The Powerful Root of Practical Love

 

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. (1 John 3:14)

So, love is the evidence that we are born again — that we are Christians, that we are saved.

Sometimes the Bible makes our holiness and our love for people the condition of our final salvation. In other words, if we are not holy and not loving, we will not be saved at the judgment day (e.g., Hebrews 12:14; Galatians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 6:10). This doesn’t mean that acts of love are how we get right with God. No, the Bible is clear again and again as Ephesians 2:8–9 says, “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast.” No, when the Bible says that we are saved by faith but that we must love people in order to finally be saved, it means that faith in God’s promises must be so real that the love it produces proves the reality of the faith.

So, love for others is a condition of future grace in the sense that it confirms that the primary condition, faith, is genuine. We could call love for others a secondary condition, which confirms the authenticity of the primary and essential condition of faith which alone unites us to Christ, and receives his power.

Faith perceives the glory of God in the promises of future grace and embraces all that the promises reveal of what God is for us in Jesus. That spiritual sight of God’s glory, and our delight in it, is the self-authenticating evidence that God has called us to be a beneficiary of his grace. This evidence frees us to bank on God’s promise as our own. And this banking on the promise empowers us to love. Which in turn confirms that our faith is real.

The world is desperate for a faith that combines two things: awestruck sight of unshakable divine Truth, and utterly practical, round-the-clock power to make a liberating difference in life. That’s what I want too. Which is why I am a Christian.

There is a great God of grace who magnifies his own infinite beauty and self-sufficiency by fulfilling promises to helpless people who trust him. And there is a power that comes from prizing this God that leaves no nook or cranny of life untouched. It empowers us to love in the most practical ways.

HOLD FAST YOUR CONFESSION!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

TUESDAY JUNE 29, 2021.

SUBJECT : HOLD FAST YOUR CONFESSION!

Memory verse: "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, Let us hold fast our confession." (Hebrews 4 vs 14.) 

READ: First James 1 vs 6 - 8: 

1:6: But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

1:7: For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, 

1:8: He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

INTIMATION:

As a Christian, what is your confession in prayer, and after prayer? Are you holding tight to your confession during prayer as well as after prayer? Or do you confess doubt and unbelief after prayer? Any confession you a make is a seed sowed in like manner, and you will reap according to what you sowed.

Our faith, or unbelief is determined by our confession. Few of us realize the effect of our spoken word on our own hearts, or on our Adversary. He hears us make our confession of trust, confidence, of failure, of sickness, of lack, and apparently he doesn't forget. Remember he is our accuser; accusing us of our weak or negative confession, and we unconsciously go down to the level of our confession. No one ever rises above his or her confession.

Everybody who walks by faith will have testings. They do not come from the Father; they come from the Adversary. God may allow the testings of the Adversary to test your faith and trust in Him. But as long as the Adversary can confuse the issue, and keep you in a state of flux, you are at a disadvantage. A state of flux is a state of continual changing, of insatiability, of double mindedness. In the passage we read today, the apostle James describes a double minded man as unstable in all his ways, and let not that man think he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

In our memory verse, the Scripture advises us, as Christians, to "hold fast to our confession." That is if our confession is in tune with the Word of God in the Scripture, knowing that the Scripture cannot be broken (John 10 vs 35); that what the Father says is true, and sure, already settles in heaven. When we doubt His Word, it is because we believe something else that is contrary to the Word. Our confidence may be in the arm of flesh; it may be in medicine; it may be in institutions; but whatever our confidence is in, if it contradicts the Word, it destroys our faith life, and without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11 vs 6). Consequently, It destroys our prayers, and brings us again into bondage.

There isn't any power in all the universe that can void any statement of fact in His Word. No Word from God is void of power. He said, "So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55 vs 11.)

Your confidence is in that unbroken, living Word, and you hold fast to your confession in the face of every assaults of the enemy. Never in any way be terrified by your adversaries. Sometimes, it may appear as though the prayer is not answered, hold on to it, though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come (Habakkuk 2 vs 3). It is your quiet assurance in His Word that gives you the supremacy over your adversary.

God’s ways are forever the best, and therefore, He answers in our best interests. Though it might not be the way we wanted, but He aligns our desires with His purposes. He knows the best for us in any circumstances. 

Prayer: Abba Father, my trust is in You. Forever Your Word is settled in heaven. My confession is in the Living Word—Christ Jesus, and in the Written Word. Nothing can take this away from me, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

DEFEATING OURSELVES WITH OUR OWN CONFESSION!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

MONDAY JUNE 28, 2021.

SUBJECT : DEFEATING OURSELVES WITH OUR OWN CONFESSION!

Memory verse: "You are snared by the words of your mouth; you are taken by the words of your mouth." (Proverbs 6 vs 2.) 

READ: Matthew 12 vs 36 - 37; 15 vs 11 & 18; James 3 vs 2: 

12: 36: But I say to you that for every word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 

12:37: For by your words you will justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

15:11: Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.

15:18: But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 

James 3:2: For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, He is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body.

INTIMATION:

 Life is largely made of words. Our words are part of ourselves; they are ourselves. You create a mental condition with your words. Your words, coming from your heart, goes out into the air to thrill and throb in the hearts of those that listen, including your Father in heaven. If your words are full of love and peace and fidelity, they are born out of your heart life. 

Our contradictory speech often puzzling. At times our words are right and pleasing to God, but at other times they are violent and destructive. You are imprisoned with your own words. You talked failure and failure held you in bondage. You said that you did not have faith, and doubt arose like a giant and bound you. You said that you could not, and the moment that you said it you were whipped.

Few of us realize that our words dominate us. A young man said, "I was never whipped until I confess I was whipped." Another said, "The moment I began to make a bold, confident confession, a new courage that I had never known took possession of me." Another young woman said, "My lips have been a constant curse. I have never been able to get the mastery of my lips."

What you say and what you don’t say are both important. To use proper speech you must not only say the right words at the right time, but also not say what you shouldn’t. The uncontrolled tongue can do terrible damage. James 3 vs 8 says, "No man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." 

A woman said, "I always speak my mind." She has few friends. Only pity causes people to go see her. Her lips have been her curse. It isn't so bad speaking your mind if you have the mind of Christ, but as long as you have a mind dominated by the devil, few people care to hear your mind. Examples of untamed tongue include gossiping, putting others down, bragging, manipulating, false teaching, exaggerating, complaining, flattering, and lying. 

Never for a moment acknowledge that God's ability can't put you over. Become "God-inside minded," remembering that greater is He that is in you than any force that can come against you (First John 4 vs 4). Learn to use words so they will work for you and be your servants. Learn that your lips make you a millionaire or a pauper; wanted or despised; a victor or a captive. Cultivate the habit of thinking big things, and then learn to use words that will react upon your own spirit and make you a conqueror.

Your faith will never register above the words of your lips. Thoughts may come and persist in staying, but you refuse to put them into words and they die unborn. Learn from our Messiah, His confessions proved to be realities. Jesus confessed that He is the Light of the World. He is it. The rejection of Him has plunged the world into a new darkness. He said He is the bread from heaven, and it is true. The people who have fed upon His Words have never suffered want. His Words were filled with Himself, as we act on them, they fill us with Christ. 

Prayer: Abba Father, bridle my tongue that I don’t stumble in words, and that I be made a perfect man, able to bridle my whole body, and always making good confessions in the Word, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Enduring When Obeying Hurts

 

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. (Hebrews 12:2)

What faith performs is sometimes unspeakably hard.

In his book Miracle on the River Kwai, Ernest Gordon tells the true story of a group of POWs working on the Burma Railway during World War II.

At the end of each day the tools were collected from the work party. On one occasion a Japanese guard shouted that a shovel was missing and demanded to know which man had taken it. He began to rant and rave, working himself up into a paranoid fury and ordered whoever was guilty to step forward. No one moved. “All die! All die!” he shrieked, cocking and aiming his rifle at the prisoners. At that moment one man stepped forward and the guard clubbed him to death with his rifle while he stood silently to attention. When they returned to the camp, the tools were counted again and no shovel was missing.

What can sustain the will to die for others, when you are innocent? Jesus was carried and sustained in his love for us by “the joy that was set before him.” He banked on a glorious future blessing and joy, and that carried and sustained him in love through his suffering.

Woe to us if we think we should or can be motivated and strengthened for radical, costly obedience by some higher motive than the joy that is set before us. When Jesus called for costly obedience that would require sacrifice in this life, he said in Luke 14:14, “You will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” In other words, be strengthened now in all your losses for Christ’s sake, because of the joy set before you.

Peter said that, when Jesus suffered without retaliating, he was leaving us an example to follow — and that includes Jesus’s confidence in the joy set before him. He handed his cause over to God (1 Peter 2:21) and did not try to settle accounts with retaliation. He banked his hope on the resurrection and all the joys of reunion with his Father and the redemption of his people. So should we.

SATAN’S DEFEAT IS IN WORD CONFESSION!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SUNDAY JUNE 27, 2021.

SUBJECT : SATAN’S DEFEAT IS IN WORD CONFESSION!

Memory verse: "Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." (James 4 vs 7.) 

READ: Matthew 4 vs 3 - 11: 

4:3: Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

4:4: But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not leave by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

4:5: Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple,

4:6: and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down . For it is written; ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

4:7: Jesus said to Him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’”

4:8: Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

4:9: And He said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”

4:10: The Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.

4:11: Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

INTIMATION:

Our testimony of the reality of the Word is greatly feared by Satan, and he is totally disarmed and made ineffective by that. That was the weapon of Jesus against Satan's temptations in the wilderness. When the tempter, Satan, came with his temptations, Jesus simply reminded him of what the Word says; "It is written," and the tempter had no reply to it. 

The devil’s temptations to Jesus focused on three crucial areas: (1) physical needs and desires, (2) possessions and power, and (3) pride. Jesus was able to resist all of  the devil’s temptations because He not only knew the Scripture, But He also obeyed It. The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6 vs 17), to use in spiritual combat. 

Knowing Bible verses is an important step in helping us resist the devil’s attacks, but we must also obey the Bible. Note that Satan has memorized Scripture, but He failed to obey it.  Even the demons believe and tremble (James 2 vs 19),  but they fail to obey. Knowing and obeying the Bible helps us follow God’s desires rather than the devil’s.

Just as the devil used Scripture to convince Jesus to sin, we also face such temptations from some people. Sometimes friends or associates will present attractive and convincing reasons why you should try something you know is wrong. They may even find relevant Bible verses to support their viewpoint. Study the Bible carefully, especially the broader contexts of specific verses, so that you understand God’s principles for living and what He wants from your life.

Only if you really study and understand what the whole Bible says, will you be able to recognize errors of interpretation when people take verses out of context and twist them to say what they want to you to say.

We walk in the light of our testimony—our faith never goes beyond our confession. The Word becomes real only as we confess its reality. That is, "We walk by faith and not by sight." (Second Corinthians 5 vs 7.) Sense knowledge would confess only what it had seen, heard or felt. This is why the people who are seeking experiences always walk by the senses. 

We have been instructed in God's Word to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering; for He who promised is faithful.  (Hebrews 10 vs 23). As we hold fast to the confession of the Word, we are to affirm constantly (Titus 3 vs 8), those things that God has revealed to us, and the realization of those things is sure because He is ever ready to perform His Word (Jeremiah 1 vs 12).

The confession from a believing heart brings the power of God into action. Jesus confirmed the fact in Mark 11 vs 23 that says, "For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in His heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says." 

You study about what you are in Christ and then confess it boldly from a believing heart. You dare to act on the Word in the face of sense knowledge opposition. Regardless of appearance, you take your stand; make your confession and hold fast to it in the face of apparent impossibilities, and realization is certain. The devil is defeated; “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony...” (Revelation 12 vs 11.)

Prayer: Abba Father, Your Word is supreme. Give me the grace for in-depth knowledge of Your Word and the boldness to confess it at all times that I may be the master of the devil and his cohorts, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

A Hiding Place for the Helpless

 

How abundant is your goodness, which you have . . . worked for those who take refuge in you. (Psalm 31:19)

The experience of future grace often hangs on whether we will take refuge in God, or whether we doubt his care and run for cover to other shelters.

For those who take refuge in God, the promises of future grace are many and rich.

None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. (Psalm 34:22)

He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him. (2 Samuel 22:31)

Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (Psalm 2:12)

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. (Nahum 1:7)

We do not earn or merit anything by taking refuge in God. Hiding, because we are weak and need protection, is not a work to commend our self-sufficiency. All it does is show that we regard ourselves as helpless and the hiding place as a place of rescue.

In all those promises I just quoted, the condition of great blessing from God is that we take refuge in him. That condition is not a meritorious one; it is the condition of desperation and acknowledged weakness and need and trust.

Desperation does not demand or deserve; it pleads for mercy and looks for grace.

BATTLING THE ENEMIES IN THE SPIRITUAL REALM!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SATURDAY JUNE 26, 2021.

SUBJECT : BATTLING THE ENEMIES IN THE SPIRITUAL REALM!

Memory verse: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6 vs 12.) 

READ: Ephesians 6 vs 13 - 18:

6:13: Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

6:14: Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,

6:15: and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

6:16: above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery dirts of the wicked one.

6:17: And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which the word of God;

6:18: praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

INTIMATION:

In the Christian life, we battle against principalities and powers (the powerful evil forces of fallen angels headed by Satan, who is a vicious fighter). To withstand their attacks we must depend on God's strength and use every piece of His armor. We fight against the demons over whom Satan has control. They are very real, and not mere fantasies. We face a powerful army whose goal is to defeat the body of Christ. When you believe in Christ, these beings become your enemies, and they try every device to turn you away from Christ and back to sin. 

The battle is in spiritual realm with manifestations in the physical. Although we are assured of victory, we must engage in the struggle until Christ returns, because Satan is constantly battling against all who are on the Lord's side (First Peter 5 vs 8). We need supernatural power to defeat Satan and God has provided this by giving us His Holy Spirit within us and His armor surrounding us. 

The war is a spiritual warfare—the war of prayers, and not the war of rifles such as "AK 47" to shoot down the devil and his cohorts. The failure of all Christian enterprises is a prayer failure. Prayer alone gives success. Preaching, and personal work are God-honored, and blessed vocations or ministries, but prayer is the foundation of it all. A man might preach with a superb eloquence and be the most skilled of diplomats as a soul winner, but he will fall short of his ministry in both fields if he isn't backed up by the prayer life. 

The demons (principalities and powers) and their master are spirits which you don't see nor engage physically, and the fight against them is also in the spirit realm via prayers. We need supernatural powers to defeat Satan, and God has provided this by giving us His Holy Spirit—the sole interpreter of the needs of the human heart—within us, and His armor surrounding us.

The armor of God is utilized in battle through prayer; praying at all times, that is, on every occasion, in every season, in the Spirit, with all manner of prayer and entreaty. And to that end keep alert and watch with strong purpose and perseverance. 

Prayer: Abba Father, without You I can do nothing. O Lord, endue me with the spirit of constant communication with You in prayers, that I may be empowered by Your whole armor for the battle against Satan and his cohorts, that I will overcome them, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!