CRAVE FOR MORE GRACE!

EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY JULY 29, 2022.

SUBJECT: CRAVE FOR MORE GRACE!

Memory verse: "But He gives more grace. Therefore He says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (James 4 vs 6.) 

READ: James 4 vs 5 - 6:

4:5: 5 Or do you think that the scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealousy”?

4:6: But He gives more grace. Therefore He says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

INTIMATION:

As we have known in the past days, grace is the free, and unmerited power of God available to sinful humanity to meet our needs without any costs to us. it is received by believing rather than through any human efforts. Everything we are, and do, and have is by the grace of God. As believers, we are one hundred percent helpless in leading life according to His precepts without the grace of God. In Ephesians 2 vs 10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.”

The simple and uncomplicated nature of God's grace, and being a free gift, make many people to miss it. There is nothing more powerful than grace. In fact, everything in the Bible—salvation, the infilling of the Holy Spirit, fellowship with God and victory in our daily lives—are based upon the grace of God. As believers, without grace, we are nothing, we have nothing, and can do nothing good. If it were not for the grace of God, we would all be miserable and hopeless. 

In the passage we read today, the apostle James reveals that there is so much more to grace. The verses in Amplified Version of the Bible is quite revealing. It says, "Or do you suppose that the Scripture is speaking to no purpose that says. The Spirit Whom He has caused to dwell in us yearns over us and He yearns for the Spirit [to be welcomed] with a jealous love? But He gives us more and more grace (power of the Holy Spirit, to meet this evil tendency and all others fully). That is why He says, God sets Himself against the proud and haughty, but gives grace (continually) to the lowly (those who are humble enough to receive it)."

Therefore, grace is the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome the evil tendency within us. What evil tendency is James referring to here? The evil tendency is to turn away from God and look to our selves or to others, rather than simply asking Him to meet our needs. That is a tendency of the flesh; the evil tendency of being worldly. Incidentally, it is not the way God wants us to react or lead our lives. God demands our reliance on, and obedience to Him in all the things we do. Much as He created us as free moral human beings, and allows us a choice, He still demands we choose His ways, and not ours.

The remedy to this evil tendency is found in James 4 verse 6 which tells us that in the midst of all our problems and frustrations, God gives those who humble themselves to ask from Him more and more grace, more and more power of the of the Holy Spirit, to meet or overcome this evil tendency and all others fully. That is why God sets Himself against the proud and haughty who think they can handle things on their own without Him, but gives grace continually to the lowly, to those who are humble enough to receive His grace by simply asking for it.

God wants to help us meet our needs or overcome every evil tendencies within us. He wants to give us His grace. He wants to give us the power to overcome our wrong motives and intentions, if we will be humble enough to ask for it and receive it rather than trying to handle everything ourselves by our own power and in our own way. 

Hear what the Scripture says about the humble, and the proud; "For though the Lord is high, yet has He respect to the lowly [bringing them into fellowship with Him]; but the proud and haughty He knows and recognizes [only] at a distance." (Psalm 138 vs 6.) "Though He scoffs at the scoffers and scorns the scorners, yet He gives His undeserved favor to the low [in rank], the humble, and the afflicted." (Proverbs 3 vs 34 AMP.)

You and I should start each day by saying, "Here I am, Lord, ready for whatever You have for me to do. I empty myself, as much as I know how, to allow Your grace to flow in my life, to cause me to be able to do whatever it is that You desire for me. I cast myself totally upon You. I can be only what You allow me to be, I can have only what You will for me to have, I can do only what You empower me to do, and each victory is to Your glory, not mine."

Prayer, Abba Father, endue me with the spirit of humility and total obedience to You in all things, that I may receive from You more and more grace to live for You, and overcome every evil tendencies that arise in my life, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen. 

PRAISE THE LORD! 

Why We Don’t Lose Heart

 

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16–18)

Paul can’t see the way he used to (and there were no glasses). He can’t hear the way he used to (and there were no hearing aids). He doesn’t recover from beatings the way he used to (and there were no antibiotics). His strength, walking from town to town, doesn’t hold up the way it used to. He sees the wrinkles in his face and neck. His memory is not as good. And he admits that this is a threat to his faith and joy and courage.

But he does not lose heart. Why?

He doesn’t lose heart because his inner man is being renewed. How?

The renewing of his heart comes from something very strange: it comes from looking at what he can’t see.

We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)

This is Paul’s way of not losing heart: looking at what he cannot see. What, then, did he see when he looked?

A few verses later in 2 Corinthians 5:7, he says, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” This doesn’t mean that he leaps into the dark without evidence of what’s there. It means that for now the most precious and important realities in the world are beyond our physical senses.

We “look” at these unseen things through the gospel. We strengthen our hearts — we renew our courage — by fixing our gaze on the invisible, objective truth that we see in the testimony of those who saw Christ face to face.

“God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). “The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” We see this as it shines in our heart through the gospel.

We became Christians when this happened — whether we understood this or not. And with Paul we need to go on seeing with the eyes of the heart, so that we not lose heart.

SAVED AND SUSTAINED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH IN CHRIST!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY JULY 28, 2022.

SUBJECT : SAVED AND SUSTAINED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH IN CHRIST! 

Memory verse: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourself; it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2 vs 8.) 

READ: Ephesians 2 vs 4 - 10:

2:4: But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

2:5: even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you are saved),

2:6: and raised us up together, and made sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

2:7: that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

2:8: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourself; it is the gift of God,

2:9: not of works, lest anyone should boast.

2:10: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

INTIMATION:

We are saved by grace through faith. Please note these two words 'by' and 'through' because the vital difference between these two words will help keep in proper perspective the different roles and functions of grace and faith.

Grace is the unmerited favor of God to draw from God’s power through the Holy Spirit, while faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11 vs 1). The Amplified Bible clearly states the same verse thus: "Now faith is the substance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].

The key words that describe faith are confidence, conviction, confirmation and certainty. These qualities need a secure beginning and ending point. The beginning point of faith is believing in God's character—He is who He says He is. The end point is believing in God's promises—He will do what He says He will do. Therefore, when we believe that God will fulfill His promises even though we don't see those promises materializing yet, we demonstrate true faith. It is the 'believe'—the confidence and conviction—in God, and assurance—confirmation and certainty—of His promises, that is faith. And it is through faith that we receive by His grace (the power of the Holy Spirit) God's blessings.

The major problem believers have is that once we are saved by grace through faith, we immediately make the mistake of turning from living by grace to living by works. We begin to match God's blessings by our works. Or put in another form, we want to buy God's blessings by our works. What do I mean by this? We begin to think we have prayed enough, or not enough, to get God's blessings (answer to our prayers), or we have been operating enough, or not enough, in the fruit of the Spirit to get, or not to get, His blessings; we weren't nice when we got caught in that traffic jam, we weren't nice to the man at the corner of the road, on and on, hence our not being blessed by Him. 

We think of everything we did right or wrong and figure that it automatically qualifies or disqualifies us, as it were, for any of God's blessings. All these are works, though in themselves are good and should be done, but are not the channel or reason for receiving from God. It is not by works. It is even "God who works in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2 vs 13), and He does this by His grace (the power of the Holy Spirit) in you. Disconnect from Him, and you can do nothing. (John 15 vs 5).

"For we who have believed (adhered to and trusted in and relied on God) do enter His rest"......(Hebrews 4 vs 3). You will enter His rest when you receive His grace and you will lead your life as Paul advised us in Philippians 4 vs 4 - 6; "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men.......Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." That is life of who has entered His rest.

Prayer: Abba Father, thank You for Your grace bestowed on me and my absolute faith in You and has enabled me to lead a life trusting in You completely, that we enable me enter Your rest, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

THE SOURCE OF GOD’S GRACE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY JULY 27, 2022.

SUBJECT: THE SOURCE OF GOD’S GRACE!

Memory verse: "Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5 vs 2.) 

READ: Ephesians 2 vs 8 - 9:

2:8: For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 

2:9: not of works, lest any man should boast.

INTIMATION:

We gain entry into the realm of God’s grace through Jesus in whom we must have faith. Grace is the unmerited favor of God toward man that was made possible by the sacrificial offering of Jesus on the cross. God demands our obedient response to Him by faith. Therefore, the application of grace in one’s life must be based on the condition of obedient faith, which is our response to the grace of God. And without faith it is impossible to please God. It is in exercising of our faith in our obedient fellowship with Christ that plugs us into the source of God’s power—His grace. 

If there is anything the devil tries to do, is to keep people out of fellowship with the Lord. Satan knows that once you are connected to the source of divine power, it is finished for him. Fellowship with the Lord is what ensures a victorious and peaceful Christian life. But without fellowship with Him, one will struggle the entire time he or she is here on earth as a Christian, even though you will be saved because your name is in the Book of life. 

Though the free gift of our salvation is not based on our fellowship, rather on the blood of Jesus shed on the cross for our sins. But without fellowship in obedient faith one will not partake of the riches of the glory, and the exceeding greatness of His power—His grace.

Do you know what happens when you are in fellowship with God—spending quality time with Him? You become a custodian of His grace—the power of God to help you meet your needs and solve your problems. As soldiers of the cross, you and I are not supposed to be afraid of our enemy—the devil. Instead, we are to ‘be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might—His grace,’ knowing that we are plugged into the ultimate power source, the power that can make and destroy. 

When the spirit of fear comes along, rather than shaking like a leaf, we are to be bold as a lion, and remind the devil that ‘God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind’ (Second Timothy 1 vs 7). 

The devil comes against those who are doing damage to his kingdom, those who are doing something for God as His ambassadors. How then do we withstand the devil? By girding on the full armor of God; taking the shield of faith, and by wielding the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, by which we can quench his fiery darts (Ephesians 6 vs 13 - 17). 

Being strong in the Lord, in my considered opinion, is being strong in fellowship with God. And it’s only after being strengthened in fellowship with obedient faith that you can properly access the whole armor of God. Therefore, you should come apart with the Lord (fellowship with the Lord) privately before you come apart publicly. Spend time with God so you can remain stable as you deal with the daily affairs of life.

Being in fellowship with the Lord does not mean that you will be in a room with God all the time. If you will give twenty or thirty minutes of sleep in the morning in order to get up early and seek His face, God will honor that sacrifice. It you are willing to turn off the television for thirty minutes in the evening and spend some time in fellowship with the Lord, you will be richly rewarded. 

However, God is a Loving Father, He will not require more of you than what you are able to give Him. He is not an ogre who is out to make you miserable. He just knows what you need in order to have that abundant, enjoyable, victorious life. When you fellowship with the Lord, you learn to quickly follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. 

Prayer: Abba Father, You are my all. I thirst to be in Your presence at all times. Endue me with the spirit of faithful obedience to You in all things that I may have fellowship with You at all times, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

If You Don’t Fight Lust

 Abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. (1 Peter 2:11)

When I confronted a man about the adultery he was living in, I tried to understand his situation, and I pled with him to return to his wife. Then I said, “You know, Jesus says that if you don’t fight this sin with the kind of seriousness that is willing to gouge out your own eye, you will go to hell and suffer there forever.”

As a professing Christian, he looked at me in utter disbelief, as though he had never heard anything like this in his life, and said, “You mean you think a person can lose his salvation?”

So, I have learned again and again from firsthand experience that there are many professing Christians who have a view of salvation that disconnects it from real life, and that nullifies the threats of the Bible, and that puts the sinning person who claims to be a Christian beyond the reach of biblical warnings. I believe this view of the Christian life is comforting thousands who are on the broad way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13).

Jesus said, if you don’t fight lust, you won’t go to heaven. “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29). The point is not that true Christians always succeed in every battle. The issue is that we resolve to fight, not that we succeed flawlessly. We don’t make peace with sin. We make war.

The stakes are much higher than whether the world is blown up by a thousand long-range missiles, or terrorists bomb your city, or global warming melts the ice caps, or AIDS sweeps the nations. All these calamities can kill only the body. But if we don’t fight lust, we lose our souls. Forever.

Peter says the passions of the flesh wage war against our souls (1 Peter 2:11). The stakes in this war are infinitely higher than in any threat of world war or terrorism. The apostle Paul listed “immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness,” then said it is “on account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5–6). And the wrath of God is immeasurably more fearful than the wrath of all the nations of the world put together.

May God give us grace to take our souls and others’ souls seriously and keep up the fight.

THE RICHES OF GOD’S GRACE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

TUESDAY JULY 26, 2022.

SUBJECT: THE RICHES OF GOD’S GRACE!

Memory verse: "That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2 vs 7.) 

READ: Ephesians 1 verse 3 - 8:

1:3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,

1:4: just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,

1:5: having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

1:6: to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

1:7: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace,

1:8: which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.

INTIMATION:

The common definition of grace known to us is "God’s free and unmerited or undeserved favor for sinful humanity." God showered His kindness (His grace) on us. This is the voluntary and loving favor given to those He saves through faith in the substitutionary work of Christ. God voluntarily became man—the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The man Jesus was subject to human limitations by setting aside His glory and His rights, in response to His Father’s Will to limit His power and knowledge. Christ became “poor” when He became human because He set aside so much. Yet by doing so, He made us “rich” because by His “grace,” we are redeemed—we received salvation and eternal life. 

Therefore, the grace of God can be defined as His voluntarily setting aside His Deity—His glory, rights, power, and knowledge, for the love of sinful humanity, and bestowing on us unmerited or undeserved favor by redeeming us from sin and Satan, and handing us the gift of salvation and eternal life. 

In Christ we have all the benefits of knowing God—being chosen for salvation, being adopted as His children, forgiveness, insight, the gifts of the Spirit, power to do God’s will, the hope of living forever with Christ. Because we have an intimate relationship with Christ, we can enjoy these blessings now, and thereafter in the heavenly places because these blessings are eternal, not temporal. 

The mystery of salvation originated in the timeless mind of God long before we existed. It is hard to understand how God could accept us. But because of Christ, we are holy and blameless in His sight. God chose us, and when we belong to Him through Christ, He looks at us as if we had never sinned. All we can do is express our thanks for the wonderful love. Salvation is God’s work and not our own doing. In His infinite love, God has adopted us as His own children. Through Jesus’ sacrifice, He has brought us into His family and made us heirs along with Jesus (Romans 8 vs 17). 

Now, we can appreciate how rich is the grace of God toward us that believe: Salvation brought the whole of God—Triune God—at work; Based upon the redemption work of His Son, the Father forgives us and sends the Holy Spirit to wash away our sins and continually renew us. When Christ became human, He set aside His Deity—His glory and His rights, His power and knowledge—and became subject to human limitations just for the atonement for our sins. Though Jesus was on an equality with God, He sacrificed Himself in order to offer Himself for the salvation of the whole of mankind. 

In redemption, Christ brought us out of that from which we could not deliver ourselves by a price. We have thus been purchased by the blood of Jesus out of the slavery of sin from which we could not deliver ourselves by works of law or meritorious deeds. While we are still neck deep in sin He loved us, He planned and executed our redemption without any contributions from us. Consequently, He bestowed on us that believe in His work for us on the cross, all the benefits of knowing God—being chosen for salvation, being adopted as His children, forgiveness, insight, the gifts of the Spirit, power to do God’s will, the hope of living forever with Christ. How great, rich, awesome is God’s grace toward us! 

Therefore, our response to the exceeding greatness of His love and grace toward us is to love Him back out of gratitude for all He has done for us, by our raw obedience to His will for us. And if we love Him we should keep His commandments (John 14 vs 15 & 23).

Prayer: Abba Father, thank You for Your grace lavished on me out of Your love for me. Endue me with the spirit of complete trust, and obedience to You, and live according to Your will, that I may fully harness the benefits of Your grace upon me, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

What It Means to Love Money

 The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. (1 Timothy 6:10)

What did Paul mean when he wrote this? He couldn’t have meant that money is always on your mind when you sin. A lot of sin happens when we are not thinking about money.

My suggestion is this: He meant that all the evils in the world come from a certain kind of heart, namely, the kind of heart that loves money.

So what does it mean to love money? It doesn’t mean to admire the green paper or the copper coins or the silver shekels. To know what it means to love money, you have to ask, What is money? I would answer that question like this: Money is simply a symbol that stands for human resources. Money stands for what you can get from man — other human beings — instead of God.

God deals in the currency of grace, not money: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1). Money is the currency of human resources. So, the heart that loves money is a heart that pins its hopes, and pursues its pleasures, and puts its trust in what human resources can offer.

So, the love of money is virtually the same as faith in money — belief (trust, confidence, assurance) that money will meet your needs and make you happy.

Love of money is the alternative to faith in God’s future grace. It is faith in future human resources — the kind of thing you can obtain or secure with money. Therefore the love of money, or trust in money, is the underside of unbelief in the promises of God. Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters. . . . You cannot serve God and money.”

You can’t trust in God and in money at the same time. Belief in one is unbelief in the other. A heart that loves money — that banks on money for happiness — is not banking on all that God is for us in Jesus as the satisfaction of our souls.