Freedom

As believers, we are free from the grip of satan. Jesus paid the price for us and defeated satan once and for all. Our sins have been washed away in the blood of Jesus. Satan needs only to be resisted to be overcome. Our freedom is to be used obeying Holy Spirit and serving one another in love. ~ DickEvans.org

Obligations

As believers, Christ has set us free; we are no longer obligated to the law for our salvation. No longer are our works requirements to becoming right with God. In Christ, we are already right with Him. Yet the enemy likes to keep us focused on the past and reminds us of the obligations we had before Christ. ~ DickEvans.org

Believe

The prize is salvation; eternity with our God. Paul tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. But God doesn’t work miracles as a reward for completing a task. Miracles happen to all who believe and to anyone else He wishes to touch. ~ DickEvans.org

Strangers

We have no idea how many times have missed an opportunity by how we have reacted to strangers.They may have been drawn to us because of the light of Jesus in us and were ready to hear the Good News. They may have needed a kind word at that very moment to keep them from doing something very wrong. Let’s open our eyes and take time to reach out to a stranger today. ~ DickEvans.org

In Jesus Name

1 Corinthians 8:6 NIV 
There is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

We all are familiar with the Lord's Prayer. The disciples asked Jesus how to pray and He gave them an example. We pray to the Father beginning by exalting Him and then thanking Him and then asking Him for what we desire. Although it can be repeated as a rout prayer, I do not believe this was Jesus intention.

And Jesus gave them this prayer while they were still under the law; under the old covenant. So part of the prayer asks the Father for forgiveness. Under the new covenant born again believers are covered by the grace of God. Jesus took all our sins forevermore at the cross. Our debt is paid in full.

So instead of asking for forgiveness in our prayers perhaps we should be thanking Him for having already forgiven us and asking Him to show us how to forgive others as He forgave us.

I pray to the Father in the name of Jesus. After all, Jesus told us that whatever we asked for that was in the will of the Father would be granted when we used His name, the name of Jesus.

He knows our heart, but I believe praying to Jesus in your name is not what Jesus told the disciples. I pray always in the name of Jesus. Yes, Jesus is part of the Godhead. Yes, we serve a triune God. They are one and they are separate.

The Father sees us through the eyes of His Son, Jesus. And He sees us as perfect in Christ. The word tells us that we abide in Jesus and He in us. When we were born again we were given the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Christ, to live in us. Not the Trinity. Our spirit is one with Holy Spirit and through that union we become filled.

I give thanks to our Father God for all He has done for us. Thank you, Lord Jesus that you saved us. That we are born again. That you had the Father send the Holy Spirit to live in us. To comfort us. To teach us all things. To guide us in our daily walk.

We Belong

As believers, we belong to Christ just as much as that new believer and just as much as that old timer that seems to have known Christ for decades. He who is in us is the same as is in them. What we know is that He is in us. ~ DickEvans.org

Circumstances

With all that is going on in and around our lives, it is easy to understand how we can let circumstances control our lives. It is easy to look at the problems and not to the promises. We need to fight through the circumstances knowing God is with us, not be caught up in them. We look forward to what we have not seen; we look forward to eternity with Him. ~ DickEvans.org

Fragrance

When we walk into a room do others smell a heavy mask of perfume like our grandmother used to apply? Or do they smell the fragrance of a life in Christ? If they are ready to hear the Gospel message, they will be attracted to the essence of His nature which they sense in our presence. They are ready to hear, ready to receive, and ready to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. ~ DickEvans.org

Masks

People talk the right talk saying all the words we expect them to say. On the outside, everything looks great. But what is behind the false front? What sinful lives are they hiding behind a mask of truth We need to examine ourselves daily and shed the masks. When we are willing to do that, God can show us the things needing correction. ~ DickEvans.org

Good Company

Good company changes bad character. The more time we spend in the presence of other believers, others who are in Christ, the easier it is to discern the error in our path as we walk in the world each day. And as we walk in the world, others will be changed by our good company, the character of Christ. ~ DickEvans.org

Be the Light

We are to be the light of Jesus in an otherwise dark place. We are to be friendly to others, yet be who we are in Christ as we join in with them. As we gain their confidence, they will be drawn to the Light and we will be given the opportunity to share Jesus with them. ~ DickEvans.org

Our Conscience

1 Corinthians 4:4
My conscience is clear, but that isn't what matters. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide. (NLT)

While my computer is on there is a background job running that checks to see if any of the files I attempt to open or the email that I receive contains a known virus. To be certain that the program always has a current set of virus definitions, it also checks in with the company that created the program to automatically download the up to date set. It does this in the background as well.

When it finds a file that appears to be infected, I have to choose to use it or lose it. I make the ultimate choice. It is a warning to me of potential danger. I can heed the warning or ignore it. Ignoring it opens me up to possible data loss and hours of reconstructing my hard disk.

I believe that our conscience works in much the same manner. It is a built in mechanism that runs in the background, in our sub-conscience. It sifts through all the experiences of our past and all our decisions and the results of those decisions to determine if what we are about to do is good or bad. We seem to know in advance when we are treading on dangerous ground. But all it is is a warning mechanism. We make the choice to go or not go.

Sometimes we think of this as the Holy Spirit guiding us, but is He? All persons have a conscience that was loaded before we were born. The updates came from our life experiences and our decisions. That is why a child seems to know right from wrong better than some adults we know.

When we become believers, He sends the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. Holy Spirit, also known as Christ within, is there to comfort us, to encourage us, and to instruct us. He is not our conscience. We must now learn to listen to Him for our guidance.

Through Us

Jesus gave us the Great Commission. To execute it we must be in the presence of non-believers. The changes inside give us the ability to reach those that have been around us for years; those that we work with and those that we have spent our non-working time with. He wants us to continue on as we were. Then others will come to know Him through us. ~ DickEvans.0rg

Wisdom

No matter how wise we get, there is nobody on earth that even approaches the wisdom of God. He is all knowing. As we ask Him for wisdom each day He will give it to us. As He gives it and we apply it, our level of wisdom rises a little more. ~ DickEvans.org

Holy Spirit

When we become believers, He sends the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. Holy Spirit, also known as Christ within, is there to comfort us, to encourage us, and to instruct us. He is not our conscience. We must now learn to listen to Him for our guidance. The choice is always ours to make however it is to our benefit for us to use the Godly input that Holy Spirit supplies. ~ DickEvans.org

Universal Translator

Before I was born again, I would read my Bible and not get much out of it. As Spirit filled believers, we have that universal translator. We have God’s Spirit within. Our spirit understands what God’s spirit is saying. The Holy Spirit reveals these truths to us. ~ DickEvans.org

Serve Others

We are to serve others and to encourage them in the faith. In doing so we must be considerate of their beliefs for if our actions make them stumble into what they believe is sin we are not serving them. If we are not serving others, we are not serving God. ~ DickEvans.org

Do Not Argue

When we argue with another Christian about what we know to be right, are we not playing the role of the Holy Spirit for that person? It is the Holy Spirit’s job, not ours, to convict and to unfold the truth. He will do it in a way and at a time that the person can grow. Our efforts to correct them may do more to hold them back from receiving from the Holy Spirit than help them to truly grow in Christ. ~ DickEvans.org

A New Reality

2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV 
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 

We are not who we were. We are born again. We no longer desire to sin because we are in Christ. That is the reality of our salvation. The dead man. Who we were is not in our new reality. In that former reality, we are subject to all the old feelings and past choices. Christ wants us to remain in Him. It is where we have freedom. Where we only see Jesus and His kingdom.

And yet we dabble in the old reality every day. Sometimes our entire day is spent there. We try to fix everything by ourselves leaning to our own understanding. We take credit for all the good that happens and blame the devil or someone else when our choices cause conflict or problems for us.

It seems that we often only look to our new reality when we can't do it on our own. When all else fails, we remember who we are in Christ and step into that reality. If only we could convince our self to stay there. When we practice His presence and walk out in the new reality all goes according to God's plan. The defeated Satan no longer has any effect on us.

Father God help me to stay in this new reality. To walk out as the born again believer I confess to be. In Jesus name, I pray

Potential

When God has a task for us to do, He does not look at our worldly training or experience. He does not require a certain degree before selecting us. He knows our potential. He knows better than we do what we are capable of accomplishing. If He calls us out to perform a task, no matter how difficult or impossible it may seem, we can do it. He will give us whatever is needed to see it through. ~ DickEvans.org

Tempted

We are born again; we are believers following Jesus. When tempted to do the things we used to do, the things our old nature was comfortable with, we must obey God because we are His children. ~ DickEvans.org

Changing Churches

When God is teaching us, He may be moving us from one place to another in our thinking. We must be ready to let that happen. Instead, some switch churches because they are uncomfortable with what God is revealing to them through the messages they hear. It is not about what we desire to learn, but what He has to reveal to us. ~ DickEvans.org

New DNA

When we ask Jesus into our heart, we become born again. No longer are we born of flesh alone. Our spiritual DNA is changed and we start the journey of becoming Christ like. The law is to be lived by, but we no longer are judged by it. We have already been made right; already accepted just as we are. ~ DickEvans.org

His Plan

The first step to success is in understanding that it is God’s plan we are to work on, not ours. And to get started we need to realize that He won’t get us to the next step until we can accept things just the way they are. It is then that He places into motion the next phase of His plan. ~ DickEvans.org

Tell

When we look around at all that God has given us, there is so much to sing about. There is so much to proclaim. He has even commissioned each and every believer to preach the gospel message to the entire world; to save the lost. Let’s tell everyone about the amazing things He does. ~ DickEvans.org

Distraction

John 8:44 NLT
For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.

The enemy is a master of distraction. He is a liar and a thief. And yet we can be so in need of direction in our life that we may be seeing his distraction as our direction.

Are we letting the enemy convince us that the path we are taking is from God? Is the direction from Him or is the enemy pulling us away from our destiny?

How do we know the difference? I believe all the things we need to solve any question can be found in God's word. The more we read His word the more we understand Him and truth. The more we understand Him the easier it is to know what is from Him and what is from the deceptive tongue of the enemy or the temptations of our past still surfacing from our memories.

God will not take us down a path that leads us away from the truth. He will not have us doing things that distract us from Him.

God wants all of us all the time. Anything that takes us away from our path to Him is a distraction. And when we are looking to someone or something other than Him we are in sin.

Under grace, the Father does not see our sin, but as born again believers our desires are to do what we know to be right in His eyes. He loves us regardless and has already forgiven us of our indiscretions.

Yet every indiscretion opens a crack in us that satan can use to slip in something of his -- sickness, depression, anxiety, pain, stress, and more.

We need to be careful of our choices and know that they line up with God's word and are not simply distractions no matter how good they may feel.

Father, help me to discern when I'm walking down a path of distraction instead of in the direction you have for me. Pull me away from the distraction before it leads to destruction. In Jesus name, I pray.

The Call

God takes us right where we are. The Great Commission is for the new believer as well as the seasoned veteran. We all have the same call; the call to reach the lost and share the Gospel. ~ DickEvans.org

The Battle

It is interesting that our old nature is still attracted to behavior that is not God like; behavior that goes against what we know to be correct. Because we are continuously in transition toward a more Christ like nature, we will always be fighting this battle. ~ DickEvans.org

Tongues

The Word tells us that speaking in tongues, our spirit language, is an attribute of a Holy Spirit filled believer. As we pray this way, we are in communication with our maker, our Father God, in a language only known to Him and our spirit man. ~ DickEvans.org

Listen and Obey

As believers, we have the Holy Spirit within. As our relationship with Him builds, the communication between Him and us increases. Then that still small voice is much more than built in programming, it is God Himself directing our every step – if only we would listen and obey. ~ DickEvans.org

Working

Many, believers and unbelievers alike, spend more time looking for ways to get out of working. The truth is that those that follow the tradition of working hard and smart are on the right track. ~ DickEvans.org