Only Good Gifts March 6, 2022 bizadmin “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Matthew 7:11 ONLY GOOD GIFTS As a father, it always pains me to see my children unwell. My firstborn daughter, Jessica, is all grown up now, but I remember how it broke my heart to see her bawling when she was suffering from viral fever as a baby. I remember cradling her in my arms and praying over her as I paced around her room the whole night. I sponged her feverish body over and over again. As long as she was sick, I could not rest. I wouldn’t say I liked the fever that was causing my baby to convulse in pain. I would have done anything to alleviate her discomfort. If I could have taken her rage in my own body so she would not have to go through the pain, I would have gladly done so. What I feel when my children are unwell is only a microcosmic reflection of what our heavenly Father feels for us when we are unwell. He wants us brimming with health and life. He hates sicknesses and diseases because of what they do to us. But the difference is this: He was able to take our sicknesses, and He put them on Jesus’ own body as He hung on the cross so that we would not have to suffer them. The Bible tells us: “He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses” (Matt. 8:17). Why did our Lord Jesus do that? Because He loves us so much. He could not rest until He had secured our salvation, our health, and our wholeness. Finally, when He had borne every sin, every disease, and every infirmity upon His own body, He cried, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) and rested. The Bible shows us this clearly: God is a good God. He is our loving heavenly Father. I cannot understand why some teach that God sometimes uses sickness to teach us a lesson or that we need to “pray hard” for His healing. Can you imagine any earthly father inflicting suffering on his child? Must you be persuaded to alleviate your child’s pain? Even some people claim that it is sometimes God’s will for us to be sick. But when their children fall ill, they do everything within their power to ensure their children recover. If it were God’s will for us to be sick, seeking recovery would be deliberately trying to get out of God’s will! My friend, reject anything that even remotely suggests that God uses sickness and suffering to teach us something. Our Father is full of grace and mercy and wants us to be healthy, provided for, and protected from every evil occurrence, sickness, and disease!
What a Savior! February 24, 2022 bizadmin “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.” Psalm 91:15 WHAT A SAVIOR! We have a God who wants us to run to Him. And the moment we do, He has promised that He will answer us. Not “might,” or “perhaps,” but a definite “will.” And He does not stop at merely assuring us that He will answer us. He goes on record for all eternity, saying, “I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.” Do you know why we can assure that He will answer us when we call on Him? It’s because of the divine exchange that took place at the cross, where our Lord Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). He was forsaken—left helpless, totally abandoned, and deserted—so that today, we can have the confidence that our heavenly Father will never leave us nor forsake us (Heb. 13:5). What a Savior! Don’t you feel so loved and so cherished by our Lord? And He made it so easy for us to receive His promises—our part is to call upon Him and let Him be our God. Whatever you may be going through today, call upon Him right now, and He will deliver and honor you! Whenever I am troubled, I tell the Lord, “Lord, I am worried about this situation, but I place it in Your nail-pierced hands right now. I surrender into Your hands all my worries, concerns, and cares in this area.” Then, I receive His peace, and when the enemy tries to fire new arrows of fear into my heart and mind, I remind myself that the situation is already in the Lord’s hands. I remind myself of His promise that He will deliver me! Are you living with panic attacks, fear, and chronic anxiety? Don’t allow the devil to cripple you with all kinds of negative mental pictures or by replaying all the worst-case scenarios in your head. Call out to your Savior, Jesus Christ! He wants you to cast “all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:7). You are not a sheep without a Shepherd, so stop trying to carry all your cares upon your shoulders. Whether it is a physical symptom, a financial challenge, or a family situation that you are anxious about, call upon Him and allow His peace to supernaturally guard your heart in every area that you are troubled (Phil. 4:6–7).
Experience Perfect, Unconditional Love February 1, 2022 bizadmin Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! Psalm 34:8 NLT Beloved, just because you don’t know the Bible from cover to cover, don’t be intimidated by learned theologians who use very high-sounding theological words to try to dismiss the gospel of glorious grace. The gospel is so simple that even fishers such as Peter could grasp it, yet it could also confound intellectual scholars such as Nicodemus (John 3:1–10). The learned Nicodemuses of today might hear the gospel of grace preached and be left wondering, “How can these things be?” In contrast, the woman at the well in John 4, who encountered Jesus and His grace, couldn’t help but proclaim, “Come, see a Man!” and point people to the Savior! Today, precious people led the grace revolution just like the woman at the well. We have received so many testimonies of how imperfect people have risen to become evangelists of the gospel of grace. They may not be as qualified as the Nicodemuses of this world, but what they do have is a life transformed and restored after an authentic encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ. Edwina is another case in point. Although she was born again when she was sixteen, every church she attended taught her to keep God’s laws to please Him. Believing that God was waiting for her subsequent wrongdoing in order to condemn her, she became rebellious, started having premarital sex, had an abortion, and ended up attempting suicide more than once. She shared: I got married and had kids at a young age. When I got older, I tried my best to keep my life order. I attended church, stayed faithful to my husband, and worked hard. But my husband was a womanizer, heavy smoker, gambler, drug addict, and an alcoholic. I sent him to work in Singapore to keep him away from drugs. When I eventually joined him there, he was in massive debt, still an alcoholic, and had a few girlfriends. I felt that he only wanted me to help pay his debt, and it was not worthwhile to remain faithful. I started an online chat relationship that led to an affair. I felt wanted again, but it just didn’t feel right. Devastated, I cried out to God. Then, I remembered that my Filipino pastor had mentioned New Creation Church. So I attended a service with my husband, and I cried throughout the sermon. Pastor Prince shared how Jesus loved the woman caught in adultery unconditionally, giving her the gift of no condemnation to empower her to stop sinning. It was the first time I heard about a God who didn’t condemn me. I kept returning to New Creation Church, with or without my husband. I also listened to Pastor Prince’s sermons on my way to and from work. Not only did my affair come to an end, but Jesus also turned the water into wine in my marriage. I now love my husband even more than before, and my husband also loves me. He has quit smoking, gambling, and drinking. We believe his debt cancellation is also on the way, in Jesus’ name! I’m now so in love with Jesus and feel comfortable in His presence, whether I’ve done well or not. And I’m seeing more right living in my life now. I’m more honest and loving. I don’t boast in myself, but I boast in what the Lord has done in me. Thank you, Pastor Prince, for being faithful in preaching the truth. And thank You, Lord Jesus, for loving me. Beloved, as He did with the woman at the well and with Edwina, the Lord knows everything about you—every failure, every sin, and every shortcoming. Yet He still loves you with an everlasting love, a completely unconditional love, a love that nailed Him to the cross. The truth is that you are, right now, the righteousness of God through Jesus’ precious blood. You can have a genuine and intimate relationship with THE LORD, YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. The enemy may have stolen the intimacy and closeness between you and the Lord, but I want you to know that God is restoring relationships today. The grace revolution is a restoration revolution, and the grace revolution is here. As our heavenly Father has promised, He is setting up shepherds all around the world who are preaching THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. And His precious people shall no longer be fearful, no longer be discouraged, and no longer be lacking. Right now, I pray that as you receive the good news of the gospel of grace, you are being set free from every bondage that is weighing you down. In the name of our Lord Jesus, I see you healed from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet. I see you freed from that secret addiction that has held you captive for years. I see you whole in all your relationships. Amen!
Right Believing Always Leads to Right Living January 24, 2022 bizadmin “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.” Matthew 12:35 RIGHT BELIEVING ALWAYS LEADS TO RIGHT LIVING Most of us think that if we could change our circumstances, we could have the lives we want. However, today’s scripture shows us that that is not what Jesus said. Do you see from His words that your life today is a reflection of what has been hidden and carried in your heart all this time? If you don’t want your life to remain the same, the solution is not to change your circumstances. It is in changing your heart, changing what you believe. My friend, for every area of weakness, failure, or defeat that you may be experiencing right now, I assure you that there is some wrong believing in that area. Search the Scriptures for the truth. Your answer lies in right believing. Now, commit this to memory: right believing always leads to right living! Say it out loud, for this is a powerful revelation you cannot afford to miss. Let me share with you a powerful testimony of a precious brother in my church who struggled with a smoking habit. He had been smoking for many years and went through at least one pack of cigarettes a day. Besides feeling lousy every time he smoked, he felt condemned and constantly heard the voice of the accuser bombarding him with accusations: How can you call yourself a Christian? Look at you—you are still a smoker! Give up, you hypocrite! You are not worthy of being a Christian. The more he heard the accusations, the more he smoked. Though he tried to muster his willpower to overcome this destructive habit, he could not do it. He knew that his body was a temple of God, and he sincerely wanted to glorify the Lord, but there was no power to do so. Then, he heard me preach on how the Holy Spirit is present in him to convict him of righteousness and how the more he believed that he was righteous because of Jesus Christ, the more his behavior would line up with what he thought. So he began to confess this daily: “I am the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ,” even when he succumbed to the temptation and lit up. Every day, he would wake up, staring at himself in the mirror, and say, “I see a righteous man standing in front of me.” This brother believed that he was righteous, not because of what he did but because of what Jesus had done. And the more he thought that he was the righteousness of God in Christ, the more his nicotine addiction faded. He began to have a supernatural strength to cut down his daily tobacco intake within a short time. He began to replace the voice of the accuser that called him a hypocrite with the voice of the Holy Spirit that declared, “You are righteous in God’s eyes. God sees you as righteous as Jesus Christ today.” The voice of the Holy Spirit became louder and louder until he finally heard only His voice, and one day he woke up and realized that the desire for cigarettes was no longer there! Hallelujah! Can you see? Deliverance from destructive habits comes simply by believing the voice of the Holy Spirit and seeing yourself as the righteousness of God in Christ every day. Just being faithful in believing and confessing, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ,” will cause a power to be released in your life that overcomes the bondage to cigarettes, pornography, alcohol, drugs, or gambling. Today is the day that the Lord will set you free from every lie, guilt, and condemnation that the accuser has been bombarding you with. Please pray this prayer with me right now. My friend, let’s silence the voice of the accuser and allow Jesus to set you free to reign: Lord Jesus, I thank You for the cross. I thank You that when You died for me, Your blood cleansed me from all my unrighteousness and the sins of my entire life. You are my Lord and Savior. I give You all my addictions (and bondages) today. I am sick and tired of being defeated and condemned by the accuser. Today, I confess that because of Your blood; I am right now the righteousness of God. By the supernatural strength and power of the Holy Spirit who is present to convict me of my character, I will be reminded every day that I am the righteousness of God through You. Amen!
Fix Your Eyes on Jesus January 17, 2022 bizadmin “For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” 2 Chronicles 20:12 NIV FIX YOUR EYES ON JESUS Today I’d like to share a powerful truth that will help you see how you can effectively drive fear out of your life and keep it out. It is a precious truth that will garrison your heart and mind from the enemy’s lies. Take time to worship the Lord, especially when it feels like the overwhelming odds are against you. Do what King Jehoshaphat did when his enemies joined forces and amassed a formidable army to destroy Israel. Jehoshaphat knew Israel had no chance of winning the battle in the natural. But he chose to do something you and I need to learn to do whenever our enemies besiege us. He cried out to the Lord, saying, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chron. 20:12 NIV). Jehoshaphat then placed not commandos but worshipers at the head of his army, and this is what they sang: “Give thanks to the LORD, for his love endures forever” (2 Chron. 20:21 NIV). Instead of despairing because of their enemies, they chose to fix their eyes on the Lord, giving thanks to Him and singing of His love. This happened long before the cross of Jesus. How much more can you and I sing of His love, which never fails, which endures forever! And do you know what happened? The Lord defeated Israel’s enemies by turning them against each other, and Jehoshaphat’s troops did not even have to lift a finger to fight. Instead, when they came to the place that was supposed to be their battleground, their enemies were already dead, and all they ended up doing was collecting so much plunder that it took them three days to collect it all. In Jesus’ name, may this happen to you. When you are overwhelmed by challenges, and you don’t know what to do or even how to feel, cry out to the Lord and tell Him, “Lord, I don’t know what to do, but my eyes are on You.” That’s the most potent posture you can take, with your eyes fixed not on your enemies but your Savior. As you focus on His love that endures forever, the Lord Himself will fight your battle for you (2 Chron. 20:15). May you be so conscious of His perfect love that every fear is driven from your life, and may you walk away so much stronger than before your enemies tried to come against you!
Be Led by the Holy Spirit December 27, 2021 bizadmin Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. Acts 16:6–7 BE LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT The more areas of your life you involve the Lord in, the more you can experience His protection. You can even ask the Lord to guide you in something as seemingly natural as your travel itinerary. In fact, read the passage above. The apostle Paul allowed the Holy Spirit to lead them at every step. We see from those scriptures that closed doors are not necessarily negative and could be signs of God’s protection over our lives. The challenge for some of us is that we are so adept at planning and scheduling our busy lives that we often don’t make room for the Lord to intervene and guide us to be at the right place at the right time. Let’s not trust our intelligence and planning, but in His wisdom, leading, and counsel. There is a proverb that says, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Prov. 16:9). Even as we plan, I pray that we will never forget to commit all our ways to the Lord and allow Him to direct our steps. Being led by the Spirit does not have to be something complicated. When you walk close to the Lord and have a close relationship with Him, He can guide you in supernaturally natural ways. Some years ago, a couple in our church were vacationing at a beach resort on Penang Island in Malaysia when the wife felt like eating something in another location on the mainland. Because of that “prompting” in her belly, they headed off earlier than originally planned. While they were loading their vehicle, a man kept hurrying them and asking them to move off as they were blocking the hotel driveway, and that had irritated them at that time. In any case, just fifteen minutes after they had crossed from the island to the mainland, they heard the news that an earthquake in the Indian Ocean had triggered a killer tsunami that crashed onto the beachfront they were at, killing more than fifty people. Had they left just a little later, they could have been among the casualties of the tragedy that day. Looking back, the couple believes that the man at the hotel might even have been an angel sent by the Lord to get them out of harm’s way quickly. I don’t know about you, but I want the Lord to direct all my steps! Call upon Him today, and He will answer you.
Be Rooted in His Love December 25, 2021 bizadmin That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. Ephesians 3:17–19 BE ROOTED IN HIS LOVE My friend, if you have received a negative medical report, it is natural for you to be fearful. It is normal to feel doubt, anger, sadness, worry, and condemnation, and even “struggle with your Christian beliefs.” The Lord does not expect you never to be shaken. But amid your tumult of emotions, keep your eyes on Jesus and keep on declaring His finished work over your situation. Maybe right now, you are angry with God for allowing disease to take root in the body of a loved one. Perhaps you feel helpless because it feels like you are standing on the sidelines, and there is nothing you can do to alleviate the suffering. Or maybe you have been confined to a hospital bed, and you are terrified. Every time you are wheeled out for more scans, you don’t know what the doctors will find, and you are crying out, “God, why is this happening to me? Where are You?” When you are staring at the symptoms in your body or the body of your loved one, when it seems as though you have prayed with all your heart and still the sickness remains, I know it is hard to believe God can heal. Or maybe you think He can heal, but you doubt He wants to. Perhaps you have given up hope because you think that if He wanted to heal you or your loved one, He would have done it already. If that is how you feel right now, may I encourage you to feed on His love for you? The doubts in your mind might be screaming so loudly it’s hard for you to even believe in Him anymore. But I pray that you will be able to catch a fresh glimpse of the width and length and depth and height of your Savior’s love for you (Eph. 3:18–19). I pray that even when your mind cannot understand it, your heart will be rooted and established in His love for you. When you are so set in His love, you will see Him do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that you ask or think (Eph. 3:20). Do not allow the enemy to shake your faith. Do not allow the enemy to sell you any more lies. He is a defeated foe, and whatever evil he meant against you, God will turn it around for your good and His glory. The Word of God declares that “no weapon formed against you shall prosper” (Isa. 54:17). Even if the enemy has formed some weapon of disease against you, rest assured that it has no power to prevail against you.
Jesus’ Peace Sets You Up for Success December 23, 2021 bizadmin There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts fear because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18 JESUS’ PEACE SETS YOU UP FOR SUCCESS Jesus gives you His shalom to set you up for success in life. You cannot succeed in your marriage, family, and career when you are crippled and paralyzed with fear. Today, as you are reading this, I believe with all my heart that Jesus has already begun a work in your heart to liberate you from all your fears, whatever they may be. They may be the fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of people’s opinions of you, or even the fear that God is not with you. All the fears that you are experiencing in your life today began with an untruth, a lie that you have somehow believed. Perhaps you have thought that God is angry and displeased with you and that His presence is far from you. That’s why the Bible says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” This scripture tells us that when you begin to have a revelation that God loves you perfectly (not because of what you have accomplished, but because of what Jesus has accomplished for you), that revelation of the unmerited favor of Jesus will cast out every fear, every lie, every anxiety, every doubt, and every worry that God is against you. The more you have a revelation of Jesus and how He has made you perfect, the more you will free yourself to receive His complete shalom and succeed in life! My friend, know that you have absolute peace with God as a believer in Jesus Christ. The new covenant of grace is also known as the covenant of peace. Today, you stand upon the righteousness of Jesus and not your own. Today, because of Jesus, God says this to you: “I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke [condemn] you. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed” (Isa. 54:9-10). God is on your side. Jesus’ shalom is on your side to make you succeed in life. All of heaven’s resources are on your side. Even if you are caught amid a storm right now, think of a picture of eagle chicks sleeping soundly despite the storm, nestled under the wings of their mother, their protector, and provider. And may the shalom of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:7). Go in this peace, my friend, and rest upon His shalom!