After sixteen years bringing messages just about every week, you have to ask what if anything new can be said about our Lord that has not already been said? The short answer is, there isn’t. However the Lord is still in His Heaven, He is still touching lives and is still calling people to serve. [Matthew 4:19] This is because there are so many people who have not heard of the saving Grace of God through His Son Jesus, [Acts 15:11] and as long as there are people who don’t have Jesus in their lives there will be a need to take the message to them. [Romans 16:25] With today’s media this can be done in so many ways and many of these ways cannot be stopped by government regulations or persecution, in fact nothing will ever stop the Word of God reaching the people, so all will be able to make that fateful decision, whether to accept Jesus into their lives or reject Him. [Hebrew 13:20-22]
What a marvellous day it was, the day that we accepted Jesus into our lives and sometimes we have to stop and reflect what has happened since that day. [Romans 13:11] The one thing that most people will all agree on is that the walk with Him is not an easy walk, as Jesus did not promise us a rose garden, but a time of trial. [John 16:33] Every new step we take is met with more resistance, more troubles and in some cases more heartache. Somebody recently asked why this was so? they waited for my great theological answer to explain the situation of persecution. However my answer was, because that’s the way it is, that’s the way it works. [Revelation 2:9-11]
With repented sinners accepting Jesus as the Lord of their lives, there is rejoicing in Heaven. [Luke 15:10] But, when people come out of the world and into the kingdom of God, there is a plan by the evil one to destroy that relationship. This is done in different ways and unless we stand firm on the Word we are open to more and more of these attacks. [1 Peter 5:8]
We have just had the Feast of Dedication, [John 10:22] also known as the Festival of Lights. At this time the Word of God was under attack from the things of the world but God came through with a magnificent victory,
because the darkness of the world can never blot out the Light of God, try as it might. So one of the greatest battlefields to either prevent or remove people from the Kingdom is taking place amongst young Believers, young as in reading of the Word, or the battle against the Word of God. [John 10:10]
We need to stand firm on the Word and know it is truth; we need to read the Word and we need to believe the Word. [John 5:24] As the football coach said to his team: we are to praise God if we win and we need to praise God if we lose. [Psalm 44:8] It is the same in our walk with the Lord, we praise Him when all is going well, we thank Him for the blessings and we need to praise Him when the things around us are falling apart. Because God is not a God of just the good times, He is also there when the times are bad. [Psalm 140:8] That is when He is really reaching out to us and really wants to take us in His arms and say, “I love you child.” [1 John 5:1]
The Bible says nothing can separate us from the love of God. [Romans 8:39] And I say ourselves, or sadly other Christians can put up a barrier between us and God; some Christians who with their self-righteousness, do not accept the faults of other people, forgetting God accepted them with all their faults, cause a lot of trouble for people who are going through hard times. [Isaiah 42:3] Repentance is a great “Happy Pill”. Asking someone to forgive them is another and saying I am sorry is another. These are the steps we need to take to be happy in our walk with Jesus. After all when things are down and all the world is against us, all we have to do is look up at the cross. The cross that Jesus died on and you will see just two pieces of wood. The Cross is empty and the reason it is empty is that Jesus has the victory over all evil. [Matthew 8:28-34] Evil tried to destroy Him but God raised Him from the dead to give us life. [Psalm 16:10] Yes, the life we have may be dealing up some bad hands but just wait to the final hand when we stand in His glory and all the things of this world will fade away as we stand in Glory with our Saviour Jesus. So I say let us focus on what is to come because the prize is worth the price Jesus paid and we pay in being his disciples. [John 15:18]
What a marvellous day it was, the day that we accepted Jesus into our lives and sometimes we have to stop and reflect what has happened since that day. [Romans 13:11] The one thing that most people will all agree on is that the walk with Him is not an easy walk, as Jesus did not promise us a rose garden, but a time of trial. [John 16:33] Every new step we take is met with more resistance, more troubles and in some cases more heartache. Somebody recently asked why this was so? they waited for my great theological answer to explain the situation of persecution. However my answer was, because that’s the way it is, that’s the way it works. [Revelation 2:9-11]
With repented sinners accepting Jesus as the Lord of their lives, there is rejoicing in Heaven. [Luke 15:10] But, when people come out of the world and into the kingdom of God, there is a plan by the evil one to destroy that relationship. This is done in different ways and unless we stand firm on the Word we are open to more and more of these attacks. [1 Peter 5:8]
We have just had the Feast of Dedication, [John 10:22] also known as the Festival of Lights. At this time the Word of God was under attack from the things of the world but God came through with a magnificent victory,
because the darkness of the world can never blot out the Light of God, try as it might. So one of the greatest battlefields to either prevent or remove people from the Kingdom is taking place amongst young Believers, young as in reading of the Word, or the battle against the Word of God. [John 10:10]
We need to stand firm on the Word and know it is truth; we need to read the Word and we need to believe the Word. [John 5:24] As the football coach said to his team: we are to praise God if we win and we need to praise God if we lose. [Psalm 44:8] It is the same in our walk with the Lord, we praise Him when all is going well, we thank Him for the blessings and we need to praise Him when the things around us are falling apart. Because God is not a God of just the good times, He is also there when the times are bad. [Psalm 140:8] That is when He is really reaching out to us and really wants to take us in His arms and say, “I love you child.” [1 John 5:1]
The Bible says nothing can separate us from the love of God. [Romans 8:39] And I say ourselves, or sadly other Christians can put up a barrier between us and God; some Christians who with their self-righteousness, do not accept the faults of other people, forgetting God accepted them with all their faults, cause a lot of trouble for people who are going through hard times. [Isaiah 42:3] Repentance is a great “Happy Pill”. Asking someone to forgive them is another and saying I am sorry is another. These are the steps we need to take to be happy in our walk with Jesus. After all when things are down and all the world is against us, all we have to do is look up at the cross. The cross that Jesus died on and you will see just two pieces of wood. The Cross is empty and the reason it is empty is that Jesus has the victory over all evil. [Matthew 8:28-34] Evil tried to destroy Him but God raised Him from the dead to give us life. [Psalm 16:10] Yes, the life we have may be dealing up some bad hands but just wait to the final hand when we stand in His glory and all the things of this world will fade away as we stand in Glory with our Saviour Jesus. So I say let us focus on what is to come because the prize is worth the price Jesus paid and we pay in being his disciples. [John 15:18]