“LABOURING IN VAIN WITH CONSTANT FEAR AND RESENTMENT & LYING TO ONESELF” 8-11-17

“(1 Corinthians 15:57-58 AMP), “But thanks be to God who gives us the victory (as conquerors) through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work  of the Lord (always doing your best and doing more than needed), being continually aware that your labour (even to the point of exhaustion) in the Lord is not futile nor wasted (it is never without purpose.”

*“God forgive all my sins for the sake of Jesus.   I have sinned in labouring in vain with constant fear and resentment, and lying to myself for the positioning of myself in areas which you did not provide for me, where I laboured for my own gain, my own popularity in appeasing others, in lying to myself that all was fine and good for me.  I have succeeded to remove your plans for me Lord Jesus, in replacing them with my ambitiousness and planning what I believed would be to my success in all the avenues for my life’s pursuit to be successful in the fields I worked in, and building my house on vanity and pride, whereby it was a constant battle with fear and resentment to remain afloat.  I have gone astray from your ways Lord Jesus, and found myself indebted to many people for what they could provide for me to gain access into my life to suck me dry of all empowerment in making right and honourable choices which would last in the prosperity gain I expected, being fully incapacitated to their whims of appeasement in a life of demise and pitiful returns.

 

I am deeply sorry Jesus for my futile attempts without you in my life, to be the person and live the life I thought would make me happy, but I lied to myself, for everyday was a battle that I lost with trying to keep up the charade of prosperity in my life, when the reality was that through my lifestyle of labouring in vain with constant fear and resentment and lying to myself, I was never happy for what I did, or had, because it was not from you Jesus.  I have successfully manipulated others into giving me what I thought would make me happy, but alas it was a constant battle to appease those who submitted to my will in placing my agendas for life as my priority.

 

Lord Jesus I now stand before you in repentance and the full understanding of my erring in your sight, and I place all of my faults and sins through the lifestyle I believed would make me happy, living and labouring with constant fear and resentment and lying to myself, was all in vain, and I cast it all onto you Lord Jesus, that I might be cleansed of it all once and for all time, for good, with the washing of your precious blood Jesus, that I might receive in its place your plans for my good always, in subjecting myself and my life into your hands, as the Scripture declares in (Jeremiah 29:11 GNT) “I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity, and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for.”  This I trust will happen now through you Jesus, Lord and Saviour of my life, and may the Holy Spirit fill me up with your abundance of grace to, “be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord,” for I am now the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and my life belongs to Jesus now and forever, Amen!  I now draw the bloodline of Jesus over the whole lots, Amen!  For God is and God will provide!  Amen!”

“SELF-JUSTIFICATION IS AN ABOMINATION IN GOD’S SIGHT” 5-11-17

“We are told by Jesus the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in (Luke 18:14 GNT), how it is easy to justify oneself without recognizing it.  “Jesus also told this parable to people who were sure of their own goodness and despised everybody else. “Once there were two men who went up to the Temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood apart by himself and prayed, ‘I thank you, God, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else.  I thank you that I am not like that tax collector over there.  I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of all my income.  But the tax collector stood some distance away and would not even raise his face to heaven but beat on his breast and said, God, have pity on me, a sinner!’  I tell you,” said Jesus, “the tax collector, and not the Pharisee, was in the right with God when he went home.  For those who make themselves great will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be made great.”

What a powerful testimony of his faith we read about the tax collector.  Jesus gave this parable to give us insight of His power over all, and not man’s power over all, for God is all -knowing, omnipotent and omniscient, where He knows us and our true nature before we utter one word in our defence.  Just like the original sin committed in the Garden of Eden, in (Genesis 3:12-13 GNT), the role of self-justification came into play from Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God’s command, not to eat from the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad, in (Genesis 2:16-17), “You may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, except the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad.  You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day.”  This dying God informs us about, is called sin, for before they committed the sin of disobedience, Adam and Eve were in harmony with God their creator, but once the disobedience came into their lives, it altered them from the good they had known, into the bad traits of self-justification mode as a self-defence mechanism.  This is the origin of self-justification we first read about in God’s Word the Bible, and it is a clear indication how God is certainly not pleased with our self-defence mechanisms when we pray to Him for forgiveness of any sins we may have encountered in our daily journey of life, for God is a compassionate and loving Father, who sent His own beloved Son Jesus to pay for all our sins firsthand, and we don’t need to justify ourselves whatsoever, but just repent of all our sins with a grateful heart of the availability of Jesus’ blood shed at Calvary, which can wash away all our sins when we pray with a penitent heart just like the tax collector who praised God with his simple prayer of acknowledgement of his wrong doing and humbling himself before the Supreme God of the universe.  Jesus is our only defence, and He alone can forgive our sins, so let’s be humble like that tax collector who heartily acknowledged he was a sinner, and prayed for God’s forgiveness:

*”Lord Jesus we thank you for the parables you have given us in your Word the Bible, that we might display all your qualities of good in our lives, and that when we sin you are there always ready to forgive us and restore the good back to us.

Lord Jesus we have no need for self-justification or self-defence on our own part, for you conquered sin and death on the cross at Calvary with the shedding of your blood for all our sins once and for all, and on the third day you rose from the dead, and you are now seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven interceding on our behalf when we repent you are our defence and our righteousness.  Lord Jesus, we now lay at your feet in repentance, all of our sins of self-justification and self-defence, which have furthered our sins to pride, for which we are truly sorry. 

 

Help us by your grace Lord Jesus to remember that you are Sovereign, and all we need to do is truly repent with a penitent heart for all our sins, and you will forgive us.

 

Help us Jesus to be free once and for all from the sins of pride through self-justification and self-defence, by washing us clean now with your precious blood Jesus, and cleanse us of all unrighteousness to now be right standing with you, by your grace through the Holy Spirit to enter us now with the confidence in you alone Jesus, for the joy of the Lord is our strength and our salvation daily to continue in our life’s journey with the hope of good and not bad.

 

In Jesus’ name we pray Father God to you in thanksgiving for what Jesus did on the cross at Calvary for us, with the truth of your Word, that “God is and God will provide,” and we thank you now to draw the bloodline of Jesus over the whole lots, Amen!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM LIFE IN GOD’S SERVICE OF OUR FAITHFULNESS?” 4-11-17

"The Bible tells us clearly how God would have us exercise our faithfulness and to trust Him to be with us through any such hardships, even when nothing seems to be going the way we thought it would, we need to be confident it will happen as we know God has told us.

“The sower and the soils” is the parable Jesus told of the various types of stages people can miss out on their salvation, which is written in (Matthew 13; Mark 4 ; Luke 8), “A farmer set off to sow some seed on his land.  He threw it in huge sweeps, and as he did so, some fell onto the well-trodden path on which he was walking.  Almost as soon as the seed bounced on the hard ground, hungry birds swooped down and ate it.

Other seed fell on rocky patches with just a thin covering of soil.  The plants grew quickly at first, but soon shrivelled up, because their short roots could not find enough water to protect them from the scorching sun.

Some seeds landed among thorns that choked the young plants.

Others however, fell on rich soil and gave rise to thirty, sixty or a hundred times the crop.”

“Jesus concluded, “Whoever hears my words, let them hear with understanding.”

“Master,” His disciples then asked Him, “what does this parable mean?”

“Jesus replied, “The seed that was sown along the path is like a person who listens to the message of the Kingdom of God, but does not understand it.  The devil comes and plucks away what has been sown in that person’s heart.

The seed that landed on the rocky soil is like someone who gladly listens to the message and is full of joy.  But without any roots it is impossible to last.  As soon as any form of difficulty or trouble comes, all enthusiasm is lost and the person falls away.

The seed that fell among the thorns is like the person who hears the Word, but is suffocated by the worries and concerns of this life and is unable to produce any fruit.

Lastly, the seed that fell on productive soil is like the person who hears and understands the message.  That person then produces a crop thirty, sixty or a hundred times what was originally sown.”

This account Jesus’ gives, is to awaken our understanding that, it is by faith alone that we are saved, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, nor of works, lest anyone should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10 NKJV).  This then is how we should live in faith at all times, even when nothing is going the way we thought things would be for us now, we must keep our faith fully immersed in Jesus, and not our circumstances, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16), and that’s where our faith lies alone, and never on our standards due to the circumstances which may arise to entrap us to give up our faith and our salvation here now, and through to eternity with Jesus who is our faith in all things made possible to us when nothing seems to be working out as we believed would happen.”