March 10, 2016

MY FRIENDS, ARE WE IN THE PROCESS OF ENDANGERING OUR SOUL’S SALVATION?

“In falling day by day so far short of the divine requirements, we are endangering our soul’s salvation. We need to understand and appreciate the privilege with which Christ invests us, and to show our determination to reach the highest standard. We are to be wholly dependent on the power that He has promised to give us.” (E.G. White, That I May Know Him pp 130)

So what God’s Children must seek daily is that Faith which makes Christ our personal Savior. And we must also realize that it is that type of faith, which allows us to overcome the forces of evil and the things of this world. and it is also this type of faith that assures us that “God is sufficient” for you and I, for His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Therefore it is all right to take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when we are weak, then we are strong” [in Christ] 2 Cor. 12:8-10 (NKJV) And it is that same faith that tells a Child of God when we have reached the rough side of the mountain, it is Christ still small voice that we hear say “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. And through your faith and endurance you can also overcome the world.

So now my friends let’s imagine we are standing on the rough side of the mountain, seeking the Lord. “And behold, the Lord passes by, and a great and strong wind tares into the mountains and brakes the rocks in pieces, but the Lord will not be in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord will not be in the earthquake.

And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord will not be in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. And being a Child of God, we fall on our knees in total admonition, waiting to hear what the Lord will say. And then we hear “If [you] wish to come after Me, [you] must deny yourself, and take up your cross daily and follow Me.” 1 Kings 19:11-13 (NKJV) Luke 9:23 (NASB)

My friends, we need to keep forever before us if we are seeking the kingdom of God, the quote, “In falling day by day so far short of the divine requirements, we are endangering our soul’s salvation.” And those divine requirements are; a personal relationship with Christ, and a passion to take up our own cross and follow Christ wherever He may lead.

But those divine requirements are so out of touch as to where most, who claim to be Christians are trying to get too in our fast pace got to have it now society. But as grace is gradually being removed from this world. God’s word to His people remains the same. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, . . . and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters.”

“Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” 2 Corinthians 6: 17-18 (KJV) 1 Peter 2:9 (KJV) Remember friends, “God’s people are to be distinguished as a people who serve Him fully, wholeheartedly, taking no honor to themselves, and remembering that by a most solemn covenant they have bound themselves to serve the Lord and Him only” (E.G. White, Testimonies vol 9, pp 17)

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

March 8, 2016

MY FRIENDS, WE HAVE OUR FATHERS NAME NOW WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

For if we are called by His name then we “are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Eph. 2:19 (NKJV) and thru His divine power He has granted His namesake “every good thing given and every perfect gift from above; pertaining to life and godliness”

My friends, we must never forget, we are Gods Children who bear His name. We are also a chosen generation, a royal priesthood a holy nation, His own special people, that we may proclaim the praises of Him who called [us] out of darkness into His marvelous light;” 1 Peter 2:9 (NKJV) And because we are His “He knows the way that we take; [and] when He has tested us, we will come forth as gold.” Job 23:10 (NIV)

And then with passion we sing praises that tell the world “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness we dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ Name.” But along with that name comes an awesome responsibility that leads us out of “darkness into His marvelous light.”

And now it becomes personal, as we cry out with passion, my life is not my on, to you God I now belong and to you I give my all because you are my “Shepherd; and I do realize I shall never want, because you will always lead me in the paths of righteousness for Your name’s sake.” And friends, it is for His namesake that we develop that passion for discipleship which allows  us to deny ourselves and take up our cross.” Matt. 16:24 (KJV)

In addition, as we begin to deny self we also die daily and live our life through Christ for His name’s sake and today we can rest assured that if God has called us, He will sanctify and ultimately glorify us in the blood of Christ. For the honor of His namesake is invested in His chosen and when we give our all to the Master, “our heart does the Spirit control.

And now, we can only be blessed  and have peace and sweet rest after we have yielded unto the Lord our body and our soul and placed our all on the altar of sacrifice.” Yes my friends our namesake means not my will but thy will be done “And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.”

So the two of them went together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.” My friends, have you noticed Abraham’s namesake, Isaac, a willing sacrifice, never questioned His Father or the God who his father had taught him to serve.

He became a willing sacrifice with no questions asked. Now my friends it’s personal again, because as God’s namesake we must also become a willing sacrifice as Isaac, as we live our life through Christ, while allowing the light of God’s Spirit to shine through us. to all that Satan has bound for perdition who are now “considered as sheep to be slaughtered,” as we point them to the only namesake, “under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” And that is Jesus Christ.

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

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.