IGNORE HIM NO MORE

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God wants to actually have a relationship with you, He really does.  He desires that above all else, that’s why He made a way for us to be reconciled to Him. He came into the human race and went to the cross to ransom us and restore us to Himself. We belong to Him now, He is with us and in us, our bodies are His temple. Our redemption did a lot more than just to restore us to the position that Adam and Eve had, the truth is we have it better than Adam and Eve, for they were not one spirit with God as we who believe in Jesus are today!

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God and fell out of fellowship with Him, He didn't just let them be and move on to create another set of beings and start over with them, no, He came after Adam and Eve, He pursued them and called them to Himself and immediately put His redemption plan into motion by first making them skin coverings – now that’s LOVE, that’s my God – He is indeed perfect Love personified.  

God’s love for you is perfect, it never fluctuates, receive it in your life by faith today and experience His peace that passes all understanding. Your Abba Daddy desires to have a quality, intimate relationship with you. He is with you at all times, whether you feel His presence or not, He’s right there with you, can’t you tell? All those blessings you enjoy everyday are not coincidences but tokens of His love for you. Acknowledge Him!

Jesus, who came to show us the Father, wasn't impressed when people sought Him out only for material blessings. He always told them to get their priorities in order and all their needs would be met. Just the other day we were having a discussion along these lines on a friend’s Facebook page. When the multitudes went all over looking for Jesus after enjoying His miraculous provision of fish and bread, instead of commending them Jesus discouraged them saying :

²⁷ Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” – John 6:27 NKJV

You see, even in the natural, healthy relationships are two way, to have a relationship with someone solely based on what you can get from them is pretty selfish. But the thing is if you have a healthy relationship with someone, then as a byproduct of that relationship, you have access to their stuff and they have access to yours. The relationship is not based on what YOU can get or GIVE, but on love. It’s the same way with God, He is our Father, He loves us unconditionally and desires to have a relationship with us, not based on anything else but love and He is Love.

As we relate with the Father, we fellowship with Him, we get to know His heart and we share ours with Him. Jesus was ignored by the church by the Laodicean church, they had shut Him out through pride and a false sense of security in their own self-sufficiency, He called them back into fellowship saying:

²⁰ Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. – Revelation 3:20 NKJV

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He is calling you and drawing you to Himself today. Beloved, spend quality time with the lover of your soul daily, and throughout your day talk to Him, share stuff with Him, get His viewpoint on stuff. He is very interested in what interests you, don’t compartmentalize your life, share your life with Him, not just bits and pieces. Don’t limit Him to only church time, Bible study, fellowship and all the other ministry stuff you do. Include Him in everything you do, ask for His input and direction. He so loves that, no wonder the Word says:

⁶ In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths. – Proverbs 3:6 NKJV

You see beloved, once we have a healthy vibrant relationship with the Lord, we will enjoy His provision, direction and everything else as byproducts of our intimacy with Him. No more fretting over our needs and wants for He shall supply them abundantly as we continue to delight ourselves in Him. Amen!    

JUDGED BUT NOT CONDEMNED

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If you confess Jesus as Lord and believe that He died and God raised Him for the dead, you are saved and so you have passed from death into life. You are no longer doomed to a Godless eternity, you are a child of God, you belong to the family of God, you are His very own and He has sealed you with His very own Spirit.

The Word of God repeatedly reaffirms this truth, if you believe in Jesus, you are no longer facing condemnation; you are now declared righteous and separated unto God. The Word of God also solemnly warns that those who do not believe in Jesus are under condemnation already and therefore are in danger of eternal damnation, may the love of God compel us with a sense of urgency to preach the Good News to everyone, wherever we are and however we can.  

¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. – John 3:18 NIV

¹Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, - Romans 8:1 NIV

Now, while it’s true that those who are in Christ will not be condemned to hell, we will however stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ. The Lord Jesus in all His glory, majesty and splendor will sit on His Throne to judge and reward us for what we did with the grace that He so lavishly bestowed on us. If found faithful and obedient we'll be rewarded, if not we won't. The importance of what you do with what God has entrusted to you cannot be overemphasized.   

¹⁰ For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. – 2 Corinthians 5:10 NIV

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You see, Jesus Christ our Lord is totally, completely, absolutely righteous, so He will judge righteously for He knows and sees all things. If you were called and gifted for one thing but decided to pursue something else, you will be judged for that and trust me, His judgment won’t be in your favor. Each one of us will give an account of what we did or didn't do (whichever the case may be), the Apostle Paul reminds us:

¹² So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. – Romans 14:12 NIV    

By the grace of God, let us endeavor to fulfill our destinies in Christ. Let us love one another intentionally, fervently and continually:

¹¹ For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. – I Corinthians 3:11 – 15 NIV

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So beloved, we will be judged and rewarded, but we will not be condemned for we have already passed from death to life.

Our God is so good, I mean first He comes and gives His life to save us, then when we believe in Him and what He has done, He recreates our spirits and joins us to Himself, He dwells in us by His Spirit, He blesses us with His gifts and callings and empowers us by His grace to live for Him and to touch others with His power and love.. and when we obey Him, we end up being rewarded, what a sweet deal!

Thank you Jesus!

        

DON’T WASTE GOD’S GRACE

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Beloved, as the message of God’s grace is setting many free from guilt and condemnation, let us not be complacent and forget that we have an enemy who is bent on deceiving us so he may draw us right back under his heavy yoke of shame, guilt and condemnation. Do not give him a foothold! The Word of God is replete with warnings to the church that we should be vigilant, we should be alert, our adversary the devil is going around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).  

Know this, that old serpent will try to get you to fall from the grace of God in which you stand by appealing to your flesh, enticing you right back under the bondage of law. He will even use ministers of the Gospel to accomplish that if they let him and sadly some ministers have offered him their pulpits. Instead of preaching Christ and Him crucified, instead of His perfect work of redeeming us being proclaimed, ear tickling, doctrines of demons are being spewed forth. 

Child of God, any message or sermon you hear, however good it makes you feel, however relevant it sounds, however persuading and convincing the minister is, if Jesus and what He’s done for us is but a footnote, beware! Anytime you hear the work of the Cross being discounted, that it’s not enough for God to accept you and bless you unless you also add x, y and z to what Christ has done, know for a fact that you are not listening to the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself on the Cross for our redemption should always be front and center.

Another thing, anything that seeks to embellish, to add onto or to sanitize the Cross of Christ for this so-called modern more advanced world we live in, is to be shunned, for it is based on human, worldly and yes even demonic wisdom that seeks to void the Cross of Christ of its power. No wonder we have many powerless churches today, human wisdom has taken center stage. We have our cute little unhealthy co-dependency enhancing agendas going on, we are as busy as ever with very little to no results. 

Of late, we have been inundated with messages about how much God has already blessed us in Christ and all that is ours because of what Christ has done, it's all good stuff. The question is, what are we doing with His blessings and the inheritance we have in Him? Are we being complacent now that we are under grace? God forbid, for that would mean His grace is of no effect to us, or to put it bluntly we are wasting His grace. 

The Apostle Paul who said:

¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. – 1 Corinthians 15:10 NIV

Child of God, don’t let the grace of God in your life be in vain, but rather let it empower you to fulfill your destiny in Christ, let it make you an effective minister of the New Covenant. Now that we've been empowered by God’s grace, let us go forth boldly and bless others with this Good News.

¹⁷ Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position.¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. – 2 Peter 3:17 – 18 NIV

What is this error of the lawless, you ask? It’s right there in the chapter (2 Peter 3), for one, it is thinking you have all the time in the world and through

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that attitude complacency sets in, we let down our guards and before we know it, it’s reckoning time and we've done absolutely nothing with God’s grace and all that He has freely blessed us with. The only way not to be caught off guard is to keep on growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ. And we grow by continually obeying the Word and putting it into practice.

We can do all things through Christ, He is the one who strengthens us by His Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit is your Helper, let Him help you, cultivate a relationship with Him, converse with Him, obey Him and allow His grace to be effective in your life.

Beloved, don’t let God’s Grace go to waste in your life!   

IN YOU, WITH YOU AND FOR YOU!

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God is right where you are right now, remember He is Omnipresent, He is right there with you as you go through life. He is right there with you at all times. Why then, let fear rob you of your peace? Why then, let fear cause you to doubt His Word? Why then, let worries and anxiety overtake you? Have you forgotten Who is with you? Have you forgotten the Creator of the Universe is there with you and He is in you? Have you forgotten that He is both your God and your Father?  

As a loving responsible Father, He will not give you a stone when you ask Him for bread; neither will He give you a snake if you ask for fish (Matthew 7:9-11). Every gift He has for you His beloved child is both good and perfect, and not He is more eager to lavish His love and provisions on you than you are to receive them. Your Father has your best interest at heart.

¹⁷ Every good present and every perfect gift comes from above, from the Father who made the sun, moon, and stars. The Father doesn't change like the shifting shadows produced by the sun and the moon. – James 1:17 GW

Your Father never changes and doesn't lie, He means what He says and says what He means. If you have His Word on anything, it’s as good as done! What He has promised to you, He will bring to pass, trust Him. Don’t let the enemy use your circumstances to cause you to start accusing Him of being the source of stuff that is contrary to His Word and Nature in your life. 

Know this, as you rest in God and His Word, the enemy will always try to get you to focus on your seemingly worsening circumstances. His aim is to cause you to think God has deserted you because of some past failure or sin on your part. The enemy wants you to ultimately accuse your Father of being uncaring and unloving, the total opposite of what His Word says He is. The devil will also seek to incapacitate you with shame and guilt. Don’t fall for any of that, either. In Christ you have been made the righteousness of God and your Father has promised to remember your sins no more. In Christ you are holy and perfectly accepted before the Father.

He is right there with you and in you, whether you feel it or not. Not only that, know this, He is there with you because He loves you dearly and wants only the very

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best for you. He so desires for you to share your life with Him, don’t just relegate your relationship with your Father to a weekly encounter such as a church service or any other formal settings. He desires an intimate relationship with you, make it a priority to include your Father in all your activities today, talk to Him, ask for His input as you go about your day and listen to Him as He shares His heart with you. You are His dwelling place, His habitation.

Hold on to your confession of faith; He who has called you is faithful and He will do it. He has promised and will surely bring it to pass. 

BE SON CONSCIOUS, NOT SIN CONSCIOUS

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Beloved, you do not need to go on living a miserable life weighed down by guilt because of your sins and failures. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Lord and Savior has already dealt with all our sins once for all; all our sins, past, present and future have been atoned for by His death on that rugged tree.

Jesus came and lived a sinless life, after which as the perfect, sinless, spotless lamb of God, He gave His life for us, He offered Himself up as a sin offering to take away the sins of the world and by doing so, reconcile the world to himself.  John the Baptist had a revelation of Jesus as the Lamb of God that would be sacrificed for the sins of the human race.

²⁹ The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! – John 1:29 NKJV

Once you put your trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you are born again and all your sins are wiped away, never to be remembered or brought up again by God. You are now a child of God and the Father’s desire is for you to live with the full assurance of His love for you. Under the New Covenant that was sealed by the Blood of Jesus, the Father doesn't want you to live with sin consciousness.

Sin consciousness is evil, as it is contrary to what God says about sin and about you. Sin consciousness is accompanied by feelings of inferiority, inadequacy and a sense of not measuring up. Sin consciousness screams: “Look at you, you are such a failure” It seeks to get your eyes off of Jesus and on yourself and your shortcomings. The enemy uses it to distract and paralyze believers. There is nothing good about being sin conscious.

Your Abba Father doesn't remember your sins anymore, look at what God said He would do under the New Covenant, of which you are a beneficiary:

¹² For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” – Hebrews 8:12 NKJV

Now, if God says He won’t remember your sins, you have no business digging them up and dragging them around with you. Even if you feel bad about the sins you've committed, you are not to beat yourself up over them or to grovel for forgiveness over and over. In Christ, your Father who loves you perfectly and eternally has already forgiven you freely and He doesn't want you wallowing in guilt, shame or condemnation. Jesus has already paid the price for your redemption, show your appreciation by enjoying what He's provided for you, live for Him or better yet, let Him live through you!  

You know what, those feelings of unworthiness because of your past sins, are not from the Holy Spirit, they are at best, from your flesh and you are most likely being influenced by a religious spirit, reject them and by faith turn to your Father and receive an abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness which are yours in Christ.

To continually feel bad about what you've done may seem like a pious and noble thing to do, but in reality it is a form of pride, unbelief and idolatry. It is pride because you feel that YOU need to do something to make things right, implying that what Jesus did wasn't enough, you must also suffer for your sins.To think that YOU constantly need to deal with your sin is to walk in unbelief, Jesus took care of the sin problem, you have His Word, believe it! Ultimately it is idolatry, because it is now all about YOU, what YOU must do because of what YOU did, you are actually becoming an idol unto yourself. Don’t go there!

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Your Abba Father wants you to be bold and free in His presence, you are His child, you are perfectly loved by Him and that is not dependent on your performance but solely on what Jesus did. Once you come to Him, you are set free from sin and all the guilt that is associated with it, so don’t let yourself be brought under any form of sin consciousness. You are now the righteousness of God in Christ, yes you are perfectly righteous before the Father. 

All your sins past, present and future have been dealt with once and for all at the Cross of Christ. 

Be Son conscious today, not sin conscious!

  

UNBELIEF IS EVIL IN DISGUISE

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¹² See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ¹³ But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. – Hebrews 3:12 – 13 NIV

Each one of us is responsible for being alert and making sure that we do not welcome or entertain thoughts of doubt towards God and His Word, the Holy Spirit within us is our Helper, accept His help as He points out areas and instances where you've entertained unbelief, make the necessary adjustments beginning in your heart, that is in your mind, get it renewed by the Word of God. The Word of God clearly states that unbelief is sin, and to harbor any unbelief in our hearts is to have an evil heart. God calls unbelief, evil – not just wrong or just simply human weakness, no, God calls unbelief evil.

In God’s dealings with the nation of Israel, we see how He dealt with them severely when they expressed unbelief towards Him. The Holy Spirit’s commentary, in the Book of Hebrews, on what caused them to wander for forty years in the desert is simply one word: UNBELIEF. Remember they had come up to the verge of crossing over into the promised land and they sent twelve spies to check out the land as part of their strategy, ten of them brought back a negative report and only two brought back a good one, you know the story (Numbers 13 - 14).

God was far from pleased with their unbelief, He showed up in His glory and this is what He said:

¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? – Numbers 14:11 NIV

The thing is, God had already promised them repeatedly – all the way back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to the whole nation as well – that He would bring them to the promised land and here they were right on the verge of it, now instead of trusting God to complete what He had begun with them, they chose to believe the negative report brought by the ten spies. This sin of unbelief cost the nation forty years of wandering in the desert, it cost the bearers of the negative report their lives.

An entire generation, save for Joshua and Caleb, perished in the wilderness simply because they chose to believe the negative report over God’s promise to them. Whenever we choose to believe what we can perceive with our five senses over the Word of God, we are essentially treating God with contempt; we are insinuating that He is a liar and therefore not trustworthy. That is why God calls unbelief “evil” and “wicked”. You see, unbelief has a way of drawing you away from God, thus effectively sending you down the path of sin with all its deceitfulness, the end of which is destruction.  

Unbelief limits what God can do in, for and through us and since anything that is not of faith is sin, it follows that unbelief is sin and sin is deceitful, it hardens our hearts towards God and causes us much grief in the end. Remember even Jesus was limited by the unbelief He saw in his hometown of Nazareth and consequently He couldn't, notice He couldn't NOT wouldn't do any mighty works there.

⁵ Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. ⁶ And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching – Mark 6:5 NKJV

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Think about it, ultimately, unbelief is the only sin that will keep people from entering Heaven; when one refuses to believe in Jesus Christ and what He did to reconcile us to God, as one rejects Him as The Only Way to Heaven, they cannot receive His salvation and are doomed to horrendous eternity in hell. You will do well to put your faith in Jesus today, that is, if you haven’t already.  

Be encouraged beloved, let faith arise in your heart as you keep on reading, hearing and meditating on God’s Word. Don’t give in to unbelief, remember in every situation you face today, your Daddy has the last Word, and that’s all that matters.  

KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND LIVE LIKE IT!

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In the natural we know that every creature reproduces after its own kind, humans give birth to human babies, dogs to puppies, cows to calves and so on. By the same token, if you are in Christ, you are a child of God. God is your Father who loves you eternally and unconditionally. You've probably heard that many times over, but have you really stopped to meditate on what that really means? What does it mean to be a child of God? What does it mean to be born of God? What does it all entail?

The enemy doesn't want us to come to the realization that we are God's beloved children, members of the household of God so that we will continue living with a spiritual identity crisis, and instead of living out of our true identity, we would waste time chasing after what we already have in Christ. In the meantime he continues wrecking havoc in the lives of people around us. 

Now to be born of God would mean, you share in His Divine Nature, that is part of what makes God who He is. In a sense you are like Him, that’s why you can call Him Father, you are not only created in His image and likeness, but now your spirit and His have been joined as one (1 Corinthians 6:17). Angels as mighty and powerful and holy as they are, cannot and do not dare call God, Father. That is a special privilege that belongs to you and me, the redeemed of the Lord. Religion would frown upon the idea that God is your Daddy. That is why the Jews and their religious leaders couldn't stand it when Jesus referred to God as His Abba, His Father, that was unheard of, to religion it is blasphemous.  

Remember the reasoning of the Jews who wanted to kill Jesus for calling God His Father?

¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”

¹⁸ Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. – John 5:17-18 NKJV

Every time you address God as your Father, you are exercising your privilege as one of His beloved children, you are part of His family and our adoption into this glorious family of God has been sealed by the His Spirit who lives in us. If you are in Christ, you are part of God’s family, it is a done deal.   

Jesus came to redeem us and reconcile us back to God, He once and for all by His death on the cross took care of sin and all its consequences on the cross. Sin had separated us from fellowship with God, sin had alienated us from the life of God. We lived in terror and fear of the Almighty, woefully falling short of His standard of righteousness, purity and holiness. The thought that the Almighty loves us unconditionally was foreign to us. It was not until Jesus came declaring and demonstrating the love of God to us, that we got to see God in a totally different light.

No one dared to pray to God as Father, no one but Jesus, and when His disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, He taught them to pray by addressing God as “Our Father …” Jesus called all those who believe in Him and do the will of His Father, His brethren. We are family, yes Jesus and us are family. Mind boggling, isn't it?! 

⁵⁰For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." – Matthew 12:50  NIV

After His resurrection, Jesus says this to Mary Magdalene, completely removing any doubt whether God is a Father to us believers too:

¹⁷Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" – John 20:17 NIV

Child of God, as you go through life, may the Holy Spirit keep on reminding you of who you are and who God is to you because of and through what Jesus did. He is your Abba Father, your Daddy , He’s not a God who is afar off, He lives in you by His Spirit. You have your Daddy’s DNA in your spirit. As your mind is being renewed to this very foundational truth, your conduct will align itself with your true identity – that  of a child of God. 

You are your Abba Father's child, let your life reflect that reality today!