PRAY WITHOUT CEASING!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY MARCH 01, 2023.

SUBJECT : PRAY WITHOUT CEASING!

Memory verse: "Pray without ceasing.” (First Thessalonians 5 vs 17.)

READ: Luke 18 vs 1:

18:1: Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray, and not to lose heart,

18:2: saying, “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.

18:3: Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for Me from my adversary.’

18:4: And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, 

18:5: yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.”

18:6: Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said.

18:7: And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry day and night to Him, though He bear long with them?

18:8: I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?”

INTIMATION:

Prayer brings us before God in communing with Him. Humbly being at all times in the presence of God is the secret to continual triumph of the believer, hence the reason to pray at all times. Though we cannot spend all our times on our knees, but it is possible to have a prayerful attitude at all times. Emphasis here is not on a continued action of prayer, but on a continued attitude of prayer. This attitude is built upon acknowledging our dependence on God, realizing His presence within us, and determining to obey Him fully. Then, we will find it natural to pray frequent, spontaneous, short prayers. In other words, the Christian should be in a state of mind that he can at all times take part in the action of praying to the Father. 

It is the desire of the Father that His children approach Him in prayer. Prayer is the natural response of those who recognize their need for the help of God in their lives. To persist in prayer does not mean endless repetition or painfully long prayer sessions. Jesus’ lesson in the passage we read today is that if an unrighteous and unconcerned judge would act upon the persistent requests of a pleading woman, then certainly the persistent pleas of the righteous to a concerned God would attract His response to the pleas of the righteous. Consistent prayer means keeping our requests continually before God as we live for Him day by day, believing He will answer. 

Faith is very essential in prayer. Faith is the recognition of the faithfulness of God, and engenders our committing ourselves and our matters to Him. Sometimes you think that God will not hear you because you have fallen short of His high standards for holy living, but if you have faith, and have trusted Him for salvation, you should know that God has forgiven us and He will listen to us. When we live by faith, we are not to give up. God may delay answering, but His delays always have good reasons. Faith shouldn't die if the answers come slowly, for delay is not denial, and that may be God's way of working His Will. As we persist in prayer, we grow in character, faith, and hope.

God not only welcomes us in prayer, He is waiting for us to pray. We, the godly—those who are faithful and devoted to God—should know that God is waiting for us to approach Him in prayer and should be confident that God listens to our prayers and answers at His own time (which is usually the best time for us). Some other times you grow tired of praying because it seems God is not answering you, but a Christian's persistence in prayer is an expression of faith that God answers prayer. Always be confident, and know that God is present, always listening, and always answers in the best ways known to Him. 

A praying attitude is not a substitute to regular times of prayer, but should be an outgrowth of those times. Too often we pray glibly and superficially. Serious prayer, by contrast, requires concentration. It puts us in touch with God’s will and can really change us. Without serious prayer, we reduce God to a quick-service pharmacist with painkillers for your every ailment. However, the Holy Spirit, being the sole interpreter of the needs of the human heart, makes His intercession therein. Inasmuch as prayer is impossible to man apart from His help (Romans 8 vs 26), believers are exhorted to pray at all seasons in the Spirit (Ephesians 6 vs 18; Jude 20). 

Prayer: Abba Father, give me the grace for persistence in prayer, as a demonstration of my absolute faith, and dependence on You in all things, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Where Our Comfort Comes From

 

He [Pilate] entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” (John 19:9–11)

Pilate’s authority to crucify Jesus did not intimidate Jesus. Why not?

Not because Pilate was lying. Not because he didn’t have authority to crucify Jesus. He did.

Rather, this authority did not intimidate Jesus because it was derivative. Jesus said, “It was given to you from above.” Which means it is really authoritative. Not less. But more.

So, how is this not intimidating? Pilate not only has authority to kill Jesus. But he has God-given authority to kill him.

This does not intimidate Jesus because Pilate’s authority over Jesus is subordinate to God’s authority over Pilate. Jesus gets his comfort at this moment not because Pilate’s will is powerless, but because Pilate’s will is guided. Not because Jesus isn’t in the hands of Pilate’s fear, but because Pilate is in the hands of Jesus’s Father.

Which means that our comfort comes not from the powerlessness of our enemies, but from our Father’s sovereign rule over their power.

This is the point of Romans 8:35–37. Tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and danger and sword cannot separate us from Christ because “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Pilate (and all Jesus’s adversaries — and ours) meant it for evil. But God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20). All Jesus’s enemies gathered together with their God-given authority “to do whatever [God’s] hand and [God’s] plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28). They sinned. But through their sinning God saved.

Therefore, do not be intimidated by your adversaries who can only kill the body (Matthew 10:28). Not only because this is all they can do (Luke 12:4), but also because it is done under the watchful hand of your Father.

“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Luke 12:6–7)

Pilate has authority. Herod has authority. Soldiers have authority. Satan has authority. But none is independent. All their authority is derivative. All of it is subordinate to God’s will. Fear not. You are precious to your sovereign Father. Far more precious than the unforgotten birds.

THE THIN LINE BETWEEN GRACE AND FAITH!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 28, 2023.

SUBJECT:  THE THIN LINE BETWEEN GRACE AND FAITH!

Memory verse:  "Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” (John 11 vs 40.) 

READ:  Mark 9 verse 23 - 29:

9:23: Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

9:24: Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!”

9:25: When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of Him and enter Him no more!”

9:26: Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him. And he became as one dead, so that many said, “He is dead.”

9:27:But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

9:28: And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?

9:29: So He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.” 

INTIMATION:

There is a very thin line between grace and faith that is often missed by us. Because these two work together, the line between them is difficult for many to discern. And if we do miss it, our lives become confused. Many trust their faith to meet their needs. When their needs are not met, then they tried to have more faith because they are unable to discern the very fine line between faith and grace. They are not seeing beyond their faith to seek the grace of God (the power of God) to meet their needs.

Most people seemed to base all achievements on their faith, when, in reality, every victory or achievement is based on God's faithfulness bestowed on us by His grace—the power of God. If we frustrate the grace of God, we are going to feel frustrated. This explains why, by the grace of God, we receive our petition even when our faith is near zero.

In our memory verse, Jesus told Mary that it was only her faith (her believe) that would make her see the glory of a God (the power of God) raise the brother Lazarus from the dead. And this was the reason why Jesus said in Matthew 17 vs 21, "...if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there," and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." It is not the tiny faith (as tiny as the tiniest seed on earth) that will move the mountain, but the mighty power of God (the grace of God) which came through your tiny faith to bring about the answer to the petition.

For instance, Jesus had faith (great faith I supposed) all the time He was suffering. He had faith while in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had faith before the high priest and Pilate. He had faith when He was being ridiculed, abused and mistreated. He had faith on the way to Golgotha. He had faith while hanging on the cross. He even had faith while His body lay in the tomb; He had absolute faith that God would not leave Him there but would raise Him up, as He had promised. 

At the point of completing His task, when God separated from Jesus, His faith was shaken hence His question, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" That is "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27 vs 46). That was an indication of His shaken faith. Consequently, Jesus called the Father 'My God,” instead of 'My Father' He had all through called Him before then. For all of Jesus’ faith, nothing happened until the power of God came forth to bring about the resurrection. His faith only kept Him stable until the Father's appointed time for His deliverance. We can have all the faith in the world, but it will avail us nothing until it is 'plugged into' the source of power, which is the grace of God. 

In order to get our needs met, in order to receive anything from the Lord, we must have both faith and grace. It is by grace through faith that we are saved. And it is by grace through faith that all our prayers are answered and all of our needs are met. Keep your eyes on God to deliver you, not your faith. In Second Timothy 2 vs 13, the Bible says, "If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself." The Bible is teaching us here to get our eyes off our ability to believe (as the ultimate), but rather on God's willingness to meet our needs even though we do not have perfect faith. 

In the passage we read today, the man asked Jesus for healing of his son. Jesus told him that all things are possible to those who believe. The man replied, "Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief" or "Help my weakness of faith!" The man knew his faith was lacking, but he was honest about it, and Jesus healed his son. God's grace (power) came on the scene and gave the man what he did not deserve considering his faith—his believe. Jesus made it clear to His disciples that it’s not the faith or believe, but the power or grace of God, which can only be activated to deliver to us by prayer, or by prayer and fasting, in some cases. 

Prayer: Abba Father, You are ever faithful, even in my unfaithfulness, and Your steadfastness never seizes. Endue me with spirit of complete obedience and trust in You, casting all my cares upon You, knowing that there is nothing difficult nor beyond your power, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Finally and Totally Justified

 

Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. (Romans 8:33)

Paul could have said here, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” and then answered, “No one! We are justified.” That’s true. But that is not what he said. His answer instead is, “God is the one who justifies.”

The emphasis is not on the act but on the Actor.

Why? Because in the world of courts and laws where this language comes from, the acquittal of a judge might be overturned by a higher one.

So what, if a local judge acquits you, when you are guilty, if a governor has the right to bring a charge against you? So what, if a governor acquits you, when you are guilty, if the emperor can bring a charge against you?

Here’s the point: Above God, there are no higher courts. If God is the one who acquits you — declares you righteous in his sight — no one can appeal; no one can claim a technicality; no one can call for a mistrial; no one can look for other counts against you. God’s sentence is final and total.

Hear this, all you who believe on Jesus, and become united to Christ, and show yourself among the elect: God is the one who justifies you. Not a human judge. Not a great prophet. Not an archangel from heaven. But God, the Creator of the world and Owner of all things and Ruler of the universe and every molecule and person in it, God is the one who justifies you.

The point: unshakable security in the face of tremendous suffering. If God is for us, no one can successfully be against us. If God gave his Son for us, he will give us everything that is good for us. If God is the one who justifies us, no charge against us can stand.

THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF LOVE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

MONDAY FEBRUARY 27, 2023.

SUBJECT : THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF LOVE!

Memory verse: "A new commandment I gave to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (John 13 vs 34.)

READ: First John 3 vs 13 - 18:

3:13: Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you.

3:14: We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. 3:15: Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal  life abiding in him. 

3:16: By this we know love, because He laid His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

3:17: But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

3:18: My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

INTIMATION:

God is love, therefore, “Love” gave birth to us and we are the children of love. “Love” planned our redemption. Through Jesus Christ “Love” consummated it, gave us a new creation and then Jesus gave us the new law.

God the Father and God the Son set an example of the new commandment and how we should walk; “By this we know love, because He laid His life for us.” (First John 3 vs 16.), and then in the new birth, He gave us the ability to walk even as He walked. He does not ask us to do a thing that cannot be done. Godhead demonstrated that real love is an action, not just a feeling; it produces selfless, sacrificial giving. And the greatest act of love is giving oneself for others. 

You understand that we have the nature of God. The very substance of God has come into our spirits. We are in God's family. God is our Father, we are His very sons and daughters. God so loved the world that He gave us His Son as a propitiation, and the Son laid down His life for us. Therefore, in union with them in the new birth, we are to walk in love.; laying down our lives for others. Love is to govern our conversation; our conduct toward one another. When we step out of love into selfishness, we break fellowship with love—with God.

The passage we read today, in verses 17 and 18, gives us an example of how we can lay down our lives for others—serving others with no thought of receiving anything in return. We are to help those in need; being generous with our possessions, knowing that they are just entrusted to us by God who owns all things.

The apostle James collaborated the apostle John’s teaching in James 2 vs 14 - 17, saying, “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” But you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” No one can walk in selfishness and pray the prayer of faith.

The Scripture, in the fourteenth and fifteenth verses, of the passage we read today, says, 

"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal  life abiding in him." This is putting the case very clearly. We have passed out of the realm of Satanic union, spiritual death, into the union of eternal life and love.

Jesus laid down His life for us. Now "Love" says, "that we ought to live for the brethren," and then He says that remarkable thing, "But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (First John 3 vs 17.) The world's goods are the things that we prize most highly; land, houses, money, beautiful things, valuables etc. In holding tight to those things, we have taken Satan's appraisal of their value. These world things have made us selfish. 

This new commandment of love is to break the monopoly of selfishness and establish a new order of life. The new man is no longer to live unto himself, but is to give his life for others. If he shuts up his compassion from his brother and refuses to bear his burdens, he, at once, sins against love, and God says, "How does the new kind of love abide in him," Unless we walk in love and have yielded to the lordship of love, God cannot manifest Himself through us. The ability of God is realized only in love's freedom to act. Selfishness imprisons love.

Prayer: Abba Father, You have poured out Your love in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. Consequently, as You are so You have empowered us to be in this world. Endue me with the spirit of selflessness that I may put, in right manner, others desires first, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Radical Effects of the Resurrection

 

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:19)

Paul concludes from his hourly danger, and his daily dying, and his fighting with wild beasts, that the life he has chosen in following Jesus is foolish and pitiable if he will not be raised from the dead.

If death were the end of the matter, he says, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32). This doesn’t mean: Let’s all become gluttons and drunkards if there is no resurrection. Drunkards are pitiable too — with or without the resurrection. He means: If there is no resurrection, what makes sense is middle-class moderation to maximize earthly pleasures.

But that is not what Paul chooses. He chooses suffering, because he chooses obedience. Ananias came to Paul after his encounter with Christ on the Damascus road, with the words from the Lord Jesus, “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). Paul accepted this suffering as part of his calling.

How could Paul do it? What was the source of this radical and painful obedience? The answer is given in 1 Corinthians 15:20: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” In other words, Christ was raised, and I will be raised with him. Therefore, nothing suffered for Jesus is in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

The hope of the resurrection radically changed the way Paul lived. It freed him from materialism and consumerism. It gave him the power to go without comforts and pleasures that many people feel they must have in this life. For example, though he had the right to marry (1 Corinthians 9:5), he renounced that pleasure because he was called to bear so much suffering.

This is the way Jesus said the hope of the resurrection is supposed to change our behavior. For example, he told us to invite to our homes people who cannot pay us back in this life. How are we to be motivated to do this? “You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14).

This is a radical call for us to look hard at our present lives to see if they are shaped by the hope of the resurrection. Do we make decisions on the basis of gain in this world, or gain in the next? Do we take risks for love’s sake that can only be explained as wise if there is a resurrection?

May God help us to rededicate ourselves for a lifetime of letting the resurrection have its radical effects.

When God Becomes 100% for Us

 

. . . among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:3)

All of God’s wrath, all of the condemnation we deserve, was poured out on Jesus. All of God’s demands for perfect righteousness were fulfilled by Christ. The moment we see (by grace!) this Treasure, and receive him in this way, his death counts as our death and his condemnation as our condemnation and his righteousness as our righteousness, and God becomes 100% irrevocably for us forever in that instant.

The question this leaves unanswered is, “Doesn’t the Bible teach that in eternity God set his favor on us in election?”

In other words, thoughtful people ask, “Did God only become 100% for us in the moment of faith and union with Christ and justification? Did he not become 100% for us in the act of election before the foundation of the world?” Paul says in Ephesians 1:4–5, “[God] chose us in [Jesus] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.”

Is God then not 100% for the elect from eternity? The answer hangs on the meaning of “100%.”

With the term “100%” I am trying to preserve a biblical truth found in several passages of Scripture. For example, in Ephesians 2:3, Paul says that Christians were “children of wrath” before they were made alive in Christ Jesus: “We all once lived [among the sons of disobedience] in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Paul is saying that, before our new birth — before we were made alive together with Christ — God’s wrath was on us. The elect were under wrath. This changed when God made us alive in Christ Jesus and awakened us to see the truth and beauty of Christ so that we received him as the one who died for us and as the one whose righteousness is counted as ours because of our union with Jesus. Before this happened to us, we were under God’s wrath. Then, because of faith in Christ and union with him, all God’s wrath was removed and he then became, in that sense, 100% for us.

Therefore, exult in the truth that God will keep you. He will get you to the end because in Christ he is 100% for you. And therefore, getting to the end does not make God to be 100% for you. It is the effect of the fact that he is already 100% for you.