And God chose to make this binding contract with us. Nobody forced Him to do it. It was done willingly. The Father sent Jesus willingly, Jesus lived and died willingly and the Holy Spirit is given willingly when we ask.  
 
That I will not turn away from doing them good - It would be enough if God had just said, “I will not harm them” or “I will not punish them for the sins they’ve committed today.” But our God we pray to says He will not turn away from doing us good. He plans it out. He comes up with ideas and thinks of ways to bless us.
 
I don't know why that's so important to me personally, but I think its because it takes away the doubt of any ulterior motive's about God's heart towards me. He’s not out to manipulate me or use me or I’m not simply a soldier in His army that’s expendable for His plans.  But His motive of doing me good, of doing you good inspires trust – belief.  
 
When I am sharing with God what's on my heart or the things that hurt me or doubts I’m still wrestling with, God’s heart towards me allows me to trust Him, that He will not betray my heart. It’s precious to Him and He will go to great lengths to protect my heart.  He will bind up any wounds. He will encourage us when weak, He will be kind or correct us when we are off because sin hurts us. He says He will do you good by providing for you, taking care of you and giving you the desires of your heart.
 
And when we have a very close friend or spouse that we trust because we’ve seen those same qualities of love and kindness, it opens us up to have more intimacy. And that’s the beautiful thing God does and desires in our prayer lives. Not just a list of people or things that we need help with, but I want to share me with you God and I want You Lord to share yourself with me. We want to really be known, all the different layers and we really want to know God better than a best friend.
 
“But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.”   -                                                                                           Jeremiah 9:24
 
But I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.  - As we pray for God to help us in our walk as Christians, to be better believers, to have more faith, to show more fruit of the Spirit, to witness to people, to love as Christ loved, to pray more, to read our Bibles, or to love God more, we can start to feel really burdened about how much there is to do or be.
 
But this is what's amazing, God says He will put the fear in our hearts to love and to obey Him … so that we won't leave Him. Because the unfortunate fact is our hearts are prone to do that, to leave Him, or to forget Him.
 
So when we pray for those things we need to remember “God you said you would do this for me. Lord you said you would empower me to love you and obey you. I’m resting in and counting on you to do in me what I cannot do on my own.” This is the New Covenant promise, that God has put a new heart in us and has given us the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life in us, through us and for us. No glory in the flesh, but we come in faith to believe that God is making us into the image of His Son each and every day.
 
We pray and ask the Lord to give us the desires and the ability to obey His Spirit in all things. And where we are still failing, we turn it afresh to the Lord, not to our own efforts, but back to His power and grace. It’s a place not of more activity, but of surrender, trust and rest for our souls. Prayer is our time to do that over and over again throughout the day, to remind ourselves of the utter dependence we must live moment by moment on Jesus’ power and strength to do all in us.

Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land. - I love how the Lord says He rejoices over doing us good. It’s not just a task He checks off, but He gets excited about blessing us. He is really happy about it. God rejoices over answering our prayers. This is our God that wants to hear our rejoicing shouts or share in our tears.  
 
This is His heart towards us and because He shows that kind of attitude towards me, I want to come to Him with my burdens or sometimes the harder one to bring, our dreams and desires. Because that means hope gets awakened again and that can hurt sometimes.  
 
With all my heart and with all my soul - Now we know the verse about how we are to love the Lord with all our heart with all our soul.  God never asks from us, what He hasn’t already given first. We love Him because He first loved us. We take up our cross, because Jesus took up His first.
 
God is fully invested in us. He's not a user. He's a giver. There's no halfhearted love here or halfhearted paying attention to us. He's all in. He chooses to make Himself vulnerable to us with all his heart and with all his soul. All His emotions, all His time, all His energy, and all His resources.
 
Why does He give that? That seems too much. I can’t be entrusted with the heart of God. I will hurt Him just like I hurt other people. But God has committed to give all His heart and all His soul anyway.
 
Because He knows if He’s vulnerable, it will provide the foundation for us to be vulnerable and trust Him in prayer. Almighty God bends down His ear to hear you and me whenever we lift our voices and our hearts to talk to Him about the real things going on in our lives and He rejoices to answer.
 
You are safe to talk to God. You are safe to be so real and intimate with Him because he is listening with all His heart and all His soul.
 
“For thus says the Lord: ‘Just as I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will bring on them all the good that I have promised them.” 
 
I think of heaven and rewards first. That God has promised many good things there and we die to a lot of things here because we have hope that in heaven God will do good to us and such good that it overshadows all the bad. And we believe that because He said it and wrote it in a book.
 
And then I think of all the good we pray about here, our family, finances, health, spouse, kids, ministry, purpose, love, intimacy with the Lord, specific promises God has made to each of us. It's ok to remind God in prayer of those things and for Him to remember to keep His word spoken and written here for us. So many others in the Bible did exactly that, reminding God of who He is and what He has said.  
 
God wants us to remind Him of His promises, He wants us to be confident in saying His word back to Him and expecting Him to answer. That’s why He gave promises – to create faith.
 
So when you pray today, remember the God who is listening is eternally committed with an everlasting covenant bought with the blood of Jesus, who will not depart in doing good to you. He rejoices in answering you. The Lord who listens with all His heart and all His soul so you can give Him all of you and who has empowered you to be and do all that He commands. He will bring all the good He promised to you. These are some amazing things just to ponder and praise Him about and then give Him your intimacy.

Christy Cox
​

Kneel down – oh my knees hurt, it’s awkward, etc. So I modified different ways to at least get me in the position of humility, half-check. Out loud – This is where I will spend the rest of my time and come back to this one. With a list – I’ve made lists before and it becomes so overwhelming, which then discourages me, because I will never get through the list every day. But this time, Pastor James said he had 5 major things that he was praying for God to move upon, so that’s the list I wrote, seven things that are consistently on my heart and that I want to see God to breakthrough. By faith – believing God will answer and will direct my prayer from just the words on my list to a deeper relationship.
 
Back to out loud. Lately the things that have been stressing me out, I have spent a lot of time thinking about and running through my head a lot, but very little time speaking out loud to the Lord about them. When I would pray, it would start off as a simple help me Lord and then silence as I thought about my problem, but I had stopped talking and then suddenly 15 minutes had gone by and nothing had changed in my spirit, because I wasn’t actually praying about it, simply replaying the problem.
 
But it is in the crying out, that prayer truly happens. And it was that phrase that I kept focusing on.
 
“In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, And my cry came before Him, even to His ears. - Psalm 18:6
 
He heard my voice, and that means it has to be out loud. So I returned to doing this again in my prayer time and I noticed the first blessing was it kept my mind focused on actually praying rather than stewing. And as I had my list in front of me, God would change up the variety and keep things from being just routine as I would begin with a different item on the list each day. I would begin praying about one thing to the Lord and He would keep expanding the conversation and bring passion to my praying or remind me of Scripture to pray back to Him. And as I would finish, I would actually experience peace that I had really talked with God, not just given Him a checklist of things to work on.
 
Over and over again in the Word of God, it talks about the people crying out to the Lord and then God intervening and answering their cries. As I looked up scripture, there were so many, but here are just some.
 
…Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. – Exodus 2:23
 
So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. – Exodus 15:25
 
So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me!” And the Lord said to Moses, “Go on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel. Also take in your hand your rod with which you struck the river, and go. – Exodus 17:4-5
 
Then the people cried out to Moses, and when Moses prayed to the Lord, the fire was quenched. - Numbers 11:2
 
When we cried out to the Lord, He heard our voice and sent the Angel and brought us up out of Egypt. - Exodus 20:16
 
And Asa cried out to the Lord his God, and said, “Lord, it is nothing for You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power; help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on You, and in Your name we go against this multitude. O Lord, You are our God; do not let man prevail against You!” So the Lord struck the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah, and the Ethiopians fled. – 2 Chronicles 14:11
 
And they were helped against them, and the Hagrites were delivered into their hand, and all who were with them, for they cried out to God in the battle. He heeded their prayer, because they put their trust in Him. – 1 Chronicles 5:20
 
…Yet when they returned and cried out to You,You heard from heaven; And many times You delivered them according to Your mercies. - Nehemiah 9:28
 
Because I delivered the poor who cried out, The fatherless and the one who had no helper. – Job 29:12
 
And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!”  Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet; but they cried out all the more, saying, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!”  So Jesus stood still and called them, and said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” They said to Him, “Lord, that our eyes may be opened.”  So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes. And immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him. – Matthew 20:30-34
 
And just to drive this point home to me personally, I had 3 different encounters with women about crying out in prayer this past week. The first one, I asked her to pray with me and to speak out loud to the Lord her burdens. It was the first time I got to hear her pray with me. And she wound up crying during her prayer, but I know God ministered to her through that. Another friend as we were praying together, I started crying for her burdens, which then started her crying, but we had such a powerful prayer time filled with the Holy Spirit. A third woman was a tenant sharing her burden about an upcoming surgery and being afraid and me sharing just the phrase that Jesus wants us to cry out to Him, caused her to burst into tears. I cannot explain why it matters so much to the Lord and to our own hearts to speak out loud our prayers, but God’s word and my own experiences cannot be denied. Maybe it’s even more so important for us as women, because we are blessed so much when we get to share our hearts with another and to hear words that bless us in return.
 
I have seen the Lord answer my prayers so powerfully this week of my “experiment” that it fuels me to continue on and increases the ability to pray by faith and see God move, and ultimately that’s why we pray – to see God answer. See the pattern of how God works and trust that He will do the same in your life too. Cry out to your God – out loud and see what He will do and bless His name as He works in yours and others lives.

Christy Cox
 
Here’s the teaching series on prayer.
http://www.harvestbiblechapel.org/break-through-prayer/

"O God, the proud have risen against me, And a mob of violent men have sought my life, And have not set You before them."    -  Psalm 86:14
 
Attack, attack – I hate it. When my boss has to hear somebody trash me, I feel ashamed because I am portrayed as a terrible employee and I fear my boss will believe that about me too. That all of my previous efforts have been in vain, because this is all he will ever see in me now. Fears and anxiety grow because of the unknown consequences that may come as a result of this. It could be loss of trust, loss of responsibilities or even loss of job and income. My natural instinct is to defend myself, but that doesn’t solve the real problem.
 
Because the real problem is how we deal with shame. A book I read a few years ago, The Wounded Heart by Dan Allender, defines shame as “an awful experience to be aware that we are seen as deficient and undesirable by someone whom we hope will deeply enjoy us. Shame is experienced before the one I’ve entitled or given the right to judge me. Ultimately, that is the prerogative of God alone. To give that privilege – in essence, the opportunity to bestow or retract life – anyone other than God is idolatry.”
 
Now we are getting somewhere. Who do you or I let determine my value and worth and shame? Is it my employer, my friends, a potential spouse? Can I be real and say, I think I fall into this trap too much of others instead of God alone. Could it be that the Lord allowed this whole situation to reveal the idolatry in my heart? And so He can also free me from this bondage.
 
When I feel shame, it’s because I care about what others think of me. It’s even more painful, when others reject us in the areas that we believe are our strengths. Because if they reject us in the areas we think we are good in, what do we have left to count on? In all reality, I want my boss to think I am a great employee and do my job well and that I am valuable because of that. Do you see why that’s a problem? Because God has determined my value and no one else gets to do that, not even me. He made me in His image and sent His Son to die in my place to save me. He has placed that value and it had nothing to do with what I did well or any of my strengths, but everything to do with His love. So when God reveals the idolatry in our hearts of allowing anything or anyone to determine our value and bring shame upon us, the only response is repentance and asking for God’s forgiveness.
 
Sometimes I fear the words of others, because I’m afraid that they are speaking for God in their condemnation or criticism. I already struggle with my own doubts and second guessing the actions I take. So when someone else speaks out loud what I already fear, it feels like it's from the Lord. And that’s what really can crush us, a perceived rejection from our Father. That He has turned from us in rejection for our sin and failings and that’s the blow we just cannot endure.  
 
But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth. Oh, turn to me, and have mercy on me! Give Your strength to Your servant, And save the son of Your maidservant. Show me a sign (token) for good, That those who hate me may see it and be ashamed, Because You, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.     

-  Psalm 86:15-17
 
When I feel overwhelmed by my own failings or doubts, it is The Lord who reminds me of who He is, full of compassion, gracious, merciful, and longsuffering towards me. He will not abandon me in my time of need. I can continue to cry out as David did for God to turn to me and show me a token for good. Token – a thing serving as a visible or tangible representative of a fact. When I feel ashamed, I need a visible thing of God’s love and heart towards me. And eventually that those who attack me will be ashamed, because God Himself gives vindication and helped and comforted me in this trial.
 
Spurgeon talked about some of the tokens for good we experience from the Lord. God hears our prayers and we are not cast away from His Presence. God delivers us in our troubles over and over again. He preserves us from sin when we are tempted. He gives us the sense of pardoned sin. His strength is our support when we are under trials. God gives us comfort and fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we will get to see a great sign and wonder that all others will get to witness to remove our present shame. And sometimes the token for good will be what He gives to us in our prayer closet, alone and hidden - to have His strength to continue on in the work God has entrusted to us. As the Lord reminds me that it is His opinion alone that matters, I truly demonstrate my faith, when I entrust my case to the Lord alone when I must experience shame in this life. And I remember my Lord Jesus who also had to experience shame and yet felt no true shame from anyone, since He knew He pleased the Father. 
 
“For the Lord God will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed. He is near who justifies Me; Who will contend with Me? Let us stand together. Who is My adversary? Let him come near Me.   

​– Isaiah 50:7-8

 Christy Cox

​So my prayer was, “Lord help me to praise you.” God is so good; He reminded me of a book I had read last year called, To Him who sits on the throne, Praising God with the Scriptures, by Mike Thomas. The entire book is just a list of scriptures praising God separated into different categories. The author put this book together after being convicted that he could rattle off the verses on different promises, but couldn’t rattle off any verses of praise. He said it was because promises are for him, praises are for God, but he was all about him.
 
This was so helpful to me in so many ways because where I am weakest, God provides such a practical way through His word for me to be able to praise Him in my prayer time. God’s word teaches us how to praise Him for who He is. And the connection to love the Lord with all my heart and to know Him better is also answered through praise. In the intro of the book, it said, “Praising God, knowing God, loving God, are all one and the same.“ The first chapter title even said, “Preparation in prayer and meditation.” I love when God so specifically answers my prayers. And each time He does, I see and know Him and love Him more and intimacy continues to grow.
 
May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! May those who love your salvation say evermore, “God is great!”    – Psalm 70:4
 
Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!    – Psalm 66:20
 
O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.     – Isaiah 25:1
 
Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!    – Psalm 115:1
 
Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.    – Psalm 63:3
 
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.    – Isaiah 61:10
 
And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church.    

​- Ephesians 1:19-22
 
Those are just a few verses that we can meditate upon and give praise to our God. Every time we come into prayer, let us begin not with asking but with praise and acknowledgement of the God we come to ask, trusting that as we put the Lord first, He will already take care of the burdens upon our hearts. Use His word, through the Psalms or books like this to help and spend time meditating on the Lord and who He is. His word can teach us what to say and how to praise our God. And this will be the first step in powerful, transformational, mountain moving prayer and that’s ultimately what I want to see in my life. 


 Christy Cox

“I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.  “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine. Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk.  And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God.    Ezekiel 16:7-14
 
When God wants to convey His most tender love towards us, He uses the picture of a bride. There is such a different intimacy here than when He reveals Himself as Father. A husband is where we are supposed to be our most vulnerable. Everything is supposed to be exposed, our hearts of love, our dreams, our fears, even our bodies and to rest in that acceptance, care and love of this one man. This is what I still long for, to have my own husband and experience a fraction of this intimacy that is so unique. And God knows this too; it’s why He gives it to me and to you through Himself. He saw me at my worst, in my blood and yet chooses me to bless me. He shall lavish you with good gifts. God doesn’t give a potato sack to clothe her, He gives embroidered cloth and fine leather shoes. He doesn’t look for the cheapest stuff and consider that good enough. No, He showers with silks, rings, earrings and even a crown for the one He loves.
 
Now anyone who knows me, knows I am not a stuff kind of person, I don’t like shopping unless it’s for a purpose, I don’t have a bunch of jewelry, clothes, collections and stuff. But there is something inside all of us, that when a man gives you the very best to bless you, you feel valued. We deserve none of it and when someone chooses to give you more than you deserve because they love you, love pours out in return in gratitude. And that’s who our God is; we love Him, because He first loved us.
 
The rest of the chapter speaks of Israel’s rebellion to their God, but I can also see my own guilt there too. Yikes, this picture is harsh.
 
“But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his. You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be. You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them. Also my bread that I gave you—I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey—you set before them for a pleasing aroma; and so it was, declares the Lord God. And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood.  Ezekiel 16:15-22
 
For me, these are the years after I became a Christian and backsliding that should have belonged to my God, my bridegroom. It is a picture of betrayal and breaking the Lord’s heart. I wasted so many years in my own pride and sin. So many regrets and things to be ashamed of, that it could cripple me for years if I allowed it to. I treated God just like Israel did. After all He had done for me and gave me, I spent it on my own lusts. How foolish we can be at times to turn away from the goodness of the Lord, whether it is for years or for a single day. Just like Israel, we are deserving of all the judgment God was going to pour out.
 
But again our God shows His great mercy and love towards us.
 
“Yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant… I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded…,  when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.” Ezekiel 16:60, 62-63
 
When Jesus atoned for all that I had done, whether it was 20 years ago or this morning, it was a fulfillment of this word. We will be and are confounded by God’s sacrifice, His acceptance and tender love of us in spite of our sin. And it is because we are no longer in our blood that is polluted with sin, but are covered in Christ’s blood that is a sweet smelling sacrifice to the Father. Christian remember this, if God so cared for you in your blood and clothed you and elevated you as royalty, how much more shall He accept and love you now that the Son’s blood covers you and you are bound to Him for all eternity? Those things we are still ashamed of, take to the Lord who has seen you at your very worst and worse than you think it is and accept His embrace and goodness towards you. Re-read verses 7 to 14, that’s how He relates to you. When your heart fully embraces God’s acceptance of you, it gives you courage to face anyone else’s rejection and that is freedom indeed. 

​Christy Cox

"Open your mouth, judge righteously, And plead the cause of the poor and needy." 
                                                                                                                                    Proverbs 31:9
 
Perhaps these scriptures resonate more with me, since this has been my calling for the last few years. God has created my personality to fight for the weak and against evil. He’s empowered me by His Spirit and His word to strengthen women in the Lord. He also has specifically called me to minister to those women in varying degrees of abusive relationships. I certainly didn’t look for this ministry, but God has clearly anointed it for His purposes. Maybe this devotional is specifically for that one woman who needs to know God cares about the evil done against her and will fight on her behalf.  
 
I would like to just say a few words about abuse, especially as the days grow darker. Satan always wants to put us back in bondage, whether through our sin, our fears or through the oppression of another. It is not another level of godliness or higher spirituality to allow another to enslave us. That’s a lie from the enemy to keep us from taking action and speaking up. Even in the early Corinthian church, Paul was rebuking the people for allowing the false leaders to put them into bondage again after Christ had freed them.
 
“For you put up with fools gladly, since you yourselves are wise! For you put up with it if one brings you into bondage, if one devours you, if one takes from you, if one exalts himself, if one strikes you on the face. To our shame I say that we were too weak for that!...”   
                                                                                                                            2 Corinthians 11:19-21
 
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage."                                                        Galatians 5:1
 
Jesus Christ died to make us free from sin and fear of death. Christ submitted to death on a cross at the command of the Jews and Romans, but make no mistake, he was no slave, nor in bondage. And His Spirit now resides in each believer that we may stand in power in the Lord and in the freedom He purchased with His own blood.  

“Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”                   John 10:17-18
 
Every situation is different, but God can be trusted to lead you into your path of freedom. Some may require involving others and end the secrecy. Some may require calling on the authorities that God has instituted as our avenue of protection. Some may be called to stand for righteousness and confront the sins they have in the past ignored to keep the peace. His word and His Spirit are what we lean on, not our own ideas of what should be done in each situation. And we as friends may be called to step in on their behalf and enter this struggle with them in our prayers and with our presence. I pray for courage and wisdom to obey the Lord in all things for those in it and for those God calls to walk alongside. In all cases, forgiveness, love, courage and trusting in God’s righteous justice will be the rock we stand upon.  
 
How do we continue in the face of evil and injustice all around us? As Isaiah 56:1 says, we keep justice, and do righteousness, for God’s salvation is about to come and His righteousness to be revealed. We stand where God tells us to stand and fight when God shows us we need to fight. In all we wait on our Redeemer coming. Our ultimate hope is in God. Whether He chooses to bring physical freedom now from bondage, or He gives grace to endure and be free in our spirit; remember, one day there will be a reckoning. God is righteous and that truth alone settles the unrest in our souls.
 
“Which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer; since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”                 2 Thessalonians 1:5-8​

I know hell is real, Gods word says it over and over, with Jesus Himself speaking of it. "And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”  Matt 25:46
 
I myself even came to salvation because I was afraid to be cast into hell and suffer forever because of my sins. Hell is a painful subject and I think we avoid pondering it because it does hurt and break our hearts. Because we can each picture individual faces of people we know that we have lost that are there right now suffering. Sometimes the pain of helplessness and sorrow can become too much to bear, so as a form of protection for our hearts, we downplay or push back the reality of hell to the background. The enemy also is instrumental in hiding the reality of hell so that our witness for Jesus Christ is stunted and ineffective.
 
But we cannot truly be a witness with passion if we don't believe to the very fiber of our being that the people we speak with every day are in desperate need of a Savior from an eternity of torment. There is no good news of a Savior, without the terrifying news of impending judgment and punishment. Those are heavy words to share with someone and fear can definitely hinder our courage.
 
So how can we possibly overcome this crushing burden of the reality of hell knowing there are people there? It was in my reading of Acts what Paul said near the end of his life, “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.”   Acts 20:26-27 
 
Innocent of the blood of all men? Yes, in Ezekiel, God says.
 
“So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you shall surely die!’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.     Ezekiel 33:7-9
 
Another time, Paul was rejected by the Jews after trying to reach them with the gospel, “But when they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook his garments and said to them, “Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” Acts 18:6
 
We cannot, nor are we responsible to save others, but God has given us the power and the command to share the truth and the gospel. This is the way God allows us to see Him save souls – to warn people and give them truth, just like in the book of Ezekiel. We get the opportunity to passionately cover them in prayer and speak truth for as long as they will receive it. And when we do encounter those who still choose to reject Christ and enter hell, God releases us from this overwhelming burden by saying we shall be innocent of their blood. 
 
It’s a dire warning and an extreme encouragement at the same time. We must each ask if I am currently innocent of another's blood? Can I say the same as Paul in this moment that I have not failed to speak?  That can be a painful question, because people’s faces may come into our mind at that moment, some come into my mind. And instead of pushing those thoughts out of my mind, what if instead, I allow the Lord to break me with the sorrow, so that He can produce prayers and boldness like never before?
 
Satan only wants to cripple me with regrets, so he hides the reality of hell until someone eventually dies and then will try to bring crushing guilt upon us to keep us silent. But the blood of Christ can cleanse us from all unrighteousness, so that we are empowered and impassioned to speak of the reality of hell and the blessing of our Savior. Though this is a dire warning, it's an encouragement especially if you struggle like me with not seeing people get saved when you share your faith. I'm free of the burden of getting results! I simply need to preach to those God tells me to speak. I pray that the people the Lord has brought to your mind today, will be the catalyst for a bold action of obedience to share  truth of God’s word with someone, whether it’s a phone call, a letter, or a meeting and to keep it in the forefront when new people are brought in your path.  And to remember not to use our words but His as He commands, “therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me.” There is peace to our souls and at times God will give us the blessing of seeing those who do turn in salvation to the Lord by our obedience to speak. 


Christy Cox
 
 
* Reference -  http://media.xfamily.org/docs/fam/udb/ml-en/pub.ml.2701.html