by Tim Cameron | Jul 3, 2015 | Francis Frangipane
Our Heavenly Judge will not delay long over His elect, but He will delay. In fact, God’s definition of “speedily” and ours are not always synonymous. The Lord incorporates delays into His overall plan: Delays work perseverance in us. So Crucial is endurance to our character development that God is willing to delay even important answers to prayer to facilitate our transformation.
Thus, we should not interpret divine delays as a sign of divine reluctance. Delays are tools to perfect our faith. Christ is looking to find a tenacity in our faith that prevails in spite of delays and setbacks. He seeks to create a perseverance within us that outlasts the test of time, a resolve that actually grows stronger during delays. When the Father see this quality of persistence in our faith, it so touches His heart that He grants “legal protection” to His people.
by Tim Cameron | Jul 1, 2015 | Francis Frangipane
God’s Help Through Prayer
The qualifications for spiritual leadership today include almost everything but devotion to God’s word and prayer. Leaders are expected to be organizers, counselors, and individuals with winning personalities whose charm alone can draw people. In Luke 18, Jesus challenges our modern traditions. He asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (v.8). His question is a warning to Christians who would limit the power of God at the end of the age. Jesus is calling us to resist the downward pull of our traditions. He is asking us individually, “Will I find faith in you?”
Before we respond, let us note that Jesus associates faith with “day and night” prayer (Luke 18:7). He is not asking, “Will I find correct doctrines in you?” the Lord’s question does not so much concern itself with right knowledge as with right faith. What we believe is important, but how we believe is vital in securing the help of God.
Indeed, procuring the supernatural help of God is exactly the point of Jesus’ parable in Luke 18. His intent was to show that “at all times” we ought to pray and not to lose heart” (Luke 18). To illustrate the quality of faith He seeks, He followed His admonition with a parable about a certain widow who petitioned a hardened judge for “legal protection” (v.3). Although the judge was initially unwilling, yet by her “continually coming” (v.5) she gained what was legally hers.
Jesus concluded by asking: “If an unrighteous judge will respond to a widow’s persistence, shall not God avenge quickly His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?” Jesus said, “I tell you that He will bring about justice for them speedily.” Francis Frangipane
by Tim Cameron | Jun 29, 2015 | Francis Frangipane, Intercession
God has provided a divine antidote for every ill in the human condition; that need or wound in the soul of our communities; we must apply Christ as the cure.
The stronghold that God provides to us as individuals has a divinely inspired, built in limitation: The Spirit of Christ, which shelters us from the enemy, also makes us vulnerable to the needs of others. As it is written, “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it” (1 Cor. 12:26). Thus, to perfect love, God unites us to other people; to empower prayer, He allows us to be vicariously identified with the sufferings of those for whom we care. If we cease to love, we will fail to pray. Are you weary of vacillating in your prayer life? Remember the love God first gave you, whether it was for your family church, city, or nation.
Love will identify you with those you love; it will revive your prayer, and prayer will revive your loved ones. God’s plan for you is intercession
by Francis Frangipane
