Heb. 7:22 - By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.
By Jesus we get full assurance of the excellent covenant that God made with us and the truth and stability of the promises connected with it. The covenant of grace started in Genesis 3:15 when God promised that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpents head. The prophets prophesied that this grace was to come. When Jesus came to His own they rejected Him and crucified Him. But it was ordained of God according to His eternal purpose in order that the Gentiles might be partakers of the saints in light.
As born again believers, we stand in fulfillment of the promise and are reaping the benefits of Jesus as our surety, built on better promises, a better priesthood, a better covenant that was not revealed in times of old. The work of God is that we believe in His death, burial, and resurrection. Since He hath given us all spiritual blessings in heavenly places as well as exceeding great and precious promises as well as a better hope, which is an inheritance undefiled and incorruptible reserved in heaven for us, it behooves us to invest time in the word of God. We would be sadly remiss if we were ignorant of His mercy, grace, wisdom and knowledge. Jesus is more than everything we need Him to be. He is the anchor of our souls, our peace, our joy and our redeemer. He has ransomed us from the enemy and we've been translated into the kingdom of His dear son. Christ is in us the hope of glory!
Monday, February 25, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Hope In God
God has a plan for our lives. He hastens His word to perform it (Jer. 1:12). He knows the thoughts that He thinks toward us, thoughts of peace and not of evil that He might give us an expected end (Jer. 29:11).
- Hope thou in God. Hope is a future expectation of something good. Hope thou in His promises which are beyond our present and whatever future we have in our minds.
- Hope thou in the infallibility of God. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath. That by two immutable things (his promise and the oath) in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us (Heb. 6:17-18).
- Hope thou in the eternality of His word. He said so shall my word be (before one jot or tittle pass away heaven and earth shall pass away), that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish what I please and prosper (to rush to succeed, to be profitable) in the thing whereto I send it (Isa. 55:11).
- Believe (and by believing that He is the son of God, you will have life in His name) in the Word of God and don’t move off of it. Always look into the word for a promise to stand on while you wait for the manifestation of what God said would surely come to pass. If Christ atoned for it, it is yours as a son of God. By faith in the Word of God, it is already yours. It is finished!
God is attracted to Himself. His eyes go to and fro throughout the whole earth seeking to show Himself strong to them whose hearts are perfect toward Him (2 Chr. 16:9). This is a promise fulfilled at the Cross of Jesus Christ where he led captivity captive. It means He paraded Satan and his demons in a Roman Procession to show that he was now harmless against us. That in in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us through Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:7). Grace is God's unearned, undeserved and unmerited favor. Invest time in the Word, hope in God, and believe in His Son.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
The Importance Of The Word
The word gives us a heightened sense of awareness not only of the scriptures but of truth in general. I am convinced that we read the scriptures too fast and read right over the golden nuggats that God is trying to show us. People everywhere are talking about God, but very few give the sense of what the scriptures are really saying. It's a higher, simpler knowledge that only a renewed mind can understand. It's not about being deep or speaking eloquently. It's like reducing a fraction to its lowest common denominator and then reducing it some more.
What if we didn't need money the way we think we do. God promised to bless the work of our hands and the power on that statement alone speaks volumes. It means that whatever we put our hands to do would prosper. Look at Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon. Back up and look at the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt. They are a picture of what happens when you give. They had been giving for 400 years and the Egyptians gave back pressed down, shaken together and running over. The children of Israel received the spoils of war without ever having to fight a battle.
There is a power in the Word that we should hunger to experience. It will drive us closer to God just to see what He is going to say or show us next. It's like liquid gold. The more truth you get, the more truth you'll want. Remember, the Holy Ghost is aways the teacher. The word will get better, gooder, sweeter, and become so marvelous to the taste until nothing else will satisfy. I am encouraging you to take one word and meditate on it until a clause forms. Then meditate on the clause until a paragraph forms. Meditate on the paragraph until a story forms. That's how the word works. A mustard seed grows into a mighty tree. Don't get in a hurry and don't rush. Let me know what you experience so we can rejoice together.
What if we didn't need money the way we think we do. God promised to bless the work of our hands and the power on that statement alone speaks volumes. It means that whatever we put our hands to do would prosper. Look at Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon. Back up and look at the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt. They are a picture of what happens when you give. They had been giving for 400 years and the Egyptians gave back pressed down, shaken together and running over. The children of Israel received the spoils of war without ever having to fight a battle.
There is a power in the Word that we should hunger to experience. It will drive us closer to God just to see what He is going to say or show us next. It's like liquid gold. The more truth you get, the more truth you'll want. Remember, the Holy Ghost is aways the teacher. The word will get better, gooder, sweeter, and become so marvelous to the taste until nothing else will satisfy. I am encouraging you to take one word and meditate on it until a clause forms. Then meditate on the clause until a paragraph forms. Meditate on the paragraph until a story forms. That's how the word works. A mustard seed grows into a mighty tree. Don't get in a hurry and don't rush. Let me know what you experience so we can rejoice together.
Dispensation of Grace
John 3:6 - That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
I received a revelation about the Dispensation of Grace unlike I had ever seen before. I hope I can explain it without losing the thought. We have been so caught up in our natural existence until there is a disconnect between who we are spiritually and the lives we live naturally. We struggle to live life in the natural to the neglect of our spirit man. As a child we had a saying, "Seeing is believing." From a religious viewpoint, we want to see and make things happen. Unfortunately what Christ died for us to have is not based on the work of mens hands (human effort).
The Spirit realm is not meat and drink (Rom. 14:17). It is not about works. We think there is something we can do to be accepted of God. We need to move away from that humanistic ideology. Years of going to church has engrained doing in our minds. We need our minds renewed (Rom. 12:2). We need knew mental models. We need visions of what God wants to do to us, in us, and through us. If we would invest time in the Word, it will open the door to a whole new level of knowledge. The "hands-on model" of the Old Testament has been done away with. The stories of how they fought, how they loved, and who they were as men of renown are pictures for us see who God is. We are greater than the Old Testament characters because we have a better covenant, built on better promises and a better High Priest, Jesus Christ our Lord. The dispensation of grace is about the unmerited, unearned, undeserved, free flowing favors of God. Jesus, Himself, has made us accepted in the Beloved. His grace is like the sun that sends its warming rays and all we have to do is rest in them.
We are spirit. We are in Christ; He finished the work and His blood covers us. We have been born again; we were regenerated. We are a brand new species of being. We have put off the body of sin and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:24). We are new creations in Christ with power beyond what we can see, touch, hear, taste and smell. The Dispensation of Grace is our oyster. The only way to become who we are is by the washing of the water of the Word (Eph. 5:26).
Rom. 11:33a - Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
I received a revelation about the Dispensation of Grace unlike I had ever seen before. I hope I can explain it without losing the thought. We have been so caught up in our natural existence until there is a disconnect between who we are spiritually and the lives we live naturally. We struggle to live life in the natural to the neglect of our spirit man. As a child we had a saying, "Seeing is believing." From a religious viewpoint, we want to see and make things happen. Unfortunately what Christ died for us to have is not based on the work of mens hands (human effort).
The Spirit realm is not meat and drink (Rom. 14:17). It is not about works. We think there is something we can do to be accepted of God. We need to move away from that humanistic ideology. Years of going to church has engrained doing in our minds. We need our minds renewed (Rom. 12:2). We need knew mental models. We need visions of what God wants to do to us, in us, and through us. If we would invest time in the Word, it will open the door to a whole new level of knowledge. The "hands-on model" of the Old Testament has been done away with. The stories of how they fought, how they loved, and who they were as men of renown are pictures for us see who God is. We are greater than the Old Testament characters because we have a better covenant, built on better promises and a better High Priest, Jesus Christ our Lord. The dispensation of grace is about the unmerited, unearned, undeserved, free flowing favors of God. Jesus, Himself, has made us accepted in the Beloved. His grace is like the sun that sends its warming rays and all we have to do is rest in them.
We are spirit. We are in Christ; He finished the work and His blood covers us. We have been born again; we were regenerated. We are a brand new species of being. We have put off the body of sin and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:24). We are new creations in Christ with power beyond what we can see, touch, hear, taste and smell. The Dispensation of Grace is our oyster. The only way to become who we are is by the washing of the water of the Word (Eph. 5:26).
Rom. 11:33a - Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Walk Out What You Believe
Many people have been told to walk out what they believe by coming to church, paying tithes, singing in the choir, serving on the usher board. The list is almost endless. The truth of the matter is those things are all good if put in the right perspective. But, to walk out what you believe is to practice what the Bible says. This is quite simple once you understand that you "yourself" are not required to do anything to gain God's approval. In attempting to do so, you would be putting yourself back under the bondage of the law. You would be saying that the sacrifice of His Son was not good enough for you.
The law was given because God wanted to show the children of Israel how sinful they were so they would realize their need for a savior. Instead, being the stiffnecked generation that they were, they forsook the law and murmured and complained against God. When the 2nd generation elders came to enquire of the Lord in Ezekiel 20, in anger God said, "I will not be enquired of by you," and proceeded to rehearse not only the history of the sins of their fathers, but their sins as well. Ezekiel 20 is a picture of the longsuffering of God. He suffered with their misgivings through the wilderness. He said they tempted Him 10 times. When they failed to worship Him as God, He allowed the 1st generation, 20 years and upwards, to die in the wilderness. He promised that their children whom they said would be a prey in the wilderness would inherit the promised land, which they did. But they disobeyed by giving their sons and daughters to the heathens in marriage and worshipped the idols of the people of the land when God had given them explicit instructions not to do so. Then the rest of history finds them, as an entire nation, refusing to return to God. But God always had a remnant who obeyed. Him
Keeping the law is not meant for a born again believer today. This is the dispensation of grace, the free flowing, unmerited favors of God. Jesus died for us. He took our sins and gave us His righteousness. His judgment at the cross was payment for our sins, and God would be unrighteous to try the same sin twice. Therefore, as born again believers we can claim the promises of God back to Adam. When we learn who we are in Christ and as we grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, we become more aware of our spirit side. To walk out what you believe, as I've stated before, is quite simple if done in the spirit and not in the flesh (according to your five senses). Following are a few examples:
1 Thes. 5:18 - In all things give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you." Do just that "in all things give thanks" whether good, bad, or mediocre.
2 Ti. 2:22a - Flee also youthful lusts. Run for your life from those things that tickle the flesh!
Practicing sin always leads to something worse happening. Remember, sin is a thing that takes you into bondage. Ask an alcoholic! Ask an addict! Ask someone that smokes! They really cannot help themselves. The power is not there.
1 Chr. 5:6 - Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you.
Respect and give reference to what belongs to God. You have been bought with the precious blood of Jesus. When you were polluted in your own blood, Christ died for you.
James 4:17 - Submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Resist means to actively fight against the devil. If you don't give him permission, he can't do anything to you. Remember the battlefield is the mind. God gave us power over all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:17). The word power means inherent power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature. If you truly believe you are a son of God, then you know that you are a new creature in Christ. But we need the word of God to renew our minds (Rom. 12:2); transformation takes place effortlessly. The word has an inherent power like the power residing in you. Mix the word with faith and good things happen by virtue of the power working in you.
Don't give the devil an inroad into your life by doing things to defile your temple. Walk out what you believe by developing an intimate relationship with God through His word. As the Holy Ghost teaches you, your walk with God will become effortless and you will constantly go back for more.
The law was given because God wanted to show the children of Israel how sinful they were so they would realize their need for a savior. Instead, being the stiffnecked generation that they were, they forsook the law and murmured and complained against God. When the 2nd generation elders came to enquire of the Lord in Ezekiel 20, in anger God said, "I will not be enquired of by you," and proceeded to rehearse not only the history of the sins of their fathers, but their sins as well. Ezekiel 20 is a picture of the longsuffering of God. He suffered with their misgivings through the wilderness. He said they tempted Him 10 times. When they failed to worship Him as God, He allowed the 1st generation, 20 years and upwards, to die in the wilderness. He promised that their children whom they said would be a prey in the wilderness would inherit the promised land, which they did. But they disobeyed by giving their sons and daughters to the heathens in marriage and worshipped the idols of the people of the land when God had given them explicit instructions not to do so. Then the rest of history finds them, as an entire nation, refusing to return to God. But God always had a remnant who obeyed. Him
Keeping the law is not meant for a born again believer today. This is the dispensation of grace, the free flowing, unmerited favors of God. Jesus died for us. He took our sins and gave us His righteousness. His judgment at the cross was payment for our sins, and God would be unrighteous to try the same sin twice. Therefore, as born again believers we can claim the promises of God back to Adam. When we learn who we are in Christ and as we grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, we become more aware of our spirit side. To walk out what you believe, as I've stated before, is quite simple if done in the spirit and not in the flesh (according to your five senses). Following are a few examples:
1 Thes. 5:18 - In all things give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you." Do just that "in all things give thanks" whether good, bad, or mediocre.
2 Ti. 2:22a - Flee also youthful lusts. Run for your life from those things that tickle the flesh!
Practicing sin always leads to something worse happening. Remember, sin is a thing that takes you into bondage. Ask an alcoholic! Ask an addict! Ask someone that smokes! They really cannot help themselves. The power is not there.
1 Chr. 5:6 - Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you.
Respect and give reference to what belongs to God. You have been bought with the precious blood of Jesus. When you were polluted in your own blood, Christ died for you.
James 4:17 - Submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Resist means to actively fight against the devil. If you don't give him permission, he can't do anything to you. Remember the battlefield is the mind. God gave us power over all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:17). The word power means inherent power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature. If you truly believe you are a son of God, then you know that you are a new creature in Christ. But we need the word of God to renew our minds (Rom. 12:2); transformation takes place effortlessly. The word has an inherent power like the power residing in you. Mix the word with faith and good things happen by virtue of the power working in you.
Don't give the devil an inroad into your life by doing things to defile your temple. Walk out what you believe by developing an intimate relationship with God through His word. As the Holy Ghost teaches you, your walk with God will become effortless and you will constantly go back for more.
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