by George Runyan | Oct 4, 2014 | Devotional, George Runyan
John 14:12 – Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.
As Jesus partakes of His last meal with His disciples, He shares some of His most intimate thoughts. He knows the events which are about to take place would shake their world to the very core. The chapter begins with Jesus saying, “Let not your heart be troubled.” He points them to His Father as the source of belief. He assures them that He is going to prepare a place for them in the Father’s house. He also assures them that as He goes, He will also return for them so where He is, they might be also.
Jesus assures them that He is the way to the Father. No man can come to the Father except through the Son. He says, by knowing Him one should know the Father. Everything we see in Jesus is what the Father is like. He is full of compassion. He loves the unlovely. He is a provider. He is a protector. He heals and delivers from evil. He forgives the vilest of sinners and transforms their lives.
Jesus reinforces the fact that the words He speaks are not His, but they originate from the Father. He also makes it clear that the works He performs are not His works, but the Father’s works through Him (John 14:10). He gives them two options for belief. “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very work’s sake” (John 14:11). READ MORE – CLICK TITLE ABOVE. FOR YOUR PERSONAL COPY OF THE DAILY DEVOTIONAL BOOK CLICK COVER.
by George Runyan | Oct 3, 2014 | Devotional, George Runyan
Matthew 8:29 – They cried out, saying, “What business do we have with each other, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?”
A tipping point has been defined as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, and the boiling point.” It is clearly revealed in the New Testament that the enemy knew more of God’s plans than God’s people. The Lord has always given His word so His people could know what He expects, what He is going to do, and how they are to respond. God’s prophets held a special place in revealing God’s works. “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). The prophets had prepared God’s people for the coming of their expected King. The people knew He was coming, but they did not receive Him. “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11).
Matthew 8 gives us the story of the believing centurion. Jesus said of him, “I have not found such great faith with anyone in all of Israel” (Matthew 8:10). Jesus found unbelief with the covenant people. He experienced demons giving testimony of who He was, but He would not receive their words. Instead, He drove them out of individuals and set the captives free.
Matthew 8:28 begins the report of Jesus’ ministry in the country of the Gadarenes. There He found two men who were bound by demons. The demons who spoke to Jesus were afraid that He, Jesus had come to torment them. They entreated Jesus, “If You are going to cast us out, send us into the herd of swine” (Matthew 8:31). Jesus said to them, “Go!” Jesus did not cast them into the swine because He did not like swine, but rather for the sake of the man. There was a lot of demonic power there that could have hurt or killed the man. Jesus had mercy on the man.
The enemy thinks out of selfishness and cannot think in terms of eternal love. It was the love of God that created a tipping point in Jesus’ generation. CLICK TITLE ABOVE TO READ MORE. CLICK COVER OF BOOK TO PURCHASE YOUR OWN COPY.
by George Runyan | Oct 2, 2014 | Devotional, George Runyan
Psalm 113:3-4 – From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations; His glory is above the heavens.
Jesus told His disciples that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them. He also told them they were to begin the mission in Jerusalem and from there go to Samaria, Judea, and to the remotest parts of the earth (Acts 1:8). Jerusalem was filled with the Good News as multitudes received the Gospel of the kingdom of God. It spread to Samaria, then throughout all Judea and began the journey westward reaching to Spain during the lifetime of the apostles. Eventually all of Europe received the gospel of the kingdom. The Pilgrims and others took the Good News across the Atlantic Ocean. Part of God’s purpose for America was to be used to spread the Good News everywhere.
Europe and America have left their first love and become materialistic and filled with the pleasures of the world. The Gospel has continued to move like the sun and today is hovering over Asia where the greatest kingdom expansion is taking place. I fully expect the Gospel to eventually spread to the Arab nations and be the instrument of God in defeating the false religion of Islam, as multitudes hear the gospel and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ through the power of God. As the nations of the Mide East turn to Jesus as Lord, Israel will be moved to jealousy just like Paul said in Romans 11:13-14. I am convinced that the gospel is heading back to Jerusalem.
The Bible speaks of two separate outpourings of the Spirit, called the former and latter rain. “He has poured down for you the rain, the early and latter rain as before. The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil” (Joel 2:23-24). The last two thousand years has been the first or former outpouring of the Holy Spirit. There is coming another outpouring of the Holy Spirit called the latter rain which will see the reaping of the nations. READ MORE BY CLICKING TITLE ABOVE OR ORDER YOUR PERSONAL COPY BY CLICKING ON COVER.
by George Runyan | Oct 1, 2014 | Devotional, George Runyan
John 5:46-47 – “If you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?
Israel had a believing problem. As a people, their problem of believing was ingrained in the core of their being. Throughout their history, unbelief was at the forefront of the nation’s problems. The unbelief of their leaders kept them out of the Promised Land for a generation. They spent forty years wandering in the desert. Part of Jehovah’s purpose was that they might learn to believe and trust Him as their King.
Throughout Israel’s history, they rejected the words of the prophets. They not only rejected their words, they killed many of the prophets. Jesus charged His generation, “Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them. So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs. For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation’” (Luke 11:47-50).
It is very important to understand all that took place in the generation in which Jesus was born. Truly, it was “the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4). The Lord brought everything to a head in one generation. Even though the covenant people had done despicable things throughout their history, God had been merciful to them. Now, in a final attempt, He reaches out by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh in order to redeem those under the law. He first sent John the Baptist to witness of His coming Lamb who would take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). Jesus came in the power of the Spirit. He healed, He delivered from demonic powers, He fed them, and He taught them, but still they did not believe. Their leaders were determined to kill Jesus, the Christ. READ MORE – CLICK TITLE ABOVE!
by George Runyan | Sep 30, 2014 | Devotional, George Runyan
Luke 7:28 – I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.
John pointed to the greater, Jesus. John recognized his call and purpose in God. John said, “He who is coming after me is mightier than I” (Matthew 3:11). Jesus was the mightier one. John went on to recognize that Jesus would baptize believers with the Holy Spirit and fire. John only baptized to prepare the way, but Jesus was the way. He who is the way has equipped each believer to manifest His life in the world. Believers, filled with the Holy Spirit are the greatest witness to the fact that light has entered the world.
We can be critical of the church and perhaps there is much to be critical about, but reality is, without the Lord’s church in the earth, this world would be steeped in unimaginable darkness. That is not an excuse to be at ease, but a call to rise up and be “greater than John the Baptist.” The greater than John, Jesus, is living in us through the Holy Spirit. Throughout history, the church has been the greatest witness to the fact that light is in the world. Individually and corporately we are to testify to Christ’s resurrection life and power. “Even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised up in Him” (Ephesians 2:5).
Many of God’s people are slumbering. Many churches are focused inwardly rather than outwardly. The church can be more like a theater than the model Jesus gave, which was a Vine (John 15). It is time to awake from slumber. It is time to throw off the theater mentality. It is time to become “greater.” As the people of God, let us come back to God’s original intent, “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14). READ MORE – CLICK TITLE ABOVE
