The word that gives life!

We   must always believe in and live according to what Ephesians 5:19-21 tells us : “Speaking to your selves in Psalms and hymns  and making melody in your heart to the Lord : Giving thanks always for all things to God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

Indeed we must! If we do not believe in the word of God, how can we thank Him for our salvation and how can we live by our faith? Also even if we have received the remission of our sins, if we don’t hold onto the word in the scriptures all the time, how can we live with our hearts filled with the Holy Spirit – such a thing can never happen. On the contrary, in our lack of faith, we still will easily be discouraged by small things that happen in every day life, and even if we are touched by the spirit while at church, when something happens back home, our hearts will lose strength in no time .You and I must live only by believing in the word of God.

We must live by serving the gospel in our lives, by believing in and taking the word and praying in it. The Holy Spirit will then automatically help you , guide you , hold you steady , give you power and blessings , enable you to do the works of the Lord , to follow Him , and to stand against the devil and make everything work.

Once you do that, the Spirit of God will begin to live in you, guide you – and what’s more; you will stop living by chance and you will begin to live by grace (the grace of the Holy God).

WHO IS JESUS CHRIST?

Christ already existed even before the creation (Ephesians 1:4) “Explaining the will that God had even before the creation, Paul said, “In the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which  are in earth – in Him” (Ephesians 1:10).

To fulfill His will , God sent His only begotten son whom He had promised and who would be anointed  ,to this earth .Ephesians 3:9 “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery (secret) ,which from the beginning of the world has been hidden in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ”.

Jesus Christ has not only existed even before creation, but He has existed as the eternal and true God. Further more, even though He came to this earth in the flesh of a man, He continued to be God Himself, read (John 1:1, 14). As Romans  9:5 states; “(He) who is over all, the eternally blessed God. In Mathew 9:2, Jesus said, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins be forgiven you” – who has the power to declare forgiveness of sins apart from God?

Further more, Paul also said, “(Christ Jesus) who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God”. (Philippians 2:6). John, while praising Christ, also confessed, “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). When Caiaphas the high priest asked Jesus, Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God”, Jesus answered him, “it is as you said”(Mathew 26:63-64) see also (Mark 15:2).

On other occasions, Jesus also said that He and God were one (John 10:30, and that He had existed before Abraham (John 8:58). Christ moreover, mentioned His role as the High Priest and the glory that He has shared with the Father even before the creation (John 17:5). In addition, when Christ forgave people of their sins or healed them from their illnesses, as well as when He admonished His disciples to believe in Him, all these things were contingent upon their recognition of His divinity.

Finally, I should say; Jesus Christ is the second person of the Triune God who worked as the Son of God in the salvation plan of God (Mathew 26:63-64)

Walking with God

This happened many years ago, shortly after I’d just gotten born again:

One evening as  I had just returned home after that day’s work ,I was sitting in a sofa playing music on the radio and I should tell you honestly that I wasn’t in prayer at that particular time .Suddenly , we got a temporary power  failure in our area and so my radio turned off: before I made any movement from the sofa , the Lord began to speak to me audibly in a voice like of a man , I realized he knew me well enough,  by name, character, and simply everything : he spoke and said , “Why do you keep sinning , come and repent and then get back into the same sin , is it because you know that am a merciful God that I forgive you whenever you come to me in repentance? Turn to me with all your heart and get out of that sinful nature”. Here I understood the magnitude of Mathew 5:48 that says, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”.

When He spoke to me –it only lasted about 10 minutes and as soon as He was done speaking, the power that had gone off turned on now. I very well knew whatever the Lord told me that time except that I was treating it as what we’d call simple sins in the human perspective yet again I felt the Lord had been dealing with my spirit about this that whole week .God is always speaking (through the Bible or by rhema word) only that our minds and spirits are far into earthly stuff at times. I realized that even the environment which we create around us at times may prevent us from hearing from God and in some instances when we hear, we don’t understand because of the many things we put into our lives – the unnecessary excitement, failure to read the word of God plus being weak in prayer, I also believe this power failure was God-planned , because there was no way I would listen to His voice with all this loud music turned on , and what’s more – as soon as He had finished talking to me ,the power turned on!

These and others are some of the lead causes of the recurring sin nature in our lives .Paul said “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.The way to fight this battle is by strongly and prayerfully reading the word of God and keeping ourselves in God’s presence(positioning our spirits to hear from God always).

The Bible says in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world (me and you) that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have ever lasting life. Verse 18: He who believes in Him is not condemned but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. These scriptures are so true, in fact they are true now more than ever but we should know that however much we live under the grace of Salvation through Jesus Christ, it should not give us liberty to sin but rather that we keep fighting on as we move away from the old nature of sin towards righteousness – not heaping sin upon sin as we keep seeking repentance again and again because we know that He is merciful enough to forgive us. Romans  6:15 “What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.16  Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?.”

The devil has deceived the world with things like “this is a simple sin or this can’t take me to hell”. There is nothing good, perfect or lasting that you can get from the devil .Jesus tells us we are in the world for our eternal spiritual development. First we are to learn about Him, then we are to teach what we have learned to the rest of the world .We are to reflect His image  that we see in the mirror(word of God) to the rest of the world . We are never to forget to do what we have been taught and we are never to forget whose likeness and image we are to reflect and maintain in the world, lest we go to hell for being hypocrites and liars. Luke 12:47 declares “ and that servant who knew His master’s will and did not prepare himself or do according to His will shall be beaten with many stripes”.

God’s servant James tells us a man who clearly sees what he is to be (like Christ) by looking into the word of God, then doesn’t do what the Holy Spirit instructs is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror –for he observes himself , goes away and immediately forgets what kind of a man he was .But he who looks into the perfect law  of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word , this kind of a person will be blessed in what he does , what I want to stress out here is: salvation is a journey  and believing and confessing are the first steps in your walk with the our Lord so when you get on board(for Christ) , make it a point also - to remain on board! Remember Jesus said, in Mathew 24:13 “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved”.

There are hundreds of things that may never be revealed to you if you don’t study God’s word. Those who the Son (word of God) has set free by the perfect law of liberty are free indeed with great happiness and great joy, “John 8:36 if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”. By the time I got that visitation, I realized I had not been prayerfully reading the word of God enough and perhaps that’s why I was referring to some sins as ‘simple’. The only time the devil will take a hold of your life is when you fall for his deceit and move away from the position that Jesus Christ restored us into – the place of salvation, God’s constant surveillance, where you are given the ability (keys) to unlock even the greatest mysteries of life, a place of quenching the storm, the place where God reveals His name.

When you leave that place (spiritual position) or fail to get there, the devil takes charge and closes the door into your  God ordained destiny. The Bible states in Revelation 3:8 that “………… I have set before you an open door , and no one can shut it,………. . The door is always open as long as we are in position.

The first step in Eve’s fall into sin was being in the wrong place, in Genesis chapter 3 we find her near the forbidden tree . Proverbs states of the path of wickedness: Proverbs 14:16 “A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident”.

Get back to the position Jesus Christ restored you into at Calvary when He died for the sins of mankind , the good news is you can decide not to look left or right from now on but look onto Christ, if you’d backslidden ,God says – there is still hope , if you turn yourself completely to Him. The hope of the world lies in Christ. If you haven’t taken Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I pray you do so today!