Random destiny or Definite purpose?

Psalm 138 . 8 “the Lord will fulfill his purpose for me…….”

The Lord will fulfill, bring to completion, make perfect His will and purpose for my (your) life, right here in this life time. This is His promise to his faithful children. (If you have received Jesus as your Lord and saviour then he has given you the right to be His children.)

You may be walking in the midst of many trouble right now, But He promises to never let you fall under it and be destroyed. (Ps 138.7, Psalm 37:23-24) In fact you will raise above all adversities and walk in victory.

• Many believe trials and temptations to increase in their lives after they receive Jesus. This is so unbiblical. Trials and temptations are common to all. But for the children of God there is a way out and they always come out on the top 1 Corinthian 10.13.

• Many others expect to live an improvised life after they receive Jesus. This is also unbiblical. Take the case of Mary and Joseph. They were ordinary working class people from a very small, insignificant town called Nazareth. Soon after Jesus was born into the family, truck loads of riches were brought into their home.

• Soon after Jesus entered Peter’s boat there was prosperity as never before.

It is the will of God that we enjoy prosperity in every area of our lives. Physical, mamental, emotional, financial, social, relational areas of our lives begin to prosper as soon as Jesus is born into our lives. So this Christmas season let us unlearn our preconceived ideas of life with Christ and walk in freedom and light as He has called us to.

May the abundant life of Jesus fill you inside out these coming months and fulfill all His purposes in your lives.

The Lamb’s wedding series – part 2

The Wedding Feast, The Huppah, The Tribulation
In traditional Jewish marriage ceremony the marriage was consummated and the husband made the announcement to the wedding guests. This announcement would signal the beginning of the wedding feast.

Just as the Jewish bride remained hidden in the “huppah” for a period of seven days, so will the Church remain hidden for a period of seven. Both Daniel, in the Old Testament, and Revelation, in the New Testament, give the exact amount of time for this period.  To read more click on Christ the Bridegroom – a study

Salvation Message in our Blood

Biblical Truth continues to amaze and strengthen me in my daily walk with God. Here’s something I am sure you’ll enjoy reading and strengthen you.

For many centuries learned men have argued about the statement “Life of the flesh is in the blood”.

[I have lost count of the times I have heard this verse from Leviticus 17.11 quoted, and I can’t say I have understood all the implications of this statement. Often I took the verse by faith mixed with the numerous statements that assured me that sin can be atoned for only by the shedding of pure, blameless blood, as represented in the sacrificial system of the OT and the final sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God – Jesus. The word of God assured me that Jesus poured out his life blood to the last drop and paid the price for the sins of mankind including mine.]

Scientists have suggested various organs including the heart and brain carried this all important function. Blood was never even considered. In 1628, William Harvey an English Physician, proved that blood circulates from the heart and back to it, reaching all parts of the body thru arteries and veins. Blood circulation is a well known fact today.

Life-Sustaining Fluid
More recently, science has confirmed that the fluid called blood is uniquely life-sustaining. The statement ‘Life of the flesh is in the blood’, though written thousands of years ago in the sacred books of the Jews, is a scientifically sound and accurate statement. When blood is shut off from any organ, or group of cells, it results in the death of the organ or cells. Cells can neither live nor function without blood circulation. Blood provides cells with life-sustaining substances (oxygen, glucose, amino acids) and cleanses it of toxic substances (carbon dioxide, lactate, urea). If these toxic elements are not cleared from the cells, they would lead to the death of the cells. Indeed, the ‘life of the flesh is in the blood’.

Cleaning Agent
Blood is one of the most effective cleaning agents! (Bible students, does this ring any bell?) The cleansing process is a by-product of an exchange mechanism whereby the blood trades with the cells, life for death. (I hope the bells are ringing like crazy!)

The science of hematology helps us understand the amazing parallel truth in the Bible. Rev 1.5b says, ‘To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood’. This is no poetic language; this is spiritual fact describing the dynamic spiritual exchange process similar to the physical. When Christ Jesus shed His blood on the cross, He took our sins and sinful nature upon Him: 1 Peter 2.24 says, ‘He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree’, so that when we accept Him as our Lord and Savior we are cleansed from our toxic sin and receive instead His Life.

1 John 1.7 claims that “ the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin”

Salvation
Blood also cleanses the heart. When a clot blocks any artery that carries blood to the heart, life is endangered. Jeremiah 17.9 says that the, ‘heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked’.  When cardiologists remove the clot, blood flows thru the cells of the heart and life is given likewise Jesus’ blood cleanses the wickedness of the heart and we receive Eternal Life.

How do You Percive God?

When satan invades our mind and thought-life it alters and distorts our perspective of God. Let me prove it to you through some major events recorded in the Bible.

• In the Garden of Eden both Adam and Eve enjoyed God’s presence immensely. I think it is reasonable to assume that they had a fairly clear picture of God and His immutable characteristics (Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience). Yet we see that after they sinned (satan messed with their minds) they ran to hide behind a tree! Did they think they could hide themselves from this Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient God? Apparently sin had blinded and distorted their perspective about the very God whom they knew intimately till then.

read more ….

Unbridgeable Chasm

Mankind’s engineering capabilities have grown so far that we are considering building bridges across oceans – once considered impossible due to the magnitude, extreme climatic variations and ocean currents. Often as technological advances are made we forget that there are limits placed that no man is allowed to cross.

One such boundary is found in the gospel (Luke 16.19-31) account of the rich man and the poor man Lazarus. In verse 26 we read Father Abraham speaking to the rich man, ‘between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here (heaven) to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there (hell) to us.’ 

Your  ultimate destination is determined by your choice of a savior. Jesus said, “I am the way… No one comes to the Father except through me”. How more clear can He make himself? Those who reject Jesus’ e offer of salvation will also be rejected and join the rich man in the above the story in hell. No amount of  prayers, masses  or indulgences purchased can bridge the gap for you after you have died, so make your decision to obey God’s command and receive Jesus Christ into your life today. What if this very night your life will be demanded from you! Make sure you are on the right side of the chasm.e

Performance Oriented

Why do believers perform good works? 

1. Christian believers do not work in order to be saved. Believers work because they are saved!
2. The works of an unsaved person are grounds for self boasting. (Luke 18:11-12). The works of a saved person are cause for praise to God. (1 Corinthians 1:29-31).
3. Fleshly works cannot please God (Romans 8:8). Faith works are pleasing to God (Hebrews 11:6; 1 Thess. 1:3).
4. Faith alone saves (Rom. 3:28).The faith that saves is not alone (James 2:14,20,22,26).
5. Faith is the root (Galatians 5:6). Love (expressed by good works) is the fruit (Galatians 5:6,22; Heb. 10:24).

 To the person who says they are saved because they perform the rituals of the Law, Paul says, “No, it is by faith in Christ that one is saved as Christ fulfilled the Law by his blood”. James, on the other hand, while in agreement with Paul, calls out the hypocrite who says they have “faith” but their actions reflect otherwise. In other words, their faith does not produce anything good.

So when James says that Abraham was justified by works and Paul says that Abraham was justified by faith, although on the surface it seems they are in disagreement, they are not; they actually agree. Because it was Abraham’s belief that God would fulfill His promise that led to his faith in God. Abraham’s faith in God that He would fulfill his promise, in turn, led to his act of obedience to God. Thus, we see Abraham’s faith by his action (works) to God’s command.

 So where Paul is looking at the faith, James is looking at the faith that leads to action.

 Remember, Christ said, “By their fruits you shall know them.”

 

Will He Deliver?

Matthew 8.24 Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping.

Are you in the midst of a storm that has come out of nowhere? Are you desperate and fearful of the outcome of the situation? Have you looked for a way out and found none? You expected God to deliver you, for after all you serve in all the right church comittees and give your tithe regularly, without fail.  Where is He? Does He not hear? Does He not see?

Jesus’ disciples once faced a situation very similar to this. They had left their all and followed Jesus. Now they were sailing in the direction their Master Jesus told them to. In fact, he was right there in their midst – sleeping, while they were face to face with a life and death situation! Did he not care? What were they to do?

Matthew chpater 8 Verse 26 records Jesus response to their panic. “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.’

Jesus  calls attention to the fact that the disciples had ‘little faith’.  A quick look at the previous verses in the same chapter tells us that the diciples had just witnessed multiple miraculous healings. Jesus however is only impressed with a centurian’s Great Faith. (read here Verses 10-11) . Jesus allowed the furious storm to lash against the disciples  to teach them an important lesson on faith.

Jesus asks them ‘why are you so afraid“? Implied in the questiou is another question, “Do you not know that I am with you and nothing can harm you when I am there?” Jesus expects us to have an unshakable assurance of His Omnipresence in our lives and the assurance that nothing can touch us without His knowledge.

Then Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the waves, and the sea became calm. Jesus taught not only thru words but also thru actions. He shows  us what action we are to take when unexpected storms upset our lives. We are to take up our victory position, that Jesus has already won for us on the cross. Then we are to speak to (rebuke) the adverse situation with the measure of faith given unto us.  Jesus assures us that if we have faith we can command even a mountain to move out of our way and it will. So speak to the storm raging in your life today to stop and it will.

When the tree is yet green

Today’s discussion is based on Luke 23:35. here we read, ‘The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.”’

In John 10.18 Jesus says, ‘No one takes it (Jesus’ life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

 

However, we see that it is written in Romans 8:11 “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he (God the Father) who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you”.

The rulers in Luke 23:35 (see above) may be the synagogue rulers or the  Roman rulers who were present at Jesus crucifixion as observers. They mocked Jesus saying, ‘let him save himself’. The spirit of Lucifer says “I will ascend, I will do this, I will do that..” The emphasis is on the ‘I’. People led by the same spirit even now mock those who place all their faith in Lord Jesus. “So, you pray for others to be healed, why don’t you heal yourself?, You perform miracles, why not perform a  miracle to raise your son?’ There has always been mockers. Jesus himself said, ‘For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23.31)

As disciples of Jesus, we follow in His footsteps. Though Jesus had authority to give up his life for the sins of the world and also to take it up, on the cross he committed his soul into the hands of God the Father. (Luke 23.46) As prophesied, three days later, he (God the Father) raised Christ from the dead. Like the three Hebrew boys in book of Daniel during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, we too say, ‘even when thrown into the blazing furnace of testing, the God we serve is able to save us from it, but even if he does not, we will not serve your gods.’ (ref. Daniel 3.16-18)

Are You a Servant?

Since Jesus included an elder brother in  the parable of the Prodigal Son, we can be confident that he plays a important and significant role in this allegory.  Luke 15. 25-32 gives a very clear picture of his position in his father’s home (vs 31) and his attitude towards it (vs 29).

 

When  he realized his worthless brother had returned home in disgrace and his father had received him with open arms, all his pent up bitterness, envy and anger towards his father and brother surfaced. When he refused to enter his home, his father come out and pleaded with him to rejoice with his father’s joy. (Do we always rejoice in the things that give our Father joy?)

 

Though the eldest, with all its added privileges, his bitter words to his father reveals his servant spirit. A son, yet a servant, how pitiable. His words (slaving for you) and actions (became angry and refused to go in) reveal that he served his father not out of love but of compulsion.

 

Though sons, we serve our God willingly, for His love constraints us to express our love and gratitude in service to Him. But if as years pass by, our love weaken then everything we do in the name of the Lord, becomes a burden. Are you a son sitting at the feet of your Father or are you a servant toiling for a tyrant?

 

Jesus – Not the son of God

Question : For me, Jesus is a most holy and wise prophet, who speaks the language of God Himself. However, I cannot view him as the Son of God. What is your view?

Answer :  I totally agree with you. I can agree with you because a son results from a man and woman relationship. No Christian believes in that sense that Jesus is the son of God. We call Him ‘Son of God’, in another, unique sense, as an emanation from the Creator. He is the Son because He bears the very stamp of God, as a man does of his father. He is the Son in the way He brims over with love and truth. In those ways we have no doubt that He is the Son of God.

Scripture identifies Him as the Son of God, equal to the Father in character and attributes: He is eternal, all-powerful, sovereign, and ever-present. The Bible also says He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things (Col. 1:16).

Jesus came to earth as the God-man for the purpose of saving mankind. Because He lived a perfect life, Christ is the only person in history qualified to pay the penalty for someone else’s sin. He secured our forgiveness and offers us the gift of salvation on the basis of faith.

One day Christ will sit as mankind’s ultimate, final judge. Those who have accepted His payment for their sins will live with Him forever.

Have you chosen to receive Christ’s offer of salvation? A transformed life now and an eternal kingdom in heaven await all who call Him Savior and King. If you’ve never made the wise decision to accept His free gift, why not do so now? Then rejoice in the fact that Jesus will return as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.