Monthly Archives: July 2022

DID YOU KNOW (3)…THAT MIRACLES DO NOT PRODUCE FAITH – FAITH PRODUCES MIRACLES.

Christian Life, ,

DID YOU KNOW (3)

…THAT MIRACLES DO NOT PRODUCE FAITH – FAITH PRODUCES MIRACLES.

The history of Israel alone is testimony to the fact that miracles have no effect on people to grow faith, who do not believe God. No nation in history has experienced more divine intervention than the Jews. From their illustrious ancestor, Abraham, to their miraculous conquest of the Promised Land and throughout the Old Testament story, God was with them, actively involved in protecting, providing for and nurturing them in preparation for the coming of their Messiah, but they continued to rebel and disobey Him, even to this day.

Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, “Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.” (Heb. 3:7-10).

Israel’s unbelief culminated in their rejection and crucifixion of their Messiah. John testified that the works Jesus did were so numerous that the world would not be able to contain all the books written Him (John 21:25). Yet, in spite of all the evidence, the Jewish leaders had Him killed for being a blasphemer because His words and works testified that He was the Son of God but they refused to believe.

On the other hand, Jesus did many miracles in response to faith. Time and again, He commended people for their faith and responded to their plea by intervening with miracles.

As Jesus went from there, two blind men followed Him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” When He had gone indoors, the blind men came to Him, and He asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they replied. Then He touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith, let it be done to you”; and their sight was restored (Matt. 9:27-30a).

Sometimes He healed in response to the faith of another who came on behalf of the sufferer.

When He saw their faith, He said to the paralysed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven…I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all (Mark 2:9).

However, faith was always the trigger that released His power to intervene and restore.

I have two observations from this thought. Firstly, because faith is the vehicle through which God does His miracles, it follows that,

Without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him (Heb. 11:6).

Secondly, God works through His Word.

Jesus said to him “Shall I come and heal him?”…The centurion replied, “…Just say the word, and my servant will be healed.” …When Jesus heard this, He was amazed and said to those following Him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” (Matt. 8:7-10).

He sent out His Word and healed them (Psa. 107:20).

As I have read and studied the Word, I have discovered that God always responds to His own Word. That does not give us the right to hold His Word like a gun to His head. Jesus said:

It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ (Matt. 4:4).

When we wait for God to speak into our spirit, whatever the issue and whatever His decision, He will do what He says.

When we ask for a miracle, we have no guarantee that God will give us exactly what we ask but, when we ask for a word, God always fulfils His promise.

Miracles are not the reason for faith but the fruit of faith. God asks us to trust Him, no matter what the outcome which is not always what we expect. He wants us to trust Him, not our expectation of the outcome. Like Job, we must say, “Even though He kills me, yet I will trust Him.”

From where does this faith come? Our faith in God is kindled and strengthened by hearing and reading God’s word.

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ (Rom.10:17).

So, since God works through His word, our path to miracles is faith in His word spoken into our hearts and confirmed by the written word.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

DID YOU KNOW (2)…THAT YOU CAN NEVER DISAPPOINT GOD OR LET HIM DOWN?

Christian Life, ,

DID YOU KNOW (2)

…THAT YOU CAN NEVER DISAPPOINT GOD OR LET HIM DOWN?

How often I have heard a child of God bewailing the fact that he or she has disappointed God or let Him down. We attribute our own emotions to God as though He were human like us.

Let’s think about it. Why do people so often disappoint us? Is it not because we put expectations on others of which they are not aware and which they are unable or unwilling to fulfil? Does God do to us what we do to others? Of course not!

Why is it impossible for us to disappoint God?

Firstly, we can never disappoint God because He puts no expectations on us. How do we know this? David gives us the answer.

As a Father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust (Psa. 103:13-14).

God is fully aware of our human frailty. He knows that we are incapable of living up to His requirements on our own.

Secondly, God is all-knowing. In theological terms, He is omniscient. Once again, it was David who celebrated God’s omniscience in one of his most well-known and beautiful psalms.

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you, Lord, know it completely (Psa. 139:1-4).

How can God put expectations on us when He knows us more intimately than we know ourselves? He knows what we will think before we think it; He knows what we will say before we say it; He knows what we will do before we do it. He is always ahead of us, never behind us; therefore, it is impossible for us not to do what He expects of us without His knowing.

Thirdly, God treats us as His children. He knows that we are utterly dependent on Him. He likes it that way because He is the source of our life and of everything we need. He wants us to lean as heavily on Him as a new-born infant relies on his mother for everything. He trusts us only with that which He enables us to do and to be. If we fail, He forgives unconditionally because the blood of Jesus has already taken care of all our frailties, fallibilities, and imperfections.

Amazing as it is, God is very comfortable with us. He is never fazed by our failures. Perhaps the most glaring example of God’s patience and tolerance is the story of Peter’s failure. He was headstrong and cocksure of himself. Not even Jesus’ warning that he was on the brink of a terrible melt-down alerted him to the fatal flaw in his self-confidence. He felt strong enough to weather any storm, not knowing that a storm of such magnitude was brewing that he would be completely overwhelmed and swept into the betrayal of his dearest friend.

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” (Luke 22:31-34).    

Fourthly, God allows us to fail because failure is a better teacher than success. Success is more dangerous for us than failure because success is the breeding ground for sins far worse than our failures, pride, and self-sufficiency. Jesus knew what we can do and become when we ride the crest of the wave.

He taught His disciples, in His well-known pattern prayer, that within us are the seeds of our own destruction. “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the Evil One.” We pray this prayer glibly and without understanding. Our real enemy is not the devil. Far worse is the enemy within. Jesus was aware of what we are capable of becoming and doing – yes, under the influence of Satan, but because of our own choices.

 We do not need deliverance from Satan as much as we need to be kept from the ravages of our own sinful nature. We are not Satan’s victims. If we were, God would not be able to hold us responsible for our choices and behaviour. We are accountable to Him for who and what we are because He gave us our free will and will never violate that gift.

He also gave us Jesus. Jesus came to save us from the penalty and power of sin. Only when we live “in Him” are we able to overcome the pull of self and sin.

Fifthly, God is in the process of recreating us in the likeness of His Son. He uses all our circumstances and experiences to expose the weaknesses in us so that He can hone our confidence in His perfect love.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, those who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:28-29).

No, we can never disappoint God. He works everything about us into that perfect image of His Son which, from His perspective, is already complete.    

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. Colossians 2:9-10

All of our life experiences, good and bad, lead us through God’s grace to necome what we already are, complete in Christ Jesus.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

DID YOU KNOW (1) – …THAT INTERCESSION IS NOT A “SPIRITUAL GIFT”?

Christian Life, ,

DID YOU KNOW (1)

…THAT INTERCESSION IS NOT A “SPIRITUAL GIFT”?

It’s amazing to me that intercession has become the special ministry of a select few instead of the privilege of every child of God. What is even more astonishing is that it is now, according to some, both a title and a calling. Is there any verse or passage in Scripture that confirms this idea? I have yet to find one.

In fact, the Bible says the opposite. Prayer (and intercession is one kind of prayer) is the honour and privilege of all God’s children.

I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer without anger and disputing (1 Tim 2: 8).

The Greek word for “men” here is aner which refers specifically to males. Does this mean that only men may pray? Paul affirms in Gal. 3:28 that there is neither … male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. We assume, therefore, that prayer is the privilege of all God’s children regardless of colour, culture, or gender. 

Although people of every religious persuasion “pray”, there is no true prayer outside of God’s family. Prayer is the way God’s children who are flesh and blood and live physical lives in a physical world, interact with the Father who is spirit and dwells in the unseen realm.

Prayer is the only way in which we can communicate with Him. Physical we may be, but we have His Spirit within us. We relate to God spirit to spirit as His sons and daughters. Our spirits communicate with His Spirit who interprets our prayers to the Father.

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. Romans 8:26-27

Prayer is a mystery. Through intercourse with God, which the Bible calls “prayer”, we participate in the realm of the unseen, hearing the voice of the Spirit within us and responding with or without words to the one who knows us more intimately than we know ourselves. We participate in the “groaning” of the universe which, like humanity, is under the curse of sin, awaiting the completion of the redemption Jesus accomplished on the cross.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies…

It seems, then, that prayer is far more intense than simply talking to God. Prayer is the child’s participation with the Father in our role as “rulers” over His creation and the outworking of His purposes to bring about the restoration of all things.

Prayer is the role of God’s sons and daughters who are members of His family and citizens of His kingdom. Prayer enables us to work with Him to carry out His will on earth and bring in His eternal kingdom. Prayer is not the attempt of worshippers, as the pagans do, to manipulate God to do what we want or to appease Him through fear so that He will not destroy us.

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children (Rom. 8:15-16).

Does any other religion, including the cults which have corrupted the truth, offer an intimate relationship between their god and his devotees as father and children? In what way do pagan deities offer their devotees the opportunity of participating with them in the fulfilment of their eternal purposes? Do pagan gods have any plans? Where is their religion taking them?

Of course, there are no answers to these questions. There is only one God in whom all history is wrapped up and makes sense. God not only began history – He will also conclude history as He determined in the beginning.

Rev. 5:1-9 describes the scene in heaven where the scroll of history could not be opened until the Lamb stepped forward. No one knows the meaning of history outside of Jesus. He is the only one who can interpret history according to God’s purposes.

Prayer is the all-encompassing way in which we commune with God. Prayer has many facets – what Paul calls “all kinds of prayer” – and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests (Eph. 6:18a). He enumerates the “all kinds of prayer” in his instructions to Timothy.      

I urge, then, first of all that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone… (1 Tim. 2:1).

Did you notice that intercession is included in the “all kinds of prayer” and that all God’s people are to engage in intercession as part of our resistance to the enemy?

Why, then, is intercession singled out and made a ministry for some when we are all instructed to pray for all people, and especially for God’s people (Eph. 6: 18b)?

Prayer in all its facets, is the privilege and obligation of all God’s people because it is the way God has ordained for us to have personal and intimate fellowship with Him.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THE POWER OF THE CROSS – THEY OVERCAME HIM BY THE BLOOD

Gospel, ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

THEY OVERCAME HIM BY THE BLOOD


They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death. Revelation 12:11

Spiritual warfare is big on the agenda of Christians today. Many “weird and wonderful” teachings abound about spiritual warfare – most of which originate from the Old Testament, as though the death of Jesus means nothing when it comes to the devil.

People do prayer walks and Jericho marches; we are taught to identify the principalities and powers that hold countries or regions in their power (the “Jezebel spirit” is a big one); we have to identify and pull down altars; we must “bind” the evil spirits and “take authority” over them; we must “loose” the power of God and we must “pray against” whatever it is that we must pray against!

Now all of this sounds very “spiritual”. It gives us something to do when we are discouraged by the situations and circumstances around us. We feel better when we have done “spiritual warfare”,even if nothing changes. We do it again and again in the hopes that it will eventually “take” and give us immunity – like a measles vaccine!

But where in the world do we see the apostles doing this in the New Testament? Even Jesus, who should have known better than anyone else how to do spiritual warfare, didn’t do all this stuff. After all, wasn’t the devil after Him? The most Jesus ever did was to send His disciples ahead of Him into the villages and towns where He was to go, not to do prayer walks and Jericho marches, but to proclaim and demonstrate the presence of the kingdom of God. It was the reality of God’s presence and power in the person of Jesus, not their ritualistic prayer efforts that sent the devil and his squatters packing.

Another glaring problem lies in the fact that we don’t understand how God works. When stuff happens in our lives, we blame the devil and go to “war” against him. We are “under attack”, so we declare, almost triumphantly as though being “under attack” somehow makes us important in Satan’s eyes. We must be a threat to him, or he wouldn’t “attack” us!

But that is not what the Bible says.

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined – and everyone undergoes discipline – then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all . . . (Our fathers) disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness.  (Heb. 12: 7-8; 10)

Satan may be responsible for the hardship, but God uses it for our good. So why fight the devil? James and Peter said that we must resist the devil by submitting to God. (James 4: 7; 1 Pet. 5: 8-9)

As a matter of fact, the very hardships we go through, which we so eagerly attribute to the devil, are the evidence of our sonship and the means of God’s grace. If we understood that, would we so enthusiastically launch into spiritual warfare against Satan, using all the tactics we have learned from the self-proclaimed “generals” of spiritual warfare? By doing that, we are fighting, not the devil as we may think, but the very means God uses to purify our faith in Him.

Take Peter, for example. Jesus warned him of what was to come and even said that Satan would do it. He promised to pray for him – not that God would get him out of it but keep him through it because there were important lessons Peter had to learn.

Did you notice, for example that Jesus did not pray that God would stop the devil from sifting him. Instead, He said, “I have prayed for you, that your faith will not fail.” Did you get that? Trials and hardships are not “attacks” from the devil, as though God were powerless to do anything about it. No! They are God’s means of strengthening our faith in Him.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory, and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. (! Pet. 1: 6-7)

How do we overcome the devil? Not by fighting him but by trusting in God. What guarantee do we have that we have the right to trust the Father?

They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. (Rev. 12: 11)

It was the cross that made all the difference. Jesus dealt with our sin – the very reason for the devil’s power over us – and He exposed the devil as a liar and a thief. He is not Lord; Jesus is.

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? (Rom. 8: 31-32)

The devil loves the limelight. He wants to be noticed and he’ll get attention by any means if he can take our attention away from Jesus. God gave us weapons – faith and truth, all directing our attention away from the devil and onto the One who gave us the victory by His blood.

This is the power of the cross!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THE POWER OF THE CROSS – REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD

Gospel, ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS  

REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us. (Eph. 1: 7)

Everything that God has done for us flows from His grace but through the cross. I said yesterday that Jesus foretold the fact but did not give the reasons for His death. It was Paul who received the revelation from the Holy Spirit to explain the depth of meaning that the cross has for us.

Before we go any further, let’s sever, once and for all, the connection between Jesus’ death and Easter with all its pagan trappings. No self-respecting believer in Jesus should ever celebrate Easter (or Christmas, for that matter) because everything Easter and Christmas stand for are an intrusion into the truth.

What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people.’ (2 Cor. 6: 16)   

The death of Jesus is rooted in the Passover feast. God gave His people seven annual feasts to celebrate, in anticipation, the work of Messiah. Each feast foretold, in picture form, an aspect of what Jesus would do for His people. The first of the annual feasts was Passover which told the story of their redemption from Egypt. 

Just as the Israelites were slaves to their cruel taskmasters in Egypt, so humanity was enslaved by the devil when Adam chose to believe his lies over the truth of God. God created the first pair to be one with Him. He made them in His image and filled them with His Spirit (breath) so that they would enjoy fellowship with Him and live in perfect harmony with Him as their Father and with the world in which they lived.

God gave man one gift which put both Him and man at great risk – the gift of choice. Without the freedom to choose, people would be robots, programmed and controlled by their Creator. True freedom involves the right and power to make choices without the control of anyone else, including both God and the devil. 

Satan lured Adam and Eve into believing that God had short-changed them; that He had withheld from them something that would be to their benefit, independence. God never intended that freedom to choose would involve freedom to make the rules. The moment they capitulated to the devil, they were hooked. They did not understand that the depth of true freedom lay in their oneness with God, choosing to do His will and living in perfect harmony with Him because only He is truly free – from everything imperfect that enslaves the heart.  

They were enslaved to a nature that was corrupted and could no longer serve its purpose – to have fellowship with the Father in the perfection of His untainted nature. They had a new nature, stubborn, rebellious, and evil, and a new master – a cruel taskmaster who drove them through shame, guilt, and fear to hate God and to run from Him. They no longer recognised or experienced God as their Father, but they hid from Him because they were afraid of His wrath.

Their imperfection became an impenetrable barrier between God and them. They could not reach Him, and He could not reach them. They were enslaved, body, soul and spirit to the devil, and no amount of self-effort could remove the barrier.  Even if they tried to be perfect, their past disqualified them from access to Him.

God built into His instructions for living – His Torah – a sacrificial system which would teach His people how serious the problem of sin was, and that the death of a perfect lamb was demanded to pay the debt of sin and free the sinner from his enslavement to the devil. Animal blood was only a picture of redemption. It could never pay the debt God required, but it spoke of one who would come – a perfect Lamb who would be qualified to pay the debt and free humanity from the penalty of death.

Every year, the Israelites celebrated their redemption from slavery in Egypt in anticipation of the one God would send to redeem them from even greater slavery – slavery to sin and the devil.

When Jesus came, they refused to recognise Him or to acknowledge that He was God’s Messiah. He lived the life of a perfect Son before them, but they crucified Him. They did not realise that the very suffering they put Him through, in His life and in His death, qualified Him to be the perfect Lamb that would remove the barrier of sin between them and God and rescue them from slavery to the devil so that they could be restored to fellowship with the Father.

It was Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist, who recognised Him to be that perfect Lamb.

The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.’ (John 1: 29)

Through His death, Jesus took sin away and broke its hold over the sinner. Satan can no longer hold us to ransom because the debt has been paid. He no longer has a claim on us. Jesus provides forgiveness for the whole world and for all time. Even the sins that lie in the future are taken care of by His blood.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2: 2)

This is the power of the cross!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.