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)