Archives for March 2016

March 4, 2016

MY FRIENDS, HOW HARD IS IT TO HEAR GOD’S VOICE?

My friends, the privileged  of Gods actual voice would be one word away from the Lord responding to us as we respond to our children. But Is it possible for a Child of God to actually hear an all knowing, all powerful, Omnipresence Being.

Christ tells us Himself “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” John 10:27 (NKJV) Acts 4:13 (KJV) gives a narrative of two of God’s disciples who lived in the very presence of Christ for three years. “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.?”

So to be in the very presence of God gives us a distinctive quality or character that tells the world “that we serve a risen Savior,” and He lives within us, and we hear His voice through His word and Spirit, and because of our faith and endurance He is always there. And we won’t go back, to the way it used to be Before God’s presence transformed our life.

My friends, I can only tell you because of my faith, and that is, to hear the voice of God, we must ask God’s Spirit to give us a clear and precise understanding of what that would mean to our salvation as God leads us personally in the direction He wants us to go? Learning to clearly distinguish God’s voice as the prophets of old would probably guarantee most of the world an easy path to Gods kingdom.

But God seeks a personal relationship that tells Him and the world, that we will carry our own cross because of what the cross Christ carried to Calvary means to our salvation, and how it has transformed our lives. Samuel a prophet of God had been entrusted to the care of Eli the priest as a child. From his, bed he heard a voice calling out to him.

Twice he went to Eli and ask him if he had called, and Eli said no. On the third time the Lord called, “Samuel.” Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; ”Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling Samuel. So Eli told Samuel, if He calls you again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

So Samuel laid down. And God speaks again and in a vision tells Samuel that he will become the voice through whom he would speak to his people.” My friends, what is God telling us today? And can we be still long enough to distinguished Gods voice from the god of this world? The more time we spend intimately with God and His Word, the easier it is to distinguish that still small voice and His leading in our lives.

“The Employees at an airport are trained to recognize counterfeit ID’s by studying genuine id’s so closely from various states, and countries, that it will be unimaginable not to recognized a fake one, simply because they have studied diligently the real from the fake.”

My friends look all around you and ask, can we distinguish the sound of God’s voice from the sound of this world as grace still abounds? And if not are we willing to seek the presence of God and listen to see where He leads? Because soon God will come for His Children and “His reward is with Him,” to give to each person who has responded to His voice.

Every excuse we may give as the reason we cannot serve Christ, was challenged and answered at Calvary.

March 2, 2016

MY FRIENDS, DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL?

Oh God, more of you and less of me, as you allow your Spirit to penetrate every pore from within as I become a living sacrifice until You “descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God I witness all who have gone before me who have died in Christ as they rise first.

And then in awe, ascending from above God’s chosen hears “the voices of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand singing worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”

And as the celestial choir sings, we “who are alive are caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” My friends that shared vision allows each of us to catch a glimpse of Christ soon appearing. Now look within ourselves.

And now ask “what profit is it to a man [or woman] if they gain the whole world, and lose our soul? Or what will a man [or woman] give in exchange for his soul? It’s personal so focus on “Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Heb. 12:2 (ESV)

Consistent with this, I need each of you to focus on the power of the gospel which is the story of Christ’s life, His birth, His ministry, His crucifixion and then, what gives us all hope, His resurrection and what that narrative means to each of us as a child of God. Eph. 2:8–9 (ESV) tells us “for by grace you [and I] have been saved through faith.

And this is not our own doing; [but] it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” My friends that tells us, it is God’s grace and man’s faith and it is that faith which tells us we want to serve God with all of our heart and soul.

And each day our faith allows us to focus on Calvary and our salvation and it is that faith that allows us to be “crucified with Christ as our character then becomes transformed into the image of Christ, “and the life which [we] now live in the flesh [we] now live by the faith in the Son of God, who loved us, and gave himself for us.

And as a result of our transformation, throughput the ceaseless ages of eternity God’s plan will never be challenged again because everyone who enters God’s kingdom will forever look at the cross and despite the price paid for our Salvation, we will realize we have a perfect right to be there. Forever understanding, “we are just as perfectly righteous as Christ, because though He knew no sin He permitted Himself to be made sin and suffer and die a death that we deserved”

and that my friends is incomprehensible to our finite minds while on this earth. But throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity how could we not continue to “cast our thoughts to Calvary where Jesus bled and died for you and me as we forever see His wounds, on His hands, and feet and visualize our Saviour on that cursed tree.” And realize “heaven is cheap enough”

Every excuse we may give as the reason we cannot serve Christ, was challenged and answered at Calvary.

March 1, 2016

MY FRIENDS, WHAT LIES EMBEDED WITHIN US?

My friends I would imagine a radical change has taken place in most of our lives since we have acknowledge through our faith that we are a Child of God and it is by His grace, and love that we have become a new creature. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)

And with most of us having no physical signs that we had been in a war zone in spite of the battles we had encountered, while traveling, not knowing we were on a train to perdition. But now my friends, the real war begins and the controversy within us rages on. It may not be adultery, but it’s lust, it may not be stealing, but the idea of paying tithe becomes problematic at bill time.

So now we are in a danger zone which is an area of our life that becomes “high risk for harm, especially where the risk has been officially identified as an area where self and our flesh still lies embedded within us. But my friends remember, we belong to God now. We must never fill we have reached the final frontier and begin to feel fatigue and battle driven “for the battle is not ours, but God’s.”

The flesh will always have a natural inclination towards evil because we were “shapen in iniquity; and in sin did our mother conceive us.” Ps 51:5 (KJV) So Satan waits to attack when we are at our weakest. So now its personal and our heartfelt prayers each day must be, “I have been crucified with Christ” who now abides from within, through my faith and endurance.”

In addition, we can never feel God’s armor is an optional attire, otherwise we will find ourselves completely vulnerable to Satan. In Romans 7 Paul presents his personal struggles with the flesh of the body, and how hard it is to control the rage of sin from within. For we all recognize that the law is holy and good but we are carnal from within, bound under the sin of the flesh.

And only satisfied when it is controlled by the forces of evil. So as God’s chosen, the battle rages daily so the flesh must die daily along with self as we remember our mind and body will always be weaken by outside factors if we allow them too. And in today’s society it’s usually what we watch on TV and the Internet, what we read, and listen too, where we go and who we allow into our lives.

Paul’s discovery as should be ours is that “every time we try to do good, evil is always present.” No matter what we want to do for the Lord especially in spreading the good news of the gospel, Satan will always present an alternative plan. But thank God for the victory over the flesh, for Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:56–58 (KJV) The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord our labor is not in vain.” Again, the road to the Kingdom is narrow and very few will succeed in enduring to the end if Christ is not the foundation and focal point of their lives. So let’s stay focus, as we endure through our faith in God’s word and Spirit, for Christ is coming soon, and bringing His reward, which is life eternal.

Every excuse we may give as the reason we cannot serve Christ, was challenged and answered at Calvary.