Powerful Stuff!
In this recent sermon, Pastor Paul White teaches that there is great power in the tongue and that we are not necessarily what we say, but we need to confess who we are in Christ.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The "Giant Flat Panel TV" in Heaven - Joseph Prince
The following article is from the Daily Devotional by Joseph Prince. You can subscribe to these devotionals from www.josephprince.org.
When I was a young Christian growing up in Singapore, I read a little tract entitled This Was Your Life. In that tract, it said that when you get to heaven, God will replay your entire life, including all your sins, on a huge video screen for all the angels and other saints to watch!
The idea that God was making such a video of my life with the intention of screening it for everyone to watch used to make me feel awful and condemned before God. How could I ever stand boldly in His presence? And how was I going to face my loved ones and Christian friends in heaven?
I was a nervous wreck, thinking about all my sins that God was recording down, until I read this in the Bible: “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.” (Romans 4:8) Hallelujah! I jumped for joy when I found out that God was not counting my sins against me, and that He has given me something called “non-imputation of sins”!
My friend, the reason that God does not impute any of our sins to us is that He has already imputed all of them to the body of His Son Jesus when He hung on the cross 2,000 years ago. Not only that, when God punished His Son for our sins, He caused the curse of the law to fall stroke by stroke upon Jesus’ entire body until every curse had been fully satisfied. That is why we have been redeemed from the curse of the law. (Galatians 3:13) That is why, instead of imputing sin to us, God imputes righteousness!
God wants us to know that our sins and lawless deeds He will remember no more. The words “no more” in the original Greek text carry a strong double-negative meaning. In other words, God is saying, “No way, by no means, will I ever remember your sins again!”
Beloved, since God says that He will remember your sins no more, why do you still remember them? Or for that matter, your spouse’s or neighbor’s sins? God does not want you to be conscious of sins because He is not. So rejoice! Come to Him boldly and expect Him to show you mercy and grace because He remembers your sins no more!
When I was a young Christian growing up in Singapore, I read a little tract entitled This Was Your Life. In that tract, it said that when you get to heaven, God will replay your entire life, including all your sins, on a huge video screen for all the angels and other saints to watch!
The idea that God was making such a video of my life with the intention of screening it for everyone to watch used to make me feel awful and condemned before God. How could I ever stand boldly in His presence? And how was I going to face my loved ones and Christian friends in heaven?
I was a nervous wreck, thinking about all my sins that God was recording down, until I read this in the Bible: “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.” (Romans 4:8) Hallelujah! I jumped for joy when I found out that God was not counting my sins against me, and that He has given me something called “non-imputation of sins”!
My friend, the reason that God does not impute any of our sins to us is that He has already imputed all of them to the body of His Son Jesus when He hung on the cross 2,000 years ago. Not only that, when God punished His Son for our sins, He caused the curse of the law to fall stroke by stroke upon Jesus’ entire body until every curse had been fully satisfied. That is why we have been redeemed from the curse of the law. (Galatians 3:13) That is why, instead of imputing sin to us, God imputes righteousness!
God wants us to know that our sins and lawless deeds He will remember no more. The words “no more” in the original Greek text carry a strong double-negative meaning. In other words, God is saying, “No way, by no means, will I ever remember your sins again!”
Beloved, since God says that He will remember your sins no more, why do you still remember them? Or for that matter, your spouse’s or neighbor’s sins? God does not want you to be conscious of sins because He is not. So rejoice! Come to Him boldly and expect Him to show you mercy and grace because He remembers your sins no more!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
What Bread Are You Feeding On? -Part 2
Matt 4:4 It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
My last article under this topic was an attempt to show that Jesus is the “Word of God” that proceeds out of the mouth of God, just like manna proceeded from the mouth of God in the Old Testament. He is the heavenly bread that came down from God. To establish this truth, I had to delve into the Hebrew and Greek. I understand that it may not be easy for casual reading.
To summarize, the apostle John says that Jesus is the “Word of God” who became flesh and dwelt among us. He is the embodiment or essence of the word of God. In other words, he is a perfect representation of God the father and what the Father speaks to us (Heb 1:1, 2).
In the temptation in the wilderness, one of things satan tempted Jesus to do, was to prove His Sonship by works. He said, “If you be the son of God, then turn these stones into bread”. To which Jesus replied, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Jesus refused to prove his Sonship by His works because He was very well established in the knowledge of His identity. (This is a very important lesson for us to know our identity in Christ)
The stones represents “the law given on tablets of stone”. Turning “stones into bread” signifies making the law our food. Jesus was now very hungry after 40 days of fasting and the tempter wanted Him to turn the stones into bread and thereby have Jesus eat of it. This would serve satan’s purpose of Jesus feeding on the law by establishing His Sonship or identity by His works, apart from the identity which the Father had proclaimed over Him. The Father had proclaimed that “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
This is very similar to the temptation with which satan tempted Eve in the garden of Eden. He told her that she could become like God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which represents the Law. But man was already like God, since they were created in the likeness and image of God. God had warned them against eating from this tree. He wanted them to eat from the tree of life which signifies the life of Jesus. Eve, unlike Jesus, had an identity crisis and gave into the temptation. She wanted to establish her own identity apart from God.
Jesus refused to give into satan’s deception to prove His identity by His works and partaking of the bread from stones (law). Rather, He said that you will live by the word of God or the bread of life that proceeds from the mouth of God. The word of God is Jesus himself. He is the bread of life. This word is full of grace and truth (John 1:14,16,17)
We have the same choice today. Do we want to feed on the bread of life (Jesus) or do we want to feed on the bread of the law? Eating from the bread of life will result in life; eating from the bread of law will result in death.” Live by my life” says the Lord!!
My last article under this topic was an attempt to show that Jesus is the “Word of God” that proceeds out of the mouth of God, just like manna proceeded from the mouth of God in the Old Testament. He is the heavenly bread that came down from God. To establish this truth, I had to delve into the Hebrew and Greek. I understand that it may not be easy for casual reading.
To summarize, the apostle John says that Jesus is the “Word of God” who became flesh and dwelt among us. He is the embodiment or essence of the word of God. In other words, he is a perfect representation of God the father and what the Father speaks to us (Heb 1:1, 2).
In the temptation in the wilderness, one of things satan tempted Jesus to do, was to prove His Sonship by works. He said, “If you be the son of God, then turn these stones into bread”. To which Jesus replied, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Jesus refused to prove his Sonship by His works because He was very well established in the knowledge of His identity. (This is a very important lesson for us to know our identity in Christ)
The stones represents “the law given on tablets of stone”. Turning “stones into bread” signifies making the law our food. Jesus was now very hungry after 40 days of fasting and the tempter wanted Him to turn the stones into bread and thereby have Jesus eat of it. This would serve satan’s purpose of Jesus feeding on the law by establishing His Sonship or identity by His works, apart from the identity which the Father had proclaimed over Him. The Father had proclaimed that “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
This is very similar to the temptation with which satan tempted Eve in the garden of Eden. He told her that she could become like God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which represents the Law. But man was already like God, since they were created in the likeness and image of God. God had warned them against eating from this tree. He wanted them to eat from the tree of life which signifies the life of Jesus. Eve, unlike Jesus, had an identity crisis and gave into the temptation. She wanted to establish her own identity apart from God.
Jesus refused to give into satan’s deception to prove His identity by His works and partaking of the bread from stones (law). Rather, He said that you will live by the word of God or the bread of life that proceeds from the mouth of God. The word of God is Jesus himself. He is the bread of life. This word is full of grace and truth (John 1:14,16,17)
We have the same choice today. Do we want to feed on the bread of life (Jesus) or do we want to feed on the bread of the law? Eating from the bread of life will result in life; eating from the bread of law will result in death.” Live by my life” says the Lord!!
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
What Bread Are You Feeding On?
Matt 4:4 It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
What was Jesus saying here? Was he saying that we should read the Bible every day and obey all the scriptures? (Don’t misunderstand; I am all for reading the Bible). Let’s examine prayerfully and with an open mind!
Jesus was quoting from Deut 8:3 which says, He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna ……………. that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone (physical bread), but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD - NASB.(brackets mine). What is the thing that came from the mouth of the Lord - - It is manna, the heavenly bread. So God is saying, He fed them with this heavenly bread manna which came from Him, and not with physical/earthly bread, to show that they can live by what comes from God and not just by physical bread.
Now, when Jesus quoted this same verse to satan, He replaced “everything or manna” with “rhema – which means “utterance” or word that comes from the mouth of God. So what is this word or rhema that comes out of the mouth of God that we are supposed to eat and live by? It is the word of God, who came from God, in the form of flesh, His name is Jesus!
Let me explain! The manna in the Old Testament was only a type and shadow of the real heavenly bread Jesus. This heavenly bread became flesh. Jesus said in John 6:50 this is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. John 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Hallelujah! The bread from heaven became flesh.
Jesus was referring to Himself when He told satan, that man shall live by every “word” that comes out from God. Jesus is the embodiment of every word that comes out of the mouth of God. When John talks about the “word” becoming flesh, he uses the greek word “logos”. Logos means the reasoning or computation of God or the essence of the word of God. Jesus is the essence of all the word or rhema or utterances of God. This logos (word) or Jesus is full of grace and truth. There is no condemnation His word.
What is God’s reasoning or logos word? It is simply that, by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, but by the obedience of another man, many shall be made righteous (Rom 5:19). His reasoning is that because of Jesus’s obedience to the law and taking upon Himself the curse of the law, the righteousness of God comes as a FREE gift upon all who believe in this reasoning or logos of God. Can you align your reasoning with that of God’s and see yourself as He sees you – righteous and holy? Or are you trying to look for the do’s and don’ts in the scripture and still trying to become righteous and attain eternal life by obeying those scriptures like the Pharisees (John 5:38-40).
If you feed on the bread of life Jesus, you will never need the bread from stones (Law). Which bread are you eating and living by? The one leads to life the other to death! Don't mix the two breads either, because a little poison will poison the whole lump!
Please check Part 2 of this article......
What was Jesus saying here? Was he saying that we should read the Bible every day and obey all the scriptures? (Don’t misunderstand; I am all for reading the Bible). Let’s examine prayerfully and with an open mind!
Jesus was quoting from Deut 8:3 which says, He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna ……………. that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone (physical bread), but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD - NASB.(brackets mine). What is the thing that came from the mouth of the Lord - - It is manna, the heavenly bread. So God is saying, He fed them with this heavenly bread manna which came from Him, and not with physical/earthly bread, to show that they can live by what comes from God and not just by physical bread.
Now, when Jesus quoted this same verse to satan, He replaced “everything or manna” with “rhema – which means “utterance” or word that comes from the mouth of God. So what is this word or rhema that comes out of the mouth of God that we are supposed to eat and live by? It is the word of God, who came from God, in the form of flesh, His name is Jesus!
Let me explain! The manna in the Old Testament was only a type and shadow of the real heavenly bread Jesus. This heavenly bread became flesh. Jesus said in John 6:50 this is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. John 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Hallelujah! The bread from heaven became flesh.
Jesus was referring to Himself when He told satan, that man shall live by every “word” that comes out from God. Jesus is the embodiment of every word that comes out of the mouth of God. When John talks about the “word” becoming flesh, he uses the greek word “logos”. Logos means the reasoning or computation of God or the essence of the word of God. Jesus is the essence of all the word or rhema or utterances of God. This logos (word) or Jesus is full of grace and truth. There is no condemnation His word.
What is God’s reasoning or logos word? It is simply that, by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, but by the obedience of another man, many shall be made righteous (Rom 5:19). His reasoning is that because of Jesus’s obedience to the law and taking upon Himself the curse of the law, the righteousness of God comes as a FREE gift upon all who believe in this reasoning or logos of God. Can you align your reasoning with that of God’s and see yourself as He sees you – righteous and holy? Or are you trying to look for the do’s and don’ts in the scripture and still trying to become righteous and attain eternal life by obeying those scriptures like the Pharisees (John 5:38-40).
If you feed on the bread of life Jesus, you will never need the bread from stones (Law). Which bread are you eating and living by? The one leads to life the other to death! Don't mix the two breads either, because a little poison will poison the whole lump!
Please check Part 2 of this article......
Monday, December 7, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Love not the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life
1 John 2:15-17
15Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
The apostle John exhorts us, not to love the world and the things in the world namely the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. For these things are not of the Father, but of the world.
The "world" here refers to the world's system in general. The whole world runs by the system of knowing right & wrong, good & evil and doing the good or right thing as much as possible. The reward is determined by ones performance. The driving forces behind this system are called the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. The flesh denotes human strength and ability. The flesh always wants to live life based on ones strength, will-power and ability. The prospect of living a life based on ones resources and ability and acheiving the end result looks very appealing (lust of the eyes). Pride in one's ability is also a factor.
Verse 16 says that this system is not of the Father. In the garden of Eden, God told man, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil. God never wanted man to live by knowing good & evil or right & wrong (Law), but He wanted them to live by eating from the tree of Life (God's life). God made them in His image and likeness - just like Him. All they had to do was to live by His life and enjoy everything that He had created for them to enjoy freely. He did not give them 10 or 15 rules or principles on how to live a holy, moral, successful and prosperous life. The only command he gave them was to stay away from living by knowing good and evil or living by rules or principles. He warned them that eating that fruit would result in death.
But the tempter came and told Eve that eating this fruit would cause her to be like God. Remember, they were already like God, not by any of their works, but because they were created in His image and likeness. So Satan, put this idea in the mind of Eve, that she could be like God by her own doing and not by how God made her to be. She decided that she wanted to be like God, independent of God, by her own works by knowing good & evil. Gen 3:6 says that the woman saw that the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh) and it was pleasant to the eyes (lust of the eyes) and a tree desired to make one wise (pride of life). By eating that fruit, man implemented this system of works or performance for the whole humanity.
Beloved, are you still eating from that forbidden tree by living by knowing good & evil or rules & regulations or are you living by the tree of life (the life of Jesus in you)? Living by rules and commandments may appear very good, may boost your ego by your performance and will satisfy your flesh, but the end result is death. Are you satisfied with how God has made you to be like Him - holy and righteous in Christ Jesus or are you trying to become like God by your holy living and good works? Verse 17 says that the world and it's system will pass away, but he who does the will of the Father will abide forever. The will of the Father for you is to believe on the good news of the removal of your sins by the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, whereby He has made you perfectly holy and righteous, just like Him, free from any of your works!
15Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
The apostle John exhorts us, not to love the world and the things in the world namely the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. For these things are not of the Father, but of the world.
The "world" here refers to the world's system in general. The whole world runs by the system of knowing right & wrong, good & evil and doing the good or right thing as much as possible. The reward is determined by ones performance. The driving forces behind this system are called the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. The flesh denotes human strength and ability. The flesh always wants to live life based on ones strength, will-power and ability. The prospect of living a life based on ones resources and ability and acheiving the end result looks very appealing (lust of the eyes). Pride in one's ability is also a factor.
Verse 16 says that this system is not of the Father. In the garden of Eden, God told man, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil. God never wanted man to live by knowing good & evil or right & wrong (Law), but He wanted them to live by eating from the tree of Life (God's life). God made them in His image and likeness - just like Him. All they had to do was to live by His life and enjoy everything that He had created for them to enjoy freely. He did not give them 10 or 15 rules or principles on how to live a holy, moral, successful and prosperous life. The only command he gave them was to stay away from living by knowing good and evil or living by rules or principles. He warned them that eating that fruit would result in death.
But the tempter came and told Eve that eating this fruit would cause her to be like God. Remember, they were already like God, not by any of their works, but because they were created in His image and likeness. So Satan, put this idea in the mind of Eve, that she could be like God by her own doing and not by how God made her to be. She decided that she wanted to be like God, independent of God, by her own works by knowing good & evil. Gen 3:6 says that the woman saw that the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh) and it was pleasant to the eyes (lust of the eyes) and a tree desired to make one wise (pride of life). By eating that fruit, man implemented this system of works or performance for the whole humanity.
Beloved, are you still eating from that forbidden tree by living by knowing good & evil or rules & regulations or are you living by the tree of life (the life of Jesus in you)? Living by rules and commandments may appear very good, may boost your ego by your performance and will satisfy your flesh, but the end result is death. Are you satisfied with how God has made you to be like Him - holy and righteous in Christ Jesus or are you trying to become like God by your holy living and good works? Verse 17 says that the world and it's system will pass away, but he who does the will of the Father will abide forever. The will of the Father for you is to believe on the good news of the removal of your sins by the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, whereby He has made you perfectly holy and righteous, just like Him, free from any of your works!
Friday, December 4, 2009
Encounter with Jesus - Philadelphia
He that hath an ear let him hear. The truth will set you free. Listen to this powerful preaching of the real gospel of Jesus Christ. It may challenge your traditions, doctrines and religion!!
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