Jesus our Inheritance
The land before them stretched out as far the eye could see. God had called the Promised Land, their inheritance and they were to make sure the inheritance was not lost or given away but handed on to the children. In the New Testament Pauls basic theology is receive Jesus Christ and you will become a child eligible for part of His inheritance, or to be come co heirs. All that God has given to us in Christ, is our inheritance. Every blessing we are given; the Holy Spirit, peace with God, every privilege we enjoy, every right we are given in the name of Jesus, every benefit we receive such as salvation forgiveness and atonement are our wonderful inheritance in Jesus.
Friend, every state we enjoy now and for eternity. This is the inheritance God has given His New Creation family. It is complete in Jesus. He has paid the price so fully, that He could enter in to heaven and take a seat.
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Use it
Before Dad died he gave me his shot gun and after he died I ended up with all his tools among other treasured blessings. A righteous man leaves an inheritance for his children. It may be money but hopefully a legacy of values. An inheritance is sometimes left to you when your relative dies. The bible is big on inheritances. You are meant to leave one to your kids and God the ultimate Father has laid up an inheritance for you; all the riches that are in Christ. One day some KGB stopped some Russian believers who were on their way to church. They didn’t want lie, so they said “Our elder brother has died and we are on the way to the reading of the will.” That is a great description of Church meetings. Jesus died and there is an inheritance been left to you. Today some parents don’t hand on an inheritance because they think the kids are going to use the inheritance frivolously. The reason some of the old money families have wealth, is because they trained the children how to use money and when the inheritance was left, the kids were able to maintain the wealth and increase it for the next generation.
Friend, an inheritance is a trust for future generations as they too carry on the work of the fathers business and values. Carry on His work for He has left you the recourses.
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Aliens
God has made us new creations in Christ Jesus. A new type of being and we are called to bear the image of God as His children. Only His workmanship and sons, can do the new creation works He planned. His work can’t be done by flesh from the natural world but He has birthed a group of family members who dwell in the kingdom of heaven that can do the work of God. Like he did for Elisha, God opens our eyes to see into that realm. We are in the spirit. We are able to act in both worlds; we are in the world but we are not if it. We are created to do what God would do and even to behave like Jesus would behave. The new man is created in true righteousness and holiness. Putting on the new man is “putting on” the thinking that allows us our New Creation spirit man, to manifest in the natural realm.
Friend, you are an over-comer. You were born an overcomer and that means you can overcome the world. Though it is against us, you can over-come it.
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Striving
Paul had the attitude that we should press after God; to run the race and to fight the good fight of faith. It sounds like we are to be striving and exerting a lot of energy to reach for and win the prize but surely it is not striving in our own human effort. It is not fighting human battles and it is not running a physical road race with strenuous self effort. It is a fight and a race against the self that we were, compared the self we can be, by pressing in to receive grace from God.
The more grace you can receive, the greater success as a believer you will be. Grace gets inside us and changes us from the inside. It grows in you, strengthens you and lifts you up. Grace can bring you out and get you over and that Grace came by Jesus. Moses gave the law because man can only bring law; it takes God to bring Grace. If you look to yourself or to human help, at its best it can only be law. You will do things because its right and we rely on our strength to overcome. Moses went down to deliver the people and to bring them up to their inheritance in the Promised Land, but they couldn’t go in. God gave then the law, but never helped them to enter in. They kept breaking the law and suffering judgment.
Friend our deliverer Jesus has come down from heaven to rescue us and has given us something that will enable us to go into our inheritance. It’s called grace.
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Gods New Creation
Creation sparkled in the early dawn of life. It was a beautiful thing. When God created mankind, He made them pure, free and worthy to walk with God in a relationship with him. He gave them authority over the earth as His ambassadors on the earth, but they chose to move away from God and consequently, they were put out of the garden. The bible is the story of God bringing us back to where we fell from. If we choose to come back, he will make us re-make us. God won’t make you do anything but he will make you into something brand new. He doesn’t make people repent but He does invite and convict us by the Holy Spirit; He warns us through preaching. We had no choice about being in Adam but we do have a choice to be in Christ, and till we accept Christ we remain in Adam receiving all that he deserves. When we accept Christ as Lord, we receive all He deserves! We are either in Adam of Christ; this is the only distinction God sees. If you are in Adam you get all Adams stuff and his family traits; hopelessness, bondages, fear of dying, no sense of future and no relationship with God.
But Friend, If you are in Christ you get all Christs’ stuff; Eternal life, relationship with Father, blessing and joy unspeakable. We had no choice the first time we were born but thank God, we do have a choice to be born again!
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The work of the ministry
The fivefold is to equip the saints so the saints can do the work of the ministry. Bruce Wilkerson of “Prayer of Jabez” fame said “We don’t measure success by the number of people watching you do ministry but how many of those watching you, are doing ministry. Whatever it is that church members think pastors do: visiting the sick in hospitals, casting out devils, following up visitors to the church, ringing up the people that haven’t been seen for three weeks, teaching new believer the basics and discipline some people at lunchtime…is what they are to be doing! Jesus was modelling ministry for His body the whole church, not for the 5 fold. Ministry just means serving. Believers don’t go to church to be at a service or to enjoy a service but they go there to give service and then go out of the meeting to give service to the body and the world. Members are to edify or build the local church body up. It is not Jesus alone who is building the church, we have excused lack of availability from that verse, for far too long. It is the job of the saints to build up the church by doing the work of the ministry. That is a ministry to God in worship, ministry to the world as disciple-makers and ministry to the saints by service, love and encouragement.
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Jesus is merciful
A couple of weeks ago we talked in our life group about poor people tithing. I asked them what they would do if we had a lady in the church getting 160 dollars a week benefit and she was playing 130 dollars a week rent and finding it hard to tithe and live off the rest. The next day I asked the Lord to help me in how I should think. As I got still before Him suddenly I saw a picture of me walking behind Jesus in the grain fields. It was a bright sunny day, the corn was a golden and dry dust was floating around in the suns of sun. Jesus is treading through the golden fields with all the disciples. I thought what has this got to do with tithing? Soon I began to read the scriptures and miraculously the Bible was opened at the exact story where Jesus was walking through the Grainfields. The disciples were hungry and so they were eating the grain as they walked. The Pharisees were not impressed and to defend his disciples Jesus gave them an interesting talk. He said you have heard what David did and the others with them when they were hungry how they went into the house of God and eat of the bread that was only for the priests. I.e. The human need of David and his men took priority over the religious law. Jesus goes on “I am Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.” My men are plucking grain on the Sabbath and while you think it is contrary to the law, they have a human need. Sometimes in life, we meet people who are genuinely poor without the resources to meet their basic human needs. The son of man never came to uphold a system of duty but to free the souls of men. Human need takes priority over religious law. Think of the Good Samaritan story. If your neighbour is in trouble on Sunday morning, then helping him is more important than going to church. God loves men more than He loves the Sabbath and He loves his people more than their tithes. I believe in the principle of tithes and offerings but let’s not become Pharisees who seem to think that God cares more for religious rituals or even principles, than He does for people. The Pharisees think that the poor person whose weekly income is 160 dollars and whose rent is 130 dollars a week should give their tithe of 16 dollars and try to live on 14 dollars a week! Because the Pharisee who earns $800 a week religiously gives his tithes his $80 leaving him $720 to live on! Tithing was made for man not man for tithing. Man’s hunger being satisfied is more important to God than tithing. David didn’t say to his men “Learn faith by staying hungry, learn to suffer for righteousness sake by going without food and water. Jesus never said to His disciples “harden up and learn faith by not eating on Sabbath and certainly not to eat that which is Holy and belonging to the priests.”
Friend, Jesus is more merciful and understanding than you think.
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Change
If you ever see a business that closed down it will be because they couldn't make the changes necessary to succeed. If you see a family wounded and in pain, as mum tries to raise to three teenagers, we know someone couldn’t change. We see wives alone after an abusive relationship ends, with a man who could not change, but Jesus comes to change people's lives. He changes the lives of ordinary guys; labourers and tax collectors. No standout performers, no stars but they said yes to Jesus and he rewrote their story. They found out that only Jesus could change them. Your best future, your God planned future demands there are changes now. To have a better marriage, something has to change. You know something has to change. To have a better walk with Christ you know something needs to change to God to bring you to the next level of your ministry, something will need to change. To embrace change we have to be assured of our Fathers tender involvement in our life. To grow through change, we invite Him into our change knowing He's ordering our steps.
Friend, if we believe that our steps are ordered by the Lord our changes are never random and we can grow through change and not just go through change.
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