Tag: Christian stuffs

If we are supposed to seek first the kingdom of God every day (see Matthew 6:33), then we should know what the kingdom of God is in the first place. I used to think that the kingdom of God was the mission fields and that to seek it meant doing missionary work.

Then, I realized that the kingdom of God was not something outside you flowing in—“the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking,” but something inside you flowing out—“righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

So to seek first God’s kingdom means to make it a priority every day to have your inner man flowing with righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Righteousness is not your own righteousness based on what you do. It is not good works. It is a gift from Jesus who is your righteousness (see Romans 5:17, 1 Corinthians 1:30). God wants you to be established in the truth that you are the righteousness of God in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:21).

“Peace be with you” were the words that Jesus spoke to His disciples when He appeared before them after His resurrection. He also showed them His pierced hands and side. (John 20:19–20) God wants you to know that His Son’s finished work has given you peace. Your conscience can be at rest because your sin debt has been settled. You have peace with God and the peace of God.

Joy will come into your heart when you see Jesus in the scriptures, worship songs, or anointed preaching. It is the same joy from the Holy Spirit which filled the disciples’ hearts when they saw Jesus, His hands and His side (see John 20:20).

So every day, make it a priority to see yourself righteous in Christ. Don’t be conscious of your sins. Instead, be conscious of your righteousness. And whether you are reading your Bible or listening to anointed preaching, see Jesus with His pierced hands and side, which speak of His finished work. See all your sins forgiven, and you will flow with peace and joy. When you do this, you are seeking the kingdom of God!

Imagine yourself walking past the prodigal son sitting in the pigpen (see Luke 15:11–24). You look at him and see him salivating for the pigs’ food. Believing that it is good to show kindness, you give him money to buy food for himself.

That is human kindness which says, “I am a Christian. I should be kind, good and forgiving.” Such human sweetness or kindness may be likened to honey. Interestingly, while we elevate it, God tells His people not to bring Him a grain offering with honey in it.

The grain offering speaks of Jesus’ life on earth. Not mixing honey in the grain offering speaks of how the compassion and goodness we see in Jesus during His earthly ministry were all divine. There was no “honey” of human goodness, which is inevitably tainted with human weakness.

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In retrospect, the worst thing one could do for the prodigal son was to give him money when he was in the pigpen. Not only would he not have gone home, but what the Lord was doing in his heart would also have been spoiled. This is what happens when we go by the goodness of our human hearts instead of the goodness of God in our hearts, which is directed by His love, wisdom and perfect timing.

My friend, God does not want you to be moved by what you see but by His Spirit. There were many needy folks surrounding Jesus during His time on earth. But He did not heal every sick person around Him, feed every hungry stomach he passed or raise all who were dead. Isaiah 11:2–3 tells us that the Lord was not moved by what He saw or heard. He was moved only by the Spirit.

You too have the Spirit in you (see 1 Corinthians 3:16). Be moved by Him. Follow the peace that He puts within your spirit to do or refrain from doing something. That peace is the peace of God. Acting on that peace will cause God to be exalted, and His divine goodness and kindness to really be a blessing to you and others!

The Holy Spirit is not inside you to point out your faults or nag at you when you do wrong. God’s Word tells us that He is inside us to help us in our weaknesses. In areas where we are without strength, He is there to help us. When we don’t know what to pray, “the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

Now, don’t read the verse and say, “Well, I don’t know what I should pray for, and since the Holy Spirit makes intercession for me, I will leave the praying to Him.”

If the Holy Spirit, without our participation, makes intercession for us, then every Christian would be living victorious lives automatically! But we know that there are many Christians who don’t seem to be walking in the fullness of God’s blessings. So obviously, Romans 8:26 is not saying that. What is it saying then?

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In the first part of the verse, the word “helps” is sunantilambanomai in the original Greek text. It means “to take hold together against.” Now, “together” means that our participation is required. In other words, the Holy Spirit sunantilambanomai or takes hold together with us against the problem.

So if you just sit back and don’t take hold of the problem, the Holy Spirit has nothing to “take hold of” with you. If you don’t pray, He has nothing to plead. If you keep quiet, then even if He wants to pray through you, He can’t. But when you release your prayer in tongues, you are allowing Him to pray through you. And He will take hold together with you against the problem, and pray the perfect prayer through you because “He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27).

And you can be confident that when you ask anything according to the will of God, He hears you. And if you know that He hears you, whatever you ask, you know that you have the petitions that you have asked of Him (see 1 John 5:14–15)!

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Jesus tells us His bride, “You are all fair, My love, and there is no spot in you.” But our reply to Him tends to be, “Me? All fair and no spot? You don’t know me, Lord!”

Do you really think that God doesn’t know you?

God sees reality like no one else sees it. He sees the perfection of His Son’s finished work in your life. By one offering of Himself at the cross, Jesus has perfected you forever (see Hebrews 10:14)! You have been made the righteousness of God in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). And you will never find any spot in this righteousness that Jesus died to give you.

So God wants you to see yourself righteous—all fair and spotless in Christ. Every day, be conscious of your righteousness in Christ. Say, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ. There is no spot in me whom He has perfected with His blood.” When you do that, you are honoring Jesus and His finished work.

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If you are conscious of your sins, then you are not honoring the work of Christ. You may think that you are being humble or holy by being sin-conscious. But do you know that the Bible calls sin-consciousness an “evil conscience”?

Hebrews 10:21–22 tells us that since we have Jesus as our High Priest, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.” What does the writer of Hebrews mean by “an evil conscience”? If you read the beginning of the same chapter, you will find that he is talking about a “consciousness of sins” (see Hebrews 10:2). Paul calls it a “conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:2). The Greek word for “seared” here is kauteriazo, and it means to carry about with you a perpetual consciousness of sin.

So don’t carry with you evil or seared conscience. Your lifetime of sins has already been punished fully in the body of Jesus at the cross. Be conscious, instead, of your perfection and righteousness in Christ. Because of what Jesus has done for you, you can boldly declare, “I am all fair. There is no spot in me!”

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Every time you confess, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ,” God the Father is pleased. When you confess that you are the righteousness of God in Christ, it reminds Him of what His Son has done for you to become righteous.

Also, by making you righteous, God is showing Himself righteous—“to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

Each time Jesus hears you confess, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ,” it brings much pleasure to His heart too, because you are laying hold of what He suffered and died to give you.

The Holy Spirit, who now indwells you to convict you of righteousness (see John 16:10), also rejoices when you confess, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ.” He is pleased when you flow with Him.

The delight of the Godhead is not the only thing you gain when you declare, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ.” The Bible tells us that when you “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).

Whether it is food, clothing or other necessities in life, “all these things” will be added to you. They will not just be given to you but added to you as your inheritance when you seek first His righteousness.

You don’t need to use your faith for every single need in life. You just need to use your faith for one thing—to believe that you are the righteousness of God in Christ, and it will cause all the blessings you seek to come after you and overtake you!

-Joseph Prince

Come as you are to the Lord with your need, and lean on His unfailing and unconditional love for you. You don’t have to pretend to be more than what you are to receive the blessing you need from God. You don’t have to pretend to be someone else to appear more deserving to receive from God.

A Canaanite woman desperately seeking healing for her demon-possessed daughter came to Jesus (see Matthew 15:22–28). Knowing that He healed and did miracles among the Jews, she pretended to be a Jew, calling out, “O Lord, Son of David!” (Only the Jews addressed Jesus as the “Son of David.”) Jesus did not answer her. His silence made her drop her pretense and cry out, “Lord, help me!”

Only when her pretenses had melted away did she see the grace of God extended to her. Jesus made a way for her to receive her miracle even though it was not yet time for the Gentiles to receive His blessings. He told her, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

Many people might be offended at being called a “dog.” Actually, the Greek word used here by Jesus means “puppy,” and is thus an affectionate rather than an offensive term. So this woman was not offended. In fact, she knew then that she could receive healing for her daughter because even puppies get to eat what falls from their masters’ table.

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She saw that the crumbs under the Master’s table were enough for a Gentile, a “little dog,” like herself. You must understand that the Jews then considered Gentiles dogs. But what Jesus was trying to say was that He was called to the Jews first, not the Gentiles. Yet, He loved this Gentile woman and her daughter enough to provide a “loophole” for them to receive their miracle.

So when the Canaanite woman took her place by dropping the title “Son of David” and just leaned on Jesus’ compassion for her, her daughter was healed from that very hour.

If God was willing to extend His grace to a Gentile, how much more you, His beloved child! You do not need to depend on pretensions to receive a miracle from Him. Come as you are and lean on His grace. If He has delivered Jesus up for us, “how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

-Joseph Prince

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Are you faced with challenges in your life right now? Are you having marital problems and financial woes? Maybe your child is going astray, or an old illness has returned. What then will you say to all these things?

Do you know what God wants you to say? He wants you to say, “If God is for me, who can be against me?”

If you knew that the President or the Prime Minister was for you, you might believe that everything will be okay. But you have an even better backing! The Bible tells us that God, the Almighty, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, is for you! What problem can fasten its grip on you when the Almighty God is for you? Can the devil come successfully against you with God on your side?

If God is for you today, if God is for you right now, you don’t have to moan, “If only I had this…If only I didn’t say that…” And you don’t have to worry about the future: “What if this happens…What if we don’t have enough…” My friend, regretting the past and worrying about the future, won’t change anything. Look to your heavenly Father, instead. Because He is for you at this present moment, you can be confident that He will help you and provide for you.

Beloved, God sent His Son to die for you. And Jesus gave you a blood-bought right to an abundant life full of meaning and purpose! He gave you a blood-bought right to walk in divine health all the days of your life! He gave you a blood-bought right to His supply even when the economy goes down!

You have all these things not because you deserve them, but because Jesus shed His blood and gave you the right to have them. All these blessings are yours today because God is for you! And if God is for you, who can be against you!