What Easter Means to Us

 

Afraid to Stray

 Afraid to Stray

Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind! (Psalm 31:19)

Consider two important truths in Psalm 31:19.

1. The goodness of the Lord

There is a peculiar goodness of God. That is, there is not only God’s general goodness that he shows to all people, making his sun rise on the evil and the good (Matthew 5:45), but also a peculiar goodness, as the psalm says, for “those who fear” him.

This goodness is abundant beyond measure. It is boundless. It lasts forever. It is all-encompassing. There is only goodness for those who fear him. Everything works together for their good (Romans 8:28). Even their pains are filled with profit according to Romans 5:3–5.

But those who do not fear him receive a temporary goodness. Romans 2:4–5 describes it like this: “Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” Kindness. Forbearance. Patience. Goodness. But it does not meet with the fear of the Lord, but hardness.

That’s the first truth: the goodness of the Lord.

2. The fear of the Lord

The fear of the Lord is the fear of straying from him. Therefore, it expresses itself in taking refuge in God. That’s why two conditions are mentioned in Psalm 31:19 — fearing the Lord and taking refuge in him. “Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have 1) stored up for those who fear you and 2) worked for those who take refuge in you!” 

They seem to be opposites. Fear seems to drive away and taking refuge seems to draw in. But when we see that this fear is a fear of running away — a fear of straying from him — then they work together.

There is a real trembling in the heart of the saints. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). But it is the trembling one feels in the arms of a Father who has just plucked his child from the undertow of the ocean. It is the trembling at the terrible prospect of thinking we don’t need a Father.

So, cherish the goodness of the Lord. Fear straying from him. Flee from every sin and take refuge in him. “Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you!”

Happy Resurrection morning to our wonderful followers all the world. God bless you all!

DON’T FRET BUT TURN YOUR WORRY TO PRAYER!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SUNDAY APRIL 20, 2025.

SUBJECT : DON’T FRET BUT TURN YOUR WORRY TO PRAYER!

Memory verse: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4 vs 6).

READ: Matthew 6 vs 25 - 33:

6:25: Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

6:26: Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

6:27: Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

6:28: So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;

6:29: And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

6:30: Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

6:31: Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' Or 'What shall we drink?' Or 'What shall we wear?'

6:32: For all these things the Gentiles seek. For your Heavenly Father knows that you needs all these things.

6:33: But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

INTIMATION:

Do not worry or be anxious for anything, rather turn your worry to prayer. Anxiety is being uneasy with fear, worry, crave or desire regarding something. In our memory verse, the Scripture tells us not to fret or worry about anything. Instead pray concerning anything that makes you fret. Imagine not worrying or being anxious for anything! It seems like an impossibility; we all have worries on the job, in our homes, in our business, at school, etc. Worry or anxiety in itself can change nothing. Take the required action of committing all things in prayers to the Owner of the whole world. The reason we worry or burn with anxiety is because we have not trusted God and His promises enough. 

Commit everything in the hands of God in prayer. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness (everything coming together for your good) will come and settle you down. There is nothing impossible with, nor difficult for God. Therefore, steep your life into God’s reality, put Him first in your life; let Him fill your thoughts with His desires, take His character for your pattern, and serve and obey Him in everything.

In turning your worries into prayers, locate in the Scriptures the promise(s) of God relevant to your situation, and put Him into remembrance of His promises (Isaiah 43 vs 26), He hastens to perform His Word (Jeremiah 1 vs 12.) Then rest assured you will receive your petition because you have prayed according to His Will. The Scripture says, “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask any thing according to His Will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked Him.” (First John 5 vs 14 - 15.)

In the passage we read today, Jesus tells us to stop worrying about those needs that God promises to supply. God knows you have those needs (Matthew 6 vs 32), and He is well able to supply your needs. Worry has its negative effects on us; it may damage your health, cause the object of your worry to consume your thoughts, disrupt your productivity, negatively affect the way you treat others, and reduce your ability to trust in God. Worry immobilizes, but genuine concern moves you to action.

Worry is distinct from planning. Planning for tomorrow is time well spent, worrying about tomorrow is time wasted. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference. Careful planning is thinking ahead about goals, steps, and schedules, and trusting in God's guidance. When done well, planning can help alleviate worry. Worriers, by contrast, are consumed by fear and find it difficult to trust God. They let their plans interfere with their relationship with God. Don't let worries about tomorrow affect your relationship with God today.

Carrying your worries, stresses, and daily struggles by yourself shows that you have not trusted God fully with your life. It takes humility, however, to recognize that God cares. Many a time we run away from God because of our sin, thinking that struggles caused by our own sin and foolishness are not God's concern. But when we turn to God in repentance, he will bear the weight even of those struggles. Letting God have your anxieties calls for action, not passively. Don't submit to circumstances, but to the Lord who controls circumstances.

Prayers: Abba Father, my trust is in You for I know You will never leave me nor forsake me. Daily You have loaded me with Your benefits. My soul blesses, and rejoices in You. I put my cares upon You, knowing that You care for me. Give me the grace to commit all things concerning me to You in prayers, and not to fret about anything, in Jesus' Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

A Future for Failures

 A Future for Failures

“Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.” (1 Samuel 12:20–22)

When the Israelites have been brought to fear and they repent of their sin of demanding that Samuel give them a king to be like the other nations, then comes the good news: “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil.” Do you hear how backward that sounds — how wonderfully backward? You might expect him to say, “Fear, for you have done all this evil.” That’s a good reason to fear: you have done the great evil of demanding another king besides God! But that’s not what Samuel says. “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil.”

He goes on, “Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.”

This is the gospel: Even though you have sinned greatly, and terribly dishonored the Lord, even though you now have a king which it was a sin to demand, even though there is no undoing that sin or its painful consequences that are yet to come, nevertheless there is a future and a hope. There is mercy.

Fear not! Fear not!

Then comes the great ground — the basis and foundation — of the gospel in 1 Samuel 12:22. Why don’t you need to fear, even though you have done all this evil? “For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.”

The ground of the gospel is God’s commitment to his own name. Did you hear it? Don’t fear, though you have sinned, “The Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake.” This should have two effects on you: heart-breaking humility and toe-tapping happiness. Humility because your worth is not the foundation of your salvation. Happiness because your salvation is as sure as God’s allegiance to his own name. It can’t get more sure.

PRAY IN THE NAME OF JESUS!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SATURDAY APRIL 19, 2025.

SUBJECT: PRAY IN THE NAME OF JESUS! 

Memory verse: "And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” (John 14 vs 13.)

READ: John 14 vs 12 - 14; 15 vs 16; 16 vs 23:

14:12: Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes In Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to My Father.

14:13: And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

14:14: If you will ask any thing in My name, I will do it.

15:16: You did not chose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you.

16:23: And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you will ask the Father in My name, He will give you.

INTIMATION:

Praying in the name of Jesus is handing over our prayers to Him, He takes over! This is awesome! All you have asked in prayer is then in His care. It is no longer your burden as long as you do not repudiate it by a wrong confession. He is our standby. When Jesus says we can ask anything in His name, our asking must be according to God’s character and Will. 

Jesus is the Will of the Father revealed to mankind. And because He is the Will of God, whatever we ask in His name in consonance with God’s Will and it will be granted us. God will not grant requests contrary to His nature or His Will, and we cannot use His name as a magic formula to fulfill our selfish desires. If we are sincerely following God and seeking to do His Will, then our requests will be in line with what He wants, and He will grant them. 

Jesus and His name is One. The right to pray in His name means that we represent Him, and are acting in His stead. When you pray in the name of Jesus, it is as though Jesus Himself is praying. Therefore, the believer praying is partnering with Jesus, and agreeing with Him. The agreement of you two makes things come into being, or come to pass in line with His promise of the agreement of two: “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.” (Matthew 18 vs 19.)

One may say, "Jesus is not here physically." But let us look at the conversation between the Pharisees and Jesus when they accused Him of being a witness of Himself; “Jesus answered and said to them, “Even If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I came from and where I am going....It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true....I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me.” (John 8 vs 14, 17 & 18.) The Father, who is not present in the physical, bears witness with Him. Jesus, though not present in the physical, but is in you through the Holy Spirit and bears witness with you when you pray in His name.

Now look at this, Jesus is the Word, He has been there from the beginning, He has been with God, all things were made through Him and for Him. Jesus and the Father is One. Jesus said, "I am in the Father and the Father is in Me." (John 14 vs 11.) Jesus is the express image of the person of God (Hebrews 1 vs 3), "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2 vs 9). When you have held up Himself (the Word) to Him in prayer, "He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself" (Second Timothy 2 vs 13). 

When you pray in His name, you are taking Jesus place. You are acting as Jesus would have acted. You are doing the Father's own Will just as Jesus did it in His earth walk. You and Jesus are one. You act for Him. Your will and His Will are harnessed. They make a very beautiful and wonderful unit. 

The Scripture says in First John 4 vs 4, "You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." Satan is in the world and the ruler of it. Jesus said, "I have come into the world." We are in the world, and Jesus is in us through His Spirit—the Holy Spirit, and He is greater than Satan, the ruler of the world. And "as He is so we are in this world" (First John 4 vs 17). It is for this reason that "You are of God." It goes to say that we are greater than the ruler of the world. That is the reason we are overcomers, and are of God because He lives in us. 

Prayer: Abba Father, thank You for what You wrought for us in redemption through our Messiah Jesus Christ. Thank You for given us a blank cheque to ack in His name that our request will be granted to us, in Jesus’ Name I have given thanks. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

God, Touch Our Hearts

 God, Touch Our Hearts

Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched. (1 Samuel 10:26)

Just think of what is being said in this verse. God touched them. Not a wife. Not a child. Not a parent. Not a counselor. But God. God touched them.

The One with infinite power in the universe. The One with infinite authority and infinite wisdom and infinite love and infinite goodness and infinite purity and infinite justice. That One touched their heart. 

How does the circumference of Jupiter touch the edge of a molecule? Let alone penetrate to its nucleus?

The touch of God is awesome not just because it is God who touches, but also because it is a touch. It is a real connection. That it involves the heart is awesome. That it involves God is awesome. And that it involves an actual touch is awesome. 

The valiant men were not just spoken to. They were not just swayed by a divine influence. They were not just seen and known. God, with infinite condescension, touched their heart. God was that close. And they were not consumed.

I love that touch. I want it more and more. For myself and for all of you. I pray that God would touch me anew with his glory and for this glory. I pray that he would touch us all. 

Oh, for the touch of God! If it comes with fire, so be it. If it comes with water, so be it. If it comes with wind, let it come, O God. If it comes with thunder and lightning, let us bow before it.

O Lord, come. Come that close. Burn and soak and blow and crash. Or still and small, come. Come all the way. Touch our hearts.

WHEN YOU PRAY FOR OTHERS!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY APRIL 18, 2025.

SUBJECT: WHEN YOU PRAY FOR OTHERS!

Memory verse: "So I sought for a man among them, who should make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.”  (Ezekiel 22 vs 30.)

READ: Psalm 106 vs 23:

Therefore He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before Him in the breach, to turn away His wrath, lest He destroy them. 

INTIMATION: 

Intercessory prayer is a never-ending opportunity to join God in His work, while at the same time, you have a chance to be transformed both in heart and circumstance. Not just a few are called to pray for others; we are all called to pray unceasingly for all of God's people. Are you wondering if praying for others makes a difference? Here are eight amazing things that happen when you pray for others: 

1. When we pray, we participate in God's work.

There are many people in our lives who need prayer. At times their needs are clear. Other times we may not know what to pray. Either way, when we pray for others, we join God in His work in their lives. 

If you are not sure what to pray, follow the exhortation of Apostle Paul to Timothy in First Timothy 2 vs 1 - 4: “Therefore I exhort first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercession and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Being obedient in praying for others clears the way for God's work and will to be done.

2. When we pray for others we emulate Jesus.

In the book of Luke, we find Jesus praying often. He goes to His Father in prayer as His ministry begins. As we can see in Scripture, Jesus prayed for His disciples and about everything. By bringing petitions of prayer on behalf of others, we imitate our Savior. Jesus said to Peter, “And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail, and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” (Luke 22 vs 31 - 32.)

3. When we pray for others, we share in their  burdens. In Philippians 2 vs 3 - 4, the apostle Paul reminds us to put others above self, and to consider the needs of others more important than our own. Our nature is to do the opposite. Our first thought is to pray that our burdens be lifted or erased altogether. It is humility that allows us to pray for others earnestly. And by offering prayers for the relief of others and sharing their burdens, our burdens seem lighter. 

4. By praying for others, we join the ministry of reconciliation. The apostle Paul said that God reconciled the believers with Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given them the ministry of reconciliation, or working to help others know Jesus, embrace salvation, and God's love. (First Corinthians 5 vs 18). Our first tool is prayer. Praying for others puts us in the middle of God's work to bring everyone to Himself. By praying for others, we are ministers in the work of salvation, opening the gospel to those in our prayers. God wants everyone to be saved, and we are invited to be part of the work. (First Timothy 2 vs 3 - 4.)

5. When we pray for others, we learn to trust God. If we depend on our strength and abilities, we cannot accomplish God's will. Only through surrendering to God is He able to work through us to accomplish His desires in our prayers for others. When we offer intercessory prayers, pleading with God on behalf of loved ones and friends, we are trusting in His ability to answer, and He does. We are giving up our capabilities to answer and depend on God to keep His promise to answer our prayers.

6. When we pray for others, we are also changed. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, it’s one of working miracles in a person's inner nature. While we pray for others, we plead with God to intercede in their lives, perhaps to bring healing or strength in difficult times. But we are also opening our hearts for change. When we pray for others, we connect to the One who has the power to transform the hearts of others and bring change to their circumstances. And at the same time, it amends our hearts.

7. Praying for others glorifies God. When we practice intercessory prayer, we glorify the only One who can answer prayers. Our prayers display trust in God, our belief in Christ, and when prayers are answered, we praise Him for his faithfulness. Our prayers glorify God. Praying is not just a conversation, it’s is also praise for the work God will do through our prayers.

8. God answers when we pray for others.

As Christians, our prayers do not bounce off the ceiling or dissipate like fog. God hears when we pray for others, and He answers. The answer may not come quickly, nor may the reply be what we expected. Or, because God is gracious, we receive much more than we asked. Either way, God answers our prayers when we pray for others. Our prayers are powerful, and our loving God wants us to know through His answer to our plea that He has the power and authority to answer whatever we ask in accordance with His Will.

Prayer should not be regarded as a duty which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.

Prayer: Abba Father, endue me with the excellent spirit of prayer and supplication with thanksgiving in all things, and giving myself to praying for others, interceding in prayer for the benefit of others, and to the glory of Your name, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

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