EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY JULY 01, 2021.

SUBJECT : WHO WE WERE BEFORE REDEMPTION!

Memory verse: "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light." (Ephesians 5 vs 8.) 

READ: Ephesians 2 vs 1 - 3 & 12: 

2:1: And You He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 

2:2: in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 

2:3: among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

2:12: That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of Promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

INTIMATION:

From the passage we read today in the Scripture, we can see the condition from which Jesus saved us. The natural man is spiritually dead. He is subject to the prince of the powers of the air. He is a child of disobedience. He is by nature a child of wrath. He is without God and without hope in the world. He has no covenant claims on God. He was a stranger to the covenant of promise. He was hopeless, Godless, spiritually dead, a child of the devil. That is the condition of the lost man. 

I know we do not like to have that told to us, but if we are not told, then we will never see the need of confession of Christ and Eternal Life. These memories are the best fuel for our gratitude to Christ for all He has done in our behalf.

Now let us look at Ephesians 2 vs 4 - 5 to appreciate God's plan and work: "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 

The natural man, before redemption, was dead in sin, and utterly separated from God, but God came to our rescue. We were dead in our sins, but God.....We were rebels against God, but God......We were enslaved by the devil and our sinful nature, but God.....These may be the two most welcome words in all of Scripture: “But God.” He had the option of leaving us spiritually dead, in rebellion against Him, and in bondage to our sins. But He didn’t. 

It is noteworthy that He didn’t save us because of our good nature, but rather in spite of our hopelessness and unworthiness. We should ever remain thankful for what He has done for us, and should also show humble patience and tolerance for others who seem unworthy or undeserving of our love and compassion. They may be spiritually dull, rebellious, and even antagonistic toward God. So were we; but God loved us anyway. We shouldn’t do less for fellow sinners.

We have been redeemed, and do not need to live any longer under sin’s power. God paid man's penalty on legal grounds and met the demands of justice absolutely. It is not a problem of pity. It is not a problem of a mother's love that overlooks a son's disobedience and rebellion, but it is the Supreme Court of the Universe dealing with our rebellion and our sin, dealing with it so effectually that it can never become an issue again. 

The penalty of sin and its power over us were miraculously destroyed by Christ on the cross. Through faith in Christ we stand acquitted, or no longer guilty, before God (See Romans 3 vs 21 - 22.) God does not take us out of the world or make us robots—we will still feel like sinning, and sometimes we will sin. The difference is that before we became Believers, we were dead in sin and were slaves to our sinful nature. But now we are alive with Christ.

God works on us In redemption; “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2 vs 10). We are now made light in the Lord, therefore, we should walk as children of light.

By faith God recreated us in the recreation of Christ when He was made alive after He had been made sin; in that recreation was our recreation. The apostle Paul gives a clear picture in himself thus: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2 vs 20.) All we have to do is accept it.  The moment we accept it, it becomes a reality to us in the mind of the Father.

Prayer: Abba Father, You displayed Your exceedingly great and unparalleled love for me in redemption.Give me the grace, O Lord,  to love You in like manner, in Jesus’ Name I prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!  

God’s Pleasure to Do You Good

 

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

Jesus will not sit by and let us disbelieve without a fight. He takes up the weapon of the word and speaks it with power for all who struggle to believe.

His aim is to defeat the fear that God is not the kind of God who really wants to be good to us — that he is not really generous and helpful and kind and tender, but is basically irked with us — ill-disposed and angry.

Sometimes, even if we believe in our heads that God is good to us, we may feel in our hearts that his goodness is somehow forced or constrained, perhaps like a judge who has been maneuvered by a clever attorney into a corner on some technicality of court proceeding, so he has to dismiss the charges against the prisoner whom he really would rather send to jail.

But Jesus is at pains to help us not feel that way about God. He is striving in Luke 12:32 to describe for us the indescribable worth and excellency of God’s soul by showing the unbridled pleasure he takes in giving us the kingdom.

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Every little word of this stunning sentence is intended to help take away the fear that Jesus knows we struggle with; namely, that God begrudges his benefits; that he is constrained and out of character when he does nice things; that at bottom he is angry and loves to vent his anger.

Luke 12:32 is a sentence about the nature of God. It’s about the kind of heart God has. It’s a verse about what makes God glad — not merely about what God will do or what he has to do, but what he delights to do, what he loves to do and takes pleasure in doing. Every word counts. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Heaven’s Relief in the Coming Wrath

 

God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted . . . when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thessalonians 1:6–8)

There will come a time when the patience of God is over. When God has seen his people suffer for the allotted time, and the appointed number of martyrs is complete (Revelation 6:11), then a just and holy vengeance will come from heaven.

Notice that God’s vengeance on those who have afflicted his people is experienced by us as “relief.” “God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted.” In other words, the judgment on “those who afflict” us is a form of grace toward us.

Perhaps the most remarkable picture of judgment as grace is the picture of Babylon’s destruction in Revelation 18. At her destruction, a great voice from heaven cries, “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!” (Revelation 18:20). Then a great multitude is heard saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants” (Revelation 19:1–2).

When God’s patience has run its long-suffering course, and this age is over, and judgment comes on the enemies of God’s people, the saints will not disapprove of God’s justice.

This means that the final destruction of the unrepentant will not be experienced as a misery for God’s people.

The unwillingness of others to repent will not hold the affections of the saints hostage. Hell will not be able to blackmail heaven into misery. God’s judgment will be approved, and the saints will experience the vindication of truth as a great grace.

OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE NEW CREATION!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY JUNE 30, 2021.

SUBJECT : OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE NEW CREATION!

Memory verse: "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (Second Corinthians 5 vs 21.) 

READ: Second Corinthians 5 vs 17; Ephesians 4 vs 24: 

Second Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new.

Ephesians 4:24; and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

INTIMATION: 

Christianity is the life of God imparted to man, plus the wealth of the riches of God's nature also imparted to us, and the Spirit's unveiling of the wealth of God that was revealed in Christ. This truth was a faith-provoking, and a love-stimulating thing; realizing what Christ has done for us in His Redemptive work. Honestly, for a genuine believer, It revolutionizes the intellect, and thrills the spirit. It lifts a man out of the natural to the supernatural.

When the mind is renewed on the strength of the sonship rights, he can take his place as a son. He can enjoy a son's rights and privileges. He can assume a son's responsibility and step into the riches of the grace of God. That comes when a man loses his sin consciousness, his sense of inferiority, noting that when you confess Christ and believe in your heart His redemptive work for you, you are a new creation, old things (including all the sins you ever committed) are forgiven and passed away, and all things have become new. Your old self has been crucified with Christ, and your new self has risen up with Him in the new creation.

The sin consciousness is never lost in you until you know about righteousness, and this has not been properly preached in our churches. Righteousness does not only mean doing right deeds, righteousness means the ability to stand in the Father's presence without a sense of guilt, inferiority, or sin, just as free in the Father's presence as was Jesus. And this is ours now in this present world full of evil.

In the new creation we have righteousness reckoned for us; for our sake He made His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, virtually to be in sin who never knew any sin, so that in, and through Him we might become endued with the righteousness of God. In the redemptive work of Christ, all sins; past, present, and future, have been forgiven you provided you have fellowship in Christ. Why is it so? When we trust in Christ, and accept the redemption He wrought for us, we make an exchange—our sin for His righteousness. Our sin was poured into Christ at His crucifixion. His righteousness is poured into us at our conversion. In Christianity that is what is meant by Christ's atonement for sin. 

In the world, bartering works only when two people exchange goods of relatively equal value. But God offers to trade His righteousness for our sin—something of immeasurable worth for something completely worthless. How grateful we should be for His kindness to us.

We not only have righteousness reckoned to us, but also imputed and imparted to us in the new creation. The new man is created according to God, in righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4 vs 24). That thrills the heart. The very fact of a new creation and of sonship demands a perfect righteousness which is given in Christ.

Could you think of a son who could not stand in his father's presence? In such situation, sonship would have no meaning, and no significance whatsoever. In the new creation, we have now a perfect relationship—God is our very Father, we are His sons and daughters, able to stand in His presence without any sense of guilt or sin consciousness because of His righteousness imputed and imparted to us. Hallelujah!

Prayer: Abba Father, what a great and loving Father we have in You; ever merciful, and with unfailing compassion. When I meditate on Your loving kindness toward me, and remember what You wrought for me in redemption, I feel great chill run through my spines. O Lord, endue me with the spirit of complete obedience, gratefulness, and faithfulness to You, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

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!