Speak
Your words bring you into Gods future plans and destiny for you. The words you speak today can bring Gods “planned tomorrow” toward you. If we speak words of unbelief, we can frustrate and even deny the good plans of God for our life. How much of what God planned to bring into our lives, has been bound up in the heavens by the words we have said or not said. When Jesus said to Peter “I give you the keys of the kingdom and whatever you bind on earth, will be bound in heaven,” He was talking about binding and loosing with words. Words of preaching, forgiving, casting out demons and prayer. All words by which we bind or lose the things in heaven onto the earth and into our situations. Only what you loose in heaven, comes to us and we lose it by our words.
Friend, our words need to agree with God promises.
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Love is all you need
Moses climbed the rugged mountain to meet with God. On the mountain, he received the 10 Commandments and other laws as they are recorded in the Pentateuch. The high watermark of the law was the simple command to love God with all our might and our neighbour as ourselves. This is still the essence of Gods law and illustrates the goal of our spiritual growth as the people of God. In fact, the first five books of the Bible or the Pentateuch, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, are an illustration of the processes of growth, that God takes us when we follow Him. Genesis is the beginning and explains how God called men from Noah to Abraham. It is about Election; God calling His people, the first privilege we experience, being called by the father to Jesus. Exodus illustrates deliverance and coming out of Egypt. God’s people are brought out of the old into a new beginning. It illustrates how we are redeemed by the blood of the Passover lamb. Leviticus informs the redeemed slaves, how to live with a holy God, as they approached His sanctuary: Sanctification is about we gain a new way of thinking about God, along with a changed lifestyle. Numbers deals with how God trained his people from a mob or rabble into the army of God through discipline and learning to follow the cloud of His presence. Finally, Deuteronomy repeats to the second generation all the requirements they were to obey after the old generation had died off. Their obedience would bring the blessing and victory as they entered into their inheritance. These truths formed the basis for the teaching of the early church doctrine about how we are called, regeneration, justified and sanctified to be made ready to enter fully in our inheritance, who is Christ.
Friend, to come to the full stature of Jesus Christ means to be a wholehearted disciple but mostly means to be fully loving of people and God; even in that order. John said we can’t say we love God till we love your brother and sister. 1 John 4.21
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Sanctification
Jacob was the second-born son of Isaac. He was a schemer but he knew what he wanted. He wheedled the birthright, then he got the blessing. He was always working the angles. When he met God in Gen 28.17 he said “If you will bless me, help me, keep me, feed me and clothe me, then I’m going to make a house for You and begin to tithe like Abraham. Which is fine but it is a bit like saying If I’m better off materially, by being right with God then I’ll serve him. He might have thought; the reason I’ll tithe is so that I can get blessed. (The reason we tithe is that we are already blessed. The job you have already, is a blessing and we need to honour God, lest we lose the one we’ve got.) Jacob knew what he wanted and when God met him he said “I want you to bless me and wrestled with him till God blessed him. God did bless him but the blessing meant a change in his walk. He walked with a limp from that day on. He was no longer striving in his own strength which was diminished. That is what we call sanctification; when we learn to lean completely on God and come to a place where we realise that our strength is not sufficient. God wrestles with us in such a way through circumstance that though we are loved sons and fully justified before God, He helps us to become like Jesus in actuality. In reality, we are changed to be more like him. This is practical righteousness not just imputed or even imparted righteousness. We might be justified and declared righteous, but our habits can still be demanding, selfish or ungrateful, so God will help us change.
Friend, if we don’t realise he is wrestling with us we will wrestle all night but not win. Give in and do it Gods way.
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How do we grow
Jesus said to the disciples “Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they neither toil nor spin yet they grow and are beautiful. All growth depends upon God. The Christian life is not a life of self-help or self-improvement but is about receiving the benefits of God’s grace. Growth happens when you and learn to receive more grace from God. The early church had only the Old Testament for a bible and found in its pages explanation and illustrations of the truth they had experienced. The 6 men of Genesis illustrate the work of God in us to bring us to His image and spiritual growth. Adam, of course, is a clear picture and cause of the sin we all share. Noah is a picture of regeneration, where new life begins out of the old. God saved him from being destroyed with the old creation and he begins a new life with those He brings forth into a new life Abraham is the illustration of Justification by faith. He shows us that Gods way of putting man right with Himself is by an unusual manner; faith. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Isaac illustrates sonship, where the son becomes the apple of Father’s eye. Isaac is truly blessed; he has no needs, everything is provided for. He is loved by God and even in time of famine he is blessed. He is the favoured one, the special boy, the beloved son. That is you and me. We are Gods sons and daughters. To as many as received Him, He gave them power to become the sons of God. That is a picture of supernatural living because he’s blessed by Father. Jacob’s life reflects the process of sanctification. Jacob was a trickster he was a schemer. Faith is living without scheming; it’s living in a way that just trusts God. His life was all about him but God changed him and wrestled with him till he walked with a limp.
Friends, all growth and the dealings of God in our lives, are to bring us to a walk of dependence upon God where our self strength is broken and we limp on our own feet. Ultimately growth must come about through a work of God.
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Be weak?
One day, I felt the Lord say to me "Any real success in life is proportional to the Life you have drawn from God in prayer and relationship with God”. The greatest weakness of the flesh is its own natural ability. O yes, it has strength and the flesh has power. It can build, run, think and contrive, but it all ends in the natural world. Nothing of the flesh goes through into the spirit realm to move men eternally or to move Gods hand on behalf of sinners. The flesh has no ability to affect men's heart for good. The flesh finds it hard to do nothing in its physical world? Jesus asked his disciples “Could you not watch one hour?” Just waiting can seem like a waste to the natural person. Gal 5.17 The flesh is at war with the Holy Spirit of God. The flesh is smart, conniving, determined, self-sufficient and that’s what makes it dangerous. Our flesh’s strength is our weakness! God says “Cursed is the man who trusts in a man who makes flesh his strength..... but blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord”
Friend, if you know that the flesh is dead and therefore determine not to rely upon it, you have a weakness that God can turn to strength. Strong people are people who know they are totally weak to do His will in the flesh so they know desperately that they need Him to do His will through them.
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Don’t just sit there
God uses His power not to interrupt free choice but to turn evil for good. He uses the tribulation of the world and the temptations of the devil all for good. We know all things work together for good to them that are called but does that mean we just accept them all blindly? No, we don’t just accept it or give in to it. Joseph didn’t say well it Gods will for me to be in prison forever so here so I won’t take any opportunity to get out. When the apostles ended up in prisons they didn’t say it is the will of God, no they prayed till there was an earthquake. When troubles come or we lose our job, we don’t say Que - sera sera - instead, God wants us to rise up in faith and trust Him for the new job. Sometimes you have to fight the devil off. This builds our character, forges perseverance, opens our understanding and grows us into the mighty image of Christ.
Friend, if the enemy is seeing to depress you or sap your strength, rise and fight him off by declaring God goodness and His promises.
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Key to everywhere
Cars, buses and taxis ply the streets of our town. Men and women walk to work and home again. It is easy to think that there is only the world we live in but high above and deep beneath there are other worlds. Three realms exist. There is heaven, the spiritual realm that God dwells in. There is earth on which the masses of humanity live, which we to reach with gospel and there is under the earth. The cross is the key to opening all three. The cross opened heaven for us. It restored our relationship with our Father in heaven. Through the cross of Christ, we are reconciled to God. Praise God that through cross we are able to fellowship with Jesus. The cross is also the key to authority with men in the earth. When a man or women speak as one truly carrying the cross of a disciple of Jesus there is a ring of authenticity about them that has impact in men hearts. Also between believers, it is the cross that reconciles brother with brother as the cross is embraced. It is the cross that releases ministry to men and women. Certainly the cross is the key to authority under the earth. It was the victory of the cross that destroyed the authority of Satan. The cross is the only badge of authority the devil recognizes. So the cross is the key to authority in every realm. The cross gives you recognition in heaven, recognition in earth, and recognition under the earth.
Friend, it is not a uniform of bright colours or a flag that flutters proudly that gives us authority, but the cross. Not a physical cross to be lifted or carried through the town but a cross clung to in faith and embraced in our heart that gives us power in every place above, on or the under the earth
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Fear Not
The devil knew Jesus was coming to set the man free, stirred up great storm to stop Jesus coming to the region. You know the devil is not really interested in stopping you doing anything but he is interested in stopping the Lord Jesus from touching people's lives. It was not the disciples that he was trying to stop from reaching the other side, it was Jesus. The disciples at this point were merely men. Christ did not live within them. They were not anointed with the Holy Spirit. Jesus authority was not dwelling in them. The only person that worried the devil in that boatload of people, was Christ. But things are different now. Today Christ is in our life like he was in the boat and because Christ is in us; the devil will cause the storms and troubles to come against us. If he can he will seek to way lay us, distract us and cause enough trouble to turn us back. How many times have you made a fresh commitment to be available to God only to find that quickly trouble comes?
Friend if you are with Jesus in His purpose to reach the lost, the enemy may seek to rock your boat but with Jesus in the boat your life and boat is safe.
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