You Can't Die if You're Already Dead

By Gobel Brockman


   If you spent any time at all in Sunday School class as a child, you no doubt heard the story of “Daniel and the lion’s den.” You heard how that the king threw him into the den, and you heard how God shut the lions mouths and saved Daniel. But there is an important part of this story that sometimes gets overlooked.

   Daniel was known as a man of faithfulness to his God. His enemies sought occasion to accuse him to king Darius, but found none due to his integrity. They determined that they could only trap him as a result of his worship of God. They tricked the king into a decree that stated that anyone who made a request of any god or man except him for thirty days would be thrown to the lions. The king agreed to their request. Now here is the part I want to focus on: when Daniel heard about the decree and the results for disobeying it, this was his response:

“Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”
Daniel 6:10

   Daniel’s response was simple - HE CONTINUED HIS ESTABLISHED PRACTICE OF WORSHIP. He didn’t have to “work anything up” because it was already working. He had already determined that he was going to worship the God of Israel in the midst of a foreign land, regardless of the cost. It was the power of his commitment that brought about his “death to self” long before the threat of physical death came.

   Why is this important today? Many people are sadly deceiving themselves by stating that they would boldly stand for God if they were ever threatened with death or imprisonment. How many times have we heard someone speak about the end times and say, “I’ll never take the mark of the beast!” I’m going to be blunt: I highly doubt that their boldness would still be as bold if and when that time actually came. People who aren’t “dying to self” daily as Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 15:31 aren’t going to be prepared to lay down their lives as easily as they might think. This is one reason I rarely do a “Heads bowed, eyes closed, no one looking around” altar call for salvation when I’m preaching. If someone can’t stand up for Jesus in a room full of people who love Him, I deeply doubt their ability to stand for Him in a world that wants nothing to do with the true gospel of Jesus.

   Daniel wasn’t afraid to die in the lion’s den because he had already died to himself. Let’s join him in that commitment of being dead to self and alive to Christ. May we make that decision in our lives right here and right now. Making it at the mouth of a lion’s cave is doubtful at best.

The Run

Guest Author T.J. Hope

  I've yet to find a more satisfying place to run than in the lush, green meadow as I did when I was a child.  The cool grass brought soothing relief to the scorched soles of my young feet while the blazing sun blistered my shoulders and the humid air drew sweat from my brow. 

   In this fourth decade of my life, I find myself continuing to run, sometimes from the dark memories that are too difficult to revisit as they were a challenge to face the first time around.

   As a child, it didn't matter where I was going, as long as I was able to run.  I could dash aimlessly through open fields, strategically avoiding the thistles with no specific destination.  Now, I am bolting toward a goal I did not set, a dream I never dreamt, a blurry vision that is forever an arm's length away.  When will I ever arrive at that sweet destination set before me?  How will I muster the strength to run when I often find it so difficult to stand?

   Yesterday, I watched my eleven-month-old grandson as he struggled to step his way across the room.  He must certainly desire to go full speed ahead like his older sister without the restraint of unbalance.  Oh, sweet boy, how my longings are as yours.

   As I observed the innocence of this young life attempting to master the art of mobility, I suddenly had a realization.  I was reminded that the fulfillment of every journey is consistent of the baby steps. I remembered an important truth that God had revealed to me a couple of years ago.  I had read an article about saving dimes in an empty two-liter bottle.  Once a bottle is full of dimes, you have collected a small fortune (far more than you'd expect).  Initially, I didn't ponder much on that article.  However, over the next week I began to see dimes in the strangest of places.  They were on the floors of my house, in my dryer vent and once I saw one in the floorboard of my friend's immaculate car. 

  I knew God was attempting to speak to me, but I was certain that He wasn't directing me to save dimes for two reasons.  Number one, I couldn't just steal money from places like my friend's car.  Number two, He and I both knew that it was unlikely, throughout the busyness of my task filled days, that I would make the effort to stop and run every dime I found into some other room and place it in a bottle. 

   I contemplated the message behind these mysterious findings for several days.  The answer came to me suddenly in a way that I can only describe as a download.  Within a few seconds, a "data entry" of multiple past experiences poured into me as if God was restoring my system with previous encounters that I had since forgotten.  I recalled prophetic words that had been spoken over me long ago.  I remembered trials I had endured and victories I had celebrated.  I was overcome with emotion as God reminded me of prior visits from Him, some from my earliest days of intimacy with Him. 

   Each specific incident consisted of only a small measure of time, or just a few sentences of spoken word.  Collectively, however, they amounted to the fortune I had become.  This experience allowed me to venture back to where I began with God and revealed the vast difference between who I was and who I had developed into.  I have in no way arrived to perfection and since there is no finality of the depth in God, I will continue my quest to delve into Him deeper, to love Him stronger, to serve Him more faithfully, to run with Him in greater determination. 

First Love

GUEST AUTHOR T.J. HOPE

   The cold drizzle of rain brought a welcomed drop in the record high temperatures, ending the best Summer of my life.  I was seventeen, young in age, but well-seasoned in my desire to find love.  I met Troy in June of that year.  It truly was love at first sight, maybe because I was eager to embrace the acceptance that came with his wide smile and mesmerizing charm.  

   The next three months were like a whirlwind.  We spent every waking moment together and slept very little.  We frequently pulled “all-nighters,” talking in my car until the sun awoke, bidding us to part ways for a few hours of rest.  Almost thirty years later, I can't recall a single phrase from those unbroken conversations, but I'll never forget how my heart fluttered when I was near him.​

   We married later in that same year.  Time has never confirmed if that was courageous, or just naive.  There have been numerous challenges in the days that have followed, but my heart craves to linger in that first summer that I spent with the love of my life.​

   I have grown to understand that this lasting relationship is built on nothing less than my ability to recall what I felt in those first weeks.  I have a constant, daily reminder of the initial fall into love's abyss.  The vitality of allowing my heart to remain where love originated is immeasurable and not a day goes by without the demand to charge my yearnings to abide there.​

   Recently, I have pondered on the passage in Revelation 2, where the words of Jesus resound like an alarming trumpet.  "You have forsaken the love you had at first", He bellows in rebuke.  ​

   Like the introductory moments with my earthly husband, the start of my relationship with my Heavenly Father has come flooding to my memory.  I am overcome with emotion as I reflect on the transition from infernal darkness into illustrious and radiant light.  My God came running to rescue me from the shadows that veiled my existence. He uncloaked my shroud of deficiency and called me into sonship.  Suddenly, I have become his. ​

   Undeterred by my continuous wandering, He has remained faithful to relentlessly pursue me with a passionate dedication, despite my shortcomings.  Through every trial and tragedy, He has never let me down.

God is good when I am not.

God is good when life is hard.

God is good, every hour of every day.

God is good.  

    When I feel I have distanced myself from Him, I consider how He has never left me.  I reflect on the many times I have wounded Him while He has never hurt me.   I take my thoughts back to the earlier days when my life truly began, the days when I first met Him, to the days when I found the undeniable, unmistakable, overwhelmingly innocent and pure embrace of genuine love.​

Fear Not

GUEST AUTHOR T.J. HOPE

  It was an ordinary January day when I arrived to clean the house of a dear friend, as I had done weekly for the past ten years.  I expected her to greet me, visit for a moment and be on her way to allow me to uninterruptedly tidy her house while she ran her errands.

  

  A familiar feeling came over me when I entered the family’s sitting room and found my friend slumped over sideways in her recliner.  Every week for ten years I had sensed an eerie presence in that house as I cleaned.  I never saw anything unusual there.  However, I felt as if something bad was going to happen to me for the entire three hours I was there, every single Friday afternoon.

  

  That fear was intensified on this day in January as I scrambled to find the phone and call for help.  I could barely speak above a whisper to the operator on the line.  I was gripped with panic as I was instructed to approach my friend and see if she was breathing.  I couldn’t do it.  My steps were frozen in her hallway as I peeked around the corner to see if she had moved.  Her son arrived and confirmed the worst.  She had departed from this life and I immediately found myself being terrorized by a demon that had likely been tormenting her for a long time.  Now, she was free of a darkness that was forcing itself onto me.

  I left her family standing in the front yard as the ambulance left with my friend and I drove the mile to my house in shaken disbelief.  For the next two days, I was cloaked in a weight I could not bear.  I panicked at the thought of one of my grandchildren finding me dead.  I was petrified that I would find another person in the same condition I had found my friend.  I was reluctant to walk around in my own house at night.  I couldn’t escape the darkness that surrounded me.  It was obvious that something had attempted to attach itself to me and by the second day, I had suffered enough.

  I went to my prayer closet to consult the only One who could free me from the horror I was facing.  “Why was I the one who had to find her?”, I cried to God.  “Of all the hours in a week that she could’ve passed, why did her life’s end fall on my miniscule watch”?  Throughout my life, I’ve come to notice that God is quick to speak in my brokenness.  He was faithful that day to respond to my desperate cry with a familiar verse in the Bible:

  Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.   Isaiah 41:10

  With the reminder of that verse, came a calming peace that immediately took me back to the person I truly was, the person created to walk in absolute freedom.  As God entered my prayer closet that day to rescue me, the enemy who had taunted me fled and I quickly realized that God had used me to cast that devil away.  Had a different person been the one to have found my friend, it may not have turned out as victoriously. 

  In the past few years since that incident occurred, I have learned many valuable lessons involving fear.  I’ve grown to distinguish the difference between being afraid and facing fear.  Since that tragic day in January, I’ve seen more and more of God’s heart concerning such, but no lesson on the subject has had as much impact.

T.J. Hope