Category: 2018 Blackboards

Philippians 4:19

“Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

I watched the playoff games last weekend and the Carolina Panthers have been giving footballs to children, in the end zone seats, after they score. They did a segment on this and the smiles and excitement of those children sparked me to think about the verse above. Now you see children in the end zone seats anticipating the blessings of receiving a football. And when they do, the excitement overwhelms them beyond expectation. Just as God wants us to receive all that He has for us, He wants us to be like children and anticipate His blessings.

Adults are not as trusting as little children. To feel secure, all children need is a loving look and gentle touch from someone who cares. Complete intellectual understanding is not one of their requirements. They believe us if they trust us. Jesus said that people should believe in Him with this same kind of childlike faith.

It is as though Christ said, “It is not unworthy of my dignity to take little children into my arms and bless them, because by my benediction they become fit for the kingdom of heaven. And if you full-grown men would become fit for my kingdom, you must give up your ambitious aims and earthly contests, and imitate the simple unworldly ways of little children. The simplicity of the little child is the model and the rule for every one who desires, by the grace of Christ, to obtain the kingdom of heaven.

John 14:26

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things…

If you are asking whom or where you can go to to get the help you need, ask no more. Just turn to God who has already promised you the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom He has sent in Jesus’ name to dwell in you. The Holy Spirit will teach you all things. Yes, teach you all things! Do you really believe that? Or are you like some who believe that you seek God’s counsel only for spiritual things, but consult “professional” help for all other things in your life? God does not want you to run to and rely on worldly wisdom. Now, there is nothing wrong with going to a doctor or engaging a financial consultant, but God wants you to come to Him first for counsel and direction. That is why He has sent the Holy Spirit, the Counselor (John 16:7, NIV), to teach you all things. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and He will guide you into all truth. (John 16:13)

The apostle John said, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things… the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things…” (1 John 2:20, 27) So the way God teaches you is through the anointing within. It is a continuous anointing. In any particular situation, He is anointing you from within, teaching you by the presence or absence of His peace. For example, a deal you are considering may sound very reasonable. But if you don’t have the peace in your spirit, don’t sign on the dotted line. Sign only when you have the peace. Be led by His peace and you will find that your heart will not be troubled, neither will it be afraid. (John 14:27)

When you follow that peace which only God can give to you as an inward witness, good things and even miracles will come forth!

Hebrews 13:9

…it is good that the heart be established by grace…

God does not want your heart full of worries and fears, tossed and turned by every challenge that comes your way. He wants your heart at rest and established by His grace toward you. When you think that the breakthroughs to your challenges depend on your ability to obey God, then your heart will not be at rest. It will be full of worries and anxieties. Why? Because you can never obey God perfectly.

When you depend on God’s grace, which is His undeserved, unmerited favor, the opposite happens – your heart becomes established. When you know that the only thing that qualifies you to receive God’s blessings is faith in the finished work of Christ, your heart becomes established. Then, you will walk without the fear of your troubles swallowing you up. You will walk with full assurance that His blessings will be manifested in your life.

God wants your heart established, knowing that His righteousness, healing, protection and provision are yours – all paid for by Jesus’ finished work at the cross. God’s blessings are sure in your life because they are not dependent on your ability to keep His laws, but Jesus’ perfect obedience.

Under the old covenant, you receive God’s blessings only if you keep all His laws. (Deuteronomy 28:1-2) If you sin and fail to keep even one law, you will be disqualified from receiving His blessings. But today, under the new covenant, your sins no longer disqualify you because God Himself has said, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” (Hebrews 8:12)

So let your heart be established by God’s grace. Because of His grace, you have full access to His blessings. You no longer have to worry about whether you are good enough. You can stand firm on the promises made in His Word and enjoy His blessings today because Jesus has paid the price. Your part is only to believe and receive!

Hebrews 9:14

…how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

There are people who feel depressed all the time because of a sense of guilt, and they “pay” for their sins in terms of illnesses. In fact, doctors are discovering that many psychosomatic sicknesses are caused by guilt and condemnation because the conscience is saying, “You have done wrong. You must be punished.”

That is why you must have an answer that will satisfy your conscience. When your conscience says, “You have sinned. You must be punished for this sin or else God is not a just God,” you say, “Yes, I have sinned. But this sin and every other sin that I have committed were punished to the maximum in the body of Jesus Christ! So there remains no more punishment for me today, for how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse my conscience!”

The only way to bring peace to your conscience is to look to the cross. The cross of Jesus is the only answer that will satisfy your conscience.

So the next time your conscience condemns you because of sin, don’t try to silence it with your good works. Look to the cross and say, “Father, thank You for Jesus and the cross. Jesus was totally condemned on my behalf for this sin, so there is now absolutely no condemnation left for me.” Then, your conscience will look at the cross and say, “peace.” Jesus’ finished work at the cross truly sets you free!

2 Chronicles 20:15

…Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s.

When faced with a problem or challenge, we tend to ask ourselves, “What am I going to do?” And well-meaning family members and friends will come along and ask, “What are you going to do?”

Jehoshaphat faced a multitude of enemies. But instead of focusing on what he would do, he prayed, “O our God, will You not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.” (2 Chronicles 20:12) When we turn our eyes to God, we will hear Him say, “Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s… You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord…” (2 Chronicles 20:15, 17)

But standing still is the last thing we want to do when an enemy is coming against us. It is also the most difficult thing to do because we feel that we cannot just stand around and do nothing – we must try to save the situation. But God wants us to stand still and see Jesus our salvation fight for us.

So what do you do the next time you are faced with a battle and don’t know what to do? Jehoshaphat sent his singers to the front of the army to proclaim, “Praise the Lord, for His mercy endures forever.” (2 Chronicles 20:21) Some people will wonder, “Does that mean that I just sing and don’t do anything else when I have a problem?” No, that is not what I am saying. Do what the situation requires, but don’t worry and don’t trust in what you do. Like Jehoshaphat, rest and trust in His mercy that endures forever. When you do that, God will turn your battlefield into the Valley of Berachah. Berachah means “blessings”. The children of Israel gave the battlefield this name because it took them three days to gather all the spoils of war! God turned their situation into a great blessing! (2 Chronicles 20:25-26)

Do you have a battle to fight? Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord!

1 Peter 5:8

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

The devil cannot just walk right up to you and rob you of your health, peace or family. He cannot just come into your life to enforce disease and destruction.

If the devil could do that, then he does not have to walk about “seeking whom he may devour”. He would only have to walk straight up to anyone he wants to devour and devour him! But since the Bible says that he goes about seeking whom he may devour, the truth then is that there are people whom he cannot devour.

You see, the devil goes about like a roaring lion trying to stir up fear in people with his roars. But the people who are not devourable are those who refuse to be intimidated by his roars because they know that the true Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:5), has already come and rendered powerless him who had the power of death. (Hebrews 2:14, NASB) They know that the devil cannot just do anything to them because the Lion of Judah resides in them, and that He is greater than the devil who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

The Lion of Judah is in you. He has given you rights, privileges, authority and power. He redeemed you with His blood. Therefore, everything about you and your life is redeemed by His blood. So if you are fearful about losing your job, cover your job with the blood of Jesus. If you are worried about your children’s safety in these days of terrorist attacks, plead the blood of Jesus over them. If you have received a bad report from the doctor, speak the blood over yourself.

Whatever you have covered with the blood of Jesus, God declares, “Protected! Redeemed!” And the devil flees when he sees the blood. And when he flees, he takes with him sicknesses, diseases, pains, sufferings, destruction and loss.

Once the devil knows that you know who you are in Christ and what you have in Him, his days of intimidating you are over, and you are numbered among the undevourable!

Matthew 6:27

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

Many Christians are familiar with Jesus’ rhetorical question, “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” But not many of us actually let it get into our hearts and allow the love of God to free us from our habit of worrying.

The truth is, no amount of worrying can lengthen your life or add anything to your physical person. Instead, worrying robs you of sleep, health and many good years. It is only when you are worry-free that God’s anointing flows freely in you, strengthening, healing, restoring and adding to you.

When you worry, you are actually believing that the devil has the power to make inroads into your life that God cannot protect you from. But when you refuse to worry, you are putting your faith in God. You have more confidence in His love and power working for you than in the devil’s ability to harm you! When you refuse to worry, but choose to rest in the finished work of Christ, you will see the manifestation of your blessing. You will see your miracle!

Hebrews 13:9

…it is good that the heart be established by grace…

God does not want your heart full of worries and fears, tossed and turned by every challenge that comes your way. He wants your heart at rest and established by His grace toward you. But when you think that the breakthroughs to your challenges depend on your ability to obey God, then your heart will not be at rest. It will be full of worries and anxieties. Why? Because you can never obey God perfectly.

When you know that the only thing that qualifies you to receive God’s blessings is faith in the finished work of Christ, your heart becomes established. Then, you will walk without the fear and have the full assurance that His blessings will be manifested in your life.

Under the old covenant, you receive God’s blessings only if you keep all His laws. (Deuteronomy 28:1-2) If you sin and fail to keep even one law, you would be disqualified from receiving His blessings. But today, under the new covenant, your sins no longer disqualify you because God Himself has said, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” (Hebrews 8:12)

So let your heart be established by God’s grace. Because of His grace, you have full access to His blessings. You no longer have to worry about whether you are good enough. And because Jesus has paid the price, your part is only to believe and receive!

Mark 5:28-29

For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.” Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction

Have you ever heard people say, “I will believe it only when I see it.” Generally, that is the way the world thinks. But God’s ways are not like the ways of the world. The world says, “If I can’t feel it or see it, I cannot believe the miracle is here.” While God says, “If you believe it before you feel it or see it, you will see your miracle.”

Believing first before seeing the evidence of what we are believing for is called faith. Faith is like a spark and Jesus is the dynamite powder.

In the story of the healing of the woman with the issue of blood, there were many people who touched Jesus (Mark 5:31), but nothing happened to them. They didn’t touch Him in faith. But when the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years came to Him and touched Him in faith, He felt power leave His body (Mark 5:30), and it sparked off an explosion of healing in the woman’s body! Hearing about how good, kind and loving Jesus was fired her faith to believe that He could and would heal her. So convinced was she (even when the condition in her body was still evident) that she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.” Did she experience her healing first before she believed? No, she believed first in Jesus’ goodness and power, acted in faith and only then felt the healing in her body.

In the same way, God wants you to believe in His goodness and love toward you. He wants you to know how willing He is to act on your behalf to bless you, and how, with Christ, He will freely give you every good thing. (Romans 8:32) He wants you to declare by faith that all is and shall be well with you, and to expect to see just that. And then, no matter how long you have had the problem, no matter how bad the experts say it is, healing and restoration will take place, and you will receive what you are believing for!

Isaiah 53:4

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…

Imagine the dreadful disease leprosy eating a man alive. The poor leper in Matthew 8:2 could stand his suffering no longer, so he came out into the open to look for Jesus. He needed to know if Jesus was willing to heal him. When he saw Jesus, he fell at His feet and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” (Matthew 8:2) The Son of God looked at the outcast with love in His eyes, reached out His hand, touched him and said, “I am willing; be cleansed.” (Matthew 8:3)

Perhaps you are suffering from some disease or sickness and wondering if God is willing to heal you? You may not be sure if He is willing because just as you have seen people get healed, you have also seen people not get healed. Don’t look to people’s experiences. Look to the cross! As surely as Jesus bore away your sins, He also bore away your diseases!

Here is a solid foundation for believing this truth. In Isaiah 53, the chapter on our Lord’s crucifixion, it says in verse four: “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”. The words “griefs” and “sorrows” here mean “sicknesses” and “pains” in the original Hebrew text. So Isaiah was referring to physical healing. Also look at Matthew 8:16-17: “…they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.'” Matthew quotes Isaiah 53:4, saying that Jesus took our “infirmities” and bore our “sicknesses”. The context here refers to physical healing.

If you will just believe this truth, your days of sickness will be over. You will walk in greater health because the One who has surely borne your sicknesses and carried your pains says to you, “I am willing, be cleansed!”