Category: March 2017

Isaiah 48:17

…”I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go.”

God instructs us for our own benefit. He wants us to profit in every area of our lives – health, finances, career, marriage and family relationships. The Bible says that it is God who teaches us to profit. And it is He who leads us in the way that we should go. God always has our best interests at heart. We only have to sit at His feet, listen to His Word and just have fresh, daily communion with Him, and He will make our way fruitful.

But we are constantly bombarded with things to do every day, like sending the kids to school, attending a business meeting or making a sales presentation. Likewise, in church, there are just as many important things to attend to – ministering to the needy, reaching out to the lost and healing the sick. But you know what? All these things will be taken care of when we sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to His Word.

What was the Lord’s response to Martha’s complaint that her sister was sitting at His feet and listening to Him, instead of helping her with the many tasks? “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42)

Yet, many of us are like Martha. We worry about many things. And we are so busy that we have no time to sit at Jesus’ feet to listen to His Word and enjoy communion with Him. When we fail to draw from Him, we end up running on our own strength, and relying on our own flesh and wisdom to get things done. Listen, you can never have a plan that is better than God’s!

Do you want to be led by God’s wisdom and timing in your decision-making? Then, make it a point to choose the good part like Mary did. Spend time with Jesus, open your Bible and say, “Lord, speak to me.” You will find that your heavenly Father takes care of your troubles, and teaches and leads you to profit!

Romans 8:37

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

If God’s Word says that we are more than conquerors through Christ, then we are. We are not going to become, we already are. We may be experiencing some failures or setbacks in life right now, but only good will come out of our situations because God says that “in all these things we are more than conquerors”. We have the victory!

You see, God has placed us in Christ, whom He has exalted to the highest place in the universe. We are not trying to get to victory ground. We are already on victory ground. We don’t confess God’s Word to get victory. We confess His Word because we already have the victory. We don’t fight for victory. We fight from victory.

The devil will try to steal our victory. He will come against us with lies and fears, and cause us to be conscious of our failures, weaknesses and symptoms in areas such as our health. But we are not trying to be healed. We are already healed because God’s Word declares that “by His stripes we are healed”. (Isaiah 53:5)

The moment you accept Jesus as your Savior, you are born again and the new person inside you is more than a conqueror. You are already on victory ground and you have victory over every challenging situation in your life!

Psalm 107:20

He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

Your Bible will do you no good if you leave it on your bedside table, gathering dust. But God’s Word will do you a lot of good when you receive it as truth and speak it as truth! Then, you will see your healing and deliverance from every evil condition that has been sent to destroy you!

The Bible says that “He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions”. Now, when God wants to heal you, what does He do? He sends His Word. Before God delivers you from your destruction, He sends His Word.

Are you still waiting to experience the blessing of healing that Jesus died on the cross to give you? Don’t feel condemned. Your Father in heaven loves you and wants you well. But how does your healing come? By you receiving His Word on healing that He has already sent you. His promises of healing are all there in your Bible. But have you received them? So how do you receive them? By reading the scriptures, believing them, and confessing them with your mouth. Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death…” So speak life and healing over yourself.

Never underestimate the power of God’s Word. God sent His Word and healed them, and delivered them from there destruction!

Romans 10:6

…the righteousness of faith speaks…

Every time you confess, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ”, God the Father is pleased. When you confess that you are the righteousness of God in Christ, it reminds Him of what His Son has done for you to become righteous. Also, by making you righteous, God is showing Himself righteous – “to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”. (Romans 3:26)

Each time Jesus hears you confess, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ,” it brings much pleasure to His heart too, because you are laying hold of what He suffered and died to give you. The Holy Spirit, who now indwells you to convict you of righteousness (John 16:10), also rejoices when you confess, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ.” He is pleased when you flow with Him.

The delight of the Godhead is not the only thing you gain when you declare, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ.” The Bible tells us that when you “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…all these things shall be added to you”. (Matthew 6:33) Whether it is food, clothing or other necessities in life, “all these things” will be added to you. They will not just be given to you, but added to you as your inheritance when you seek first His righteousness.

You don’t need to use your faith for every single need in life. You just need to use your faith for one thing – to believe that you are the righteousness of God in Christ, and it will cause all the blessings you seek to come after you and overtake you!

Luke 7:9

When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him, and turned around and said to the crowd that followed Him, “I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!”

The way you see Jesus, the revelation that you have of Him, will not affect God’s acceptance of you. But it will affect your acceptance of what God has for you. It will affect how you receive from Him.

Consider the Roman centurion who told Jesus, “You don’t have to come to my house. Just speak the word and my servant at home will be healed.” (Luke 7:6-7) Compare him with Jairus, the ruler of a synagogue, who told Jesus, “My daughter is dying. Please come to my house and lay Your hands on her, and she shall live.” (Mark 5:22-23)

Do you know that Jesus does not have to go to your house to heal you? So why did Jesus follow Jairus to his house? Jesus had to come down to Jairus’ level of faith. Jairus believed that his daughter could be healed, but only if Jesus came and laid His hands on her. The centurion was different. He said, “Lord, You don’t have to come to my house. I know who You are.” This centurion believed that Jesus did not have to come to his house for his servant to be healed. He believed that Jesus only needed to speak the word. He said to Jesus, “Just speak the word and my servant at home will be healed.”

Do you know who Jesus is? The centurion had a greater understanding of who Jesus is than Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, and he wasn’t even a Jew!

Jesus asked his disciples, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” (Mark 4:40) He even remarked, “O you of little faith.” (Matthew 6:30) But to the woman whose daughter was demon-possessed, He said, “O woman, great is your faith!” (Matthew 15:28) And to the centurion, He declared, “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!”

You need to have an accurate understanding of who Jesus is because when your revelation of Jesus is big, you will know what has been freely given to you. And when you know what is yours in Christ Jesus, you will be rich in all things!

Matthew 15:27

And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

Come as you are to the Lord with your need, and lean on His unfailing and unconditional love for you. You don’t have to pretend to be more than what you are to receive the blessing you need from God. You don’t have to pretend to be someone else to appear more deserving to receive from God.

A Canaanite woman desperately seeking healing for her demon-possessed daughter came to Jesus. (Matthew 15:22-28) Knowing that He healed and did miracles among the Jews, she pretended to be a Jew, calling out, “O Lord, Son of David!” (Only the Jews addressed Jesus as the “Son of David”.) Jesus did not answer her. His silence made her drop her pretense and cry out, “Lord, help me!” Only when her pretenses had melted away did she see the grace of God extended to her. Jesus made a way for her to receive her miracle even though it was not yet time for the Gentiles to receive His blessings. He told her, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” Many people might be offended at being called a “dog”. Actually, the Greek word used here by Jesus means “puppy”, and is thus an affectionate rather than offensive term. So this woman was not offended. In fact, she knew then that she could receive healing for her daughter because even puppies get to eat what falls from their masters’ table.

She saw that the crumbs under the Master’s table were enough for a Gentile, a “little dog”, like herself. The Jews then considered Gentiles dogs in those days. But what Jesus was trying to say was that He was called to the Jews first, not the Gentiles. Yet, He loved this Gentile woman and her daughter enough to provide a “loophole” for them to receive their miracle. So when the Canaanite woman took her place by dropping the title “Son of David” and just leaned on Jesus’ compassion for her, her daughter was healed from that very hour.

If God was willing to extend His grace to a Gentile, how much more you, His beloved child! You do not need to depend on pretensions to receive a miracle from Him. Come as you are and lean on His grace. If He has delivered Jesus up for us, “how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things”? (Romans 8:32)

Romans 8:33

Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

Some people see God as a judge who has exacting demands on man. When they fall short or when things go wrong in their lives, they think that God is judging them. The truth is that if you are a believer, God does not bring any charge against you. Instead, He justifies you because of the blood of His Son. In fact, God’s Word goes on to say that the One who has the right to condemn you, chose instead to die for you and is risen at the Father’s right hand to be your righteousness! (Romans 8:34)

What the devil tries to do is to get you to believe that God watches you with a critical eye and punishes you when you do wrong. He has deceived many sincere Christians into believing that if they have done something wrong, bad things have a right to come upon them and their families. And when these things happen, he convinces them that they are suffering God’s judgment because of their wrongdoings. In the meantime, these sincere Christians struggle with condemnation because they think that they are the cause of their problems. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ever since the cross, where Jesus was judged in your place for every one of your wrong actions, thoughts and words, God no longer judges you, His child. You need not accept condemnation because Jesus took all your punishment at the cross. So when you start to feel condemned for your actions or when you experience negative circumstances, say, “It is written: It is God who justifies me. I am completely forgiven and made righteous before Him. I refuse to accept any condemnation and I reject every symptom of the curse that I am seeing in my circumstances!” Then, simply stand on the truth of God’s Word, and watch Him deliver and bless you!

1 John 4:18

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear…

Experts tell us that babies have two natural fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. A study on fear was conducted on 500 adults of varying ages, backgrounds and lifestyles. The results showed that they shared some 7,000 different fears. This means that they must have learned 6,998 fears since they were born. That is a lot of fears!

Actually, our bodies are designed for faith. Fear was foreign to man until Adam sinned against God. For the first time, Adam knew fear, and he hid from God and said, “I heard Your voice…I was afraid…I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:10)

Since then, man has been living in the realm of fear – fear of the future, fear of what others might say, fear of diseases, fear of flying. Actually, every fear is born out of the feeling of being cut off from God. If you think that God is still mad at you, that He is out to punish you, how can you have faith that everything will be all right? How can you have faith for your miracle? But there is good news for you. There is a sure antidote to fear. The apostle John says that “perfect love casts out fear”. When you know that God so loves you that He gave His Son to take your beating so that you can take His blessings, you will stop fearing. God so loves you that at the cross, Jesus was rejected so that you could become God’s beloved. It was not the nails that kept Jesus on the cross. It was His love for you. And if God did not withhold Jesus, why do you think that He will withhold healing, finances or a blessed marriage from you? (Romans 8:32)

Today, when you hear His voice, you will hear Him say, “You are My beloved child, in you I am well pleased.” And you don’t have to hide but you can run to Him without fear because He is not out to punish you. He is out to protect and provide for you, so fear not!

Genesis 12:7

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

I don’t know about you, but I am not satisfied with just knowing that I am righteous by faith. I also want to get to know the One who made me righteous. I want to have an intimate relationship with my Savior! Abraham was such a man. He was righteous by faith, but he also had a close walk with God and was blessed by God in all things. (Genesis 24:1) His nephew Lot, on the other hand, although righteous too (2 Peter 2:7-8), had no heart for God. He ended up losing a lot when Sodom, the city he dwelt in, was destroyed along with Gomorrah. He was saved by the skin of his teeth!

Do you want to be a Christian like Lot, righteous but always finding yourself in trouble, or do you want to be a righteous and blessed Christian like Abraham? Then, like Abraham, you need to have a heart for God. From place to place, Abraham would build an altar to the Lord. And in between altars, he grew very rich! (Genesis 13:2) There is no biblical record, however, of Lot ever building an altar to the Lord.

What is an “altar” in today’s context? It is a place where you know that you have a close relationship with God. For example when you find yourself in need, and cast your cares to the Lord, that becomes your alter. And that is not the only one. We have got to have this kind of relationship with God, one full of “altars” that remind us of His love, goodness and faithfulness. Let’s not live the Christian life like Lot, saved by the skin of our teeth. Let’s walk closely with God as Abraham did, and be richly blessed in every area of our lives!

Jeremiah 32:27

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?”

You probably don’t have a problem believing that the moment a sinner receives Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, he is saved? So let me then ask you which is harder for God (though in reality, we know that nothing is hard for God): To save a soul from hell or heal a sick body? Of course, it is “harder” to save a soul from hell because God had to send His Son to the cross. So if God has already given you the greatest miracle that you can ever receive, which is to pluck you out of the clutches of eternal damnation and give you eternal life, what is healing your body, saving your marriage, turning your rebellious teenage son around or giving you that business deal to Him?

Do you think that when you come to God with a headache, He says, “No problem,” but if you come to Him with cancer, He says, “Cancer? Wow! Not that easy. This is more problematic. I will need more power!” No! It may appear more difficult to us, but with God, nothing is too hard for Him because He says, “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?”

If it is a miracle you need, it is a miracle you will get. God has already given you the greatest miracle of eternal life, so why would He not give you all the other lesser miracles?