Category: March 2016

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 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!

Hebrews 8:12

“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

We are no longer under the old covenant. We are now under the new covenant. And in this new covenant, God says that He will do three things for us:

Lead us – “I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts.” (Hebrews 8:10) These are the laws of faith, love and liberty to guide you in everything you do. It is a spontaneous, dynamic, active and intimate way to be led by God.

Work miracles for us – “I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (Hebrews 8:10) The phrase “I will be their God” denotes a miracle-working God. So if you are sick then God says, “I will be your God,” get ready for healing! If you are poor then God says, “I will be your God,” get ready for His supply!

Cause us to know Him effortlessly – “…all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.” (Hebrews 8:11) The Greek word for “know” here is eido. It means to know intuitively without effort. This means that you will know God easily.

If you want to experience all these blessings in your life today, then, you need to know the clause that makes it all happen: “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” The words “no more” in the Greek carry a strong double-negative sense. So God is saying, “I will never, by no means, remember your sins!” The more you believe this in your heart, the more you will see those blessings fulfilled in your life. When you realize how much God has forgiven you and remembers your sins no more, you will know Him, His ways and His will for you intimately and intuitively without effort.

So believe in your heart today the clause on which all these blessings hinge, and get ready for miracles and hopes fulfilled in the days ahead!

Matthew 15:17

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 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.” Now many people might be offended at being called a “dog”. Actually, the Greek word used here by Jesus means “puppy”, and was 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. You must understand that the Jews then considered Gentiles dogs. 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)

Exodus 13:21

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night.

When the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, God led them by going before them in a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. By day, God spread the pillar of cloud as a covering over His people in the desert to prevent the scorching sun from striking them down. The people were shaded and kept cool. Today, you are also under His covering. He will not allow you to be struck down (Psalm 121:3-8), nor be oppressed by the “heat” of the day. (Isaiah 54:14)

At night, when the desert became dark and cold, God gave His people the pillar of fire to light the way for them, as well as to keep them warm and safe. Today, as you walk with God, you will not be overwhelmed by the cold, dark places in life because God’s Word says, “You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.” (1 Thessalonians 5:5) You will not fear the terror by night or the pestilence that walks in darkness because God will deliver you from them. (Psalm 91:5-6)

Like the children of Israel, who only needed to look up, and keep their eyes on the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, all you need to do today is to look up and keep your eyes on Jesus. When you need His direction for a situation, look to Jesus who has the words of eternal life. (John 6:68) When you see symptoms of sickness in your body, look to Jesus who has borne away every disease and physical affliction. (Matthew 8:17) When the children of Israel were bitten by serpents in the desert, God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole – a picture of Christ being judged on the cross. (John 3:14) Those who looked at the bronze serpent instead of their wounds were healed. (Numbers 21:9) He who looks to Jesus lives!

Look to Jesus. He is your covering, protection and deliverance!

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!

Deuteronomy 28:2

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you…

God loves to bless you. He has even declared that “blessings shall come upon you and overtake you”. This means that you can’t run fast enough to escape them! When you turn one corner, there is a blessing waiting for you. When you turn another corner, you run smack into another blessing! Now, you may think that you don’t qualify for God’s blessings because of the preceding verse which says that these blessings will come to pass only if you diligently obey God’s voice and keep all of His commandments. You know that no matter how hard you try, you just cannot keep all of God’s commandments. In fact, the Bible says that if you fail to keep just one commandment, you fail to keep all. (James 2:10) I have good news for you: Jesus is the one who qualifies us for every single blessing because He has kept all of God’s commandments. When He died for us on the cross, He not only fulfilled all of God’s commandments, He also redeemed us from the curse of the law. (Galatians 3:13) Note that He did not redeem us from the blessings of the law, so the blessings are still ours today! You might say, “But I don’t deserve them.” Yes, you don’t deserve them, but you still get them because of Jesus. That is God’s grace! The law says, “You must deserve the blessings.” But the law is no longer here. Grace is here. So take the blessings by grace through faith. Believe God for the blessings.

Today, it is no longer a question of how much or how well you have kept God’s commandments. It is a question of how much you can believe God for His blessings. All the promises of God in Christ are “Yes”, and because you are in Christ, you can say “Amen!” to His blessings! (2 Corinthians 1:20)

Hebrews 10:12, 14

But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God… For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.

God sees you with no flaw, spot or imperfection, so honor His Word and the finished work of His Son by saying, “Amen!” Don’t doubt your perfection in Christ. To see yourself as being far from perfect is not modesty, but a failure to understand the perfect sacrifice that Jesus has made for you.

The Bible tells us, “For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified”. Did you get that? You have not only been sanctified, that is, made holy, but by the same offering of His body, you have been perfected. You are both holy and perfect in God’s eyes! Your sins have been purged perfectly. Today, Jesus is seated at His Father’s right hand not because He is the Son of God (although that is true), but because His work of purging your sins is completely finished and perfect! So instead of being conscious of your sins, which is to have an evil conscience (Hebrews 10:22), you can have a perfect conscience, a conscience that is free from the guilt and condemnation of sins. When you find yourself conscious of your sins, just say, “Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your wonderful work at the cross. It is a perfect work that has removed all my sins completely. Holy Spirit, thank You for convicting me of righteousness, not my own, but God’s righteousness given to me as a gift. Keep on convicting me in the days to come, reminding me especially when I fail that I am still the righteousness of God in Christ.”

God sees you perfect without any spot of sin. He sees you covered in the beautiful white robes of His own righteousness. He treats you as a righteous man because that is what He has made you. So expect good things to happen to you because blessings are on the head of the righteous! (Proverbs 10:6)