Tag: Christian stuffs

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:

Psalm 103 is one of my favorite psalms of David, a beautiful psalm that describes who and what God really is—a gracious and merciful Savior. Believing right begins with what you believe about God and must be based on the solid foundation of God’s Word.

To know the truth about who and what God is, we can’t go by feelings, circumstances, human conjectures, or what we may have heard someone say about God. We have to go to the source!

If you heard a rumor that someone you knew was saying horrible and negative things about you, don’t believe it immediately. Go to the source first. Ask this person if this is what he or she said or if this is what he or she meant.

Many people allow precious friendships and relationships to become fractured because they believe the rumors. They become bitter, angry, and disappointed without ever verifying with the person if he or she had said those nasty things.

In the same way, in the world we live in, there are all kinds of wrong beliefs perpetuated about God: “God is angry at you.” “He is disappointed with you.” “God is allowing all these negative things to happen to you because He’s punishing you for your past sins.”

Please do NOT believe all this baseless gossip about God! Such impressions of God have damaged many people’s relationships with Him, and they live with a distorted perspective of who God is.

Instead of receiving His love, grace, and forgiveness, they become afraid, distant, and fearful of Him. Instead of allowing Jesus to come into their situations, they live their lives running away, avoiding, and hiding from Him.

Come on, let’s honor God and go to the source. Look again at what the Bible says about Him in today’s scripture reading: He is “slow to anger, and abounding in mercy . . . as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” This is our God! This is why you can always run to Him and believe that you can freely receive His help!

In verse above, we see a powerful and graphic agricultural imagery used to help us understand the violent suffering our Lord Jesus endured for our healing.

Psalm 129 is messianic, and this is a picture of the scourging Christ went through. I was reading this verse one day, and I felt the Lord saying to me, “Meditate on why I used words that are associated with farming.” That made me wonder, Why did the Lord say, “They plowed My back” rather than beat, scourged, or hit?

Plowers drag a sharp plow that digs into the soil to break up and make deep furrows in preparation for seeds to be sown, as pictured on the following page. I believe that was what happened to our Lord Jesus’ back. When The Roman soldiers scourged him, it was as if His whole back had been plowed.

Furrows made in the ground by a plow allow for seeds and irrigation.
In Psalm 129, the furrows speak of the scourging Jesus received for our healing.

Victims of Roman flagellation were scourged using a whip made up of several long leather thongs embedded with shards of broken bone, metal, and hooks. With each stroke, the thongs would wrap around the victim’s body, and the shards would lodge in his flesh. When it was jerked away, the flesh of the victim would be ripped off and left in shreds, making deep, long furrows across his back. By the time our Lord’s tormentors were done, I believe there wasn’t a single sliver of skin left on His back. Psalm 22, a messianic psalm, tells us that even His bones were exposed and stared back at Him (Ps. 22:17).

It was not by coincidence the language of sowing was used to describe our Lord Jesus’ horrific scourging. Furrows are made so seeds can be sown. When you feel like you have no faith to believe in healing, our Lord Jesus says you just need faith as small as a mustard seed (Luke 17:6). It is not about how strong your faith is—just sow your little seeds of faith into the good ground of our Lord. The more you see what He has done for you, the more your faith will grow, and the more you will experience a harvest of healing.

When His back was lashed into furrows, He was allowing the seed for your specific healing to be sown, whether it is high blood pressure, a tumor, or your child’s asthma. Whatever condition you or your loved one might be suffering from, Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice speak of how the price for your healing has been paid in full. It speaks of how you are so loved. Now reach out by faith and receive your healing. And even as you wait for your hundredfold harvest, may you experience His love for you never like before!

Beloved, we have a resource that is greater than any attack the devil can launch against us. Would you like to know how you can activate angels in your life?

The most important key is worship. As you offer your praise to the Lord, the passage above tells us that’s when angels are most active. Our Lord Jesus defined “fear” as “worship” for us. When Satan tempted Him in the wilderness, Jesus responded by quoting from Deuteronomy 6:13, which says, “You shall fear the LORD your God.” But He changed the word “fear” to “worship” and said to the devil, “For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God’” (Matt. 4:10).

Beloved, when you worship the Lord, His angels camp all around you, surrounding you to deliver you. If you are going through a difficult period in your life and are fearful, choose to worship Him. Fear fills our hearts when we are occupied with ourselves, but when we worship the Lord, we become occupied with Him, His beauty, and His goodness, and His angels surround us like a protective shield.

My ministry receives praise reports from people all over the world who, upon encountering His love for them personally through the preaching of the gospel, go on to be conscious of and full of thanksgiving for His goodness and grace upon their lives. Let me share with you a praise report from Sophia (who lives in Georgia, US), who’s also experienced the Lord’s intervention and protection.

Today, I read your devotional titled God’s Angels Are Watching Over You and was really encouraged. I recall an incident when my daughter and I were driving down the road behind an eighteen-wheeler when a vintage-looking car suddenly tried to get between our vehicle and the truck. I thought, “Why are you—” Right then, I heard a voice inside speak to me, asking me to be quiet. So I let the car squeeze in front of us. Immediately after I let the car in, one tire of the eighteen-wheeler blew. Surprisingly, the vintage car stayed in front of my car, taking the full impact of all the flying pieces of the exploded tire.

Once there were no more tire pieces coming from the truck, the vintage car returned to the left side of the road and drove off quickly. It then dawned on me that perhaps the driver of this car was an angel of the Lord. I was so encouraged to know that God protects us in these days and times!

Amen! When God gives His angels charge over you, they go ahead of you to guard and protect you from all sorts of danger. And yes, they may even choose to travel in vintage cars. Hebrews 13:2 says, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (KJV).