Dear friends,
Do you know how many believers today have a confused perspective of God? What would cause believers to think that God is sometimes angry with them, but at other times pleased with them? Why would some believers think that their heavenly Father would actually punish them with sicknesses and diseases when it would be unthinkable for them to inflict such draconian measures on their own children? What causes such confusion in the body of Christ today? This confusion stems from what is called “Galatianism.”
Galatianism is essentially a mixture of covenants. It is the intermingling of teaching about God which contains a little bit of the law and a little bit of grace. The church in Galatia was struggling with this, and from the severity of Apostle Paul’s tone to the Galatians, it is obvious that he regarded this issue very serious. You will never find Paul saying to the believers in the church of Corinth, “O foolish Corinthians!” Yet, we know that the church in Corinth was in a mess. The people there were involved in all kinds of outward sins. They were in strife, envy, and jealousy, and some of them were even going to temple prostitutes. They were believers suing one another in court. The people were also misusing the gifts of the Spirit. All in all, there were all kinds of immoral activities going on in the church of Corinth. Yet, not once did Paul call them “foolish Corinthians”, or in our modern term, “STUPID Corinthians!” Search your Bible. You won’t find even one instance. On the contrary, Paul affirmed the Corinthians and told them, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1: 9)” He spoke positively to them, assuring them that they “come short in no gift (1 Corinthians 1: 7-8)” and that they would be confirmed to the end, and “be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1: 7-8)”. Isn’t that amazing?
Wrong Doctrine Is Worse Than Wrong Behaviour
Now, notice the stark contrast between Paul’s treatment of the Corinthians church and the Galatian church. To the church in Galatia, he said, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you …? (Galatians 3: 1)” Further on, he says again, “Are you so foolish? .. (Galatians 3: 3)” Paul was angry! He was upset with what was happening in Galatia and he made it clear that he was not happy at all with the Galatians. Most people would expect Paul to be more upset with the believers in Corinth, but he was not. His intense reaction towards the church in Galatia reveals what is of priority to God. It is clear that in God’s eyes, believing the wrong doctrine is worse than exhibiting wrong behavior!
In case you did not get it the first time, let me say it again: To God, wrong doctrine is far worse than wrong behavior. When it came to wrong behavior in Corinth, Paul was cool and collected towards the believers. He was able to handle their wrong behavior because he knew that the grace of God was able to their spree of wrong behavior. That’s why he was able to speak positively to them, even telling them, “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Jesus Christ… (1 Corinthians 1: 4).” But when it came to the wrong doctrine in Galatia, he rebuked the believers there because they nullified God’s grace by mixing it with the law. In the very first chapter of the book of Galatians, Paul says, “I marvel… (Galatians 1: 6)” or as you and I would say today, “I am appalled …” What appalled him? Paul continues: “I marveled that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ (Galatians 1: 6-7)”
Paul was angry because the Galatians were turning away from the “grace of Christ” to a “different gospel”, and because there were some people who wanted to “pervert the gospel of Christ.” Paul had preached the gospel of grace to the Galatians, but there were Judaizers who introduced elements of the law to them, mixing God’s grace with the law. Do not belittle this problem. It was a serious problem and it made Paul very angry. Since Paul was full of the Holy Spirit and his anger was Spirit-inspired, it would benefit us to really understand why the mixture of law and grace angered him.
Allowing Mixture Perverts The Gospel Of Christ
Paul was very firm with the Galatians. By allowing the grace to be mixed with the law, the Galatians had perverted the gospel of Christ. Paul had preached the gospel of grace to them, but after he left, some Judaizers came and told them lies like, “Yes, it is good that you are saved by grace, but it is not enough for you to just have Jesus. You must also know and abide by the law of Moses to be pleasing to God.” In essence, they were saying, “Grace is good, but grace must be balanced with the law.” So they taught the Galatians things like the Ten Commandments and told them that they had to be circumcised. Paul’s response was to pronounce a “double curse” (Galatians 1: 8-9) on those who preached the false gospel to the Galatians! His tough stance towards those who preached “mixture” represents the heart of God today.
You Cannot Balance Grace With Law
I believe in grace while some of you may believe that you must also keep the law to be justified. Does it really matter? Well, it mattered enough to Paul for him to pronounce the double curse. Many believers do not think that it is not a serious matter to have mixture. But our response to the mixture of law and grace should be in alignment with Paul’s – he was appalled that the Galatians were mixing law and grace.
In most places today, the problem is not “pure law”. You will not find pure law in Christian churches. What you will find in many places today is a mixture od law and grace. You will hear teachings that combined the old and new covenants. You will hear things like, “Yes, you are saved by grace, but now that you are saved, you had better not take it for granted. You have to start living a holy life by keeping the Ten Commandments.” You may also hear thing like, “Law and grace must be balanced. They are like the guard rails on each side of the highway that will keep cars from going to the ditches. After you are saved by grace, you need the law to keep you from lawlessness.” This is called mixture – you have a little bit of grace and a little bit of law. Many believers think that this – balancing the law and grace – is all right. However, what man calls balance, God calls mixture.
You cannot balance law and grace. Your justification is either entirely a work of His grace or it is by your own work. His grace will be nullified when you add even a little mixture of man’s own effort to be justified. This is mixture, and God hates mixture.
While most people have no problem with agreeing that they have been saved by grace, they are nevertheless still subjecting themselves to the law. They are depending on the “work of the law” or their obedience to the law to earn, merit, and deserve God’s blessings. When they do well in their own estimation, they expect to be blessed. But when they fall short and fail, they heap on themselves guilt and condemnation and expect to be punished.
In the new covenant, God does not want us to be blessed when we obey the law and cursed when we fail. Doesn’t such a system sound awfully similar to the old covenant (Deuteronomy 28)? Grace is the undeserved, unmerited and unearned favour of God – the moment you try to merit the free favours of God, His grace is nullified. In the new covenant, God wants us to be blessed on account of His Son and what He did on the cross. It has nothing to do with our performance or ability to keep the law. Those trying to be justified by their law-keeping still have an old covenant mentality, even if they profess that they are in the new covenant. They have reverted to the old system that was based on works and obedience, rather than trusting in the new system that is based on faith and believing. When you mix the old and new covenants, i.e., law and grace, you lose both and the benefits of the two covenants are nullified. How do we know this. Let us look what Jesus said in Mark 2: 22, “And no one puts new wine into old wineskin, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.” The new wine represents the new covenant of grace, while the old wineskins represent the old covenant of law. Old wineskins are brittle, hard and inflexible, like the law. When you pour the new wine of grace into the old wineskins of the law, you will lose both because the wineskins will be ruined and the wine will be spilled.
I can’t understand why many believers are still trying to balance law and grace. If you are for the law, be for the law completely. If you are for grace, then be for grace completely. It is impossible to balance the two of them! That’s why Jesus also said in Revelation 3: 15-16: “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” For years, I have heard preachers preaching that in Revelation 3: 15-16, Jesus was referring to people who are not “red-hot for Jesus.” Have you heard that expression before? What does “red-hot for Jesus” means? Traditionally, we have been taught that it means reading 10 chapters of Bible daily, witnessing to your colleagues at work, attending all prayer meetings, etc. To be cold means just the opposite. The verse has always been preached as though it were about our actions and behavior. However, it wouldn’t make sense if He was referring to actions and behavior, because wouldn’t being lukewarm for Jesus still better than being completely cold? So, why would Jesus want the church of Laodicea to be cold (if they were not hot), rather than lukewarm?
Be Hot Or Cold, Not Lukewarm
So, what do Revelation 3: 15-16 really mean? The two verses only make sense when they are interpreted in the light of the mixture of the covenants of law and grace. Jesus was saying that He would the church in Laodicea be cold (entirely under law) or hot (entirely under grace). You see, even if you were at least completely under the law, it would lead you to despair and into the saving arms of Jesus. The law would unveil to you your sinfulness and inability to keep the full measure of it, and this would cause you to see your need for His grace. But, when you have mixture, where you believe in grace but still hold on to the law, you neutralize the convicting power of the law to bring you to the end of yourself so you will cry out for the grace of the Saviour. That is why you cannot be cold and hot at the same time, or be for both law and grace at the same time. The moment you try to balance grace with the law, you neutralize both, and each covenant is robbed of its full effect in your life. You become lukewarm because of the mixture, and God hates mixture because it robs you of the power to reign in life through the abundance of His grace.
Amen!
Dedo Suwanda
From "Destined To Reign" by Joseph Prince
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Destined To Reign – Part 13 – The Key To Effortless Victorious Living
Dear friends,
People are afraid to preach the gospel of grace because they think if they preach grace, believers will go out and sin. They seem to have more confidence in man’s flesh to keep the law than in the power of cross. Yet, it is not grace that stirs up sin, but it is the law! (Romans 7: 7-8) Don’t forget that after Israel boasted to God, “All the Lord has spoken we will do (Exodus 19: 8)”, they broke the very first commandment and made a golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. Have you ever read, “the strength of sin is the law?” The more you try to keep the law and not sin, the worse it becomes. The more you try not to sin, the more conscious you will be of sin.
Self Effort Results In Defeat
Imagine a man who knows that he has a problem with lust. When he gets up in the morning, he tells the Lord, “Lord, give me victory today. Help me not to lust after women. I do not want to lust, so help me not to lust today. I will not lust. I will not…” But the moment he steps out of his apartment and sees someone walking in a skirt, what do you think would be his first thought? It would be a lustful thought! The more he tries not to lust, the more his mind is occupied with lust.
Effortless Victorious Living
Let’s take another Christian who has a problem with lust. But this Christian believes in grace, so when he wakes up, he tells the Lord, “Lord, I am not even going to try today. I know that I cannot overcome this on my own. Lord, I rest in you. You live the victorious life for me. I cannot overcome lust by my own strength. My eyes are on You. Even though I cannot, I know that You can. Thank You for Your grace.” Then he leaves home and goes to work. As he is driving, he sees a huge billboard showing a woman in bikini. When he feels tempted to lust, he says, “Thank you, Father, I am the righteousness of God in Christ. I know that You are here with me. I have not lost your presence. Even when I fail, You are with me. Thank you for Your grace.” The temptation comes and the temptation goes. He does not lament, “O God, why is this happening again? Please forgive me, Lord!” because he knows that the more he confesses and focuses on his weakness, the worse it becomes. Do you know what people who believe in confessing their sins in order to be forgiven usually do? Many times, they would say to themselves, “I will save my confessions for tonight. In the meantime, since I am already guilty of lust, let me watch this raunchy movie and indulge in this men’s magazine. I will compile these sins and confess them all at the end of the day.”
You see, people who are living under guilt and condemnation are doomed to repeat their sins. They think that since the fellowship with God has already been broken, they might as well go all the way and indulge their weaknesses before they reconcile themselves with God. On the other hand, believers under grace know that they are always righteous and that fellowship with God is never broken. Even when they fail, they know that Jesus is still with them. They know that righteousness is a gift and the Holy Spirit is present to convict them of their righteousness in Christ. The more they believe that they are righteous, the more they experience true victory over sin. Right believing always produces right living.
My friend, every once in a while, you will be tempted to sin. But while the law only stirs up your flesh to be more aware of sin, grace gives you the power to be effortlessly victorious over sin. That’s why Apostle Paul said, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6: 14)”. When you put yourself under the law, the moment you are tempted, you condemn yourself, and in that state of guilt and condemnation, you are more likely to follow through with that temptation and sin. However, when you put yourself under the grace of God, the moment you are tempted, you receive a fresh dose of His grace and His forgiveness. You will see yourself righteous, and this gives you the power to rise above the temptation. Apostle Paul said, “Awake to righteousness, and sin not. (1 Corinthians 15: 34)”. When you believe that you are righteous even when you sin, your thoughts and actions will come in alignment with your believing. In contrast, believers who do not know that they are righteous (even when they sin will remain in their cycle of sin.
Right Believing Leads To The Right Living
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, probably the first pastor ever to build a mega-church in London, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, said, “No doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who have called it a “licentious (to sin) doctrine” did not know anything at all about it. Poor ignorant things, they little knew that their own vile stuff was the most licentious doctrine under heaven….There is nothing like a belief in my eternal perseverance, and the immutability of my Father’s affection (love), which can keep me near Him from a motive of simple gratitude. Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth. … A man cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. Of all men, those have the most disinterested piety, the sublimest reverence, the most ardent devotion, who believe they are saved by grace, without works, through faith, and not of themselves, it is the gift of God.”
Spurgeon was saying that if your behavior is wrong, it is because there is something wrong with your belief. Right believing leads to the right living. The grace of God is the power to preserve you from sin. Believe that you are righteous because of the blood of Jesus, and the result of such belief will be righteous thoughts and actions.
Victory In Your Though Life
In the Song of Solomon, Solomon said, “Your temples … are like a piece of pomegranate. (Song of Solomon 4: 3)” The temples are a reference to the head. The Bible actually compares your head to a pomegranate. When you open a pomegranate in half, you will find that it is filled with white seeds in a beautiful red liquid.
Now, it is a very powerful picture for you to have if you want victory over your thought life. You may be struggling with temptations, lustful and angry thoughts, or thoughts of guilt and condemnation, but the Lord wants you to have victory over these battles in your mind. He wants you to picture your head like a pomegranate. The rich, red liquid is a picture of the blood of Jesus, and the many seeds is a picture of your thoughts. The blood of Jesus is constantly washing and cleansing your thoughts. Your thoughts are under a constant waterfall of cleansing and forgiveness. When the Bible declares in 1 John 1: 7 that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, the tense here in Greek for the word “cleanses” denotes a present and continuous action. This means that the blood of Jesus never ceases to cleanse your thoughts. Even right now, your thoughts of guilt and condemnation are being washed away. Angry and lustful thoughts are being washed away. All manner of temptation is being washed away. The moment you think a bad thought, it is being washed away. The problem with believers today is that they think, I am a Christian, so how can I have such terrible thoughts?
Listen carefully: You cannot stop birds from flying over your head, but you can certainly stop them from building a nest on your head! You cannot stop your flesh and the devil from putting negative thoughts and temptations in your mind. But you can have victory over your thought lifeby seeing that all your thoughts are continually being cleansed by the blood of Jesus. His redemptive work is your victory over your thought life.
Amen!
Dedo Suwanda
From "Destined to Reign" by Joseph Prince
People are afraid to preach the gospel of grace because they think if they preach grace, believers will go out and sin. They seem to have more confidence in man’s flesh to keep the law than in the power of cross. Yet, it is not grace that stirs up sin, but it is the law! (Romans 7: 7-8) Don’t forget that after Israel boasted to God, “All the Lord has spoken we will do (Exodus 19: 8)”, they broke the very first commandment and made a golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. Have you ever read, “the strength of sin is the law?” The more you try to keep the law and not sin, the worse it becomes. The more you try not to sin, the more conscious you will be of sin.
Self Effort Results In Defeat
Imagine a man who knows that he has a problem with lust. When he gets up in the morning, he tells the Lord, “Lord, give me victory today. Help me not to lust after women. I do not want to lust, so help me not to lust today. I will not lust. I will not…” But the moment he steps out of his apartment and sees someone walking in a skirt, what do you think would be his first thought? It would be a lustful thought! The more he tries not to lust, the more his mind is occupied with lust.
Effortless Victorious Living
Let’s take another Christian who has a problem with lust. But this Christian believes in grace, so when he wakes up, he tells the Lord, “Lord, I am not even going to try today. I know that I cannot overcome this on my own. Lord, I rest in you. You live the victorious life for me. I cannot overcome lust by my own strength. My eyes are on You. Even though I cannot, I know that You can. Thank You for Your grace.” Then he leaves home and goes to work. As he is driving, he sees a huge billboard showing a woman in bikini. When he feels tempted to lust, he says, “Thank you, Father, I am the righteousness of God in Christ. I know that You are here with me. I have not lost your presence. Even when I fail, You are with me. Thank you for Your grace.” The temptation comes and the temptation goes. He does not lament, “O God, why is this happening again? Please forgive me, Lord!” because he knows that the more he confesses and focuses on his weakness, the worse it becomes. Do you know what people who believe in confessing their sins in order to be forgiven usually do? Many times, they would say to themselves, “I will save my confessions for tonight. In the meantime, since I am already guilty of lust, let me watch this raunchy movie and indulge in this men’s magazine. I will compile these sins and confess them all at the end of the day.”
You see, people who are living under guilt and condemnation are doomed to repeat their sins. They think that since the fellowship with God has already been broken, they might as well go all the way and indulge their weaknesses before they reconcile themselves with God. On the other hand, believers under grace know that they are always righteous and that fellowship with God is never broken. Even when they fail, they know that Jesus is still with them. They know that righteousness is a gift and the Holy Spirit is present to convict them of their righteousness in Christ. The more they believe that they are righteous, the more they experience true victory over sin. Right believing always produces right living.
My friend, every once in a while, you will be tempted to sin. But while the law only stirs up your flesh to be more aware of sin, grace gives you the power to be effortlessly victorious over sin. That’s why Apostle Paul said, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6: 14)”. When you put yourself under the law, the moment you are tempted, you condemn yourself, and in that state of guilt and condemnation, you are more likely to follow through with that temptation and sin. However, when you put yourself under the grace of God, the moment you are tempted, you receive a fresh dose of His grace and His forgiveness. You will see yourself righteous, and this gives you the power to rise above the temptation. Apostle Paul said, “Awake to righteousness, and sin not. (1 Corinthians 15: 34)”. When you believe that you are righteous even when you sin, your thoughts and actions will come in alignment with your believing. In contrast, believers who do not know that they are righteous (even when they sin will remain in their cycle of sin.
Right Believing Leads To The Right Living
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, probably the first pastor ever to build a mega-church in London, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, said, “No doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who have called it a “licentious (to sin) doctrine” did not know anything at all about it. Poor ignorant things, they little knew that their own vile stuff was the most licentious doctrine under heaven….There is nothing like a belief in my eternal perseverance, and the immutability of my Father’s affection (love), which can keep me near Him from a motive of simple gratitude. Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth. … A man cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. Of all men, those have the most disinterested piety, the sublimest reverence, the most ardent devotion, who believe they are saved by grace, without works, through faith, and not of themselves, it is the gift of God.”
Spurgeon was saying that if your behavior is wrong, it is because there is something wrong with your belief. Right believing leads to the right living. The grace of God is the power to preserve you from sin. Believe that you are righteous because of the blood of Jesus, and the result of such belief will be righteous thoughts and actions.
Victory In Your Though Life
In the Song of Solomon, Solomon said, “Your temples … are like a piece of pomegranate. (Song of Solomon 4: 3)” The temples are a reference to the head. The Bible actually compares your head to a pomegranate. When you open a pomegranate in half, you will find that it is filled with white seeds in a beautiful red liquid.
Now, it is a very powerful picture for you to have if you want victory over your thought life. You may be struggling with temptations, lustful and angry thoughts, or thoughts of guilt and condemnation, but the Lord wants you to have victory over these battles in your mind. He wants you to picture your head like a pomegranate. The rich, red liquid is a picture of the blood of Jesus, and the many seeds is a picture of your thoughts. The blood of Jesus is constantly washing and cleansing your thoughts. Your thoughts are under a constant waterfall of cleansing and forgiveness. When the Bible declares in 1 John 1: 7 that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, the tense here in Greek for the word “cleanses” denotes a present and continuous action. This means that the blood of Jesus never ceases to cleanse your thoughts. Even right now, your thoughts of guilt and condemnation are being washed away. Angry and lustful thoughts are being washed away. All manner of temptation is being washed away. The moment you think a bad thought, it is being washed away. The problem with believers today is that they think, I am a Christian, so how can I have such terrible thoughts?
Listen carefully: You cannot stop birds from flying over your head, but you can certainly stop them from building a nest on your head! You cannot stop your flesh and the devil from putting negative thoughts and temptations in your mind. But you can have victory over your thought lifeby seeing that all your thoughts are continually being cleansed by the blood of Jesus. His redemptive work is your victory over your thought life.
Amen!
Dedo Suwanda
From "Destined to Reign" by Joseph Prince
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Destined To Reign – Part 12 – One Thing You Lack
Dear friends,
Are you struggling to live the Christian life today? Your rest is found at the cross of Jesus. If you want to find an effortless success, then, realize that it is no longer about you doing this or that right. It is about depending on what Jesus has done for you. Look at what man’s own doing has produced. Has any good come from his own effort to keep the law of Moses? When man boasted in the law, the next thing we saw was a golden calf.
God’s goodness Leads Us To Repentance
Some people argue that we have to preach God’s law and His judgment, or there will be no repentance from the people. My friend, God’s heart is never to condemn. Most people want judgment, but God wants mercy. The Bible says that “the goodness of God leads to repentance” (Romans 2: 4). Do you know how Jesus transformed a foul-mouthed fisherman like Peter? Being a fisherman, Peter was probably a very rough guy. So how did Jesus bring him to his knees? Was it by preaching a hard sermon on the law of Moses? No! Jesus blessed Peter with a boat-sinking, net-breaking load of fish, and when Peter saw God’s goodness, he bowed down at Jesus’ feet and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5: 8) Now, pay a close attention here. Which came first – Peter’s repentance or the goodness of God? Clearly, the goodness of God came first. It is truly the goodness of God that leads us to repentance!
Nevertheless, there are still people who insist that we have to preach on repentance. Well, I disagree! I think we should do it God’s way – preach the goodness of God and allow the goodness of God lead people to repentance. Such repentance will be true repentance. It will not be a repentance that is motivated by the fear of judgment and indignation. It will be a genuine repentance that is motivated by His grace, unconditional love, and compassion. After all, our ability to love God stems from our first tasting His love for us. It is when we experience His love for us that we can respond with our love for Him. The Bible says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” (1 John 4: 19)
Do you know how the Word of God defines love? Apostle John said in 1 John 4: 10, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” This is the Bible’s definition of love. It is not about our love for Him, but rather His perfect love for us. As opposed to conventional belief, true repentance from the heart results from a revelation of God’s immense and unyielding love. When Peter saw Jesus’ goodness and love, he fell to his knees in total surrender to Jesus. We must let people come to church to enjoy God’s goodness because when they are impacted by His grace, then repentance, holiness and godliness will surely follow. You cannot separate grace from holiness. In the same way you cannot be under the sun without getting a tan, you cannot be under grace without becoming holy.
Time To Change Your Mind
Do you know what the word “repent” means in the first place? The word repent is the Greek word “metanoeo”, which means “to change one’s mind”. However, due to the influence of our religious upbringing, many of us have the impression that repentance is something that involves mourning and sorrow. The Word of God simply says that “repentance means changing your mind. When John the Baptist said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” he was essentially saying, “Change your mind, for the kingdom of God is at hand!” Every time we sit under the anointed preaching of God’s Word, repentance is still occurring – because our minds are being changed (transformed) through the preaching of the gospel. As we hear the gospel of Jesus being preached, we are changing our minds about our old beliefs that held us in bondage and receiving the truth that liberates us. Even as you are reading this devotional, repentance is going on because you are renewing your mind with the good news of Jesus. You are becoming more and more conscious of His finished work and your righteousness in Christ. You begin to receive the revelation that you are no longer under the old covenant, but are now under the new covenant of grace. He Bible calls that repentance!
Repentance From Dead Works
Believers are often exhorted to repent from sin. However in the New Testament, we are actually exhorted to repent from dead works. You see, sin is simply the fruit, but dead works are the root. It says in the book of Hebrews that the foundation stone of our faith is “repentance from dead works and of faith toward God” (Hebrews 6: 1) Now, “dead works” are not sins. They are the religious things that people do, thinking that by doing these things, they are gaining righteousness with God. If you pray or fast because you think that praying or fasting make you right with God, that’s a dead work. But if you pray or fast because you are right with God and you know that He loves you, there is power there. Can you see the difference? It is the same activity – prayer or fasting – but the basis and motivation for doing it are completely different. One is dead work while the other is living work by grace.
My friend, have you repented from dead works? Jesus said in Matthew 3: 2, “Repent, and believe in the gospel.” In other words, He was saying to the Jews of His time, “Change your mind and believe the good news – I will shed My blood, and through my suffering and passion, all your sins will be forgiven!” If you are still living under the law and depending on your own efforts to qualify yourself and please God, it is time to repent (change your mind) from dead works and believe the gospel (good news)!
One Thing You Lack
I want to show you two stories in the Bible that effectively contrast law and grace. These stories are found in Luke 18 and Luke 19. In Luke 18: 18-23, we have the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Now think about this for a moment. What should the right evangelical answer be? The right evangelical answer should be, “Believe in Me and you will inherit eternal life.” But that was not what Jesus said to him. Instead, Jesus gave him the law of Moses, saying, “You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery’, ‘Do not murder’, ‘Do not steal’, ‘Do not bear false witness’, ‘Honor your father and your mother’” Jesus gave him the Ten Commandments. Why? Because the young ruler came with pride, believing that he could do something to earn and deserve eternal life. Whenever you come boasting in your efforts, Jesus will give you the law of Moses.
Now, listen what the young man said in response to Jesus: “All these things I have kept from my youth.” Amazing! This man actually claimed that he had kept all the Ten Commandments from his youth! Like the Pharisees, some people really think that they are able to keep all the laws of Moses, not knowing that they have lowered God’s law to a place where they think they can keep it. Jesus came to bring the law back to its pristine standard – not only must there be an outward adherence to the law, there must also be an inward adherence. Jesus showed that God’s law is beyond man’s own efforts. The young man was probably expecting Jesus to compliment him on his law-keeping and was feeling really confident on himself. But notice what Jesus said to him, “One thing you still lack.”
You see, every time you boast in your law-keeping. Jesus will find something that you lack. In this case, He told the young man to sell all that he had, give it to the poor, and follow Him. The young man boasted that he had kept all the commandments, but now Jesus was giving him the very first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (not even money), and look what happened. The young ruler walked away, sorrowful. He was not even able to give one dollar to the Lord!
Think about the amazing privilege to follow Jesus. Jesus gave the man an opportunity to follow Him, but the man could not because he could not bear to part with his wealth. In all his boasting, he could not even keep the first commandment. My friend, if you go to the Lord full of self-righteousness, boasting in your ability to keep the law, He will show you that, according to the Law, there is “one thing you lack.”
Grace Opens Your Heart
Now, let us go over to Luke 19: 1-10. Jesus walked into Jericho and a crowd gathered to see Him. Then, as He passed by a sycamore tree, He looked up and saw Zacchaeus – short, little Zacchaeus who had climbed the tree hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus as He walked by. He was a corrupt tax collector, a sinner. But, instead of giving him the Ten Commandments, Jesus showed him grace (undeserved favor) and invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ house. Of course, the people in the crowd were displeased and they said, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.”
Now, observe what happened at Zacchaeus’ house. Before the dinner was over, Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” Jesus smiled at Zacchaeus and said, “Today, salvation has come to this house.”
I believe it was the Holy Spirit who put these two stories side by side. I don’t believe that they happened chronologically. I believe that the Holy Spirit placed them in this divine order to show us the contrasting effects of being under the covenant of law, and being under the covenant of grace. When the rich young ruler came boasting in his law-keeping, Jesus answered with the law. And the young man could hardly give a dollar to Jesus and walked away sorrowful. But, in the very next chapter, when Jesus gave no law but showed his grace, it not only opened Zacchaeus’ heart, it also opened up his wallet. Can you imagine this? It opened up the wallet of a corrupt tax collector. That’s truly the power of grace! It leads only to true repentance. When you experience His grace, you can’t help but be generous.
Our heavenly Father is waiting for us to give up on our own efforts. The moment you begin to “repent” from all the dead works that you have been doing to try to qualify for and deserve God’s acceptance and blessings, God will lavish on you His abundant grace – His undeserved, unearned, and unmerited favor.
God Is After Inward Heart Transformation
You may ask, “If I give up on keeping the law of Moses, what is going to govern my behavior and ensure that it is acceptable to God?” You do not have to worry about how your behavior will be governed without a consciousness of the law. The Word of God says that grace will teach you – “For the grace of God … has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts …” (Titus 2: 11-12) Grace is a teacher and it taught Zacchaeus. Do you remember his response after he experienced the abundance of grace? He said, “I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” It is grace that leads people to true repentance. Grace does not result in superficial behavior modification, but inward heart transformation.
God bless.
Dedo Suwanda
Taken from "destine To Reign" by Joseph Prince
Are you struggling to live the Christian life today? Your rest is found at the cross of Jesus. If you want to find an effortless success, then, realize that it is no longer about you doing this or that right. It is about depending on what Jesus has done for you. Look at what man’s own doing has produced. Has any good come from his own effort to keep the law of Moses? When man boasted in the law, the next thing we saw was a golden calf.
God’s goodness Leads Us To Repentance
Some people argue that we have to preach God’s law and His judgment, or there will be no repentance from the people. My friend, God’s heart is never to condemn. Most people want judgment, but God wants mercy. The Bible says that “the goodness of God leads to repentance” (Romans 2: 4). Do you know how Jesus transformed a foul-mouthed fisherman like Peter? Being a fisherman, Peter was probably a very rough guy. So how did Jesus bring him to his knees? Was it by preaching a hard sermon on the law of Moses? No! Jesus blessed Peter with a boat-sinking, net-breaking load of fish, and when Peter saw God’s goodness, he bowed down at Jesus’ feet and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5: 8) Now, pay a close attention here. Which came first – Peter’s repentance or the goodness of God? Clearly, the goodness of God came first. It is truly the goodness of God that leads us to repentance!
Nevertheless, there are still people who insist that we have to preach on repentance. Well, I disagree! I think we should do it God’s way – preach the goodness of God and allow the goodness of God lead people to repentance. Such repentance will be true repentance. It will not be a repentance that is motivated by the fear of judgment and indignation. It will be a genuine repentance that is motivated by His grace, unconditional love, and compassion. After all, our ability to love God stems from our first tasting His love for us. It is when we experience His love for us that we can respond with our love for Him. The Bible says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” (1 John 4: 19)
Do you know how the Word of God defines love? Apostle John said in 1 John 4: 10, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” This is the Bible’s definition of love. It is not about our love for Him, but rather His perfect love for us. As opposed to conventional belief, true repentance from the heart results from a revelation of God’s immense and unyielding love. When Peter saw Jesus’ goodness and love, he fell to his knees in total surrender to Jesus. We must let people come to church to enjoy God’s goodness because when they are impacted by His grace, then repentance, holiness and godliness will surely follow. You cannot separate grace from holiness. In the same way you cannot be under the sun without getting a tan, you cannot be under grace without becoming holy.
Time To Change Your Mind
Do you know what the word “repent” means in the first place? The word repent is the Greek word “metanoeo”, which means “to change one’s mind”. However, due to the influence of our religious upbringing, many of us have the impression that repentance is something that involves mourning and sorrow. The Word of God simply says that “repentance means changing your mind. When John the Baptist said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” he was essentially saying, “Change your mind, for the kingdom of God is at hand!” Every time we sit under the anointed preaching of God’s Word, repentance is still occurring – because our minds are being changed (transformed) through the preaching of the gospel. As we hear the gospel of Jesus being preached, we are changing our minds about our old beliefs that held us in bondage and receiving the truth that liberates us. Even as you are reading this devotional, repentance is going on because you are renewing your mind with the good news of Jesus. You are becoming more and more conscious of His finished work and your righteousness in Christ. You begin to receive the revelation that you are no longer under the old covenant, but are now under the new covenant of grace. He Bible calls that repentance!
Repentance From Dead Works
Believers are often exhorted to repent from sin. However in the New Testament, we are actually exhorted to repent from dead works. You see, sin is simply the fruit, but dead works are the root. It says in the book of Hebrews that the foundation stone of our faith is “repentance from dead works and of faith toward God” (Hebrews 6: 1) Now, “dead works” are not sins. They are the religious things that people do, thinking that by doing these things, they are gaining righteousness with God. If you pray or fast because you think that praying or fasting make you right with God, that’s a dead work. But if you pray or fast because you are right with God and you know that He loves you, there is power there. Can you see the difference? It is the same activity – prayer or fasting – but the basis and motivation for doing it are completely different. One is dead work while the other is living work by grace.
My friend, have you repented from dead works? Jesus said in Matthew 3: 2, “Repent, and believe in the gospel.” In other words, He was saying to the Jews of His time, “Change your mind and believe the good news – I will shed My blood, and through my suffering and passion, all your sins will be forgiven!” If you are still living under the law and depending on your own efforts to qualify yourself and please God, it is time to repent (change your mind) from dead works and believe the gospel (good news)!
One Thing You Lack
I want to show you two stories in the Bible that effectively contrast law and grace. These stories are found in Luke 18 and Luke 19. In Luke 18: 18-23, we have the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Now think about this for a moment. What should the right evangelical answer be? The right evangelical answer should be, “Believe in Me and you will inherit eternal life.” But that was not what Jesus said to him. Instead, Jesus gave him the law of Moses, saying, “You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery’, ‘Do not murder’, ‘Do not steal’, ‘Do not bear false witness’, ‘Honor your father and your mother’” Jesus gave him the Ten Commandments. Why? Because the young ruler came with pride, believing that he could do something to earn and deserve eternal life. Whenever you come boasting in your efforts, Jesus will give you the law of Moses.
Now, listen what the young man said in response to Jesus: “All these things I have kept from my youth.” Amazing! This man actually claimed that he had kept all the Ten Commandments from his youth! Like the Pharisees, some people really think that they are able to keep all the laws of Moses, not knowing that they have lowered God’s law to a place where they think they can keep it. Jesus came to bring the law back to its pristine standard – not only must there be an outward adherence to the law, there must also be an inward adherence. Jesus showed that God’s law is beyond man’s own efforts. The young man was probably expecting Jesus to compliment him on his law-keeping and was feeling really confident on himself. But notice what Jesus said to him, “One thing you still lack.”
You see, every time you boast in your law-keeping. Jesus will find something that you lack. In this case, He told the young man to sell all that he had, give it to the poor, and follow Him. The young man boasted that he had kept all the commandments, but now Jesus was giving him the very first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (not even money), and look what happened. The young ruler walked away, sorrowful. He was not even able to give one dollar to the Lord!
Think about the amazing privilege to follow Jesus. Jesus gave the man an opportunity to follow Him, but the man could not because he could not bear to part with his wealth. In all his boasting, he could not even keep the first commandment. My friend, if you go to the Lord full of self-righteousness, boasting in your ability to keep the law, He will show you that, according to the Law, there is “one thing you lack.”
Grace Opens Your Heart
Now, let us go over to Luke 19: 1-10. Jesus walked into Jericho and a crowd gathered to see Him. Then, as He passed by a sycamore tree, He looked up and saw Zacchaeus – short, little Zacchaeus who had climbed the tree hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus as He walked by. He was a corrupt tax collector, a sinner. But, instead of giving him the Ten Commandments, Jesus showed him grace (undeserved favor) and invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ house. Of course, the people in the crowd were displeased and they said, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.”
Now, observe what happened at Zacchaeus’ house. Before the dinner was over, Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” Jesus smiled at Zacchaeus and said, “Today, salvation has come to this house.”
I believe it was the Holy Spirit who put these two stories side by side. I don’t believe that they happened chronologically. I believe that the Holy Spirit placed them in this divine order to show us the contrasting effects of being under the covenant of law, and being under the covenant of grace. When the rich young ruler came boasting in his law-keeping, Jesus answered with the law. And the young man could hardly give a dollar to Jesus and walked away sorrowful. But, in the very next chapter, when Jesus gave no law but showed his grace, it not only opened Zacchaeus’ heart, it also opened up his wallet. Can you imagine this? It opened up the wallet of a corrupt tax collector. That’s truly the power of grace! It leads only to true repentance. When you experience His grace, you can’t help but be generous.
Our heavenly Father is waiting for us to give up on our own efforts. The moment you begin to “repent” from all the dead works that you have been doing to try to qualify for and deserve God’s acceptance and blessings, God will lavish on you His abundant grace – His undeserved, unearned, and unmerited favor.
God Is After Inward Heart Transformation
You may ask, “If I give up on keeping the law of Moses, what is going to govern my behavior and ensure that it is acceptable to God?” You do not have to worry about how your behavior will be governed without a consciousness of the law. The Word of God says that grace will teach you – “For the grace of God … has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts …” (Titus 2: 11-12) Grace is a teacher and it taught Zacchaeus. Do you remember his response after he experienced the abundance of grace? He said, “I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” It is grace that leads people to true repentance. Grace does not result in superficial behavior modification, but inward heart transformation.
God bless.
Dedo Suwanda
Taken from "destine To Reign" by Joseph Prince
Destined To Reign - Part 11 – The Picture of Pure Grace
Dear friends,
Everything in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation points to Jesus’ death on the cross. It is because of His sacrifice that we are under the new covenant of grace today. The old covenant will always cause you to look at yourself, whereas the new covenant will always cause you to turn and look at Christ crucified. Old Testament prophets call your sins to remembrance, while New Testament preachers call your righteousness to remembrance. Old Testament preachers tell you what is wrong with you, while New Testament preachers tell you what is right with you because of what Jesus has done, in spite of what is wrong with you. The first miracle of Moses, who represents the law, was to turn water into blood, resulting in death. The first miracle of grace was Jesus turning water into wine, resulting in celebration and life. The law kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Pure Grace From Egypt to Sinai
When God liberated the children of Israel from bondage of slavery in Egypt, He did not do so because they had kept the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments had not even be given yet. The children of Israel came out of Egypt by the blood of the Lamb. If you study the journey of the children of Israel from Egypt to Mount Sinai, you will be able to see that this is a picture of pure grace. Not a single Israelite died during this period although they murmured and complained. This period lasted about 50 days, which was between the first Passover and the first Pentecost. I have never heard anyone preach that before and neither had I read in any book before.
Even though God had rescued the children of Israel from their Egyptian slave masters by performing great signs and wonders, they failed to honor God and murmured and complained over and over again. When the Egyptian army came thundering toward them from behind and the Red Sea was before them, the children of Israel cried out to Moses saying, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? (Exodus 14: 11)” That was a complaint against God, and murmuring and complaining are sins. But, what was God’s response? He opened up the Red Sea and they crossed over to dry land on the other side, safe from the enemies. Even after God had taken them safely to the other side of the sea, the murmuring continued. At Marah, they complained about the bitter water. What was God’s response? He made the bitter water sweet. (Exodus 15: 23-25). In the wilderness, they cried out against Moses when they were hungry. What was God’s response? He rained bread or manna from heaven. (Exodus 16: 2-4). But still, the children of Israel complained. When there was no water again, they cried out against Moses, saying, “Why is it you have brought us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? (Exodus 17: 3)” What was God’s response? He brought water out of the flinty rock.
Study the Bible yourself. You will find that every time the children of Israel murmured and complained, it only brought forth fresh demonstrations of God’s favor, supply and goodness. Why? Because during that period, the blessings and provisions they received were not dependent on their obedience or goodness. They were dependent on God’s goodness and faithfulness to the Abrahamic covenant, which was a covenant of grace.
The Exchange Of Covenants At Mount Sinai
Something tragic happened right at the foot of Mount Sinai. In Exodus 19: 8, the Bible says that the people cried out to Moses, saying, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do.” In the original Hebrew text, this is actually a statement of pride. They were saying, “All that God requires and demands of us, we will be able to perform.” In other words, they were saying, “God, stop assessing us or blessing us based on Your goodness. Start assessing, judging, and blessing us based on our obedience.” So they effectively exchanged covenants, from the Abrahamic covenant which is based on grace, to the Sinaitic covenant which is based on the law.
All this while, God was with them and had fought for them. He opened up the Red Sea, rained manna from heaven, and brought water out of the flinty rock, even though they kept murmuring and complaining. But the moment they said those prideful words, God had to change His tone. He told Moses to instruct the people not to go near the mountain, for “whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 19 12)” Why do you think God change His demeanor here? It was because man presumed on his own strength and entered into a covenant based on his obedience. This is what we call self-righteousness. Since the people wanted to judged based on their performance, in the very next chapter, God gave them the Ten Commandments. From then on, since they boasted that they could do all that God commanded, God had to assess them based on His laws. He would bless them if they kept His commandments, but they would be cursed if they failed to do so. What the people did not understand was that they had to obey all of the Ten Commandments perfectly, because if they failed in one, they would be guilty of all. (James 2: 10)
Now, let’s see what happened when the children of Israel placed themselves under the law. After they boasted that they could fulfill all that God demanded of them, the works of the flesh were immediately manifested. They broke the very first commandment – “You shall have no other God besides me” (Exodus 20: 3) – by fashioning a golden calf and worshipping it as their God (Exodus 32: 18). Isn’t that sad? So be careful when you boast of keeping or defending the law because the work of the flesh will follow soon after.
From that point onward, every time the children of Israel murmured and complained, many of them would die. Observe this: Before Sinai, none died. After Sinai, the moment they murmured, they died. Before Sinai, every failure brought forth a fresh manifestation of God’s favor. But when the Israelites were under the covenant of law, sin had to be punished. Their blessings and provisions no longer depended on on God’s goodness, faithfulness and grace. Under the covenant of law, their blessings depended on their perfect obedience, and every failure and sin would result in judgment and punishment. That’s why the law of Moses is called them ministry of death and condemnation. You would think that after 2000 years, people would learn, but there are believers today who are still using the same refrain as the children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai. They are bragging, “All that the Lord has spoke we will do.” They are insisting that they are pursuing obedience with their own ability.
We Are No Longer Under The Old Covenant
Can you see what the Lord is showing us? The Israelites’ journey from Egypt to Sinai was a picture of pure grace. It was not dependent on their goodness, but His goodness, not on their faithfulness but His faithfulness. Before the law was given, they were under grace and nobody was punished even when they failed. But immediately after the law was given, nobody was spared when they failed. The good news is that we are no longer under the old covenant of law. We have been delivered from the law though Jesus’ death on the cross. Because of Jesus Christ, we are now under the new covenant of grace, which means that today God does not assess us based on our performance, but on His goodness and faithfulness.
Why are there believers today living as though the cross did not make a difference? Instead of enjoying the new covenant of grace, they are still insisting to be under the old covenant of law and the Ten Commandments. I declare to you that the cross of Jesus make a difference. If you are still trying to live under the law, trying to be justified by your obedience to the law, you are effectively negating what Jesus has already done for you on the cross!
Under the old covenant, God said, “I will by no means clear the guilty. (Exodus 34: 7)” However, in the new covenant, God says, “I will remember your sins no more. (Hebrews 8: 12 and Hebrews 10: 17)” Can you see the contrast? It is the same God speaking, so what happened? The cross happened. The cross made the difference. Today, God does not remember your sins or hold them against you because He has already judged them in the body of His Son, Jesus Christ. Believers get confused when they do not realize that the cross has made a difference. If we are still supposed to be under Ten Commandments as many argue, then what did the cross of Jesus accomplished? With the advent of the new covenant, the Bible says that God has made the old covenant obsolete. (Hebrew 8: 13) Stop fighting to hold on to something which the Bible has declared to be obsolete.
True Gospel Always Produces Peace In Your Heart
We often heard preachers say that Christian life is difficult. We have to suffer for the Lord and pay our dues. We often were told to work hard, pray hard, and make sure that we read the Bible every day so that God would be pleased with us. Let us see with the “Good News” perspective. We do not read the Bible because we want to qualify for God’s blessings. We read the Bible to find out about our blessings and inheritance in Christ. See the difference? If I stop reading the Bible for a few days, I should not be feeling guilty, but I should be feeling hungry. God is not pleased with us on the condition that we read the Bible, pray long prayers, and pay our dues or suffer. Absolutely not! He is pleased with us just because of our trust in Jesus, who qualifies us.
The Bible never says that it is our works that qualify us. It says, “Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. (Colossians 1: 12)” It is the Father who has qualified us, and He qualified us by sending His Son to save us. He qualified us to be partakers of His favor, healing, prosperity, love, joy, peace and well-being in our families. We partake of our inheritance by giving thanks to the Father for sending His Son. We can wake up every day and say, “Father, I thank you that You have qualified me to walk in victory, healing and prosperity.” Don’t rake your brain to figure out what you must DO to qualify for God’s goodness. His goodness is already yours.
There are too many teachings today telling believers what they must do to qualify for this and that. God’s way is for us to know that, through Jesus, we are already qualified! Test whatever I shared here about the goodness of God, His grace, and Jesus’ work at the cross, against teachings that demanded you to do good works to qualify for God’s blessings. Which one produces peace in your heart?
Dear beloved, joy and peace are the trademarks of the kingdom of God. God is not the author of confusion. He is calling His people out of confusion. Ask yourself this: What produces more peace and joy in your heart – hearing about His judgment and indignation, or hearing about His goodness and grace? What brings abiding peace and joy – to know that God will never punish and condemn you again for your sins because Jesus has already been punished and condemned for you, or to hear that God is sometimes pleased but sometimes angry with you, depending on how you perform? What produces true repentance – the fear of judgment or His unconditional goodness?
My friend, if you are honest, you know that the answer is found in Jesus and His finished work. It is found in His grace, not in your own doing. By trying to qualify yourself today for God’s blessings with all your Bible reading, praying and hard work, you are saying together with the children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” You are telling the Lord to assess and judge you not according to His goodness and faithfulness, but according to your goodness and faithfulness. Is that what you really want? If not, then begin to put your trust in the finished work of Christ today and enjoy the blessings that flow from His unconditional goodness!
Amen!
Dedo Suwanda
(From the book “Destined to Reign” by Joseph Prince)
Everything in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation points to Jesus’ death on the cross. It is because of His sacrifice that we are under the new covenant of grace today. The old covenant will always cause you to look at yourself, whereas the new covenant will always cause you to turn and look at Christ crucified. Old Testament prophets call your sins to remembrance, while New Testament preachers call your righteousness to remembrance. Old Testament preachers tell you what is wrong with you, while New Testament preachers tell you what is right with you because of what Jesus has done, in spite of what is wrong with you. The first miracle of Moses, who represents the law, was to turn water into blood, resulting in death. The first miracle of grace was Jesus turning water into wine, resulting in celebration and life. The law kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Pure Grace From Egypt to Sinai
When God liberated the children of Israel from bondage of slavery in Egypt, He did not do so because they had kept the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments had not even be given yet. The children of Israel came out of Egypt by the blood of the Lamb. If you study the journey of the children of Israel from Egypt to Mount Sinai, you will be able to see that this is a picture of pure grace. Not a single Israelite died during this period although they murmured and complained. This period lasted about 50 days, which was between the first Passover and the first Pentecost. I have never heard anyone preach that before and neither had I read in any book before.
Even though God had rescued the children of Israel from their Egyptian slave masters by performing great signs and wonders, they failed to honor God and murmured and complained over and over again. When the Egyptian army came thundering toward them from behind and the Red Sea was before them, the children of Israel cried out to Moses saying, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? (Exodus 14: 11)” That was a complaint against God, and murmuring and complaining are sins. But, what was God’s response? He opened up the Red Sea and they crossed over to dry land on the other side, safe from the enemies. Even after God had taken them safely to the other side of the sea, the murmuring continued. At Marah, they complained about the bitter water. What was God’s response? He made the bitter water sweet. (Exodus 15: 23-25). In the wilderness, they cried out against Moses when they were hungry. What was God’s response? He rained bread or manna from heaven. (Exodus 16: 2-4). But still, the children of Israel complained. When there was no water again, they cried out against Moses, saying, “Why is it you have brought us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? (Exodus 17: 3)” What was God’s response? He brought water out of the flinty rock.
Study the Bible yourself. You will find that every time the children of Israel murmured and complained, it only brought forth fresh demonstrations of God’s favor, supply and goodness. Why? Because during that period, the blessings and provisions they received were not dependent on their obedience or goodness. They were dependent on God’s goodness and faithfulness to the Abrahamic covenant, which was a covenant of grace.
The Exchange Of Covenants At Mount Sinai
Something tragic happened right at the foot of Mount Sinai. In Exodus 19: 8, the Bible says that the people cried out to Moses, saying, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do.” In the original Hebrew text, this is actually a statement of pride. They were saying, “All that God requires and demands of us, we will be able to perform.” In other words, they were saying, “God, stop assessing us or blessing us based on Your goodness. Start assessing, judging, and blessing us based on our obedience.” So they effectively exchanged covenants, from the Abrahamic covenant which is based on grace, to the Sinaitic covenant which is based on the law.
All this while, God was with them and had fought for them. He opened up the Red Sea, rained manna from heaven, and brought water out of the flinty rock, even though they kept murmuring and complaining. But the moment they said those prideful words, God had to change His tone. He told Moses to instruct the people not to go near the mountain, for “whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 19 12)” Why do you think God change His demeanor here? It was because man presumed on his own strength and entered into a covenant based on his obedience. This is what we call self-righteousness. Since the people wanted to judged based on their performance, in the very next chapter, God gave them the Ten Commandments. From then on, since they boasted that they could do all that God commanded, God had to assess them based on His laws. He would bless them if they kept His commandments, but they would be cursed if they failed to do so. What the people did not understand was that they had to obey all of the Ten Commandments perfectly, because if they failed in one, they would be guilty of all. (James 2: 10)
Now, let’s see what happened when the children of Israel placed themselves under the law. After they boasted that they could fulfill all that God demanded of them, the works of the flesh were immediately manifested. They broke the very first commandment – “You shall have no other God besides me” (Exodus 20: 3) – by fashioning a golden calf and worshipping it as their God (Exodus 32: 18). Isn’t that sad? So be careful when you boast of keeping or defending the law because the work of the flesh will follow soon after.
From that point onward, every time the children of Israel murmured and complained, many of them would die. Observe this: Before Sinai, none died. After Sinai, the moment they murmured, they died. Before Sinai, every failure brought forth a fresh manifestation of God’s favor. But when the Israelites were under the covenant of law, sin had to be punished. Their blessings and provisions no longer depended on on God’s goodness, faithfulness and grace. Under the covenant of law, their blessings depended on their perfect obedience, and every failure and sin would result in judgment and punishment. That’s why the law of Moses is called them ministry of death and condemnation. You would think that after 2000 years, people would learn, but there are believers today who are still using the same refrain as the children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai. They are bragging, “All that the Lord has spoke we will do.” They are insisting that they are pursuing obedience with their own ability.
We Are No Longer Under The Old Covenant
Can you see what the Lord is showing us? The Israelites’ journey from Egypt to Sinai was a picture of pure grace. It was not dependent on their goodness, but His goodness, not on their faithfulness but His faithfulness. Before the law was given, they were under grace and nobody was punished even when they failed. But immediately after the law was given, nobody was spared when they failed. The good news is that we are no longer under the old covenant of law. We have been delivered from the law though Jesus’ death on the cross. Because of Jesus Christ, we are now under the new covenant of grace, which means that today God does not assess us based on our performance, but on His goodness and faithfulness.
Why are there believers today living as though the cross did not make a difference? Instead of enjoying the new covenant of grace, they are still insisting to be under the old covenant of law and the Ten Commandments. I declare to you that the cross of Jesus make a difference. If you are still trying to live under the law, trying to be justified by your obedience to the law, you are effectively negating what Jesus has already done for you on the cross!
Under the old covenant, God said, “I will by no means clear the guilty. (Exodus 34: 7)” However, in the new covenant, God says, “I will remember your sins no more. (Hebrews 8: 12 and Hebrews 10: 17)” Can you see the contrast? It is the same God speaking, so what happened? The cross happened. The cross made the difference. Today, God does not remember your sins or hold them against you because He has already judged them in the body of His Son, Jesus Christ. Believers get confused when they do not realize that the cross has made a difference. If we are still supposed to be under Ten Commandments as many argue, then what did the cross of Jesus accomplished? With the advent of the new covenant, the Bible says that God has made the old covenant obsolete. (Hebrew 8: 13) Stop fighting to hold on to something which the Bible has declared to be obsolete.
True Gospel Always Produces Peace In Your Heart
We often heard preachers say that Christian life is difficult. We have to suffer for the Lord and pay our dues. We often were told to work hard, pray hard, and make sure that we read the Bible every day so that God would be pleased with us. Let us see with the “Good News” perspective. We do not read the Bible because we want to qualify for God’s blessings. We read the Bible to find out about our blessings and inheritance in Christ. See the difference? If I stop reading the Bible for a few days, I should not be feeling guilty, but I should be feeling hungry. God is not pleased with us on the condition that we read the Bible, pray long prayers, and pay our dues or suffer. Absolutely not! He is pleased with us just because of our trust in Jesus, who qualifies us.
The Bible never says that it is our works that qualify us. It says, “Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. (Colossians 1: 12)” It is the Father who has qualified us, and He qualified us by sending His Son to save us. He qualified us to be partakers of His favor, healing, prosperity, love, joy, peace and well-being in our families. We partake of our inheritance by giving thanks to the Father for sending His Son. We can wake up every day and say, “Father, I thank you that You have qualified me to walk in victory, healing and prosperity.” Don’t rake your brain to figure out what you must DO to qualify for God’s goodness. His goodness is already yours.
There are too many teachings today telling believers what they must do to qualify for this and that. God’s way is for us to know that, through Jesus, we are already qualified! Test whatever I shared here about the goodness of God, His grace, and Jesus’ work at the cross, against teachings that demanded you to do good works to qualify for God’s blessings. Which one produces peace in your heart?
Dear beloved, joy and peace are the trademarks of the kingdom of God. God is not the author of confusion. He is calling His people out of confusion. Ask yourself this: What produces more peace and joy in your heart – hearing about His judgment and indignation, or hearing about His goodness and grace? What brings abiding peace and joy – to know that God will never punish and condemn you again for your sins because Jesus has already been punished and condemned for you, or to hear that God is sometimes pleased but sometimes angry with you, depending on how you perform? What produces true repentance – the fear of judgment or His unconditional goodness?
My friend, if you are honest, you know that the answer is found in Jesus and His finished work. It is found in His grace, not in your own doing. By trying to qualify yourself today for God’s blessings with all your Bible reading, praying and hard work, you are saying together with the children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” You are telling the Lord to assess and judge you not according to His goodness and faithfulness, but according to your goodness and faithfulness. Is that what you really want? If not, then begin to put your trust in the finished work of Christ today and enjoy the blessings that flow from His unconditional goodness!
Amen!
Dedo Suwanda
(From the book “Destined to Reign” by Joseph Prince)
Destined To Reign - Part 10 – The Secret of David
Dear friends,
Perhaps you noticed that in the past a couple of weeks, the articles I have been sending seemed longer than usual. I feel the need not to split the subjects in shorter form due to the impotance of the subjects. However bear with me for a while. This week will be the last long topic of the serie, and after this, I will go back to the regular style and length. Let's go deep this week. It's a long weekend, so you will have more time to read, right?
Have you ever wondered why God called David “a man after God’s own heart”? (Acts 13: 22). What was David’s secret? What is it about David that God would bless him so much , making him king over Israel? I heard people say that the reason was because David was quick to repent. However, there were other people in the Bible who were quick to repent, so this would not set David apart. In addition, God called David a man after His own heart before he committed his sin with Bathsheba, so it cannot be because of his quick repentance. There must be something unique about David that caused him to stand out. Would you like to know what his secret was? I believe that this secret is the key to the fullness of God’s blessings in your life.
Turn with me to Psalm 132, where you will find David’s secret. Psalm 132: 1-5 Lord, remember David and all his afflictions, how he swore to the Lord, and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob: “Surely I will not go into the chamber of my house, or go up to the comfort of my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I …..” David was making a vow to God that he would neither sleep nor rest until he did something. Now, hold your horses. Before I show you what he vowed to God, I want to show you something that he himself said about how God saw him.
1 Chronicles 28: 4 Howbeit the Lord God of Israel chose me before the house of my father to be king over Israel forever; for He hath chosen Judah to be the ruler; and of the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father He liked me to make me king over all Israel.
God said. “God liked me”. Oh, I love the way the old King James version captures what he said: “God liked me to make me king over all Israel.”
What Made David A Man After God’s Own Heart?
Would you like to find out what God liked David? What made him so special? I believe that God liked David because he got hold of something that was of the greatest importance to God’s heart. He got hold of a divine thought and objective in God’s heart. Let us find out from the rest of Psalm 132: 5 – “I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.” What was David talking about? To get a better picture, go a few verses down to Psalm 132: 8 “Arise, O Lord, to your resting place, You and the ark of Your Strength.” David was talking about taking the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem! This was what David was after, and because he placed such importance on taking the ark back, God considered him a man after His own heart.
Now, in the days of the old covenant, God dwelled between the two cherubim, which are on the ark of the covenant. This was the throne of God. Whenever the children of Israel was in alignment with God, God would give them victory over their enemies.
Let me tell you just how important the ark of the covenant was. Erase your memory of the ark that you learned from the movie “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark”. During the Old Testament days, which was the holiest country to God when He looked at the earth? It was Israel. Which was the holiest city in all of Israel? Jerusalem. Which was the holiest place in all of Jerusalem? It was the temple on the Temple Mount. In the temple precinct, there was the Outer Court, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Which one was the holiest place in the temple? Obviously, it was the Holy of Holies. Inside the Holy of Holies, there was only one object – the ark of the covenant. This means that the ark of the covenant was the holiest object on the earth at that point in time. It was the centerpiece of God, at the center of the universe and in the center of God’s heart.
The Typology of The Ark Of The Covenant
The ark of the covenant was so important to God that He gave the Israelites very specific instructions on how it was to be constructed. Even though we can only skim the surface, every detail of the ark allows us to get a clearer picture of Jesus since there are no insignificant details in the Bible. The ark points to the person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the centerpiece of God’s heart, and as you read on, you will fall in love with Him more and more!
Let us look more closely at some components of the ark of the covenant. The box portion of the ark is made of acacia wood and overlaid with gold. Wood in the Bible speaks of humanity. Acacia wood is known in Israel as incorruptible wood, so this speaks of Jesus’ incorruptible humanity. Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh as a man, but there was no sin in Him. Gold in the Bible speaks of divinity and deity. So the wood overlaid with gold speaks of the person of Jesus – He was completely human and completely God at the same time.
The lid of the box was made of solid slab of gold and it covered the box. In Hebrew, the lid is called “kapporeth”, which means “mercy seat”. Let’s see what the mercy seat was used to cover. Three items were kept in the ark of the covenant:
1. The stone tablets on which God wrote the Ten Commandments: The tablets speak of our rebellion and inability to keep God’s law perfectly.
2. Aaron’s rod: Aaron’s rod was not just any ordinary rod. It was placed overnight in the tabernacle and not only did it shoot forth branches, it also bore fruits and flowers. Do you know why God did it? It was because people were complaining against God’s appointment of Aaron as the high priest. Therefore, Aaron’s rod speaks of man’s rebellion against God’s appointed leadership.
3. Golden pot of manna: The Bible calls manna “angel’s food” and when the children of Israel ate it while they were in the wilderness, none of them were sick for 40 years. Yet, they called it “worthless bread”. Therefore, the golden pot of manna speaks of man’s rebellion against God’s provision.
Can you see that every item in the ark speaks of our sins and rebellion against God? But what did God do with our sins and rebellion? He put them all into the ark and covered them with the mercy seat where the blood of the animal sacrifices was placed once a year on the day of the atonement. By doing this, God was saying that He did not want to see man’s sins and rebellion. When He looks down, He cannot see man’s sins and rebellion because they are covered by the blood on the mercy seat! He saw only the blood on the mercy seat!
Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment
There is more. The mercy seat also speaks of the person of Jesus Christ. The blood of the animal sacrifices speaks of His blood. The Bible says that “He Himself is the propitiation for our sin (1 John 2: 2)”. This means that Jesus became our sacrifice to divert God’s wrath meant for us to Himself. “Propitiation” is a beautiful word. On the cross, Jesus became the propitiation for our sins. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word “propitiation” is also the same word for “mercy seat”. So when Apostle John said that Jesus is our propitiation, he was saying that Jesus is our mercy seat. The mercy seat was made of one solid slab of gold that was beaten into shape. In the same way, Jesus had to be brutally beaten and scourged, so that by His stripes, we are healed.
You will also see the crown on the mercy seat. This crown typifies Jesus’ majesty, glory and kingship. He was the only King who came not to be served, but to serve.
So the ark of the covenant is a shadow o our Lord Jesus Christ, His person, and His work. Because of His blood, all our sins have been cleansed. That’s why it was dangerous for anyone back then to lift the mercy seat to uncover the sins and rebellion that God covered. The mercy seat was not to be lifted at any time, and the consequences for doing so were severe. The Bible records that when people in the village called Beth Shemesh lifted the mercy seat to look inside the ark, many of them were destroyed (1 Samuel 6: 19). Notice that the mercy seat is placed over the law. This tells that God’s mercy triumphs over judgment! God’s grace is above God’s law.
Bring Back The Ark Of The Covenant
Let’s go back what David vowed to do – bring back the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. For more than 20 years, the ark had been in a hilly area called Kirjath Jearim. David had heard about the ark since his young age. Growing up, he must have wondered why nobody made a move to bring the ark back to Jerusalem where it belonged. Saul was king at that time, but he never had the heart desire to bring the ark back to Jerusalem. So David made it his passion to bring the ark back to Mount Zion in Jerusalem, for the Lord had chosen Zion as His dwelling place. God himself said, “This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.” (Psalm 132: 14) Do you know why God chose Mount Zion and not Mount Sinai? This is because Mount Zion represents His grace, while Mount Sinai represents His law. On the first Pentecost, 50 days after the first Passover, God gave the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, and 3000 people died. On the day of Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus, God gave the Holy Spirit at Mount Zion, and 3000 people were saved and the new covenant church was born.
When you understand the typology of the ark of the covenant, you will see that bringing back the ark is the same as bringing back Jesus Christ into a place of prominence and making Him and His finished work the center of all our teaching and preaching. God wants us to bring Jesus back to the church, His place of prominence. It saddens me that in many churched today, you hardly hear the name of Jesus being mentioned. Instead you hear psychology being taught. You hear motivational teaching, like the Christian’s version Oprah’s or Dr. Phil’s programs. You hear “doing, doing, doing”, or “vision, vision, vision”, or “calling, calling, calling”. You hear very little of Jesus Christ and His finished work being taught. Is this what Christianity is all about? Your doing, your vision, your calling?
Let me explain to you what it means to bring back Jesus to Mount Zion. Bringing back Jesus to Mount Zion is to bring back Jesus to the place of grace. Have you heard sermons where they preached about Jesus, but the sermons are very hard? The preacher said, “Jesus Himself said that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. If the Pharisees had this standard, then we must even higher standards than they did.” I would feel condemned. What hope was there for me, since I did not even measure up to the standard of the Pharisees? Though that preacher was preaching from Jesus’ words, he never brought Jesus into the context of grace. He made Jesus appear hard and legalistic. Now, let’s interpret what Jesus was really saying. He was saying that the only way to enter heaven is to have HIS righteousness that exceeds all other standards of righteousness. His righteousness is far above the self-righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees! And guess what? His righteousness is a gift freely received! It is yours today!
Be A Man After God’s Own Heart
This is the secret to David’s blessings. He pursued the ark of the covenant and God called him the man after God’s own heart. You too can be the man or woman after God’s own heart. Pursue Jesus and bring him back into the center of your life. Make Jesus the centerpiece of every aspect of your life. Make him the center of your marriage, family, career and finances, and allow the fullness of His blessings to flow into your life today!
Perhaps you noticed that in the past a couple of weeks, the articles I have been sending seemed longer than usual. I feel the need not to split the subjects in shorter form due to the impotance of the subjects. However bear with me for a while. This week will be the last long topic of the serie, and after this, I will go back to the regular style and length. Let's go deep this week. It's a long weekend, so you will have more time to read, right?
Have you ever wondered why God called David “a man after God’s own heart”? (Acts 13: 22). What was David’s secret? What is it about David that God would bless him so much , making him king over Israel? I heard people say that the reason was because David was quick to repent. However, there were other people in the Bible who were quick to repent, so this would not set David apart. In addition, God called David a man after His own heart before he committed his sin with Bathsheba, so it cannot be because of his quick repentance. There must be something unique about David that caused him to stand out. Would you like to know what his secret was? I believe that this secret is the key to the fullness of God’s blessings in your life.
Turn with me to Psalm 132, where you will find David’s secret. Psalm 132: 1-5 Lord, remember David and all his afflictions, how he swore to the Lord, and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob: “Surely I will not go into the chamber of my house, or go up to the comfort of my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I …..” David was making a vow to God that he would neither sleep nor rest until he did something. Now, hold your horses. Before I show you what he vowed to God, I want to show you something that he himself said about how God saw him.
1 Chronicles 28: 4 Howbeit the Lord God of Israel chose me before the house of my father to be king over Israel forever; for He hath chosen Judah to be the ruler; and of the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father He liked me to make me king over all Israel.
God said. “God liked me”. Oh, I love the way the old King James version captures what he said: “God liked me to make me king over all Israel.”
What Made David A Man After God’s Own Heart?
Would you like to find out what God liked David? What made him so special? I believe that God liked David because he got hold of something that was of the greatest importance to God’s heart. He got hold of a divine thought and objective in God’s heart. Let us find out from the rest of Psalm 132: 5 – “I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.” What was David talking about? To get a better picture, go a few verses down to Psalm 132: 8 “Arise, O Lord, to your resting place, You and the ark of Your Strength.” David was talking about taking the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem! This was what David was after, and because he placed such importance on taking the ark back, God considered him a man after His own heart.
Now, in the days of the old covenant, God dwelled between the two cherubim, which are on the ark of the covenant. This was the throne of God. Whenever the children of Israel was in alignment with God, God would give them victory over their enemies.
Let me tell you just how important the ark of the covenant was. Erase your memory of the ark that you learned from the movie “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark”. During the Old Testament days, which was the holiest country to God when He looked at the earth? It was Israel. Which was the holiest city in all of Israel? Jerusalem. Which was the holiest place in all of Jerusalem? It was the temple on the Temple Mount. In the temple precinct, there was the Outer Court, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Which one was the holiest place in the temple? Obviously, it was the Holy of Holies. Inside the Holy of Holies, there was only one object – the ark of the covenant. This means that the ark of the covenant was the holiest object on the earth at that point in time. It was the centerpiece of God, at the center of the universe and in the center of God’s heart.
The Typology of The Ark Of The Covenant
The ark of the covenant was so important to God that He gave the Israelites very specific instructions on how it was to be constructed. Even though we can only skim the surface, every detail of the ark allows us to get a clearer picture of Jesus since there are no insignificant details in the Bible. The ark points to the person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the centerpiece of God’s heart, and as you read on, you will fall in love with Him more and more!
Let us look more closely at some components of the ark of the covenant. The box portion of the ark is made of acacia wood and overlaid with gold. Wood in the Bible speaks of humanity. Acacia wood is known in Israel as incorruptible wood, so this speaks of Jesus’ incorruptible humanity. Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh as a man, but there was no sin in Him. Gold in the Bible speaks of divinity and deity. So the wood overlaid with gold speaks of the person of Jesus – He was completely human and completely God at the same time.
The lid of the box was made of solid slab of gold and it covered the box. In Hebrew, the lid is called “kapporeth”, which means “mercy seat”. Let’s see what the mercy seat was used to cover. Three items were kept in the ark of the covenant:
1. The stone tablets on which God wrote the Ten Commandments: The tablets speak of our rebellion and inability to keep God’s law perfectly.
2. Aaron’s rod: Aaron’s rod was not just any ordinary rod. It was placed overnight in the tabernacle and not only did it shoot forth branches, it also bore fruits and flowers. Do you know why God did it? It was because people were complaining against God’s appointment of Aaron as the high priest. Therefore, Aaron’s rod speaks of man’s rebellion against God’s appointed leadership.
3. Golden pot of manna: The Bible calls manna “angel’s food” and when the children of Israel ate it while they were in the wilderness, none of them were sick for 40 years. Yet, they called it “worthless bread”. Therefore, the golden pot of manna speaks of man’s rebellion against God’s provision.
Can you see that every item in the ark speaks of our sins and rebellion against God? But what did God do with our sins and rebellion? He put them all into the ark and covered them with the mercy seat where the blood of the animal sacrifices was placed once a year on the day of the atonement. By doing this, God was saying that He did not want to see man’s sins and rebellion. When He looks down, He cannot see man’s sins and rebellion because they are covered by the blood on the mercy seat! He saw only the blood on the mercy seat!
Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment
There is more. The mercy seat also speaks of the person of Jesus Christ. The blood of the animal sacrifices speaks of His blood. The Bible says that “He Himself is the propitiation for our sin (1 John 2: 2)”. This means that Jesus became our sacrifice to divert God’s wrath meant for us to Himself. “Propitiation” is a beautiful word. On the cross, Jesus became the propitiation for our sins. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word “propitiation” is also the same word for “mercy seat”. So when Apostle John said that Jesus is our propitiation, he was saying that Jesus is our mercy seat. The mercy seat was made of one solid slab of gold that was beaten into shape. In the same way, Jesus had to be brutally beaten and scourged, so that by His stripes, we are healed.
You will also see the crown on the mercy seat. This crown typifies Jesus’ majesty, glory and kingship. He was the only King who came not to be served, but to serve.
So the ark of the covenant is a shadow o our Lord Jesus Christ, His person, and His work. Because of His blood, all our sins have been cleansed. That’s why it was dangerous for anyone back then to lift the mercy seat to uncover the sins and rebellion that God covered. The mercy seat was not to be lifted at any time, and the consequences for doing so were severe. The Bible records that when people in the village called Beth Shemesh lifted the mercy seat to look inside the ark, many of them were destroyed (1 Samuel 6: 19). Notice that the mercy seat is placed over the law. This tells that God’s mercy triumphs over judgment! God’s grace is above God’s law.
Bring Back The Ark Of The Covenant
Let’s go back what David vowed to do – bring back the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. For more than 20 years, the ark had been in a hilly area called Kirjath Jearim. David had heard about the ark since his young age. Growing up, he must have wondered why nobody made a move to bring the ark back to Jerusalem where it belonged. Saul was king at that time, but he never had the heart desire to bring the ark back to Jerusalem. So David made it his passion to bring the ark back to Mount Zion in Jerusalem, for the Lord had chosen Zion as His dwelling place. God himself said, “This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.” (Psalm 132: 14) Do you know why God chose Mount Zion and not Mount Sinai? This is because Mount Zion represents His grace, while Mount Sinai represents His law. On the first Pentecost, 50 days after the first Passover, God gave the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, and 3000 people died. On the day of Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus, God gave the Holy Spirit at Mount Zion, and 3000 people were saved and the new covenant church was born.
When you understand the typology of the ark of the covenant, you will see that bringing back the ark is the same as bringing back Jesus Christ into a place of prominence and making Him and His finished work the center of all our teaching and preaching. God wants us to bring Jesus back to the church, His place of prominence. It saddens me that in many churched today, you hardly hear the name of Jesus being mentioned. Instead you hear psychology being taught. You hear motivational teaching, like the Christian’s version Oprah’s or Dr. Phil’s programs. You hear “doing, doing, doing”, or “vision, vision, vision”, or “calling, calling, calling”. You hear very little of Jesus Christ and His finished work being taught. Is this what Christianity is all about? Your doing, your vision, your calling?
Let me explain to you what it means to bring back Jesus to Mount Zion. Bringing back Jesus to Mount Zion is to bring back Jesus to the place of grace. Have you heard sermons where they preached about Jesus, but the sermons are very hard? The preacher said, “Jesus Himself said that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. If the Pharisees had this standard, then we must even higher standards than they did.” I would feel condemned. What hope was there for me, since I did not even measure up to the standard of the Pharisees? Though that preacher was preaching from Jesus’ words, he never brought Jesus into the context of grace. He made Jesus appear hard and legalistic. Now, let’s interpret what Jesus was really saying. He was saying that the only way to enter heaven is to have HIS righteousness that exceeds all other standards of righteousness. His righteousness is far above the self-righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees! And guess what? His righteousness is a gift freely received! It is yours today!
Be A Man After God’s Own Heart
This is the secret to David’s blessings. He pursued the ark of the covenant and God called him the man after God’s own heart. You too can be the man or woman after God’s own heart. Pursue Jesus and bring him back into the center of your life. Make Jesus the centerpiece of every aspect of your life. Make him the center of your marriage, family, career and finances, and allow the fullness of His blessings to flow into your life today!
Destined To Reign - Part 9 – Seeing Jesus In The Bible
Dear friends,
The day when Jesus rose from the dead, He ministered comfort to two disciples who were walking back from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35). When He drew near to them and walked with them, they were feeling sad and discouraged as they were conversed about the event that has transpired. The Bible says that their eyes were restrained from recognizing Him. Jesus asked them, “What kind of conversation that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?” The disciples began to narrate the events that had happened to Jesus, and how He was condemned to die and was crucified. From the way they spoke, you could tell that they did not believe that Jesus would be resurrected. They said that they were hoping that it was Jesus who was going to redeem Israel, and they were astonished that certain women who had gone to Jesus’ tomb told them that they could not find His body. When they finished, Jesus said: “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” These are the two indictments against the Body of Christ today. The first is that they are “foolish”, that is, we are suffering from ignorance and the lack of knowledge of and revelation from the Word of God. The second is that even when we do have the knowledge of the Word, we are “slow of heart to believe.” However, our Lord Jesus is so loving that He would not just tell them what their problem was without giving them the solution. Look at what Jesus did next in Luke 24: 27: “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded (interpreted) to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” He expounded to them all “the things concerning Himself” in every single book of the Old Testament, showing them of Himself in every page. What a tremendous time of Bible Study it must have been!
This tells us that every page in the Bible is about Jesus. Jesus is in the Old Testament concealed, and in the New Testament revealed. There are no insignificant details in the Bible and everything in it is there to point to Jesus. I can just imagine their excitement when Jesus began to unveil that He was the promised seed in the Garden of Eden who would crush Satan’s head. The, he would have moved on to share about how each of the five Levitical offerings depicted His one perfect work on the cross. He would have shared about the high priest and how even the high priest’s garment spoke of Himself as our perfect representative before God. Can you imagine that? Jesus would even have unveiled all the typologies embedded in the Old Testament stories. He would have told them how He was typified in Joseph’s character – how he was rejected by His own Jewish brother, but would become the bread of life to the Gentile world and would marry a Gentile bride (the church today). He would have told them that He was the true bread of life that was typified in the manna of heaven that the Israelites failed to appreciate and, thus, called it “worthless bread”. This is the bread that had kept the Israelites free from sickness and diseases for 40 years in the wilderness, in addition to providing the nutrition, energy and life for the Israelites for so long. Jesus said in John 6:48 “I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” This is a wonderful Bible study.
Jesus Showed Us How To Study The Bible
I used to wonder why the Lord restrained the eyes of the two disciples from seeing that it was Him when He was first spoke to them. The answer is that Jesus did not want them to see Jesus as the risen Christ because Jesus wanted them to hear the Scripture first. Jesus did not want them to have faith because they saw Him. Jesus wanted them to have faith because the Scriptures talking about Him. And that’s the same privilege He is giving the church today. In expounding (interpreting) the Scriptures to the two disciples, Jesus showed us how we are to study the Bible. He does not want us to read the Bible to find out what to do and what not to do. He wants us to study the Bible to see Him and all the things in the Scriptures concerning Himself. When we start seeing Jesus in all the books of the Bible, studying the Word will be so exciting. Even reading the book of Leviticus, whose pages are usually left untouched will be more fun. When you begin to see Jesus in every page of the Bible, it all comes alive. We can go deep into the Word of God to search out all the hidden gems and truths about Jesus from Genesis to Revelation, including the maps. When we have fun in the Word, for when the person of Jesus comes forth in the Word, Bible study is no longer dry and academic, but alive and exciting, and we will love it!
In many places, there is an under-emphasis on Jesus Christ, and an over-emphasis on all sorts of doctrines and principles that can be extracted from the Word. I am not saying that churches should not be using the Word to teach on financial principles, keys to wisdom, leadership, and so on, What I am saying is that churches must be careful not to consider Jesus as “worthless bread”, as the Israelites did to the manna from heaven in the wilderness, by relegating Him to the periphery of their teaching. Anybody who does not focus on Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross has neither the wisdom of God nor the power of God, because the Bible says that “Christ crucified” is the wisdom of God and the power of God (1 Corinthians 1: 23 -24). He is the true bread from heaven and only He satisfies! The devil is afraid of any church that preaches Jesus on the cross because he knows when people know how God sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for them, they will see that they have a merciful God who loves them unconditionally. They will know the Truth and the Truth will set them free.
Our Hearts Burn Within Us
Jesus’ solution for those who are “foolish” and “slow of heart to believe” is for them to study the Bible to see more of Jesus. At the end of the journey to Emmaus, the two disciples said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24: 32). When Jesus is unveiled in the Scriptures, our hearts will burn within us. In fact the root of the word “Emmaus” in Hebrew means “warm bath” or “warm springs”. When Jesus expounded on the Scriptures, their hearts experienced “warm baths” and were comforted. Similarly, when you are sitting under anointed ministries that unveil Jesus in the Scriptures, not only your heart be bathed in the warmth of His love, but even your physical body will be healed and restored! There are medicinal qualities and healing virtues in seeing Jesus in the Scriptures, as His words are truly “life to those find them, and health to all their flesh. (Proverbs 4: 22)”
The Bible also says that Emmaus is seven miles from Jerusalem. This means that the disciples studied the Bible with Jesus for several hours. The Bible also says that as soon as they realized that it was Jesus talking to them, they “rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem”. This means that the disciples walked 14 miles that day. I believe that something supernatural must have happened to their bodies. They got filled with so much life that they could walk 14 miles that day. When you are under the anointed teaching of the Scriptures about Jesus, your body responds, life comes, and profound and boundless energy flows. No wonder David says, “Give me life through Your Word” (Psalm 119: 25).
The Ministry of A New Covenant Preacher
This is the true ministry of any new covenant preacher – he seeks to unveil Jesus to you and qualify you by the blood of Jesus. He does not come to unveil your faults or bring your sins to remembrance to disqualify you from entering God’s presence and enjoying His blessings. Unfortunately, instead of seeing Jesus, many Christians fall into the trap of thinking that God looks at them based on who they are and what they have done. The moment you think like that, you have come under law. You see, the law, with its focus on your doing or not doing, makes you self-conscious. You may not even realize that the moment you focus on yourself and your performance, you have just placed yourself under the law. The moment you feel condemned for not doing more, for not doing better, or for not doing anything at all, you have placed yourself under the law. Instead of looking toward what Jesus has done, you are looking at what you have done.
It Is All About Seeing Jesus
The law is all about your looking at yourself. The new covenant of grace is all about seeing Jesus. The Pharisees committed to large portions of the Word of God to memory and yet they could not see the Word of God in the flesh standing before them. We should not be interested in just accumulating Bible knowledge. We should be opening the Scriptures to see more of Jesus. Some people think if they knew Hebrew and Greek, they would understand the Bible better. Well, the Pharisees knew Hebrew and that did nothing for them. What we need is for the Holy Spirit to unveil to us revelations and hidden gems about Jesus and His finished work.
Beloved, it is about seeing Jesus, because from Him comes every supply and provision. We have to look to Him for the Word. We have to look to Him for directions. We have to look to Him all the time. Remember, as long as Peter kept his eyes on Jesus, he could walk on water. But once he looked away from Jesus and looked instead at the storm, the challenges, and the stressful circumstance, he started to sink.
Once people look away from Jesus, they will stop attending church and start looking to themselves and their own resources to make things happen. They start to think:”I need more time. I have to work harder. I have to put in more overtime work and work on Sundays as well”. Why don’t you enjoy your Sundays in church with your family and trust the Lord to see you through? God can accomplish much more in you through the anointed preaching of Jesus than what you can accomplish through your own strength and your working overtime. Let’s come together to see more of Jesus!
Amen!
Dedo Suwanda
PS. The above message is taken from the book "Destined To Reign" by Joseph Prince
The day when Jesus rose from the dead, He ministered comfort to two disciples who were walking back from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35). When He drew near to them and walked with them, they were feeling sad and discouraged as they were conversed about the event that has transpired. The Bible says that their eyes were restrained from recognizing Him. Jesus asked them, “What kind of conversation that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?” The disciples began to narrate the events that had happened to Jesus, and how He was condemned to die and was crucified. From the way they spoke, you could tell that they did not believe that Jesus would be resurrected. They said that they were hoping that it was Jesus who was going to redeem Israel, and they were astonished that certain women who had gone to Jesus’ tomb told them that they could not find His body. When they finished, Jesus said: “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” These are the two indictments against the Body of Christ today. The first is that they are “foolish”, that is, we are suffering from ignorance and the lack of knowledge of and revelation from the Word of God. The second is that even when we do have the knowledge of the Word, we are “slow of heart to believe.” However, our Lord Jesus is so loving that He would not just tell them what their problem was without giving them the solution. Look at what Jesus did next in Luke 24: 27: “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded (interpreted) to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” He expounded to them all “the things concerning Himself” in every single book of the Old Testament, showing them of Himself in every page. What a tremendous time of Bible Study it must have been!
This tells us that every page in the Bible is about Jesus. Jesus is in the Old Testament concealed, and in the New Testament revealed. There are no insignificant details in the Bible and everything in it is there to point to Jesus. I can just imagine their excitement when Jesus began to unveil that He was the promised seed in the Garden of Eden who would crush Satan’s head. The, he would have moved on to share about how each of the five Levitical offerings depicted His one perfect work on the cross. He would have shared about the high priest and how even the high priest’s garment spoke of Himself as our perfect representative before God. Can you imagine that? Jesus would even have unveiled all the typologies embedded in the Old Testament stories. He would have told them how He was typified in Joseph’s character – how he was rejected by His own Jewish brother, but would become the bread of life to the Gentile world and would marry a Gentile bride (the church today). He would have told them that He was the true bread of life that was typified in the manna of heaven that the Israelites failed to appreciate and, thus, called it “worthless bread”. This is the bread that had kept the Israelites free from sickness and diseases for 40 years in the wilderness, in addition to providing the nutrition, energy and life for the Israelites for so long. Jesus said in John 6:48 “I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” This is a wonderful Bible study.
Jesus Showed Us How To Study The Bible
I used to wonder why the Lord restrained the eyes of the two disciples from seeing that it was Him when He was first spoke to them. The answer is that Jesus did not want them to see Jesus as the risen Christ because Jesus wanted them to hear the Scripture first. Jesus did not want them to have faith because they saw Him. Jesus wanted them to have faith because the Scriptures talking about Him. And that’s the same privilege He is giving the church today. In expounding (interpreting) the Scriptures to the two disciples, Jesus showed us how we are to study the Bible. He does not want us to read the Bible to find out what to do and what not to do. He wants us to study the Bible to see Him and all the things in the Scriptures concerning Himself. When we start seeing Jesus in all the books of the Bible, studying the Word will be so exciting. Even reading the book of Leviticus, whose pages are usually left untouched will be more fun. When you begin to see Jesus in every page of the Bible, it all comes alive. We can go deep into the Word of God to search out all the hidden gems and truths about Jesus from Genesis to Revelation, including the maps. When we have fun in the Word, for when the person of Jesus comes forth in the Word, Bible study is no longer dry and academic, but alive and exciting, and we will love it!
In many places, there is an under-emphasis on Jesus Christ, and an over-emphasis on all sorts of doctrines and principles that can be extracted from the Word. I am not saying that churches should not be using the Word to teach on financial principles, keys to wisdom, leadership, and so on, What I am saying is that churches must be careful not to consider Jesus as “worthless bread”, as the Israelites did to the manna from heaven in the wilderness, by relegating Him to the periphery of their teaching. Anybody who does not focus on Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross has neither the wisdom of God nor the power of God, because the Bible says that “Christ crucified” is the wisdom of God and the power of God (1 Corinthians 1: 23 -24). He is the true bread from heaven and only He satisfies! The devil is afraid of any church that preaches Jesus on the cross because he knows when people know how God sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for them, they will see that they have a merciful God who loves them unconditionally. They will know the Truth and the Truth will set them free.
Our Hearts Burn Within Us
Jesus’ solution for those who are “foolish” and “slow of heart to believe” is for them to study the Bible to see more of Jesus. At the end of the journey to Emmaus, the two disciples said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24: 32). When Jesus is unveiled in the Scriptures, our hearts will burn within us. In fact the root of the word “Emmaus” in Hebrew means “warm bath” or “warm springs”. When Jesus expounded on the Scriptures, their hearts experienced “warm baths” and were comforted. Similarly, when you are sitting under anointed ministries that unveil Jesus in the Scriptures, not only your heart be bathed in the warmth of His love, but even your physical body will be healed and restored! There are medicinal qualities and healing virtues in seeing Jesus in the Scriptures, as His words are truly “life to those find them, and health to all their flesh. (Proverbs 4: 22)”
The Bible also says that Emmaus is seven miles from Jerusalem. This means that the disciples studied the Bible with Jesus for several hours. The Bible also says that as soon as they realized that it was Jesus talking to them, they “rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem”. This means that the disciples walked 14 miles that day. I believe that something supernatural must have happened to their bodies. They got filled with so much life that they could walk 14 miles that day. When you are under the anointed teaching of the Scriptures about Jesus, your body responds, life comes, and profound and boundless energy flows. No wonder David says, “Give me life through Your Word” (Psalm 119: 25).
The Ministry of A New Covenant Preacher
This is the true ministry of any new covenant preacher – he seeks to unveil Jesus to you and qualify you by the blood of Jesus. He does not come to unveil your faults or bring your sins to remembrance to disqualify you from entering God’s presence and enjoying His blessings. Unfortunately, instead of seeing Jesus, many Christians fall into the trap of thinking that God looks at them based on who they are and what they have done. The moment you think like that, you have come under law. You see, the law, with its focus on your doing or not doing, makes you self-conscious. You may not even realize that the moment you focus on yourself and your performance, you have just placed yourself under the law. The moment you feel condemned for not doing more, for not doing better, or for not doing anything at all, you have placed yourself under the law. Instead of looking toward what Jesus has done, you are looking at what you have done.
It Is All About Seeing Jesus
The law is all about your looking at yourself. The new covenant of grace is all about seeing Jesus. The Pharisees committed to large portions of the Word of God to memory and yet they could not see the Word of God in the flesh standing before them. We should not be interested in just accumulating Bible knowledge. We should be opening the Scriptures to see more of Jesus. Some people think if they knew Hebrew and Greek, they would understand the Bible better. Well, the Pharisees knew Hebrew and that did nothing for them. What we need is for the Holy Spirit to unveil to us revelations and hidden gems about Jesus and His finished work.
Beloved, it is about seeing Jesus, because from Him comes every supply and provision. We have to look to Him for the Word. We have to look to Him for directions. We have to look to Him all the time. Remember, as long as Peter kept his eyes on Jesus, he could walk on water. But once he looked away from Jesus and looked instead at the storm, the challenges, and the stressful circumstance, he started to sink.
Once people look away from Jesus, they will stop attending church and start looking to themselves and their own resources to make things happen. They start to think:”I need more time. I have to work harder. I have to put in more overtime work and work on Sundays as well”. Why don’t you enjoy your Sundays in church with your family and trust the Lord to see you through? God can accomplish much more in you through the anointed preaching of Jesus than what you can accomplish through your own strength and your working overtime. Let’s come together to see more of Jesus!
Amen!
Dedo Suwanda
PS. The above message is taken from the book "Destined To Reign" by Joseph Prince
Destined To Reign - Part 8 - No More Consciousness Of Sin
Dear friends,
A preacher told me once that I had to search my heart for sin and repent before I could worship the Lord. I had to bow my head and search my heart for sin. However, the more I searched, the more I felt unworthy to worship the Lord. The more I probed, the more I found, and I would start to feel too condemned to even think that I was qualified to enter His holy presence. So instead of being more conscious of the love of my Saviour, I became more and more self-conscious - more conscious of my sins, uncleanness, guilt, and unworthiness. Instead of raising my hands to praise and worship God, my hands would hang down with dejection and my head bow down with disappointment. How could I worship God? How could I have the courage and audacity to enter His courts with praise?
The idea that you have to be "right" before you could worship Jesus is misleading. The woman described in the look of Luke, chapter 7, who went to Jesus with an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, simply fell at His feet and worship Him. She washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair before anointing them with the oil. The Bible clearly records that she was a sinner, but it says nothing about searching her heart or confessing her sins before she worshipped Jesus. She worshipped Him as she was, and after that, Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
I think the devil has tried to rob us of this tremendous truth. Whatever your need is, whether you are mired in debt, trapped in a particular sin, or fearful of your future, just go to Jesus. He is your Saviour, He is your Healer. He is your Provider. He is your peace. He is your forgiveness. He is your "I AM", which means that He is the great "I AM" for whatever situation you are facing in your life. Whatever lack you may be facing right now, He is your solution. Go to Him and worship Him just as you are, and He will meet you at your point of need.You don't have to worry about your sin because you are worshipping your Forgiver. You don't have to worry about your sickness, because you are worshipping your Healer. If you know and believe this truth, nothing can stop you from going to worship God.
The world needs to hear this truth and not be given a bunch of do's and don'ts. Preach the truth and the world will go flocking to churches for their answers. They are searching for the real thing and that's what we can offer them. The real thing is not found in the Law, People will flock to where the true gospel of Jesus is being preached - the gospel of grace, forgiveness and no more condemnation. It is time to emphasize what the Bible emphasizes. The new covenant is all about the grace of God that brings salvation. Grace is not a teaching. It is not a doctrine. It is not a topic in Bible School curricula. Grace is a person and His name is Jesus.
Understanding Holiness
Grace appeared to all men, teaching us the secret to godliness, character and holiness (Titus 2: 11-12). He showed us that it is all found in Him and His work on the cross. When you have Him, you are godly, you are made righteous, good chracter will manifest in you, and you are made holy.
What is holiness? The conventional understanding of holiness is about "doing right". The word holiness in the original Greek means "separation to God" (hagiasmos). Therefore, being holy means that you have been set apart, made uncommon from the rest of the world of unbelievers. In the old covenant, when God set the children of Israel apart from the world, He insulated them from the plagues that were brought against Egypt. God takes care of His own people. He provided for the Israelites and protected them because they were made holy and set apart unto Him by the blood of bulls and goats. How much more for us in the new covenant, who are made holy and set apart unto God forever by the blood of the everlasting sacrifice of Jesus Christ. What does this mean? Even when the world is facing a financial crisis, we will have more than enough in our storehouses. When there are all kind of pestilences, sicknesses and diseases in the world, like mad cow disease, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, we are made holy and set apart to enjoy God's protection and divine health.
God does not require you to search your heart and locate your sins before you can worship Him. When David cried out in His Psalm, "Search me, O God, and know my heart" (Psalm 139: 23), he was asking God to search him. He was not searching his heart himself. In any case, today, if God searches you, all God will find is your righteousness in Christ Jesus, for He sees you as righteous, holy and forgiven. He has already declared, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more" (Hebrew 8: 12). How do you see yourself today? Are you more conscious of your sins, or are you more conscious of your righteousness and what the blood of Jesus has done? The Bible says, "As He is, so are we in this world" ( 1 John 4: 17). Is Jesus holy? Then, so you are!
The Sin Offering And The Burnt Offering
The book of Leviticus talks about the five offerings of the old covenant: the burnt offering, peace offering, meal offering, sin offering and trespass offering. These offerings are shadows or typologies of what our Lord Jesus accomplished when He offered His life for us on the cross. Jesus, as our sacrificial offering, did such amazing work that it takes five offerings to depict the one act of His sacrifice on the cross. Today, we will focus on two of the more important offerings - the burnt offering and the sin offering.
The Sin Offering
According to the law, a man must take a sin offering to the priest whenever he sins. Imagine that you are living in the Old Testament times. You have sinned and you are now taking a lamb as your sin offering to the priest. The priest will first examine the lamb to ensure that the lamb is perfect and without blemishes. It speaks of Jesus' perfection, as Jesus knew no sin and committed no sin. Jesus is the true sacrificial Lamb without blemish. After the examination, you must lay your hands on the head of the lamb. This is an act of identification. You are transferring your sins to the innocent lamb. Then, you must kill the lamb. The lamb must die because all your sins have been transferred to its body. And because the lamb dies bearing your sins, you can go free. In the same way, Jesus has to die on the cross with your sins so that you might go free. He was not murdered, He came to lay down His life for you and me. He chose to become our sin offering for you and me. 2 Corinthians 5: 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Do you know what this means? It means that the moment you received Jesus Christ into your life, all your sins were transferred to Jesus - forever! Jesus died in your place as your sin offering, so that you might go free. What a wonderful Saviour we have!
However, there is a big difference between the sin offering in the Old Testament and Jesus' sacrifice for you on the cross. In the Old Testament, the blood of bulls and goats could only provide a temporal covering for sin. Every time man failed, he had to offer another sin offering. Praise to God that in the new covenant, the Bible declares that "by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified" (Hebrew 10: 14). All your sins have been removed permanently. Forever.
The Burnt Offering
The sin offering speaks of your sins being transferred to the body of Jesus on the cross. That's why God does not want you to be conscious of your sins today, but He wants you to be conscious of your forgiveness. How about the burnt offering? The burnt offering is beautiful because it speaks of the righteousness of Jesus being transferred to you at the cross. When you read the book of Leviticus, you will see that out of the five offerings, God put the sin offering last and the burnt offering first. Man puts it the other way around - we first go to God with all our sins, and all our sins are judged as a sin offering at the cross of Jesus. There is nothing wrong with this order, but God does not expect us to stop there. He wants us to know that Jesus did not just die for our sins, but He also died as our burnt offering to make us well-pleasing, righteous and favoured before God. That is why when the burnt offering is offered, it ascends as a "sweet aroma" to the Lord. The sweet aroma from the burnt offering speaks of Jesus' beauty, perfection and loveliness to the Father.
This may be the first time you are hearing all this, so let us reiterate the difference. The sin offering speaks of your sins being transferred to Jesus, while the burnt offering speaks of Jesus' worthiness before God, His acceptance before God and His delight before His Father being transferred to you. Today, God favours you in exactly the same way He favours His Son, Jesus. Unfortunately, there are believers today who understand only that they have been forgiven. They do not understand that they have been made righteous as well by the work of Jesus on the cross. Because of this, they have allowed themselves to come under condemnation. If this describes you, then rejoice - let the truth that God sees you clothed with the righteousness of His Son (because Jesus became your burnt offering at the cross), set you free today from every guilt and condemnation!
Get Rid of Any Self-Condemnation
The reason that some believers are sick, depressed and oppressed is that instead of being conscious of their righteousness in Christ, they have sin on their conscience. The moment they sin, they unconsciously feel that someone (usually themselves) must pay and be penalized. Does this decribe you? If you you are sin-conscious, whenever you sin and come under condemnation, your mind and body begin to say, "I have to pay and punish myself". Your body will respond to this need of punishment, and you may start to develop depression and sickness in your body. Many believers are sick today not because of sin, for sin has already been punished on the body of Jesus, but because of condemnation. We have talked about condemnation from the accuser before, but here we are talking about self-condemnation and your unconscious desire to inflict punishment on yourself when you know that you have sinned. Self -condemnation is destructive. When you fail to see that Jesus has already borned your punishment, you will punish yourself or take it out on your family with verbal or even physical abuse. If you believe that you deserve to be punished and that you do not deserve success, you will sub-consciously activate a self-sabotaging mechanism to punish yourself and cause yourself to fail. You could be on a brink of a lucrative business contract, or about to embark on an exciting career opportunity, but somehow you find yourself doing something that sabotages the entire deal and causes it to crumble before your eyes. Why? Because deep down you think that you do not deserve it. Self-condemnation also manifests itself with destructive effect in relationship. If you are in a wonderful relationship with somebody who really loves and cares for you, you will inevitably do something that sabotages the relationship because, again, something inside tells you that you do not deserve to be loved by this person.
Beloved, wake up and realize that Jesus has already been punished on your behalf. Stop condemning and punishing yourself because Jesus has been condemned and punished on your behalf! If you say that you believe that God has forgiven you of all your sins, then why are you still feeling guilty? The existence of guilt and condemnation in your life tells you that you do not really believe that all your sins have been forgiven. If you are believers who have the desire to glorify God, but are struggling with guilt and condemnation, you have to pay attention. If you are living in sin (as a lifestyle) and have no desire to leave this kind of lifestyle, that's a different story. You can try not to be sin-conscious all you like, but you will not succeed simply because you are living in sin (such as staying in adulterous affair with no desire to terminate it). Get out of that lifestyle of sin by the grace of God. Do you see the distinction? This message is for those who are not living in a lifestyle of sin, but has the desire to break out of the cycle of defeat of self-condemnation. This message is for those who are trapped in the lie that you do not deserve success in life, and want to stop sabotaging yourself because of guilt and condemnation. This message is for those who are not living in sin but are nevertheless struggling with sin-consciousness. This message is for those who have been robbed of the boldness to enter God's presence and worship Him because after "searching you heart" you have convinced yourself that you do not qualify. If I am describing you, my friend, I pray that today will be the day of your freedom.
Amen.
Dedo Suwanda
PS. The above message is taken from the book "Destined To Reign" by Joseph Prince
A preacher told me once that I had to search my heart for sin and repent before I could worship the Lord. I had to bow my head and search my heart for sin. However, the more I searched, the more I felt unworthy to worship the Lord. The more I probed, the more I found, and I would start to feel too condemned to even think that I was qualified to enter His holy presence. So instead of being more conscious of the love of my Saviour, I became more and more self-conscious - more conscious of my sins, uncleanness, guilt, and unworthiness. Instead of raising my hands to praise and worship God, my hands would hang down with dejection and my head bow down with disappointment. How could I worship God? How could I have the courage and audacity to enter His courts with praise?
The idea that you have to be "right" before you could worship Jesus is misleading. The woman described in the look of Luke, chapter 7, who went to Jesus with an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, simply fell at His feet and worship Him. She washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair before anointing them with the oil. The Bible clearly records that she was a sinner, but it says nothing about searching her heart or confessing her sins before she worshipped Jesus. She worshipped Him as she was, and after that, Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
I think the devil has tried to rob us of this tremendous truth. Whatever your need is, whether you are mired in debt, trapped in a particular sin, or fearful of your future, just go to Jesus. He is your Saviour, He is your Healer. He is your Provider. He is your peace. He is your forgiveness. He is your "I AM", which means that He is the great "I AM" for whatever situation you are facing in your life. Whatever lack you may be facing right now, He is your solution. Go to Him and worship Him just as you are, and He will meet you at your point of need.You don't have to worry about your sin because you are worshipping your Forgiver. You don't have to worry about your sickness, because you are worshipping your Healer. If you know and believe this truth, nothing can stop you from going to worship God.
The world needs to hear this truth and not be given a bunch of do's and don'ts. Preach the truth and the world will go flocking to churches for their answers. They are searching for the real thing and that's what we can offer them. The real thing is not found in the Law, People will flock to where the true gospel of Jesus is being preached - the gospel of grace, forgiveness and no more condemnation. It is time to emphasize what the Bible emphasizes. The new covenant is all about the grace of God that brings salvation. Grace is not a teaching. It is not a doctrine. It is not a topic in Bible School curricula. Grace is a person and His name is Jesus.
Understanding Holiness
Grace appeared to all men, teaching us the secret to godliness, character and holiness (Titus 2: 11-12). He showed us that it is all found in Him and His work on the cross. When you have Him, you are godly, you are made righteous, good chracter will manifest in you, and you are made holy.
What is holiness? The conventional understanding of holiness is about "doing right". The word holiness in the original Greek means "separation to God" (hagiasmos). Therefore, being holy means that you have been set apart, made uncommon from the rest of the world of unbelievers. In the old covenant, when God set the children of Israel apart from the world, He insulated them from the plagues that were brought against Egypt. God takes care of His own people. He provided for the Israelites and protected them because they were made holy and set apart unto Him by the blood of bulls and goats. How much more for us in the new covenant, who are made holy and set apart unto God forever by the blood of the everlasting sacrifice of Jesus Christ. What does this mean? Even when the world is facing a financial crisis, we will have more than enough in our storehouses. When there are all kind of pestilences, sicknesses and diseases in the world, like mad cow disease, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, we are made holy and set apart to enjoy God's protection and divine health.
God does not require you to search your heart and locate your sins before you can worship Him. When David cried out in His Psalm, "Search me, O God, and know my heart" (Psalm 139: 23), he was asking God to search him. He was not searching his heart himself. In any case, today, if God searches you, all God will find is your righteousness in Christ Jesus, for He sees you as righteous, holy and forgiven. He has already declared, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more" (Hebrew 8: 12). How do you see yourself today? Are you more conscious of your sins, or are you more conscious of your righteousness and what the blood of Jesus has done? The Bible says, "As He is, so are we in this world" ( 1 John 4: 17). Is Jesus holy? Then, so you are!
The Sin Offering And The Burnt Offering
The book of Leviticus talks about the five offerings of the old covenant: the burnt offering, peace offering, meal offering, sin offering and trespass offering. These offerings are shadows or typologies of what our Lord Jesus accomplished when He offered His life for us on the cross. Jesus, as our sacrificial offering, did such amazing work that it takes five offerings to depict the one act of His sacrifice on the cross. Today, we will focus on two of the more important offerings - the burnt offering and the sin offering.
The Sin Offering
According to the law, a man must take a sin offering to the priest whenever he sins. Imagine that you are living in the Old Testament times. You have sinned and you are now taking a lamb as your sin offering to the priest. The priest will first examine the lamb to ensure that the lamb is perfect and without blemishes. It speaks of Jesus' perfection, as Jesus knew no sin and committed no sin. Jesus is the true sacrificial Lamb without blemish. After the examination, you must lay your hands on the head of the lamb. This is an act of identification. You are transferring your sins to the innocent lamb. Then, you must kill the lamb. The lamb must die because all your sins have been transferred to its body. And because the lamb dies bearing your sins, you can go free. In the same way, Jesus has to die on the cross with your sins so that you might go free. He was not murdered, He came to lay down His life for you and me. He chose to become our sin offering for you and me. 2 Corinthians 5: 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Do you know what this means? It means that the moment you received Jesus Christ into your life, all your sins were transferred to Jesus - forever! Jesus died in your place as your sin offering, so that you might go free. What a wonderful Saviour we have!
However, there is a big difference between the sin offering in the Old Testament and Jesus' sacrifice for you on the cross. In the Old Testament, the blood of bulls and goats could only provide a temporal covering for sin. Every time man failed, he had to offer another sin offering. Praise to God that in the new covenant, the Bible declares that "by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified" (Hebrew 10: 14). All your sins have been removed permanently. Forever.
The Burnt Offering
The sin offering speaks of your sins being transferred to the body of Jesus on the cross. That's why God does not want you to be conscious of your sins today, but He wants you to be conscious of your forgiveness. How about the burnt offering? The burnt offering is beautiful because it speaks of the righteousness of Jesus being transferred to you at the cross. When you read the book of Leviticus, you will see that out of the five offerings, God put the sin offering last and the burnt offering first. Man puts it the other way around - we first go to God with all our sins, and all our sins are judged as a sin offering at the cross of Jesus. There is nothing wrong with this order, but God does not expect us to stop there. He wants us to know that Jesus did not just die for our sins, but He also died as our burnt offering to make us well-pleasing, righteous and favoured before God. That is why when the burnt offering is offered, it ascends as a "sweet aroma" to the Lord. The sweet aroma from the burnt offering speaks of Jesus' beauty, perfection and loveliness to the Father.
This may be the first time you are hearing all this, so let us reiterate the difference. The sin offering speaks of your sins being transferred to Jesus, while the burnt offering speaks of Jesus' worthiness before God, His acceptance before God and His delight before His Father being transferred to you. Today, God favours you in exactly the same way He favours His Son, Jesus. Unfortunately, there are believers today who understand only that they have been forgiven. They do not understand that they have been made righteous as well by the work of Jesus on the cross. Because of this, they have allowed themselves to come under condemnation. If this describes you, then rejoice - let the truth that God sees you clothed with the righteousness of His Son (because Jesus became your burnt offering at the cross), set you free today from every guilt and condemnation!
Get Rid of Any Self-Condemnation
The reason that some believers are sick, depressed and oppressed is that instead of being conscious of their righteousness in Christ, they have sin on their conscience. The moment they sin, they unconsciously feel that someone (usually themselves) must pay and be penalized. Does this decribe you? If you you are sin-conscious, whenever you sin and come under condemnation, your mind and body begin to say, "I have to pay and punish myself". Your body will respond to this need of punishment, and you may start to develop depression and sickness in your body. Many believers are sick today not because of sin, for sin has already been punished on the body of Jesus, but because of condemnation. We have talked about condemnation from the accuser before, but here we are talking about self-condemnation and your unconscious desire to inflict punishment on yourself when you know that you have sinned. Self -condemnation is destructive. When you fail to see that Jesus has already borned your punishment, you will punish yourself or take it out on your family with verbal or even physical abuse. If you believe that you deserve to be punished and that you do not deserve success, you will sub-consciously activate a self-sabotaging mechanism to punish yourself and cause yourself to fail. You could be on a brink of a lucrative business contract, or about to embark on an exciting career opportunity, but somehow you find yourself doing something that sabotages the entire deal and causes it to crumble before your eyes. Why? Because deep down you think that you do not deserve it. Self-condemnation also manifests itself with destructive effect in relationship. If you are in a wonderful relationship with somebody who really loves and cares for you, you will inevitably do something that sabotages the relationship because, again, something inside tells you that you do not deserve to be loved by this person.
Beloved, wake up and realize that Jesus has already been punished on your behalf. Stop condemning and punishing yourself because Jesus has been condemned and punished on your behalf! If you say that you believe that God has forgiven you of all your sins, then why are you still feeling guilty? The existence of guilt and condemnation in your life tells you that you do not really believe that all your sins have been forgiven. If you are believers who have the desire to glorify God, but are struggling with guilt and condemnation, you have to pay attention. If you are living in sin (as a lifestyle) and have no desire to leave this kind of lifestyle, that's a different story. You can try not to be sin-conscious all you like, but you will not succeed simply because you are living in sin (such as staying in adulterous affair with no desire to terminate it). Get out of that lifestyle of sin by the grace of God. Do you see the distinction? This message is for those who are not living in a lifestyle of sin, but has the desire to break out of the cycle of defeat of self-condemnation. This message is for those who are trapped in the lie that you do not deserve success in life, and want to stop sabotaging yourself because of guilt and condemnation. This message is for those who are not living in sin but are nevertheless struggling with sin-consciousness. This message is for those who have been robbed of the boldness to enter God's presence and worship Him because after "searching you heart" you have convinced yourself that you do not qualify. If I am describing you, my friend, I pray that today will be the day of your freedom.
Amen.
Dedo Suwanda
PS. The above message is taken from the book "Destined To Reign" by Joseph Prince
Destined To Reign - Part 7 - The Gift of "No Condemnation"
Dear friends,
The Blood of Jesus Protects You From Condemnation
When I was growing up as a Christian, a charismatic preacher told me: "There is power in the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus will protect you from the attack from the enemy. Before you start your car and drive, you should apply the blood on Jesus (symbolically, but with faith) to the car and to everybody inside the car, so that God will protect you from accident and everybody inside the car will get no harm. You also should apply the blood of Jesus around your house so that it will be protected from thieves, fire, and any other attacks." I started covering everything with the blood of Jesus. There is nothing wrong with that, but today I have a deeper understanding of His blood.
On the night Jesus was betrayed, during the last supper, when Jesus held the cup in His hands, He said, "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." His blood was shed for the forgiveness of all your sins. Does the blood of Jesus gives you protection? Certainly, though to give protection is not the main reason His blood was shed. The main reason our Saviour's blood was shed was for the forgiveness of our sins. This means that the blood of Jesus also offers us protection from any form of condemnation, from the accuser, from yourself, or from anybody. It is imperative that you understand this because it will give you the confidence to go before the Throne of God boldly and see Him as a loving Father, or exactly a loving Daddy. As the result, it will cause you to reign over sin, addiction, or depression that is holding you in bondage today.
Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit
Mark 3: 22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” 23 And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. 27 But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.
28 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
Somebody told me that we could commit the unpardonable sin if we blaspheme the Holy Spirit. The unpardonable sin refers to the sin of consistent rejection of Jesus Christ, thus the Holy Spirit. Now I understand that it is impossible for a believer, who has already receive Jesus Christ to be his/her Saviour and Lord, to commit an unpardonable sin. Don't ever fall to such deception from the devil.
Erradicate All Condemnation From Your Life
The devil will come at various times to make you feel guilty for anything you can think of. He makes you feel guilty in your role as a father or a mother. He makes you feel guilty as a provider. He makes you feel guilty as an employee. He makes you feel guilty as an employer. He even makes you fell guilty for being sick or being broke. By the way, a believer should never feel guilty for being sick or broke. We have to be careful not to create a culture in the church where people think that you will never be attacked by symptoms os sickness or by some financial challenges if you are walking with God. Having sickness or disease or going through a financial challenge does not mean that you have sinned or that God is teaching you a lesson. I just means that your healing or your blessing is on its way. When there is a problem, deal with it and don't ask whose fault it is. Don't ask if it is you father's fault, or your grandfather's fault, or your great-grandfather's fault.
Do you know what the devil's name is? His name is not "murderer", even though he kills. His name is not "thief", though he steals. It is not "destroyer" either, though he destroys. His name in Hebrew means "the accuser". He is the prosecutor against you. A prosecutor never talks about any of your good points. He is there to prosecute you for every one of your failures. He will bring back every piece of dirty laundry and show you evidence after evidence of your failures. He knows that when you are under condemnation, fear, stress, guilt, all kind of sicknsses, and all kind of poor judgment in your life will follow, so he is not shy to attack straight to your weakest areas.
What should we do, then? We should kill condemnation at its very root and erradicate it from our lives. So when you hear the voice of the accuser, remind yourself that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Why? Because no matter what the devil condemns you of, the truth is that the blood of Jesus has been shed for the forgiveness of all your sins. No wonder Isaiah chapter 54 says that no weapon formed against you shall prosper. What is the weapon that the devil uses against you? We have learned that it is the Law. The devil uses the law to condemn believers and remind them that they have fallen short. But the Word of God declares, " (Isaiah 54: 17) No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn." The devil uses his tongue to speak words of guilt and condemnation to you, but by the blood of Jesus, we have the authority and the power to condemn every word of judgment that comes against you.
The Gift Of No Condemnation
Do you remember what Jesus said to the woman who was caught in adultery? Let us see the verses from John 8: 10-11:
10 When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” Now, pay close attention to this: Jesus gave her the gift of "no condemnation" before He told her to go and sin no more. Yet, many churches today say, "Go and sin no more first, and only then we will not condemn you." That's the reason why people are shying away from churches. It is not because they are rebelling against Jesus. It is because they have not been introduced to Jesus who gives guilty sinners the gift of no condemnation!
Too often, non-believers have been introduced only to religion - a set of rules that only judges and condemns them. If you conduct a poll among non-believers and ask what they know about Christianity, many of them would probably be familiar with the Ten Commandment. They know about the Law, which kills, and not the Person, who came to bring life. If Christianity was only about laws, it would be no different than from all other religions. Every religion in the world today is guided by a set of moral law. Even Jesus Himself rebelled against religion. His strongest words, such as brood of vipers and hypocrites, were said to the Pharisees and not the sinners.
Now, let's go bck to the story of the woman caught in adultery. Was the woman guilty? Yes, absolutely. However, instead of condemning her according to the law of Moses, which requires her to be stoned to death, Jesus showed her grace and gave her the gift of no condemnation. Do you think the woman would go off , look for her lover, and jump back into bed with him, after she received the gift of no condemnation? Of course not! It is obvious that Jesus believed that when someone really has a revelation that God does not condemn them, they would have the power to get out of the vicious cycle of sin. They would have the power to "go and sin no more". What are you going to put your trust in today? Jesus' grace that would swallow up sin? Or, man's fear that believers would use "grace" as a lincense to sin?
The Power To Sin No More
If you are under condemnation, you are doomed to repeat your sin. Why? Because when you are under condemnation, you feel guilty and condemned, and you believe that your fellowship with God is broken. Since you believe that God is far away, you will end up committing that sin again. You may do something good that makes you feel that you have restored fellowship with God, but when you fail again, you start receiving condemnation again. The cycle of defeat continues. On the other hand, Jesus' method of countering sin is completely different. When you sin, Jesus says to you, "I do not condemn you, go and sin no more". The question is: "Can a person under grace still live in sin?" Differentiate between "committing sin" and "living in a lifestyle of sin". There may be people who claim that they are under grace but live in a lifestyle of sin. First, we should not back away from the gospel of grace just because you see some negative examples. You can actually go to the person and confront him or her. The Bible clearly says that "sin shall not have dominion over you when you are under grace, and not under law". Romans 6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Anyone who is living in sin (as a lifestyle) is not under grace and has not experienced the gift of no condemnation. Grace always results in victory over sin!
I believe that most believers desire to live lives that are glorifying to God and most of normal and rational believers are NOT looking for an excuse to sin. But, there is struggle which Apostle Paul himself wrote about: "For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do." I am writing to believers who have this genuine struggle with the law and who, like Paul, are crying out, "O wrteched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" If this is your cry, then this is written especially for you: "The Person who will deliver you is Jesus." Your inheritance today is no longer guilt, punishment and condemnation for your sins, but righteousness, peace and joy through Jesus Christ. This is God's way for you to experience effortless success in your life. He has done it on your behalf. Your part is simply to believe and receive.
Amen.
Dedo Suwanda
PS. The above message is taken from the book "Destined To Reign" by Joseph Prince
The Blood of Jesus Protects You From Condemnation
When I was growing up as a Christian, a charismatic preacher told me: "There is power in the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus will protect you from the attack from the enemy. Before you start your car and drive, you should apply the blood on Jesus (symbolically, but with faith) to the car and to everybody inside the car, so that God will protect you from accident and everybody inside the car will get no harm. You also should apply the blood of Jesus around your house so that it will be protected from thieves, fire, and any other attacks." I started covering everything with the blood of Jesus. There is nothing wrong with that, but today I have a deeper understanding of His blood.
On the night Jesus was betrayed, during the last supper, when Jesus held the cup in His hands, He said, "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." His blood was shed for the forgiveness of all your sins. Does the blood of Jesus gives you protection? Certainly, though to give protection is not the main reason His blood was shed. The main reason our Saviour's blood was shed was for the forgiveness of our sins. This means that the blood of Jesus also offers us protection from any form of condemnation, from the accuser, from yourself, or from anybody. It is imperative that you understand this because it will give you the confidence to go before the Throne of God boldly and see Him as a loving Father, or exactly a loving Daddy. As the result, it will cause you to reign over sin, addiction, or depression that is holding you in bondage today.
Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit
Mark 3: 22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” 23 And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. 27 But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.
28 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”
Somebody told me that we could commit the unpardonable sin if we blaspheme the Holy Spirit. The unpardonable sin refers to the sin of consistent rejection of Jesus Christ, thus the Holy Spirit. Now I understand that it is impossible for a believer, who has already receive Jesus Christ to be his/her Saviour and Lord, to commit an unpardonable sin. Don't ever fall to such deception from the devil.
Erradicate All Condemnation From Your Life
The devil will come at various times to make you feel guilty for anything you can think of. He makes you feel guilty in your role as a father or a mother. He makes you feel guilty as a provider. He makes you feel guilty as an employee. He makes you feel guilty as an employer. He even makes you fell guilty for being sick or being broke. By the way, a believer should never feel guilty for being sick or broke. We have to be careful not to create a culture in the church where people think that you will never be attacked by symptoms os sickness or by some financial challenges if you are walking with God. Having sickness or disease or going through a financial challenge does not mean that you have sinned or that God is teaching you a lesson. I just means that your healing or your blessing is on its way. When there is a problem, deal with it and don't ask whose fault it is. Don't ask if it is you father's fault, or your grandfather's fault, or your great-grandfather's fault.
Do you know what the devil's name is? His name is not "murderer", even though he kills. His name is not "thief", though he steals. It is not "destroyer" either, though he destroys. His name in Hebrew means "the accuser". He is the prosecutor against you. A prosecutor never talks about any of your good points. He is there to prosecute you for every one of your failures. He will bring back every piece of dirty laundry and show you evidence after evidence of your failures. He knows that when you are under condemnation, fear, stress, guilt, all kind of sicknsses, and all kind of poor judgment in your life will follow, so he is not shy to attack straight to your weakest areas.
What should we do, then? We should kill condemnation at its very root and erradicate it from our lives. So when you hear the voice of the accuser, remind yourself that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Why? Because no matter what the devil condemns you of, the truth is that the blood of Jesus has been shed for the forgiveness of all your sins. No wonder Isaiah chapter 54 says that no weapon formed against you shall prosper. What is the weapon that the devil uses against you? We have learned that it is the Law. The devil uses the law to condemn believers and remind them that they have fallen short. But the Word of God declares, " (Isaiah 54: 17) No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn." The devil uses his tongue to speak words of guilt and condemnation to you, but by the blood of Jesus, we have the authority and the power to condemn every word of judgment that comes against you.
The Gift Of No Condemnation
Do you remember what Jesus said to the woman who was caught in adultery? Let us see the verses from John 8: 10-11:
10 When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” Now, pay close attention to this: Jesus gave her the gift of "no condemnation" before He told her to go and sin no more. Yet, many churches today say, "Go and sin no more first, and only then we will not condemn you." That's the reason why people are shying away from churches. It is not because they are rebelling against Jesus. It is because they have not been introduced to Jesus who gives guilty sinners the gift of no condemnation!
Too often, non-believers have been introduced only to religion - a set of rules that only judges and condemns them. If you conduct a poll among non-believers and ask what they know about Christianity, many of them would probably be familiar with the Ten Commandment. They know about the Law, which kills, and not the Person, who came to bring life. If Christianity was only about laws, it would be no different than from all other religions. Every religion in the world today is guided by a set of moral law. Even Jesus Himself rebelled against religion. His strongest words, such as brood of vipers and hypocrites, were said to the Pharisees and not the sinners.
Now, let's go bck to the story of the woman caught in adultery. Was the woman guilty? Yes, absolutely. However, instead of condemning her according to the law of Moses, which requires her to be stoned to death, Jesus showed her grace and gave her the gift of no condemnation. Do you think the woman would go off , look for her lover, and jump back into bed with him, after she received the gift of no condemnation? Of course not! It is obvious that Jesus believed that when someone really has a revelation that God does not condemn them, they would have the power to get out of the vicious cycle of sin. They would have the power to "go and sin no more". What are you going to put your trust in today? Jesus' grace that would swallow up sin? Or, man's fear that believers would use "grace" as a lincense to sin?
The Power To Sin No More
If you are under condemnation, you are doomed to repeat your sin. Why? Because when you are under condemnation, you feel guilty and condemned, and you believe that your fellowship with God is broken. Since you believe that God is far away, you will end up committing that sin again. You may do something good that makes you feel that you have restored fellowship with God, but when you fail again, you start receiving condemnation again. The cycle of defeat continues. On the other hand, Jesus' method of countering sin is completely different. When you sin, Jesus says to you, "I do not condemn you, go and sin no more". The question is: "Can a person under grace still live in sin?" Differentiate between "committing sin" and "living in a lifestyle of sin". There may be people who claim that they are under grace but live in a lifestyle of sin. First, we should not back away from the gospel of grace just because you see some negative examples. You can actually go to the person and confront him or her. The Bible clearly says that "sin shall not have dominion over you when you are under grace, and not under law". Romans 6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Anyone who is living in sin (as a lifestyle) is not under grace and has not experienced the gift of no condemnation. Grace always results in victory over sin!
I believe that most believers desire to live lives that are glorifying to God and most of normal and rational believers are NOT looking for an excuse to sin. But, there is struggle which Apostle Paul himself wrote about: "For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do." I am writing to believers who have this genuine struggle with the law and who, like Paul, are crying out, "O wrteched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" If this is your cry, then this is written especially for you: "The Person who will deliver you is Jesus." Your inheritance today is no longer guilt, punishment and condemnation for your sins, but righteousness, peace and joy through Jesus Christ. This is God's way for you to experience effortless success in your life. He has done it on your behalf. Your part is simply to believe and receive.
Amen.
Dedo Suwanda
PS. The above message is taken from the book "Destined To Reign" by Joseph Prince
Destined To Reign - Part 6 - The Root of All Problems In Life
Dear friends,
If you were growing a plant, and the plant was getting weak and sickly, it would be foolish to attempt to nourish and restore the plant by dealing with the superficial elements such as its leaves. To resolve the problem, you have to go after its root. In the same way, when we are dealing with any problem in life, we want to get to its root. Chronic sicknesses, mental depression, perpetual anxiety, financial lack, or marital disharmony are like the withering leaves of the sick plant. You can cut away one leaf, but it's just a matter of time before another leaf becomes sickly. When you are able to identify and deal with the root, the leaves and the fruits, or the outward manifestations, will take care of themselves. In other words, if the root is healthy, the rest of the plant will naturally be healthy too.
Searching for the roots.
The world has found out (from many studies in psychology and human behaviour) that many sicknesses and diseases are linked to a root called "stress". The world has also identified "fear" as the root cause of "stress". They found that in many cases, "stress" is preceeded by "fear". Fear can manifest itself in form of panic attack or a perpetual state of anxiety. But while fear sound like a critical root that needs to be addressed, it is still not the deepest root. Are you interested to find out whatthe root is? The deepst root of all problems in life is "condemnation".
It all began in the Garden of Eden when the first man, Adam, partook of "the tree of of the knowledge of good and evil". From that point onward, man developed a conscience. Your conscience is that which is within you that knows good and evil. Your conscience understands justice. It understands that when there is sin, sin must be punished. This has also led man to punish himself for his sins. There are both believers and unbelievers who are defeated by guilt and condemnation. But the difference is that a believer, who has Jesus Christ and the power of His finished work at the cross, can reject any accusation, guilt, and condemnation thrown at him by the devil and by man's or his own heart. Our hearts have been sprinkled clean with the blood of Jesus from an evil conscience. Hebrews 10:19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. An evil conscience is one that perpetually conscious of sin and failure, and typically expects punishment. It is a conscience that is under condemnation. However, by the grace of God, we an have a good conscience that is sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, and instead of sin-conscious, we can be forgiven-conscious. We can always be conscious of our righteousness in Christ Jesus, even when we fail.
The Accuser of the Brethren
Condemnation is the deepest root because it demands a payment for all your failures and sins. While experts may be able to identify guilt and condemnation as the sources of problems in life, they have no solution to destroy them. Man cannot overcome it through self-effort, and only Jesus can make the payment. The experts of the world cannot see that people are actually faced with a spiritual problem, as the devil insidiously uses condemnation to afflict people. In Hebrew, the devil's name is ha-satan which literally means "the accuser". He is a prosecutor at law and an expert in condemning you, always pointing out your faults and shortcomings. That is why the Bible calls him "the accuser of our brethren" (Revelation 12: 10) . Even when you do something right, the accuser will say, "It's not good enough". His crowning achievement would be to bring about accusations in your life and leave them undetected. Many believers under condemnation would even think that it is the Holy Spirit convicting them of their sins and pointing out their faults. The devil's accusations are concealed in a fog of deception, so that you would be the last person to think that you are under condemnation.
The accuser is an astute legal prosecutor who will not hesitate to use the Ten Comandments to condemn you. That's why the Word of God declares that the Ten Commandments are not just "the ministry of death", but they are also "the ministry of condemnation" (2 Corinthians 3: 7-9) . Remember that there is nothing unholy about the Ten Commandments. They are holy, just and good, but they have no power to make you holy, just and good. The law always ministers condemnation. If you are under law, every time you fail and fall short, you will be condemned. Grace, on the other hand, always ministers righteousness. When you are under grace, even when you fail and fall short of God's standards, God still sees you as righteous because of Jesus Christ.
The Secret to Overcoming Condemnation
So what is the solution of the accuser's barrage of condemnation? Apostle Paul was faced with the same struggles that you and I are faced with today. His lament is recorded in the following verses: Romans 7: 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? But Paul does not stop there. He goes on to show us in the first verse of Romans 8 how we can counter the accusers's attack: Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What a powerful statement. There is NO CONDEMNATION to those who are IN CHRIST JESUS! There are no conditions and no prerequisites. It's all about Jesus' finished work and none of man's effort.
If you are in Christ Jesus, you should enjoy the freedom from any condemnation. Walk out your salvation and live victoriously.
Amen!
Dedo Suwanda
If you were growing a plant, and the plant was getting weak and sickly, it would be foolish to attempt to nourish and restore the plant by dealing with the superficial elements such as its leaves. To resolve the problem, you have to go after its root. In the same way, when we are dealing with any problem in life, we want to get to its root. Chronic sicknesses, mental depression, perpetual anxiety, financial lack, or marital disharmony are like the withering leaves of the sick plant. You can cut away one leaf, but it's just a matter of time before another leaf becomes sickly. When you are able to identify and deal with the root, the leaves and the fruits, or the outward manifestations, will take care of themselves. In other words, if the root is healthy, the rest of the plant will naturally be healthy too.
Searching for the roots.
The world has found out (from many studies in psychology and human behaviour) that many sicknesses and diseases are linked to a root called "stress". The world has also identified "fear" as the root cause of "stress". They found that in many cases, "stress" is preceeded by "fear". Fear can manifest itself in form of panic attack or a perpetual state of anxiety. But while fear sound like a critical root that needs to be addressed, it is still not the deepest root. Are you interested to find out whatthe root is? The deepst root of all problems in life is "condemnation".
It all began in the Garden of Eden when the first man, Adam, partook of "the tree of of the knowledge of good and evil". From that point onward, man developed a conscience. Your conscience is that which is within you that knows good and evil. Your conscience understands justice. It understands that when there is sin, sin must be punished. This has also led man to punish himself for his sins. There are both believers and unbelievers who are defeated by guilt and condemnation. But the difference is that a believer, who has Jesus Christ and the power of His finished work at the cross, can reject any accusation, guilt, and condemnation thrown at him by the devil and by man's or his own heart. Our hearts have been sprinkled clean with the blood of Jesus from an evil conscience. Hebrews 10:19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. An evil conscience is one that perpetually conscious of sin and failure, and typically expects punishment. It is a conscience that is under condemnation. However, by the grace of God, we an have a good conscience that is sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, and instead of sin-conscious, we can be forgiven-conscious. We can always be conscious of our righteousness in Christ Jesus, even when we fail.
The Accuser of the Brethren
Condemnation is the deepest root because it demands a payment for all your failures and sins. While experts may be able to identify guilt and condemnation as the sources of problems in life, they have no solution to destroy them. Man cannot overcome it through self-effort, and only Jesus can make the payment. The experts of the world cannot see that people are actually faced with a spiritual problem, as the devil insidiously uses condemnation to afflict people. In Hebrew, the devil's name is ha-satan which literally means "the accuser". He is a prosecutor at law and an expert in condemning you, always pointing out your faults and shortcomings. That is why the Bible calls him "the accuser of our brethren" (Revelation 12: 10) . Even when you do something right, the accuser will say, "It's not good enough". His crowning achievement would be to bring about accusations in your life and leave them undetected. Many believers under condemnation would even think that it is the Holy Spirit convicting them of their sins and pointing out their faults. The devil's accusations are concealed in a fog of deception, so that you would be the last person to think that you are under condemnation.
The accuser is an astute legal prosecutor who will not hesitate to use the Ten Comandments to condemn you. That's why the Word of God declares that the Ten Commandments are not just "the ministry of death", but they are also "the ministry of condemnation" (2 Corinthians 3: 7-9) . Remember that there is nothing unholy about the Ten Commandments. They are holy, just and good, but they have no power to make you holy, just and good. The law always ministers condemnation. If you are under law, every time you fail and fall short, you will be condemned. Grace, on the other hand, always ministers righteousness. When you are under grace, even when you fail and fall short of God's standards, God still sees you as righteous because of Jesus Christ.
The Secret to Overcoming Condemnation
So what is the solution of the accuser's barrage of condemnation? Apostle Paul was faced with the same struggles that you and I are faced with today. His lament is recorded in the following verses: Romans 7: 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? But Paul does not stop there. He goes on to show us in the first verse of Romans 8 how we can counter the accusers's attack: Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What a powerful statement. There is NO CONDEMNATION to those who are IN CHRIST JESUS! There are no conditions and no prerequisites. It's all about Jesus' finished work and none of man's effort.
If you are in Christ Jesus, you should enjoy the freedom from any condemnation. Walk out your salvation and live victoriously.
Amen!
Dedo Suwanda
Destined To Reign - Part 5 - Ministry of Death or Ministry of Life?
Dear friends,
I (Jesus) came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (John 10: 10b)
Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6: 4b)
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1: 4)
The glory of God is man fully alive. Is it God's intention towards me, that we live abundantly? That's different from saying, "I have come to forgive you." Forgiveness is awesome, but Jesus says that He comes to give us life, life to the fullest. The question is why we are not living that kind of life? What did Jesus mean when He promised us life? In Luke 18: 29-30, Jesus said this kind of life was to be received in this age, and in the age to come, eternal life. His offer to us is not only for the distant future, after we die, but also for this age or now. When we hear the word eternal life, most of us tend to interpret that as a life that "waits for us in eternity." But eternal means "unending", rather than "later". We are supposed to have a life with victory over sins, over sickness and over poverty, now. Yes, you may have heard of the "now and not-yet principle", where the perfect life without sickness and poverty will happen after Jesus comes back for the second time. However, Luke 18: 29-30 clearly says that such victorious life should have started even now. Let us look at what the Bible says about "life" and "death" for believers.
The Ministry of Death - Ten Commandments
2 Corinthians 3: 7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. 10 Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.
It is interesting that the Bible describes the Ten Commandments , which were written and engraved on stones, as the "ministry of death" or "ministry of condemnation". Some may argue that the "ministry of death" refers to the "ceremonial laws" of Moses, but this cannot be true because they were never written and engraved on stones, but were written on parchment. That's why the preceeding verse says that "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (verse 6)"
While the law, i.e., the ministry of condemnation, had glory, the Bible declares that "the ministry of righteousness" (or "the ministry of life") exceeds moch more in glory". How is the covenant of grace more glorious than the covenant of law? The law demands righteousness from sinful man, whereas grace imparts righteousness to sinful man. You see, the law demands perfection but will not lift a finger to help. Grace, on the other hand, imparts perfection and does everything for man through Jesus Christ, and all that man needs to do is to believe.
Do you know what happened when the Ten Commandments were given? At the foot of Mount Sinai, 3,000 people died. Now, let's compare this with the New Testament. When the Day of Pentecost had come, God poured out His Holy Spirit upon all flesh and what was the result? Peter stood up to preach the gospel and 3,000 people were saved that day.
Now that you know that the Ten Commandments is the ministry of death, think with me: What do you think happen when the church remains bound by the law? Can you see why the body of Christ is sick and depressed today, or why believers do not have the power to overcome sin? For generations, the church has believed that by preaching the Ten Commandments, we will produce holiness. When we see the sin on the increase, we start to preach more of the law. But the Word of God actually says that "the strength of sin is in the law". 1 Corinthians 15: 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. It also says that "sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace" (Romans 6: 14)). So the power of the church to overcome sin is actually found in being under grace and not reinforcing law. Preaching more of law to counteract sin is like adding wood to fire! To reign in life, i.e., live victoriously over sin, we need to receive the gift of righteousness and the gift of abundance grace: Romans 5: 7 For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
The Purpose of Law
God did not give us law for us to keep. He gave the law to bring man to the end of himself, so that he would see his need for a Saviour. There is inherently nothing wrong with the law. The law is holy, just and good, but it has no power to make you holy, just and good. The law is like a mirror that exposes your flaw. If you look in the mirror and see someone ugly, don't blame the mirror. It's not the mirror's fault. The rightful purpose of the law is to expose your sins. It was not designed to take away your sins. In fact the Bible states that the law was given to magnify your sins - "the law entered that the offence might abound." (Romans 5: 20). The law justified no one and condemned the best of us, but grace saves the worst of us.
Does the Holy Spirit Convicts You of Sin?
How can I differentiate between the Holy Spirit convicting me of sin and the accuser hurling condemnation at me? That's a very good question and the answer is really simple. The Holy Spirit never convicts you, believers, of your sins. He never comes to point out your faults. I challenge you to find a scripture in the Bible that tells you that the Holy Spirit has come to convict you of your sins. You won't find any! The body of Christ is living in defeat because many believers don't understand that the Holy Spirit is actually in them to convict them of their righteousness in Christ. Even when you fail, He is ever present in you to remind you that you are continually cleansed by the blood of Jesus.
It does not take the revelation from the Holy Spirit to see that you have failed. To know and believe that God still sees you as righteous even when you have sinned certainly will take the revelation of the Holy Spirit. That's why a non-believer can never be convicted of righteousness. That privilege is reserved for you and me, born-again believers.
How about the verse in John 16: 8-11: 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. It is important to always read the Bible verses in their right context. One way to read Bible verses in their context (and this is a key Bible interpretation principle) is to identify who the verses are talking about. So who was Jesus talking about in John 16: 8? Was he talking about believers or unbelievers?
When Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would come to "convict the world of sin" because they do not believe in Him, it is clear the He was referring to unbelievers because they are of "the world". And notice that the Holy Spirit does not convict the world of "sins" (plural), but of "sin" (singular). It is the sin of unbelief, the sin of rejecting Jesus and not beleieving in His finished work. But when people take John 16: 8 out of its proper context, they start to believe erronously that the Holy Spirit is here to convict believers of their sins. If the Holy Spirit never convicts you, the believers, of your sins, then what does He convict you of? Jesus saya that the Holy Spirit convicts you "of righteousness, because I go to My Father ad you see Me no more." Now, who was Jesus referring to? Clearly, with the use of the second person pronoun "you", Jesus was refrring to His believers, as represented by His disciples who He was talking to. This tells us that the Holy Spirit was sent to convict believers of righteousness. Now, are you made righteous by your works of by faith in Jesus? By now, you should know that you are made righteous by faith, for righteousnes is not "right doing", but "right standing".
Is There Judgment for the Believers?
Above, we have established that the Holy Spirit came to convict the world (unbelievers) of the sin of unbelief in Jesus. But for the believers, the Holy Spirit came to convict him of his righteousness in Christ. Today there are some believers who believe that the Holy Spirit is in them to convict them not just of their sins, but also of God's anger and judgment towards them. This is just not true either. God's anger and judgment for all our sins have been exhausted on the body of Jesus at the cross. So what judgment is there for the believers today? When Jesus sais,"...of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged," who was He referring to? Believers or unbelievers? The answer is neither. He was referring to the ruler of this world. So, who is the ruler of this world? It is the devil or the accuser. When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them dominion over the world. But when Adam sinned, he handed this dominion over to the devil. That's why we live in a fallen world today, where sicknesses, diseases, wars, earthquakes, and floods around us. But guess what? His lease on the world is running out and we are edging closer and closer to the day when Jesus will return for us. Praise the Lord.
My friend, we have seen here that the Holy Spirit has come to: 1) convict unbelievers of the sin of unbelief, 2) convict believers of righteousness apart from works, and 3) remind us that the ruler of this world (the devil) has been judged at the cross. Now, this is called rightly dividing the Word.
It is the time now to understand that we can have victorious life over sin and without condemnation, which will then lead to a life of abundance blessings. Do you believe that it can happen now?
Dedo Suwanda
PS. Materials are extracted from "Waking The Dead" by John Eldredge and "Destined To Reign" by Joseph Prince.
I (Jesus) came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (John 10: 10b)
Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6: 4b)
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1: 4)
The glory of God is man fully alive. Is it God's intention towards me, that we live abundantly? That's different from saying, "I have come to forgive you." Forgiveness is awesome, but Jesus says that He comes to give us life, life to the fullest. The question is why we are not living that kind of life? What did Jesus mean when He promised us life? In Luke 18: 29-30, Jesus said this kind of life was to be received in this age, and in the age to come, eternal life. His offer to us is not only for the distant future, after we die, but also for this age or now. When we hear the word eternal life, most of us tend to interpret that as a life that "waits for us in eternity." But eternal means "unending", rather than "later". We are supposed to have a life with victory over sins, over sickness and over poverty, now. Yes, you may have heard of the "now and not-yet principle", where the perfect life without sickness and poverty will happen after Jesus comes back for the second time. However, Luke 18: 29-30 clearly says that such victorious life should have started even now. Let us look at what the Bible says about "life" and "death" for believers.
The Ministry of Death - Ten Commandments
2 Corinthians 3: 7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. 10 Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.
It is interesting that the Bible describes the Ten Commandments , which were written and engraved on stones, as the "ministry of death" or "ministry of condemnation". Some may argue that the "ministry of death" refers to the "ceremonial laws" of Moses, but this cannot be true because they were never written and engraved on stones, but were written on parchment. That's why the preceeding verse says that "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (verse 6)"
While the law, i.e., the ministry of condemnation, had glory, the Bible declares that "the ministry of righteousness" (or "the ministry of life") exceeds moch more in glory". How is the covenant of grace more glorious than the covenant of law? The law demands righteousness from sinful man, whereas grace imparts righteousness to sinful man. You see, the law demands perfection but will not lift a finger to help. Grace, on the other hand, imparts perfection and does everything for man through Jesus Christ, and all that man needs to do is to believe.
Do you know what happened when the Ten Commandments were given? At the foot of Mount Sinai, 3,000 people died. Now, let's compare this with the New Testament. When the Day of Pentecost had come, God poured out His Holy Spirit upon all flesh and what was the result? Peter stood up to preach the gospel and 3,000 people were saved that day.
Now that you know that the Ten Commandments is the ministry of death, think with me: What do you think happen when the church remains bound by the law? Can you see why the body of Christ is sick and depressed today, or why believers do not have the power to overcome sin? For generations, the church has believed that by preaching the Ten Commandments, we will produce holiness. When we see the sin on the increase, we start to preach more of the law. But the Word of God actually says that "the strength of sin is in the law". 1 Corinthians 15: 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. It also says that "sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace" (Romans 6: 14)). So the power of the church to overcome sin is actually found in being under grace and not reinforcing law. Preaching more of law to counteract sin is like adding wood to fire! To reign in life, i.e., live victoriously over sin, we need to receive the gift of righteousness and the gift of abundance grace: Romans 5: 7 For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
The Purpose of Law
God did not give us law for us to keep. He gave the law to bring man to the end of himself, so that he would see his need for a Saviour. There is inherently nothing wrong with the law. The law is holy, just and good, but it has no power to make you holy, just and good. The law is like a mirror that exposes your flaw. If you look in the mirror and see someone ugly, don't blame the mirror. It's not the mirror's fault. The rightful purpose of the law is to expose your sins. It was not designed to take away your sins. In fact the Bible states that the law was given to magnify your sins - "the law entered that the offence might abound." (Romans 5: 20). The law justified no one and condemned the best of us, but grace saves the worst of us.
Does the Holy Spirit Convicts You of Sin?
How can I differentiate between the Holy Spirit convicting me of sin and the accuser hurling condemnation at me? That's a very good question and the answer is really simple. The Holy Spirit never convicts you, believers, of your sins. He never comes to point out your faults. I challenge you to find a scripture in the Bible that tells you that the Holy Spirit has come to convict you of your sins. You won't find any! The body of Christ is living in defeat because many believers don't understand that the Holy Spirit is actually in them to convict them of their righteousness in Christ. Even when you fail, He is ever present in you to remind you that you are continually cleansed by the blood of Jesus.
It does not take the revelation from the Holy Spirit to see that you have failed. To know and believe that God still sees you as righteous even when you have sinned certainly will take the revelation of the Holy Spirit. That's why a non-believer can never be convicted of righteousness. That privilege is reserved for you and me, born-again believers.
How about the verse in John 16: 8-11: 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. It is important to always read the Bible verses in their right context. One way to read Bible verses in their context (and this is a key Bible interpretation principle) is to identify who the verses are talking about. So who was Jesus talking about in John 16: 8? Was he talking about believers or unbelievers?
When Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would come to "convict the world of sin" because they do not believe in Him, it is clear the He was referring to unbelievers because they are of "the world". And notice that the Holy Spirit does not convict the world of "sins" (plural), but of "sin" (singular). It is the sin of unbelief, the sin of rejecting Jesus and not beleieving in His finished work. But when people take John 16: 8 out of its proper context, they start to believe erronously that the Holy Spirit is here to convict believers of their sins. If the Holy Spirit never convicts you, the believers, of your sins, then what does He convict you of? Jesus saya that the Holy Spirit convicts you "of righteousness, because I go to My Father ad you see Me no more." Now, who was Jesus referring to? Clearly, with the use of the second person pronoun "you", Jesus was refrring to His believers, as represented by His disciples who He was talking to. This tells us that the Holy Spirit was sent to convict believers of righteousness. Now, are you made righteous by your works of by faith in Jesus? By now, you should know that you are made righteous by faith, for righteousnes is not "right doing", but "right standing".
Is There Judgment for the Believers?
Above, we have established that the Holy Spirit came to convict the world (unbelievers) of the sin of unbelief in Jesus. But for the believers, the Holy Spirit came to convict him of his righteousness in Christ. Today there are some believers who believe that the Holy Spirit is in them to convict them not just of their sins, but also of God's anger and judgment towards them. This is just not true either. God's anger and judgment for all our sins have been exhausted on the body of Jesus at the cross. So what judgment is there for the believers today? When Jesus sais,"...of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged," who was He referring to? Believers or unbelievers? The answer is neither. He was referring to the ruler of this world. So, who is the ruler of this world? It is the devil or the accuser. When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them dominion over the world. But when Adam sinned, he handed this dominion over to the devil. That's why we live in a fallen world today, where sicknesses, diseases, wars, earthquakes, and floods around us. But guess what? His lease on the world is running out and we are edging closer and closer to the day when Jesus will return for us. Praise the Lord.
My friend, we have seen here that the Holy Spirit has come to: 1) convict unbelievers of the sin of unbelief, 2) convict believers of righteousness apart from works, and 3) remind us that the ruler of this world (the devil) has been judged at the cross. Now, this is called rightly dividing the Word.
It is the time now to understand that we can have victorious life over sin and without condemnation, which will then lead to a life of abundance blessings. Do you believe that it can happen now?
Dedo Suwanda
PS. Materials are extracted from "Waking The Dead" by John Eldredge and "Destined To Reign" by Joseph Prince.
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