do, you will see the doors of darkness open before you and you will be able to step out into His marvelous light.

You see brothers and sisters, we have been called not only to be a witness to the world but we also testify against principalities and powers. In the opening chapter of Job we see God boasting about His faithful servant, and right away the accuser of the brethren fires back that Job is only faithful because God has blessed him and protects him. The accuser tells God that if the circumstances were different Job would curse Him to His face. Right there brothers and sisters, can you see it? Can you see why it is so important to praise the Lord our God even in the depths of out trials and difficulties?

When we do that we shake the universe for we not only prove by our actions that no matter what, our God is worthy to be praised and we will praise Him. We also prove, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, that the enemy of our soul is a liar and that our love for God is unconditional. There is something really big playing out in your lives brothers and sisters even if you cannot see it or you think your life is insignificant, it is not. Join the hosts of heaven as a witness against the enemy this day and praise the Lord your God.

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.(Eph 3:17-19)

If it’s the moon they say 250,000 miles or if it’s the sun they say 93 million miles. But after that they start talking in light years. They say that there are bodies millions of light years away—say 10 million just to get a start. So if you want to know how far it is from earth to that body I’m talking about, you multiply 5 trillion, 862 billion, 484 million by 10 million. Doesn’t that stun you? It makes my head ache! Seen over against this, you and I are terribly small (A.W.Tozer The Attributes of God)

Can you see what Tozer is getting at? He is showing us just how vast the universe is and yet how infinitesimally small it actually is in comparison to God almighty. This is beyond our ability to comprehend. It is too big. Yet right there in the Scriptures it says that those who have Christ in their hearts, and are rooted and grounded in love can indeed comprehend God. Think on that a while. Comprehend God. We can know the breadth of His majesty. We can know the depths of His love. We can know the heights of His glory. In short, we can know that which is beyond knowledge. We can be filled with the fullness of our God who is infinitely vast. This is astonishing that we can enter into and be filled with His fullness. It’s is an invitation by our Lord who owes His creation nothing. And yet He beckons us to come into the glory. Our God wants to share this with us. And there is purpose in it.

For this purpose Paul bowed his knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus, his Father and our Father. The purpose is that we faint not in the midst of tribulations. When we apprehend His glory we comprehend His glory. When we comprehend His glory we are strengthened by His might in His Spirit in the inner man. On the outside we may be in prison, we may be hard pressed on every side, perplexed and persecuted and struck down but we stand fast and we are not overcome. We stand and do not fall because He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or even think according to His power that is in us, the fullness of His power. Glory to God in the highest. He causes us, whose heart He dwells in by faith and who are rooted and grounded in love, to stand.