Reigning in life to bring the Father glory

"...how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." Romans 5:17

I have heard people say that they received an illness or affliction from God (or God allowed it) so that they could suffer and it would bring them closer to God. In fact, I just read an article in a Christian magazine about a young man who wasn't sure if he should pray for healing for his cancer-stricken body because he was not sure if it was a gift from God and did not want to go against God's will. People think that they receive these "gifts" in order to barely struggle through so that they can "encourage" people who are going through the same things.

How sick is that? We can't even understand our own "loving" God. Wasn't it Jesus who said, "I have come to give life, but not just life, life to the full." Didn't he also say, when accused of driving out demons by the power of another demon, "A kingdom divided cannot stand." Don't you think that this applies to God's kingdom too?

You see, Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are one. The same. So you can say that God came to give life to the full or abundantly.

Show me the verse where Jesus says, "I'm not going to heal you right now but don't worry, you will eventually get better after a couple years of struggling through. Then you can encourage others that are suffering that this is my will and that ultimately I love them but they don't need to be healed because it is my will."

I am not trying to put condemnation on anyone who is sick or hasn't experienced healing. I am wanting to show that God wants you well! I am not trying to be mean or rude but this mentality has to leave the church. Aren't you tired of being poor, sick, and unproductive? We are preaching poverty and sickness to a dying world!

What did Jesus die for? For you to die too?

No! I will live and not die and proclaim what the Lord has done! Psalm 118:17

We are called to reign in this life! Look in John 14:12 -

"Anyone who has faith in me will do the same things I have been doing and even greater things."

He continues, "I will do anything you ask in my name, so that the son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it."

1. God gets glory when miracles happen or when Jesus gives us gifts.

2. He tells us to ask for anything in his name.

The problem is that people don't accept God's free gift of righteousness and the abundant provision of his grace as a gift. They read verses like Romans 5:17 and don't fully grasp the promises made.

Righteousness is a free gift from God. Your forgiveness is totally given by Jesus Christ and not earned by what you do. Rest in that. Grace (God's ability and favor) comes to you abundantly so that you can reign in all areas of this life. He doesn't give you this so that you can soon die after. He wants you to live and proclaim what the He has done for you and what he can do for other people! And it all comes through one person (who isn't you). Jesus.

So I am saying today to change your thinking! Change how you view God! He is good.

Jesus' First Miracle - Water into Wine

Was it a party favor or something deeper?

Have you ever thought about Jesus' first miracle? Seriously, really think about it. This is his first chance to make an impression on people in a miraculous way, so he should probably do something awesome, right? Yet, he turns water into wine.

I mean, on the surface it just looks like a nice party favor and I think that's how most people take it. He felt bad for the wedding party and wanted everyone to have a good time. Maybe he was just trying to please his mom?

No. I believe if you look a little deeper you can see that Jesus was really intentional with this miracle, just like he was with the rest of his ministry.

So look in John 2 where this story is found.

Jesus is at a wedding, which we know is a symbol of the church (or people) being reconciled to God. This is important to realize. Jesus tells the servants at the wedding to fill some water jars with water. What is interesting is that these water jars are used for ceremonial washing so that the Jews could be outwardly clean. This is a symbol of the Old Covenant.

When the jars are filled to the brim, the water turns into wine. Wine represents the blood of the New Covenant, which was shed for the forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:27). The wine is then given so people can drink it. The master of the banquet says to the Bridegroom (who represents Christ), "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink, but you have saved the best till now."

Jesus is showing us something important with this miracle. God saved the best wine (Jesus' blood) for the final drink (or sacrifice). This wine comes out of the ceremonial washing jars to show us that this new wine will cleanse us on the inside.

Jesus wanted to show God's plan from the start. We would be reconciled by His blood through the forgiveness of sins.

God's grace is for every area of your life. Accept his grace today.

Ammi & Ruhamah

The Bible is so cool. It really is a commentary on itself. It also supports itself. There have been times when I thought that it contradicted itself but when you read things in context it all makes sense.

Anyway, I want to show two sections in two different books in the Bible that talk about the New Covenant before Jesus showed up in his physical body.

The first is Hosea 2:14-23
¹⁴ "Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵ There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will sing as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
¹⁶ "In that day," declares the LORD,
"you will call me 'my husband';
you will no longer call me 'my master.'
¹⁷ I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.
¹⁸ In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air
and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.
¹⁹ I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.
²⁰ I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the LORD.
²¹ "In that day I will respond,"
declares the LORD—
"I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;
²² and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.
²³ I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.'
I will say to those called 'Not my people, ' 'You are my people';
and they will say, 'You are my God.' "

When it says 'Not my loved one' in verse 23, it says 'Lo-Ruhamah' in the Hebrew.

When it says 'Not my people', it says 'Lo-Ammi".

So when it 'You are my loved one' it actually says 'Ruhamah' ('Lo" essentially means 'not') and when it says 'You are my people' it actually says 'Ammi'.

Next I want to look at Hebrews 8:8-12 (Which also appears in Jeremiah 31:31-34).

"The time is coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.

⁹It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.

¹⁰This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.

¹¹No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.

¹²For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."

Again in verse 10 He says 'They will be my people'. Ammi.

What am I saying here? If you read both descriptions of this covenant it is all about what God will do.

He will marry us in righteousness, love, justice, faithfulness, and compassion. (Hosea 2:19-20)

He will be faithful because we can't be. (Hebrews 8:9) (Hosea 2:20)

He will allow us to lie down in safety. (Hosea 2:18)

He will speak tenderly to us. (Hosea 2:14)

He will turn trouble into hope. (Hosea 2:15)

He will restore us. (Hosea 2:15)

He will renew our youth. (Hosea 2:15)

He will make the covenant. (Hebrews 8:10) (Hosea 2:18)

He will call us His loved one. (Ruhamah). (Hosea 2:23)

He will call us His people. (Ammi). (Hosea 2:23) (Hebrews 8:10)

He will forgive and forget our sins and show us grace & mercy. (Hebrews 8:12)

And we will say, "He is our God"(Hosea 2:20), and we will know Him (Hebrews 8:11).

So I am telling you that you are Ammi and Ruhamah - God's loved people.

God is the Same...

Hebrews 13:8 says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. What does this mean?

Well, first we need to know what Jesus is like. "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being..." Hebrews 1:3.

So we can see that Jesus perfectly represents the Father. All of God's fullness is in Jesus. Since Jesus has the name above every name, we need to know who we are worshipping.

Look at the names God the Father has. These same names also apply to Jesus.

(From the Hebrew)

Elohim (God)

Jehovah/Yahweh (the self-existent one: I AM)

Jehovah-jireh (the Lord will provide)

Jehovah-rapha (the Lord who heals)

Jehovah-nissi (the Lord our banner)

Jehovah-Shalom (the Lord our peace)

Jehovah-ra-ah (the Lord my shepherd)

Jehovah-tsidkenu (the Lord our righteousness)

Jehovah-shammad (the Lord is present)

Jehovah-Elohim (the Lord God)

Jehovah Sabaoth (the Lord of hosts)

El Elyon (the most high God)

El Shaddai (Almighty God, the strength giver)

El Olam (everlasting God)

There are some things that change in the Bible.

Covenants changed. There were several different covenants made in the Bible between God and man. Thankfully we are under a new and everlasting covenant of grace. (Hebrews 8:10-12)

But God's Good character never changed. Don't be mislead and think that "God never changes" means that you have to obey or be justified by the Law. (Col 2-13-15, Rom 3:20, Gal 3:10-11) That is not what it means when He says that He is the same.

What stays the same is his Goodness, Loving-kindness, Peace, and Righteousness. These are characteristics of who He is. And even better than that, He is all of those things in our lives!

He is our Healing.

He is our Provision.

He is our Peace.

He is our Strength.

He is our Righteousness.

Remember that it is God who has freely given us this grace to boldly approach Him. (Heb 4:14-16) Come receive from the Lord.

Jesus or Moses - You can only pick one

John 1:17 - The Law was given through Moses; Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ.

-It was important to God to show up himself to bring something so wonderful. The Law is impersonal. You can't have a relationship with two tablets of stone, but you can with Jesus Christ.

John 5:39-40 "You diligently study the Scriptures (Law of Moses) because you think that by them you posses eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me and have life."

-A list of do's and don'ts isn't what God intended for man. They certainly don't give you life. Only grace and truth from a relationship with Jesus gives life. Real life.

John 6:28-33 "What is the work that God requires?"

Jesus responds, "The work of God is to believe in the one He has sent."

"Show us a sign! Show us a miracle so that we will believe you. Our ancestors ate the bread from heaven that testified to Moses."

Jesus responds, "Moses didn't give them bread, but it was from my Father who gives you the true bread of life. The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives it to the world."

-People are still trying to please God with there deeds. The true "work" is to believe in Jesus. This one work will produce a life lead by the spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patients, Kindness, Gentleness, and Self-control.

John 5:45 - "But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses (The Law), on whom your hopes are set."

-Your self-righteous (Righteousness by your works, feeling righteous when you do good things) will be condemned by the Law because you must be perfect in order to be righteous by Gods standard. Mess up once and you deserve death.

Grace will frustrate your self-righteousness. When you realize you can't earn grace (unmerited favor), your flesh will cry out to justify itself, but you will know that only Jesus can make you right.

If you are relying on any kind of self-holiness, self-righteous, or self-justification by observing what you think is God's law, be warned - "Anyone who relies on being justified by the law is under a curse" Galatians 3:10-11 (See also - Romans 3:20). The Law will condemn you in front of God the Father.

John 8:15 - "You judge by human standards; I pass judgement on no one."

-Jesus is full of grace. This verse comes right after He said to the woman caught in adultery, "I don't condemn you."

John 6:34-40 -"I am the bread of life. Everyone who comes to me will never go hungry, anyone who believes in me will never go thirsty. Whoever comes to me I will never drive away. I am here to do my Father's will - who ever believes in the Son shall have eternal life."

-The Law of Moses clearly isn't the will of God. Salvation through grace is the will of God. Jesus will not drive anyone away by any means - sickness, disaster, pain, condemnation... These are works of the devil. Don't credit them to Jesus.

Choose life! Choose Jesus! Only rely on Him.

The Mixed Garden

"Is it a sin to..."

"Is it a sin if..."

"Is it a sin when..."

There is a reason God didn't want us to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The fall of man happened when we discovered what sin was. In today's church, people are still eating from that tree.

¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
² The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
⁴ "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Genesis 3:1-7

Do see what happened here? We became aware of sin. And since later on man thought that he could be righteous before God by what he does, God added laws to show us that we couldn't be righteous. The laws point us to our need for a savior. They don't point us to self-justification.

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. ²⁰Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. Romans 3:19-20

Thank God for Jesus! He completed the hard work for us. Now the work of God is to believe in Jesus (John 6:29). But how do we obtain and do the good things God wants? We live in a relationship with Him and trust the Holy Spirit He sent to live in us. As it says in Hebrews 3 "Fix your thoughts on Jesus."

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Galatians 5:22-23

This is the real fruit God wants you to eat. He does not want you to continue to pursue and define sin. The fruit of the Spirit isn't something "Good Christians" do. It is a by-product of RELATIONSHIP with God.

You see, focusing on what sin is and isn't will only lead to the opposite of the good fruits God has already place inside of you.

In Hebrews 8:10-12, God tells us that He has put his laws on our hearts and minds, meaning by His Holy Spirt. He will lead us and guide us in His way of love. He can do this because He has forgiven and forgotten our sins.

Stop eating from the tree that leads to death. Eat from the Tree of Life (Jesus) and live by His Spirit.

Knowing God

I remember being in youth group when I was younger and learning from the pastor about being able to drop your head knowledge of God to your heart. He called it the "12 inch drop" or something like that.

To be honest, I don't think I really understood that concept until much later in my life. I probably didn't get it until these last few years. It is one thing to have head knowledge of God, but it is something completely different to know Him in your heart. I mean, really know Him.

So let's take a look at the word "know" (Compliments of dictionary.com)

-Verb (used with object)

1. To perceive or understand as fact or truth: to apprehend clearly and with certainty: I know the situation fully.

2. To have established or fixed in the mind or memory: to know a poem by heart; Do you know the way to the park from here?

3. To be cognizant or aware of: I know it.

4. Be acquainted with (a thing, place, person) as by sight, experience, or report: to know the mayor.

5. To understand from experience or attainment

6. To be able to distinguish, as one from another: to know right from wrong

Many times I have heard Christians speculating on who God really is and how He operates. It seems like they really don't know Him. They are never certain about His character. They aren't certain if he is still hiding Himself from them or if He is still angry with them. Let me say right now that God isn't anymore mad at you than He is at Jesus. And God really loves Jesus.

Let me take you through a bit of scripture. Hebrews 8:10-12

¹⁰This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people. ¹¹No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest. ¹²For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.

It says that everyone from the least to the greatest will know God. That means that the most average person who thinks they can never have the same spiritual gifts and relationship with God as the high and mighty pastor can/does/should.

Now the word "know" is used twice in this passage. It is actually a different definition both times it is used.

The first time "Know the Lord", the Greek word is Ginosko -

To learn to know, come to know, get knowledge of.

This is the head knowledge I was talking about earlier. This is what people try to attain by their works and feeble understanding of God because they often don't rely on the relationship they have with Him by the Holy Spirit. They just try to gain knowledge of Him through doctrines and by what other people tell them to believe.

The second 'know' in this passage "they will all know me", the Greek word is Eido -

To see, to perceive with the eyes

To perceive by any of the senses

To notice, discern, and discover

To turn eyes, mind, and attention to

To look at, behold

To know, have regard for one, cherish and pay attention to

You see this is the relationship you have in your heart with God. It is being certain of who He is and knowing without a doubt that He is good. You can now look at God without fear. Before people would fall down dead in His presence, now because of this New Covenant, you can look at Him and behold His beauty, goodness and grace.

Do you see the difference?

¹¹No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Ginosko the Lord,'
because they will all Eido me,
from the least of them to the greatest.

Before you had to try to gain knowledge so that you could eventually have a glimpse of who He was. But now You can see Him through Jesus Christ because He has forgiven and forgotten your sins. There is nothing that can keep you out of His presence.

What can separate you from God now?