The House On The Rock

When Jesus gave His three days sermon on the mount, He talked about the importance of putting His words into action. He likened it to two men who built their houses; the one who heard the words of Jesus and put them into action is likened to a wise man who built his house on the rock. On the other hand, the one who heard the words of Jesus and didn’t put them into action is likened to a foolish man who built his house on the sand. Both men faced the same challenges, but the result was different just because their foundation differed.

Let’s take a look at what the message version says in Matthew 7:24-27:

“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit- but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.

But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards”

Note this, both men faced the same challenges; they built the same house, they faced the same storm in their life, but they ended up with different results. If you ask a Civil Engineer, the most important part in laying a structure, the answer would definitely be the foundation. The foundation is the part that we don’t see but it’s what determines the lifespan of whatever is put above it. Our foundation is what determines the kind of life we would have, whether positive or negative.

Now Jesus didn’t say we shouldn’t go to school or bag degrees, what He meant is that your degrees and things you intend to build or have built is determined by the foundation we lay. So what is this foundation? As we know the foundation is Jesus; in another sense it is the act of obedience on the words of Jesus.

The words of Jesus affect every aspect of our lives; the words serve as a lamp and light to us; it could also serve as a blue print of how to live [ref. Psalms 119:105]. As Hebrews 12:4 says, “For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.” AMP.

This is too deep, there is no power or force that supersedes that of Christ, therefore placing Christ as your foundation would imply placing your house on the rock where whatever you intend to build becomes a success. Jesus knows the end from the beginning, He should be our foundation.

Decide today and enjoy your life; it’s not by power nor by might but by the spirit which determines your foundation which in turn determines your success. This is the gospel truth.

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

Log on next time.

                   For prayers and comment send them through my Google Plus account.  

                             

GOD BLESS YOU.

Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from King James Version (KJV)

David and Goliath

You most likely would have read about the story of David and Goliath or maybe heard of it. You find an inexperienced 17 year old who challenged a giant, who has been fighting from his youth and a champion. The very funny thing is that they both were representatives of their land and had no choice but to win or else the loser becomes slaves to the winner. So, how would an inexperienced youth out rightly defeat a champion who is a giant and has been fighting from his youth? I’m sure what you’re saying right now is, “yeah, yeah, I know the whole story, my Pastor preached this several times”. But my point here is to properly understand what David did and how we could tap from his wisdom.

As we all know David the 17 year old boy defeated the giant with a piece of stone which he slung at Goliath the giant’s forehead. But how many of us know that it wasn’t David who actually killed Goliath directly? Yeah, you must have heard that several times. David was anointed King over Israel; to be anointed allows the Holy Spirit to come upon the one anointed.

David understood the might of God in the universe and also understood what being circumcised meant. To be circumcised implies being set aside as God’s own, therefore no one gets to you without first going through God, so God gave His own total protection against the wicked one. David understood this, but the armies of Israel didn’t properly understand this, because if they did, they would have conquered the Philistines, believing God would fight their battles for them, but they didn’t believe thus making them raise their challenges above the mighty and powerful God.

We must remember who owns us, unlike the era of David where the Spirit could come and leave, but for Believers under this new covenant, after accepting Jesus as Lord and Saviour, the Holy comes to live with and in us permanently not just with us alone as it was in the old covenant. With this in mind you must understand that, “you have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the deception.” (1 John 4:4-6 NLT).

David understood that he belonged to God because of the covenant of circumcision, as he referred to the Goliath saying, “For who s this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God” (1 Samuel 17:26b NKJV). The understanding that God was the one fighting for Israel was what David stood on; he told Goliath, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defiled” (1 Samuel 17:45 NKJV). He knew it was not by physical power or by might but by the Spirit.

David’s actions were full of faith and this is how we are to live. As Believers, having the fullness of Christ, we must understand that as God is for us, no one can come against us; God has said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay” (Hebrews 10:30; Deuteronomy 32:35 NKJV); so it is not our battle but the Lord’s. Proverbs 21:31 says, “The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance is of the LORD.” (NKJV).

We are to stand still and know that God is God and He is what He says He is; there is no power in the entire universe that can stand the power of the Monarch of the universe whom we serve. We need to remind ourselves every day. If your problems seems so large to you, place it beside God and know how infinitesimal it is beside Him; trust and have faith in God as David did and see your problems crumble before your eyes, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19 NKJV); THIS IS THE GOSPEL TRUTH.

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

Log on next time.

                   For prayers and comment send them through my Google Plus account.  

                             

GOD BLESS YOU.

Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from King James Version (KJV)

Law and Grace (Part 2)

Last time I explained how the law and Grace could be similar but yet different; this similarity has confused people and even Believers over the years to think the era of the law was just a time without Jesus, while the era of Grace is an era with Jesus; in other words, for most people the only difference between the era of the law and Grace is just the presence of Jesus alone. To them, nothing else changed, but a lot has changed because there was a close of an era and the opening the opening of a brand new era which is very different from the old even though there could be similarities but how you live one differs completely from the other. As it is put in Hebrews 8:13 which says, “By calling this covenant “new”, he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and ageing will soon disappear.”. (NIV).

Now because Jesus met all the recommendations of a perfect man, God raised Him up above every name that exist and would ever exist, having all authority in heaven, earth and under the earth [ref. Philippians 2:9-11; Ephesians 1:21; Acts 2:33]. This was what Jesus got as a man, so anyone who wants to live like Jesus should drop their old Spirit and take up the Spirit of Jesus by accepting Him as their Lord and Saviour [ref. Romans 8:9; 2 Corinthians 5:17]. Spiritually when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour we immediately get ‘a tag’ named ‘Jesus’; with this, when God sees us, He sees Jesus and not us; this brings me to the meaning of Grace [ref. 1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23; Galatians 3:13-14; 1 Peter 1:18-21].

The law was given when man was in bondage, but now Jesus has direct control and command of the entire universe which supersedes the law [ref. Romans 7:6; 2 Corinthians 3:6] Since we have accepted Him, we have now become joint heirs with Him having the same control and command of the entire universe, this is Grace! [ref. Romans 8:17]. We didn’t work for it; we just believed Jesus and made Him Lord of our lives [ref. Romans 4:1-5].

Now, through the law you were assumed righteous but not righteous and through your effort; while through Grace you are made righteous by believing [ref. Hebrews 9:13; 10:1-4]. Our Spirit was saved, not our soul and body, so we need to connect our soul to the Spirit which in turn controls the body. This is done by studying the manual, and what is the manual? The bible! The bible explains who we really are and the control we have in the universe; so as we read and study the scriptures, the Holy Spirit helps us interpret it which enables us to live it [ref. Romans 12:1-2]. So, grace understands it is not in a day that we live the life of the Spirit since the other life has a Spiritual force that tries to take us back. So it is how much time we dedicate to our new Spirit that makes us get to perfection on time.

We are not living the life of sin anymore even though we falter a times, we now live the Spirit life; we are like a child who is learning how to walk. The child’s intention is to walk and not fall; even though he fall a couple of times it was his body not getting used to the walking and not him not walking. This is different from the law, we didn’t have the ability to walk, but the law forced us to do what we didn’t have the ability of doing.

To further buttress my point, the first covenant having the law has been superseded by the power and authority of Jesus through Grace, so when we get the perfect Spirit, we don’t go to the former which has been superseded, instead we go to the present and eternal which is Grace who is Jesus. Grace is given to us as we believe through faith.

So, faith is living the supernatural life as a regular life and not forcing ourselves to achieve it. It’s in you, this is achievable because of the everlasting love Jesus has towards us; this is the gospel truth.

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

Log on next time.

For prayers and comment send them through my Google Plus account.

GOD BLESS YOU.

Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from King James Version (KJV)

Law and Grace (Part 1)

Before Jesus’ resurrection, the Israelites were living in the dispensation of the law while the rest of the world just had their own way of living. But Jesus came and moved the entire world, that includes the Israelites, to a brand new world of Grace, this implies what was practiced was abolished and thus became irrelevant. However, even with this new dispensation of Grace you would find those who claim they are in Grace still living in the dispensation of the law; this is because they can’t differentiate between law and Grace. So, it seems to most people that the law is very much the same as Grace, what makes the difference is just the coming of Jesus. Even those who have no business with the law practice this law, this is confusing. What exactly is the difference between the law and Grace?

First of all, the law was given to the children of Israel ALONE and not the whole world, so if you are not from Israel, you have no business with the law. The advent of Jesus’ resurrection was to bring Grace to the world which we don’t deserve, but people don’t still know the difference between law and Grace.

The first covenant given to the children of Israel involved keeping the law; God found fault with the first covenant, so this brought about the second or new covenant which has to do with God’s Grace. Those who follow the law follow certain rules and regulations. The law was a high standard of God set before the children of Israel to follow. But the very moment they got the law, three thousand men died for disobeying the law [ref. Exodus 32:28]. It was quite clear that the standard of the law was too high for the children of Israel and man as a whole, why? It is because the life man had then, was the condemned life attained from Adam when he disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit.

Man didn’t have the Spirit of God in Him so it was so impossible to attain God’s standards; this was a clear sign that man needed another means to get to God or else death was inevitable. Jesus was the only man who had the Spirit of God, so He represented man because He was perfect before God and through Him we were redeemed for He was the sacrifice we needed to get back to God; so because of His perfect Spirit He could not see corruption when He died; God raised Him from the dead and through Him we were redeemed back to God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, the difference between law and Grace is that law forces us to mature immediately, while Grace nurtures us on the path to perfection.

Log on next time on the continuation of this topic.

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

                                For prayers and comment send them through my Google Plus account.       

                        

GOD BLESS YOU.

Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from King James Version (KJV)

Live In The Spirit (Part 2)

Last time I talked about how we are to live in the spirit by understanding that it is the spiritual realm that controls the physical realm. I also explained how Believers have the exact spirit of Jesus of which we are to operate from the realm of this spirit because this spirit of Jesus has all authority in heaven, earth and under the earth. The question I posed was, how do we live in the spirit? Let’s find out.

I talked about how Daniel got answers from God by looking unto the mercies of God; as I said, Daniel didn’t have the fullness of the Holy Spirit in him, so let’s look at the first one who had the fullness of God in Him, Jesus. For Jesus, “...having risen a long while before daylight. He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.” (Mark 1:35 NKJV). If you check several places in the gospels you would find Jesus always went to solitary places to pray. The prayer here was deep meditation with His Father in heaven; He already had the Holy Spirit in Him so He meditated on who He was and His mandate on earth, so that was why He needed a place that was quiet. Quiet time is a very important part to in order to commune in the Spirit; it helps you focus on the scriptures without any physical distractions.

Another is fasting; fasting kills physical form distraction and allows you to focus when meditating on the scriptures and become the scriptures; you become the truth in the scriptures because in order to doubt the scriptures you need physical strength, but when the physical strength is taken away, you only have the spiritual to focus on. Jesus when answering the Pharisees about why His disciples didn’t fast, He said, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.” (Matthew 9:15 NKJV). Now that the bridegroom has gone and His Spirit is now in us, we need to get in contact with the Holy Spirit and allow Him work through us.

Another powerful way we can live in the Spirit is through speaking in tongues; this is the ability God has put on every Believers mouth that possesses the Holy Spirit in Him; this ability is the speaking of mysteries, mysteries that only the Holy Spirit understands; in order words, it is a spiritual language where we declare who we are in Christ in the Spirit. The mystery is so deep that it can’t be understood by man except through the gift of interpretation. When we pray, we pray with our understanding, but when we back it up with tongues the Holy Spirit takes over and speak the exact words to God. The bible says in Romans 8:26-27, “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” (NKJV).

Praise is a very powerful way of getting into the Spirit realm; praise itself is Spiritual because your focus is on God and when you keep doing that, your faith is strengthened and you live in the realm of the Spirit. Praise is a form of meditation just the way speaking in tongues is. Fasting enhances our focus and as I said, it’s not a magic wand. All these mentioned enable us to see the Jesus’ Spiritual realm as the real life and not the physical world we live in.

The reason why we need to live in the Spirit is because the physical realm is controlled by spiritual forces. Once you get a hold of living the life of the Holy Spirit you have control of the heaven, earth and under the earth. This is the reason why when sickness attacks, you command it to leave your physical body and it does, this is because you’ve come to understand the physical world is not real only what the Spiritual world says is real. So we define the physical world by making it align with what we believe which is the Spiritual world of Jesus.

As we live in the Spirit, certain qualities emerge which are the fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering or patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control [ref. Galatians 5:22-23]. So, if we live in the Spirit, we are to walk in the Spirit [ref. Galatians 5:25]. This is the quality of one who lives in the Spirit, and whatever you do prospers [ref. Psalms 1:3].

The scriptures which are meditated upon are inspiration from God, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Focusing on the Scriptures is to live the life of Jesus since we are joint heirs with Him, so living in the Spirit is to live the exact life of Jesus who has total dominion in the universe. The Scriptures purify us just as it says, “...profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Also it makes us transformed by the renewal of our mind.

The summary of all these is that we have been given a new life but we don’t know how to use this life; praising God, fasting, speaking in tongues all help us in our meditation on who we are which the Scriptures reveal to us; this cannot be understood with the ordinary mind but with the Spirit of God [ref. 1 Corinthians 2:6-16]. With this, we then have the mind of Christ; as a result of this all things become ours because we are of Christ [ref. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23].

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

Log on next time.

                   For prayers and comment send them through my Google Plus account.         

                      

GOD BLESS YOU.

Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from King James Version (KJV)q                     

Live In The Spirit (Part 1)

You wake up, get dressed and move out, live life, eat, exercise and do many other things, but do you know that your body is not the real you? It is just the physical manifestation of you. The real you is a spirit; man is a spirit living in an earth suit that we call body.

To elaborate, let me use this illustration: Mr. X drives a green Mercedes, when he drives across the road you would say, “Mr. X drove across the road”, even though you saw the green Mercedes. Anything that happens to the Mercedes is as a result of the one who drives the Mercedes and not the car doing things by itself. This also applies to man, it is his spirit in him that controls his body; just the way the man in the car determines whatever happens to the car, the same thing applies to the man, whatever happens to man is determined by his spirit. So, why do we focus on the physical things rather than live in the spirit which controls and determines the physical manifestation. Why don’t we live in the spirit, then we would utilise the full potential of our being.

The physical body we possess cannot do anything without the spiritual nature; the spirit is so vast that the physical body is just a trickle of the ability of the spirit. So, when we live in the spirit and understand the fullness of the spirit, we control the physical realm anyhow we want.

Believers are the most privileged, this is because our spirit is the exact spirit of Jesus which is the exact spirit of God; and remember, the spirit Jesus possess is the same spirit God gave all power and authority in heaven, on earth and under the earth to. All power at its climax is in this spirit, but why do we live as one who doesn’t know this?

We must live in the spirit of Jesus which every Believer possesses before we see the miraculous become as easy as the air we breathe. Let’s take a look at Daniel; now remember Daniel had the Holy Spirit with him and not in him because it was until the day of Pentecost before the fullness of the Holy Spirit came and dwelt in every Believer because of the resurrection of Jesus. My emphasis here is to explain that Daniel not having the fullness of the Holy Spirit had great wonders performed through him by the Holy Spirit which is a slap on our face as we have the fullness of the Holy Spirit in us and we are not portraying the tremendous ability given to us just because we are not living in the spirit. What did Daniel do?

In the book of Daniel, king Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that bothered him so much, he forgot the dream and to remember the dream called for wise men, astrologers, sorcerers to tell him his dream and then interpret it. The wise men told the king that it was impossible for any man to tell a dream that he didn’t dream without being told. But there was something striking at what they said, “It is a difficult thing that the king requests, and there is no other who can tell it to king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” (Daniel 2:11 NKJV).

Even though their gods were inferior, it wasn’t a lie that mysteries were only understood by gods but we who serve the Almighty God who surpasses all other gods are more privileged. The only way to get the mysteries is for us to leave this physical realm and live in the spirit. Daniel had to seek the mercies of God concerning this secret; he left this realm in order to receive what was beyond the physical; he not only got the dream, he also got the interpretation.

Believers are to live in the spirit which is the unlimited world before they could achieve total control of the power and authority Jesus has given us. How can we actually live in the spirit? Watch out for the next blog.

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

Log on next time.

                   For prayers and comment send them through my Google Plus account.  

                             

GOD BLESS YOU.

Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from King James Version (KJV)

Make Use Of Every Opportunity

There are several parables Jesus gave while He was here on earth, but there is one I believe He gave that cut across everyone and that is the parable of the sower. This parable is important because it explains to us that our life is shaped by what we do with the words we hear, in this case it is the word of God. This parable can be found in three of the four gospels, which are; Matthew, Mark and Luke. However, there is something about this parable that is so important; which is the interpretation of the parable. Each of the accounts recorded in the gospel doesn’t have the complete interpretation, but when put together, it becomes complete, let’s take a look.

According to Jesus’ parable, a sower sowed seeds, and as he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side which birds came down to devour, (these are people who hear the word but do not understand it and the birds which represents the wicked one comes and snatches the word away); some seeds fell by stony places which sprang up immediately but as the sun came, it scorched it because they had no depth in the soil (these are those who hear the word, receive it with joy but the word doesn’t have real depth in them so when tribulation and persecution comes, the word fades away after a short time); again, some seeds fell among thorns, and sprang up with the thorns but was later choked by the it (these are those who hear the word but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and becomes unfruitful). Finally, some seeds fell among good soil and yielded a crop some a hundredfold, some thirty fold and some sixty fold; the interpretation to this is broken it three parts and this is what I would explain.

When interpreting the meaning of the seeds that fell on the good, the Matthew account says, “But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Matthew 13:23 (NKJV); the Mark account says, “But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” Mark 4:20 (NKJV); the Luke account says, “But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.” Luke 8:15 (NKJV); note the underlined words.

Matthew says: hears the word and understands it and produce a crop; Mark says: hears the word, accept it, and produce a crop; Luke says hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. After combining the gospels, it was then clear, what Jesus made us understand was that for us to put the WORD to use by producing fruits the following are important; first of all we are to HEAR the WORD then UNDERSTAND the WORD; then ACCEPT the WORD; then RETAIN/KEEP the WORD and finally; with PERSEVERANCE/PATIENCE, PRODUCE A CROP.

As Christians, we should act like the Bereans who always searched the scriptures [ref. Acts 17:10-12]. The Devil comes to kill, steal and destroy [ref. John 10:10]; so what does the Devil really steal? The Word! You see, “...faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” Romans 10:17 (NKJV); and this is what the devil hates to see so he does everything for us not to hear the word.

We have to be careful because the devil comes like roaring lion seeking whom he may devour; we need to be humble before God because we get strengthened by God and when the word comes we have faith. Faith requires diligence, and having faith we are to add virtue to it, and to virtue we are to add knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. Apostle Peter said those who lack these are shortsighted, even to the point of blindness, making them persons who have forgotten that they we cleansed from their old sins. He further advises us to be diligent in our faith.

So, the major point here is that we are to hear the word, understand it, accept it, retain it and by perseverance we would produce a crop. All these should be mixed with faith, putting up the whole armour of God [ref. 1 Peter 5:5-9; 2 Peter 1:5-10; Ephesians 6:10-20]. You must alert when we hear the word and possess it as a priced treasure, because the devil intends to steal, and remember, he doesn’t love at all; but God on the other hand loves us till eternity; this is the gospel truth.

Why not accept Jesus today if you haven’t. Pray out loud, “Jesus, I confess that You are my Lord and Saviour. I believe in my heart that God raised You from the dead. By faith in Your Word, I receive salvation now. Thank You for saving me!” Congratulations, you’re born again, you are now brand new!

Log on next time.

                   For prayers and comment send them through my Google Plus account.                               

GOD BLESS YOU.

Unless otherwise stated, the following scriptures are gotten from King James Version (KJV)