THE PLACE OF LOVE IN OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY JUNE 24, 2022.

SUBJECT: THE PLACE OF LOVE IN OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE! 

Memory verse: "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God." (First John 4 vs 7.)

READ: Mark 12 vs 30 - 31 & 33:

12:30: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength: this is the first commandment.

12:31: And the second like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

12:33: And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

INTIMATION:

A Christian life without love is purposeless. When you love God completely and care for others as you care for yourself, then you have fulfilled the intent of the Ten Commandments and the other Old Testament laws. According to Jesus, these two commandments summarize all God’s laws. Let them rule your thoughts, decisions, and actions. When you are uncertain about what to do ask yourself which course of action best demonstrates love for God and others. 

Jesus says that if we truly love God and our neighbor, we will naturally keep the commandments. The best tact to deal with this is rather than worrying about all we should not do, we should concentrate on all we can do to show love for God and others. After learning to love God, learning to love others is the second purpose of your life. 

Everyone believes that love is important, but love is usually thought of as a feeling. In reality love is a choice and an action, as First Corinthians 13 vs 4 - 7 shows. God is the source of our love. He loved us enough to sacrifice His Son for us. Jesus is our example of what it means to love; everything He did in life and death was supremely loving. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to love; he lives in our heart and makes us more and more like Jesus. God’s love always involves a choice and an action, and our love should be like His. 

We are often preoccupied with our own self, and act as if relationships are something to be squeezed into our schedule. We think always that we are doing others favor by loving them. But that is wrong, instead we are doing ourselves the favor of walking in the command of God to fulfill His law. It is another test of discipleship. If one maintains a behavioral character of actively loving his brother, then such is born of God. The more one applies the principles of God’s attributes, the more one understands the nature of God. 

We talk about finding time for our children or making out time for people in our lives. That gives the impression that relationships are just part of our lives along with many other tasks. But God says relationships are what life is all about. Four of the Ten Commandments deal with our relationship to God while the other six deal with our relationships with people. But all ten are about relationships! We might say it is in Old Testament laws, but Jesus summarized what matters most to God in two statements: ‘love God and love people.’

Relationships, not achievements or the acquisition of things, are what matters most in life. Now you know this, why will you allow relationships to get the short end of the stick? When our schedules become overloaded, and overcrowded, we start skimming relationally, cutting back on giving the time, energy, and attention that loving relationships require. What is most important to God is displaced by what's urgent to you. 

Busyness is the greatest enemy to relationships. We become preoccupied with making a living, doing our work, paying bills, and accomplishing goals as if these tasks are the point of life. They are not. The point of life is learning to love God and people. Life minus love equals zero.

Our society confuses Love and lust. Unlike lust, God’s kind of love is directed outward toward others, not inward toward ourselves. It is utterly unselfish. This kind of love goes against our natural inclinations. It is impossible to have this Love unless God helps us set aside our own natural desires so that we can love and not expect anything in return. 

Prayer: Abba Father, You are love, and I know You. My utmost heart desire is to live a life hinged on Your greatest commandments; to love You and others. Endue me with the spirit of love, that I may be worthy to be called Your Son, in Jesus’ Name I prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

I Can Be Content in Every Circumstance

 I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11–13)

God’s provision of day-by-day future grace enables Paul to be filled or to be hungry, to prosper or suffer, to have abundance or go wanting.

“I can do all things” really means “all things,” not just easy things. “All things” means, “Through Christ I can hunger and suffer and be in want.” This puts the stunning promise of Philippians 4:19 in its proper light: “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

What does “every need of yours” mean in view of Philippians 4:11–12? It means “all that you need for God-glorifying contentment.” Which may include times of hunger and need. Paul’s love for the Philippians flowed from his contentment in God, and his contentment flowed from his faith in the future grace of God’s infallible provision to be all he needed in times of plenty and want.

It’s obvious then that covetousness is exactly the opposite of faith. It’s the loss of contentment in Christ so that we start to crave other things to satisfy the longings of our hearts which only the presence of God himself can satisfy. And there’s no mistaking that the battle against covetousness is a battle against unbelief in God’s promise to be all we need in every circumstance.

This is so clear in Hebrews 13:5. Watch how the author argues for our freedom from the love of money — freedom from covetousness — the freedom of contentment in God: “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” Faith in this promise — “I will never leave you” — breaks the power of all God-dishonoring desire — all covetousness.

Whenever we sense the slightest rise of covetousness in our hearts, we must turn on it and fight it with all our might using the weapons of this faith.

Faith Honors Him Whom It Trusts

 

No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith giving glory to God. (Romans 4:20)

Oh, how I long for God to be glorified in our pursuit of holiness and love. But God is not glorified unless our pursuit is empowered by faith in his promises.

And the God who revealed himself most fully in Jesus Christ, who was crucified for our sins and raised for our justification (Romans 4:25), is most glorified when we embrace his promises with joyful firmness because they are bought by the blood of his Son.

God is honored when we are humbled for our feebleness and failure, and when he is trusted for future grace. That’s the point of Romans 4:20 where Paul describes Abraham’s faith, “No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith giving glory to God.”

He grew strong in his faith, thus giving glory to God. Faith in God’s promises glorifies him as supremely wise and strong and good and trustworthy. So, unless we learn how to live by faith in the promises of God’s future grace, we may perform remarkable religious rigors, but not for God’s glory.

He is glorified when the power to be holy comes through humble faith in future grace.

Martin Luther said, “[Faith] honors him whom it trusts with the most reverent and highest regard, since it considers him truthful and trustworthy.” The trusted Giver gets the glory.

My great desire is that we learn how to live for God’s honor. And that means living by faith in future grace, which, in turn, means battling unbelief in all the ways it rears its head.

THE CHOICE OF LIFE OR DEATH!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY JUNE 23, 2022.

SUBJECT: THE CHOICE OF LIFE OR DEATH! 

Memory verse: "I call heaven and earth as witness today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live."  (Deuteronomy 30 vs 19.)

READ: Deuteronomy 30 vs 15 - 20:

30:15: See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil,

30:16: in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgements, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. 

30:17: But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them,

30:18: I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess.

30:19: I call heaven and earth as witness today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;

30:20: that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.

INTIMATION:

God is the source and Creator of life, for there is no life apart from God, here and hereafter. The life in us is the gift from Him. And because Jesus is eternally existent with God, the Creator, He too, is “the life” through whom we may live eternally. Jesus said, “…I am the way, the truth, and the life…” (John 14 vs 6.) 

In the passage we read today, Moses, in his farewell address to the Israelites, challenged them to choose life, to obey God, and, therefore, to continue to experience His blessings. God doesn’t force His Will on anyone. He lets us decide whether to follow Him or reject Him. This decision, however, is a life and death matter. 

God sets life and death before His people, Israel, at the borders of the Promise Land. As all people do, the children of Israel had a choice: they could obey God or disobey Him. One choice would lead to life, and the other choice would lead to death.

God, however, created us as free-moral individuals. And the final exhortation to us in Scripture is to make a free-moral decision to choose that which will bring life and good. When one stays close to God, he or she will have life. No eternal life exists outside the presence of God. Therefore, one must choose to come into and continually stay in the presence of God in order to maintain eternal life. Since God is eternal, then Scripture concludes that only those who choose to cleave to Him will enjoy eternal existence in His presence. It is imperative, therefore, that one discover how to come into an eternal relationship with God.

Although the terms of the Old Covenant, according to the passage we read today, were specifically for Israel in the Promised Land and are not applied to all humanity today, the choice is still very much the same. God still sets life and death before us. The Scripture in Romans 6 vs 23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Those who accept Christ by faith will experience eternal life and blessing, while those who reject Him will experience eternal death and destruction (John 3 vs 18). There is a clear choice with eternal consequences.

In life we are faced with choices. God has ordained our paths in life, that we may accomplish our predetermined purposes in life in accordance with His Will for us. God doesn't force His Will on anyone. He lets us decide whether to follow Him or reject Him, obey Him or disobey Him. This decision, however, is a life-or-death matter. God wants us to realize this, for He would like us all to choose life. Daily, in each new situation, we must affirm and reinforce this commitment. 

Now remember this, for the ancient Hebrews, life, by definition, was that precisely which proceeded from loving and obeying God.  Therefore, if we choose to serve God, we are choosing life.  Death was defined as the rejection of God. Therefore, if we choose not to serve or obey the Lord, we choose death.  

But we need to understand that our choices affect not only eternity, they affect today as well. If I want to live today, it means that I choose to serve the Lord today.  If I choose not to serve the Lord today, it means that for today I have not chosen life; I have chosen something else, and what follows from that choice will not be the life that comes from God but something else, that is, isolation from Him- which is the same as death. 

Remember, what we choose will be given to us, so let’s be sure to choose to serve the Lord and not some other god, let’s be sure to choose life, so that we will live today and throughout all eternity with the Lord.

Prayer: Abba Father, in You all things consist. And You created all things, including me for Your pleasure. Endue me with the spirit of delightsome obedience to You in all things, that I may please You and live according to Your predetermined purposes for me, and have life more abundantly, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

How We Must Fight for Holiness

 

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

There is a practical holiness without which we will not see the Lord. Many live as if this were not so.

There are professing Christians who live such unholy lives that they will hear Jesus’s dreadful words, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23). Paul says to professing believers, “If you live according to the flesh you will die” (Romans 8:13).

So, there is a holiness without which no one will see the Lord. And learning to fight for holiness by faith in future grace is supremely important.

There is another way to pursue holiness that backfires and leads to death. Paul warns us against serving God any other way than by faith in his enabling grace. God is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). Any effort to serve God that does not, in that very act, depend on him as the reward of our hearts and the power of our service, will dishonor him as a needy pagan god.

Peter describes the alternative to such self-reliant service of God, “Whoever serves, [let him do so] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11). And Paul says, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me” (Romans 15:18; see also 1 Corinthians 15:10).

Moment by moment, grace arrives to enable us to do “every good work” that God appoints for us. “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).

The fight for good works is a fight to believe the promises of future grace.

WAY TO OUR GOD ORDAINED PATHWAYS!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY JUNE 22, 2022.

SUBJECT: WAY TO OUR GOD ORDAINED PATHWAYS! 

Memory verse: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14 vs 6.)

READ: Psalm 16 vs 2; 7 - 9; 11:

16:2: O my soul, you have said to the LORD, “You are my LORD, my goodness is nothing apart from You.”

16:7: I will bless the LORD who has given me counsel; my heart also instructs me in the night seasons,

16:8: I have set the LORD always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.

16:9: Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will rest in hope.

16:11; You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

INTIMATION:

God has ordained our pathways. God, from the beginning, has respectively destined us, or set us apart respectively for a particular purpose or purposes, and particular ways to function. Identifying that God ordained pathway for you ensures your leading a glorious, victorious, pleasurable, joyous, and stress-free life, which was predetermined by God—our Loving Father.

Since God has preplanned all things concerning us, it is therefore given, and realistic that all keys to our preordained pathways are with Him. In our memory verse, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life...." Jesus is emphatic in this statement. He affirms that He is the only way, truth and life. ‘And there is salvation in no other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4 vs 12). 

Three principal things are in Him; ‘the way,’ ‘the truth,’ and ‘the life.’ Therefore, outside of Jesus you are in the wrong way, you can’t discover the truth, and you have no life. 

Jesus, as the way, is our path to the Father. He is one with the Father, and the same with the Father. He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1 vs 15) and the exact representation of God. Jesus is not only equal to God (Philippians 2 vs 6), He is God (John 10 vs 30 & 38). He is the only means through which we can be saved. One cannot be saved outside the atonement that has been provided by Jesus on the cross.

As the truth, He is the reality of all God’s promises. He not only reflects God, but He reveals God to us (John 1 vs 18; 14 vs 9). Jesus is the revelation of the grace and truth that proceeded from God for the salvation of all men (John 1 vs 17; Titus 2 vs 11). Salvation therefore, must be accomplished through the mystery of God that was revealed through Jesus (Ephesians 3 vs 3 - 5). 

Jesus said these of Himself: "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner."   John 5 vs 19.) "I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgement is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me" (John 5 vs 30).

"....When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as the Father taught Me, I speak these things" (John 8 vs 28).

As the Life, He joins His divine life to ours, both now and eternally. The answer to man’s mortality is found only in Jesus. One cannot find life outside the sacrificial blood of Jesus (John 8 vs 12). In order to have life through eternity, one must come into a covenant relationship with Jesus. He is supreme over all creation (Colossians 1 vs 15), and has all priority and authority. He came from heaven, not the dust of the earth (First Corinthians 15 vs 47), and He is Lord over all (Romans 9 vs 5; 10 vs 11 - 13). He is, in truth, the only living way to the Father.

Following Jesus is knowing the way of the Father. No one has seen the Father, and no one can see Him. But Jesus Christ came to reveal the Father to us. Observing the ways of Jesus is tantamount to observing the ways of the Father, because He is the same with the Father. Everything you need is in Him, and without Him you can do nothing (John 15 vs 5).

Now Jesus has come, and has gone back to the Father, to come again for the final union in marriage with His people—‘the marriage of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19 vs 7 & 9). While He is away, He has left with us the instructions on what to do, and also has given us an Helper, just to help us to occupy until He comes (Luke 19 vs 13). The instructions are in the Holy Book—the Bible, and our Helper is the Holy Spirit. Outside of these two, you will never discover the way.

The Book of instruction—the Bible tells us that the starting point is embracing Jesus and declaring Him as Savior and Lord  over your life. When you do this, He will help you to ensure that all other things would fall in pleasant places if you follow His instructions (Psalm 16 vs 6). 

Prayer: Abba Father, thank You for the gift of Your only begotten Son Jesus Christ. Jesus, I confess, with my whole heart, that You are my Savior; that You died for me on the cross to pay the wages of my sin, because I cannot help myself. Thank You for that supreme sacrifice. I wholeheartedly declare you as my Lord. Come into my life and show me the true way to the Father. As from today, in You I live, and move and have my being, in Jesus matchless name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

DESIRE THE WISDOM AND REVELATION OF CHRIST!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

TUESDAY JUNE 21, 2022.

SUBJECT : DESIRE THE WISDOM AND REVELATION OF CHRIST!

Memory verse: "For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." (Colossians 1 vs 9. The )

READ: Ephesians 1 vs 17 - 23:

1:17: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,

1:18: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the Saints,

1:19: and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power

1:20: which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,

1:21: far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.

1:22: And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church,

1:23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

INTIMATION:

In the first three chapters of the apostle Paul's epistle to the church in Ephesus, he enumerated the consummation of Christ's substitutionary work regarding Satan and his cohorts—the demons. His heart intent is that we will come to the full knowledge of what we are in Christ.

From the passage we read today, we observed that he prayed that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may grant us a spirit of wisdom and revelational insight into mysteries and secret in the deep and intimate knowledge of Him, by having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called us, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the believers.

When we understand the hope of God’s calling and the riches of His glory to the saints (the believers), the understanding of our spiritual matters increase in order that we might fully comprehend three things: (1) We must comprehend the hope of heaven that God has revealed. (2) We must comprehend the riches of the inheritance that God has made possible through His grace. (3) We must comprehend the greatness of God’s power toward the Christian.

Jesus is at the right hand of God and now reigns at the right hand of the Father as King of kings and Lord of lords. He has authority over all things. The reign of Jesus as well as His kingdom, were never meant to be as carnal reigns and kingdoms that are confined to this physical world. The totality of the reign of Jesus in the heavenly realm far exceeds the limits of earthly kingdoms. Jesus’ realm of reign is unlimited and extends far beyond this world and the church. 

Jesus is the Creator of all that exists. And since all things in both physical and spiritual realm were created by and for Jesus. He is definitely above all that which He created. Since Jesus is God, then certainly this is not difficult to understand. 

All the powers that God has allowed angelic beings and Satan to possess are now under the kingdom reign of Jesus. In His preeminence, Jesus has absolute authority over every power. Therefore, every Christian must firmly believe that Jesus has everything under control. He is “upholding all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1 vs 13). The control of all things by Jesus gives confidence and boldness to the Christian who knows such. 

In this present time, all that exists has been subjugated to Jesus. This does not mean that all free-moral beings have voluntarily subjected themselves to Jesus. Satan, his angels, and the masses of the unbelieving world have refused the kingship of Jesus. The church is composed of those who have voluntarily submitted to Jesus. The members of the church are those who have allowed the will of the Father to be done on earth in their hearts as it is done in heaven (see Matthew 6 vs 9 - 10). 

Jesus is the source of power from which all things now maintain existence. He is the center of reference and controller of all things for the sake of the church. His headship extends unto all that is created. It is a comforting thought for Christians to know that their Savior is holding all things together, not only in the physical realm, but also in the spiritual. 

The proclamation of the lordship of Jesus is God’s attack against the principalities and powers of Satan. When the power of the gospel is unleashed in the kingdom of darkness, Satan is crushed under the feet of those who obey the gospel (Romans 1 vs 16). 

Hebrews 9 vs 12 tells us that this is an Eternal Redemption. Not just a redemption for the hour in which it was done, but that Satan is as much defeated now as he was when Christ arose from the dead; that he is as much a subject to the Name of Jesus as he was when Jesus conquered him.

Prayer: Abba Father, I thank You for what You wrought for me in redemption in Christ Jesus. Thank You for the triumph You have given me in Christ over Satan. Help me to comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of Christ's love for me, in Jesus' Name. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!