GRACE VERSUS WORKS!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SATURDAY AUGUST 06, 2022. 

SUBJECT:  GRACE VERSUS WORKS!

Memory verse:  “And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work?” (Romans 11 vs 6.) 

READ:  Romans 6 vs 15 - 16:

6:15: What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? Certainly not! 

6:16: Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

INTIMATION:

Grace and works are diametrically opposed to one another. They cannot fellowship or have anything to do with each other. In other words, grace and works are mutually exclusive. Where one exists, the other cannot exist. Every single activity in our lives has the required grace to empower us for its accomplishment. As your faith grows, and you put all your trust upon God; He will make all grace abound toward you, that you will always have all sufficiency in all things, and have abundance for every good work (See Second Corinthians 9 vs 8). 

If you and I wants to accomplish the tasks by our own efforts, that is, being into works, then we are out of grace. If we are in grace, then we are out of works. Any time we get into works, the grace of God ceases to operate on our behalf. God has no choice but to back off and wait until we have finished trying to handle things ourselves. As long as we continue to try to figure out our own problems, we will only get more and more frustrated and confused. The reason is because we are trying to operate without grace of God, and that is never going to be successful. 

Now, the apostle Paul stated this clearly about himself and his exploits; “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” We must know that discernment (insight, perception, understanding) does not come out of the head, but out of the heart, "out of the inner man", where the Holy Spirit dwells—the Spirit of grace. The Scripture in Ephesians 3 vs 16 says, "that He will grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through the Spirit in the inner man.”

Discernment or understanding is simply God's wisdom for any situation of life. It is a "spiritual knowing" about how to handle things. The understanding is by His grace (the power of the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of grace) indwelling your innermost being. Your own thoughts are from the head, out of the work of your head. That leads to frustration and confusion. If we have a problem, we don't need to try to figure it out, we need discernment (insight). We need to hear from God. We need God's word on our situation. We need Him to show us what to do. And we are only going to have insight when we give up reasoning. If you are frustrated and confused, it is a sure sign that you are in excess, that you are depending on works rather than on grace.

Confusion is not from God. The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. (First Corinthians 14 vs 33.)  As soon as you begin to feel frustrated and confused, as soon as you start to lose your sense of inner peace, you need to say to yourself, "Oh I have gone too far." You have to realize that you are out of grace and into works. You must give up your efforts and entrust yourself totally to the Lord, leaving your situation entirely in His hands.

Once you turn from your reasoning to the grace of God, you open a channel of faith through which He can begin to reveal to you what you need to know in order to handle that problem or situation. Enter God's rest, and seize from your own works; “For He who has entered His rest has Himself also ceased from His works as God did from His.” (Hebrews 4 vs 10,) And when you have done that, you will begin to hear His answers.

Prayer: Abba Father, You are my loving Father and faithful Companion. I put all my trust in You, casting all my cares upon You. O Lord make all grace abound toward me that I may be sufficient in all things and have abundance in every good work, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

GRACE IN OUR FAITH WALK!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY AUGUST 05, 2022.

SUBJECT : GRACE IN OUR FAITH WALK! 

Memory verse: "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified." (Galatians 2 vs 16.)

READ: Galatians 3 vs 2 - 7:

3:2: This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 

3:3: Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

3:4: Have you suffered so many things in vain - if indeed it was in vain?

3:5: Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 

3:6: Just as Abraham "believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness."

3:7: Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.

INTIMATION:

The Holy Spirit (the Spirit of grace) gives Christians great power to live for God. People still feel insecure in their faith because faith alone seems too easy. Some Christians want more than this. They want to live in a state of perpetual excitement. They still try to get closer to God by following rules. While certain Christian disciplines may help us grow, they must not take the place of the Holy Spirit in us or become ends in themselves. 

In the passage we read today, the apostle Paul is asking the Galatian believers, "Did you receive the Lord through your own works and efforts or by hearing the Gospel message and saying, 'I believe that?'" He further ask them, "Are you really so foolish and senseless and silly as to begin your new life by the Spirit and then try to reach perfection by depending on your own weak human flesh?"

Then finally, he concludes in asking them, "Does God supply your every need and work miracles among you because you keep the law perfectly or because you put your entire faith and trust in the message you heard?" The believers in Galatia received the Lord by faith, but were trying to perfect themselves by depending on their own flesh, trying to change themselves and their lives by human effort rather than by trusting in God, and His grace to live a changed life.

Now, effort has a place in the Christian life. It does have a part to play. But even then, anything done outside the grace of God will have no real lasting effect. The law is not bad in itself. Even the Scripture says, "The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good" (Romans 7 vs 12). The law can make us acceptable to God. 

Yes, the law still has an important role to play in the life of a Christian. The law (1) guards us from sin by giving us standards for behavior; (2) convicts us of sin, leaving us the opportunity to ask for God's forgiveness; and (3) drives us to trust in the sufficiency of Christ, because we can never keep the “Ten Commandments” perfectly. The law cannot possibly save us. But after we become Christians, it can guide us to live as God requires.

Are you struggling with changes that need to be made in your personality? Do you ever get frustrated and confused, trying to believe and have faith and confess and do all the right things to bring about change in yourself and your life, yet it never seems to happen? You wanted to change everything you saw wrong about yourself and life, but for some reason you just couldn't do it. 

Most believers will blame the devil. They will spend better part of their time binding and casting the devil away, instead of turning to the Lord for help. The Lord requires us to constantly turn to Him for help. Why? Because when we do anything apart from Him, we take the credit and glory that rightfully belongs to Him. For this reason He will frustrate any of our own efforts to do things outside of Him. Jesus said, "......For without Me, you can do nothing." (John 15 vs 5).

We are saved by grace (unmerited favor) from God, and only the grace we receive that empowers us to meet specific situations in life. In Luke 11 vs 2 - 4, Jesus thought His disciples how to pray, "Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive our sins, For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one."

Our Lord's Prayer clearly shows three things; (1) God our giver, (2) our leader, (3) our deliverer. Our duty then is to ask so that we can receive. (See Matthew 7 vs 7 - 8). We are to the asking, and God Himself does the work. Therefore, turn to God in prayer, because only God could bring about changes that you desire in your life. But our duty is to ask in faith. Get your face before the Lord on a regular basis and say:

Prayer: Abba Father, I can't help myself. I come to You like a little child. I am totally helpless. I lay this whole situation before You, asking for Your grace. I don't deserve Your help, Father, but You are my only hope. Please do for me what I can't do for myself, in Jesus' Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

10 Things “Yahweh” Means

 

God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3:15)

God’s name is almost always translated LORD (all caps) in the English Bible. But the Hebrew would be pronounced something like “Yahweh,” and is built on the word for “I am.”

So every time we hear the word Yahweh, or every time you see LORD in the English Bible, you should think: this is a proper name (like Peter or John) built out of the word for “I am” and reminding us each time that God absolutely is.

There are at least 10 things the name Yahweh, “I AM,” says about God:

1. He never had a beginning. Every child asks, “Who made God?” And every wise parent says, “Nobody made God. God simply is. And always was. No beginning.”

2. God will never end. If he did not come into being he cannot go out of being, because he is being.

3. God is absolute reality. There is no reality before him. There is no reality outside of him unless he wills it and makes it. He is all that was eternally. No space, no universe, no emptiness. Only God.

4. God is utterly independent. He depends on nothing to bring him into being or support him or counsel him or make him what he is.

5. Everything that is not God depends totally on God. The entire universe is utterly secondary. It came into being by God and stays in being moment by moment on God’s decision to keep it in being.

6. All the universe is by comparison to God as nothing. Contingent, dependent reality is to absolute, independent reality as a shadow to substance. As an echo to a thunderclap. All that we are amazed by in the world and in the galaxies is, compared to God, as nothing.

7. God is constant. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He cannot be improved. He is not becoming anything. He is who he is.

8. God is the absolute standard of truth and goodness and beauty. There is no law-book to which he looks to know what is right. No almanac to establish facts. No guild to determine what is excellent or beautiful. He himself is the standard of what is right, what is true, what is beautiful.

9. God does whatever he pleases and it is always right and always beautiful and always in accord with truth. All reality that is outside of him he created and designed and governs as the absolute reality. So he is utterly free from any constraints that don’t originate from the counsel of his own will.

10. God is the most important and most valuable reality and person in the universe. He is more worthy of interest and attention and admiration and enjoyment than all other realities, including the entire universe.

GRACE GIVES US FREEDOM TO OBEY!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY AUGUST 04, 2022.

SUBJECT : GRACE GIVES US FREEDOM TO OBEY!

Memory verse: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:(Hebrews 12 vs 28.) 

READ: Romans 6 vs 15 - 19: 

6:15: What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Certainly not!

6:16: Do You not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slave whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

6:17: But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which you were delivered.

6:18: And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

6:19: I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

INTIMATION:

God’s grace gives freedom to obey. It does not liberate one to sin. It does not become the license to ignore the will of the One who offered grace, but rather freedom to obey Him. Those who would not respond to the grace of God are those who do not understand that God meant that grace should stir up love and thanksgiving (Second Corinthians 4 vs 15). Those who understand grace work from a heart of appreciation for the salvation he had received as a result of God’s grace. 

Christians have freedom in Christ, but the definition of freedom in the context of Christianity is more narrow than the normal use of the word in common language. Christians use freedom as a tool for a life of exuberant service. It’s the foundation that God gives to us to reach our highest potential. Because God gives us freedom from religious rules and eternal guilt, we must not seek to indulge our own desires; instead, we should reach for the best God has for us. And our freedom should sing of power, joy, and love—accountable to God, devoted to others.

We are to love because He first loved us (First John 4 vs 19). We are to have mercy because He first extended mercy to us (James 2 vs 13). We are to work more abundantly because He worked abundantly toward us (First Corinthians 15 vs 10). If there is no love, mercy, and abundant work on the part of one who has been the recipient of the grace, then he or she has misunderstood grace. God’s grace is in vain in the life of the one who manifests no response to God.

Christians have been rescued by God out of the bondage of legal justification and are now free from the necessity of justification by law-keeping and meritorious deeds. Though the Christian may be set free from justification by law-keeping, he or she is not free from the law of Christ as a standard of moral behavior. Therefore, grace establishes law of Christ in the life of the one who walks in gratitude for the grace of God. Law is established because the obedient son cries out “Abba Father” in his realization that he cannot direct his own paths. He thus cries out for the guidance of the Father. The Father responds with direction, and thus, law is brought into the life of the one who responds by faith in the grace of God.

Those who lose their thanksgiving and gratitude for their salvation, often claim that God’s grace covers all sin regardless of the moral behavior of the believer. Such is a gross misunderstanding of grace. We cannot sin so that grace may abound (Romans 6 vs 1). Though the Christian may be set free from justification by law-keeping, he or she is not free from the law of Christ as a standard of moral behavior. Under grace, one’s love of God, not law, is the motivating factor that stimulates us to be subservient to the will of God. If one is not motivated to work and serve, he or she has no appreciation for the grace of God. 

Some would seek to use their liberty from law as an occasion for sin. Some would sin in order to supposedly increase the grace of God in their lives. Even today, some Christians minimize the sinfulness of sin, believing that how they live has little to do with their faith. But what a person truly believes will show up in how he or she acts. Those who truly have faith will show it by their deep respect for God and their sincere desire to live according to the principles in His Word.

Prayer: Abba Father, make all grace abound toward me, that I will always have all sufficiency in all things, and have an abundance for every good work in doing Your will, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD! 

As Secure as God Is Faithful

 

Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:30)

Between eternity past in God’s predestination, and eternity future in God’s glorification, none is lost.

No one who is predestined for sonship fails to be called. And no one who is called fails to be justified. And no one who is justified fails to be glorified. This is an unbreakable steel chain of divine covenant faithfulness.

And so Paul says,

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

[He] will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:8–9)

These are the promises of our God who cannot lie. Those who are born again are as secure as God is faithful.

Happy birthday to me! It's the Lord doing and is marvelous in our eyes.

Why You Have a Body

 

For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

God did not create the physical-material universe willy-nilly. He had a purpose, namely, to add to the ways his glory is externalized and made manifest. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

Our bodies fit into that same category of physical things that God created for this reason. He is not going to back out on his plan to glorify himself through human beings and human bodies.

Why does God go to all the trouble to dirty his hands, as it were, with our decaying, sin-stained flesh, in order to reestablish it as a resurrection body and clothe it with glory and immortality? Answer: Because his Son paid the price of death so that the Father’s purpose for the material universe would be fulfilled, namely, that he would be glorified in it, including in our bodies, forever and ever.

That’s what the text says: “You were bought with a price [namely, the death of his Son]. So glorify God in your body.” God will not disregard or dishonor the work of his Son. God will honor the work of his Son by raising our bodies from the dead, and we will use our bodies to glorify him forever and ever.

That is why you have a body now. And that is why it will be raised to be like Christ’s glorious body.

THE GRACE OF PROSPERITY IS IN REAL STEWARDSHIP!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 03, 2022.

SUBJECT: THE GRACE OF PROSPERITY IS IN REAL STEWARDSHIP! 

Memory verse: "So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you." (Exodus 23 vs 25.)

READ: Genesis 12 vs 1 - 3:

12:1: Now the Lord said to Abram, get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. 

12:2: I will make you a great nation; I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. 

12:3: I will bless those who bless you, and curse him who curses you: and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

INTIMATION:

A lot of Christians say they know God is the source of everything, but their lives don't reflect an understanding of that truth. For instance, when you think that money comes by your own sweat and tears, then you keep a much tighter hold on it. You become attached to your money, and it actually becomes your master. But when you see yourself as a steward and recognize money as God's blessing, even though you work for your paychecks, it totally changes the role money plays in your life. It ceases to control you and simply becomes a tool for service to the Owner. This simple change in mindset from owner to steward will make a tremendous difference in your life.

Many people see making a living as resulting from the sweat of their brow, and they don't see God as their source. They separate their lives into spiritual matters and personal matters. When it concerns spiritual matters they rely on God, but when it comes to private or personal matters, it becomes their baby. For instance, when it come to money, they think it's all up to them. As a result many Christians are struggling financially. God wants to be the source of everything in your life. The Lord never intended you to carry the burden of financial responsibility, or any other burden, and He wants to lift that burden from you.

Many Christians have made a firm commitment of their lives to the Lord concerning spiritual things, but when it comes to possessions, they see them as private to them. The pressures of life lead them to view possessions as something they must control, and that kind of ownership mentality leads to a lot of problems.

The first step toward becoming responsible with your possessions is to get this mindset that they do not belong to you. Instead of clinging to your possessions, you need to think: ‘I am a steward of what God has entrusted to me.’ ‘God has blessed me with these talents and abilities.’ ‘God has blessed me with my job.’ ‘God is blessing me, and God has given me all the resources I have.’ ‘It is not up to me to run my finances the way I want to.’ ‘I'm a steward.’ ‘I have the responsibility to serve God with all He has given me; my talents, my money, my abilities, my wisdom’ and so on.

People with an ownership mentality end up trying to do everything themselves, but stewards freely receive God's blessing. Look at how blessed Abraham was in the passage we read today. God said here that He would bless Abraham, and that He would make Abraham's name great. When you read the entire story of Abraham, you see that God wasn't talking about intangible spiritual benefits. He was talking about physical earthly blessings: “Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.” (Genesis 13 vs 2.)

Abraham didn't become rich through his own hard work. He became wealthy because the blessing of God was on his life (Hebrews 6 vs 13 - 14). Abraham was blessed in everything he did, even when he made mistakes. He was to be a blessing, and all the families of the earth will be blessed in him.

Prayer: Abba Father, endue me with the spirit of real stewardship, that I may serve You with all my heart, my soul, my strength, my mind, and with all the resources You pit in my care, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!