Monday, March 28, 2016

He Healed Them

Acts 28:8 NKJV
And it happened that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and dysentery. Paul went in to him and prayed, and he laid his hands on him and healed him.

This is the only specific reference, except for Jesus, where a person is credited with the healing. We know it is the Jesus in us that is doing the healing. It is by the authority and power of the Holy Spirit. We do not want to come across as being the source of the miraculous, but we are the ones laying on hands.

Dont leave it there. It is our hands and our words as we use His authority to cast out the infirmity, but it is only because of God's grace. Because of Grace we have been given the Holy Spirit to live in us. It is that spirit that comes upon us and does the healing. But in their eyes we did it. I am careful to make sure they know that Jesus is the source, not me. I was just the vessel that was used.

Jesus did say that we would do everything He did and even greater things. (John 14:12) He healed the sick. He even raised the dead. If He did it, we too can do it. Jesus was also a man who had the Holy Spirit and now we also have the same Spirit that raised the dead living in us. So we shall lay hands on the sick and heal them. (Mark 16.18)


Monday, March 21, 2016

God is Love

1 John 4:8
But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Father God loves us more than we can understand. He does not push us down to see if we will get back up. He does not confront us with anything but love. He is with us in our trials but does not put us in them. Life here on earth and our own human desires and relationships put us in those situations. Not God. As we reach out to Him, He is right there. He wants us to surrender all our stuff to Him.

We must stop staying in the past bothered by what we have done or what others have done to us. Because of His mercy, we are born again. That is to say reborn. We had no past when we were first born of our human mother and father. When we were reborn into Christ we also had no past. It was removed at the cross. There is nothing to be forgiven from. There is nothing to be ashamed of. We were born again. We need to stop dredging up things from our former life. Give it to God.

Walk in truth. Walk in the shadow of the Almighty. Walk in His love. Walk in His grace.

Friday, March 18, 2016

New Programming

By Dick Evans

When I first began my life as a programmer of large IBM computers a half a century ago, we would fix up the programs we had written by adding what we called patches. They were bits of code that jumped out of the code we had written to perform new code to get around the original errored code. When the patch was finished executing it woulds then jump back into the old programming and continue. Nowadays they are not called patches, but updates and we all deal with them on our computers today as Microsoft sends them to us. The result is the same--new programming mixed in with old programming.

We all come from different religious backgrounds and we've all been programmed in the process. We learned how to pray to God, how to please God, how to follow the rules set forth in the Old Testament under the old covenant to keep God happy with us. We learned how our mistakes, our sins, could make our Father upset with us. And how our sins could bring sickness in our lives.

And then we became born again. But instead of throwing out the old programing and rebooting with a whole new program, the program created when Jesus went to the cross and took all our sins, all our old programming, all our diseases, all our sicknesses, all curses from all of us for time forever, we tried to have both the old and the new coexist. (Matthew 8:17)

We got a new start, a new program. We do not need to hang onto the old programs. Christianity is not about patching or updating old programming. It is about giving up the old and claiming the new program. It is about walking forward as a new man or woman with the DNA of Jesus. His time on the cross gave us complete freedom. (Luke 4:18) Freedom from all old programming. All religious programming.

Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, lives in us. We are righteous in Christ. We find ourselves immersed in the grace of God. When God looks at us He only sees his son Jesus. It is about time we understood this and walked it out daily. Jesus defeated Satan. The enemy is beneath our feet. It is time to stop giving him credit for the challenges in our lives. It is time to go, preach the good news, disciple those that believe, and lay hands on the sick seeing them recover. (Mark 16:15-18)

The only work we have is to believe on Him who the Father sent. (John 6:29) We are to love our Father God above all else and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. (Mark 12:30-31) We are living in the age of grace, not the age of law. Jesus came to fulfill the law. (Romans 13:10) He ushered in the age of grace. If we continue to practice the traditions and laws of the last age are we not discounting the cross?

Jesus did not come so that we would continue in old traditions. We do not have to perform in the ways of those looking to Father God for his approval. Under grace, God only sees us through the love He has for His only Son. We are in Jesus and He is in us. We can't live on both sides of the street. We can't dual boot, one day booting into the old programming and then the next booting into the new programming. We have to give up the old and fully walk in the new. Grace is it. Grace is the New Covenant program.


Monday, March 14, 2016

Grace

John 6:29 NLT
Jesus told them, "This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent."

Have you ever passed by a stranger and later wondered who he was? You wonder why he ended up where he is in this life. We think "But for the grace of God that could be me." And yet that person is eligible for that same grace.

Jesus went to the cross for all people. He took the sins and curses and sicknesses of all. Not just for those that believed in Him. No one was born again yet. No one had the Holy Spirit. No one had a revelation of God's grace. The age of grace had not even begun. They were still living under law.

Then came Pentecost where the Holy Spirit was sent to live in every believer. The age of Grace had begun. And as Jesus told us when He told His disciples the only work we would have is to believe on the one the Father had sent. We are in Christ and He is in us. Holy Spirit and our spirit are one. We live and breath in Him.

As we allow Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, to work through us, He manifests in authority and power to reach the lost. To heal the sick. To Remove bondages. And He frees all he comes in contact with.

All it takes is letting go of our fleshly desires and give Him control. Trust Him with everything and He opens up the miraculous in our life. Know who you are in Christ.

So the next time you see a beggar, stop and introduce him to who is in you. Both of your lives will be forever changed.

Monday, March 07, 2016

Commandments

 Matthew 22:37-39 NLT
Jesus replied, "'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

How many of us love our self? We have done things in our past that may question our worthiness. Even our current lifestyle may not be the one we believe is right for us. We have a problem wrapping our arms around the fact that the Grace of God allowed us to become saved.

Because of God's grace our past actions and lifestyle does not matter to our salvation. We are saved just as we are. There is no work to be done to obtain our place in heaven. That work was finished at the cross.

Ours sins, past, present, and future are forgiven. Jesus took them away on that awful day when He gave up His life for ours. He took away all curses, all sickness, all disease. By His stripes we are healed. We are not punished when we sin, but we don't sin because our nature is changing to be the nature of Jesus. Our mind is being renewed a day by day. Each day brings us closer to being Christ like.

As born again believers we have the spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit in us. And our spirit is one with Him. Our spirit is already with Him, but the rest of us is working out its salvation with fear and trembling. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. And then to love our neighbor as our self. 

And the more time we spend in communion with Holy Spirit, the more our heart, soul, and mind are changed. Our thinking changes. Our soul becomes Christ like. Our mind becomes renewed to the be the mind of Christ. Praise God!