Freedom in Christ

Satan plants lies in the trauma of our past to keep us in bondage to the negative emotions of that incident. This fear, dread, shame, depression, deprivation, anger, revenge, etc. all influence our life every day. ( www.theophostic.com )

These negative feelings filter into our conscious mind from our subconscious mind and intensify our current mood. They program us for failure, addictions, broken relationships and stress. They control our life and we often do not even realize that they are there.

Satan blinds us to their existence and has a field day with our emotions. The solution to this Pandora’s Box is to submit our thoughts to God and to ask Him to show us these lies and His truth about them (Galatians 5:1).

Start with the manifesting negative emotion and consciously concentrate on the words in your mind fueling that emotion. Those are Satan's lies. Then ask God to show you His truth about these lies.

Sometimes, the negative emotion will lead us to an idol in our life. We relinquish to God our expectations and pet peeves, which fuel our negative emotions and cause us to feel frustrated, irritated and angry.

God frees us from the tyranny of these emotions. This freedom is our inheritance as children of God (John 8:36). There is no reason for us to remain in bondage to these past issues, when we are guaranteed this liberty through Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary’s cross (Galatians 5:1).

It may take a while for us to walk in total freedom from the past, but little by little and day by day, God delivers us from Satan’s lies and bathes us in His peace, joy and love.

Prayer:

Father God, remind us that pride and rebellion restrict our freedom in You. We cannot walk in Your Truth (Psalm 119:160) without walking in Your righteousness as well. You desire our total devotion and worship (Mark 12:30). That is why You created mankind in the first place.

As we completely surrender to Your will for our life and exalt You above all else, we will decrease as You increase in our soul (John 3:30). We will feel fewer negative thoughts and emotions and find Your joy, which is beyond description and full of Your glorious presence (1 Peter 1:7-9).

Thought for the Day:

Unbelief, the flesh and disobedience will keep us in bondage to Satan’s lies. - Deuteronomy 7:17; James 4:3; Titus 3:3

Uncommon Love

Although God causes the sun to rise on the evil as well as the good, and although He waters the land belonging both to the righteous and the unrighteous, it does not mean that God approves of their evil or unrighteous behavior.

If unconverted people would really pay attention, they would recognize that the whole earth is actually full of the lovingkindness of the Lord (Psalm 33:5).

At times, evil people advance in this world quicker than the righteous, which seems totally unfair to us. As humans, we would take a totally different approach. We would zap our enemies and annihilate them.

Yet, God often makes sure that unbelievers experience the same joys and benefits from His love that Believers do. He draws them by His love, just as He drew us by His love, even while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).

At times, we are frustrated by the sinner's blindness to the goodness of God, and we lament that they do not praise Him for His love and kindness (Psalm 107:8).

They know about God; yet, most of them reject Him or even accuse Him for everything that goes wrong in their life. Their foolish hearts get darker and darker in the midst of God's obvious wonders (Romans 1:21).

Nevertheless, God pours out His blessings on the unjust as well as the just (Matthew 5:45). Then, He calls us to mirror His love to our unsaved friends, relatives, associates and neighbors by laying our life down for them (Romans 5:7). 

Prayer:

Father God, give us the same mercy and grace toward sinners that You showed to us. Keep us from expressing the frustration we often feel towards their resistance to Your love. Help us not to judge them, but to accept them right where they are; knowing that You will convict them in your timing and way.

Remind us often that we are no better than the sinner, because the only difference is that we are already saved by Your grace. Let us lay down our life for them. Give us the chance to prove to them that our motivation for serving them is nothing more than Your love for them in us.

Thought for the Day:

God desires that we continually pray for the salvation of the sinner; and that we utilize every opportunity to take as many of them to heaven with us as will have the humility to surrender to God's love.

New Life in Christ

God loved us while we were still sinner; but if we do not walk away from our sinful lifestyle, then we do not belong to Him (1 John 1:9, 3:9). God demands whole-hearted commitment from His Saints (Philippians 3:8-9).

We prove our love to God by our obedience to Him and His Word (John 14:15). Once we come to Christ for salvation, His Spirit fills our spirit and soul, and we learn to walk in step with Him (Galatians 5:25).

We discard our old nature, the personality we are born with, and we put on our new nature, which God creates in us through His Spirit (Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:9-10).

God's Spirit changes us from the inside out. His divine nature and the fruit of His Spirit replace our weak human character (2 Peter 1:4; Galatians 5:15-25). We ask God to try us and test us and examine our heart and mind (Psalm 26:2).

We learn to walk in His truth and enjoy His love, which is always surrounding us (Psalm 26:3). We look forward to spending eternity with Him and enjoy His eternal life even now on this earth (John 17:3).

Nothing will ever separate us from God's love; not even adversity, demonic activity, earthly circumstances, personal relationships or evil people devising our demise (Romans 8:35-39).

We live, move and have our entire being in Christ (Acts 17:28). We consult God for His plans for every moment of our day (Proverbs 3:5-6). We walk in joy and peace in the center of God's will.

Prayer:

Father God, the fact that You love us while we are still sinners helps us to realize that You desire that no one will eternally perish in the lake of fire (John 3:16-17). However, we often condemn our self by insisting that we live life our own way, instead of in Your will for us (John 3:18).

We attempt to fit You into the mold of our image for You, rather than to allow You to conform us to the image of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Remind us to humble our self under Your mighty hand (1 Peter 5:6; James 4:10), and to serve You until our dying breath (Psalm 146:2).

Thought for the Day:

When we come together as Believers, let us share what God is doing in our life, how we recently sensed His presence in our life, how His grace saw us through a particularly trying experience, what He is teaching us from His Word and what He is perfecting in our life.

Many thanks to Matt Milligan for the use of his photo.

United with Christ

God originally created mankind in the image of the Trinity (Genesis 1:6). Adam and Eve lived in an existence of body, soul and spirit in close fellowship with the Father (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

They enjoyed the same immortality, which Christ exhibited after His resurrection. Yet, when they believed Satan's lies, they chose to ignore their spirit and to give in to the temptation of their human nature.

As a result, their spirit died, and we all reap the consequences of their choice. Knowing this before He created the world, God planned to become man as Emmanuel (Genesis 1:1; Matthew 1:23).

He paid the ransom for the sin debt of anyone who chooses to submit to His will rather than to our human desires or the devil's temptations (Romans 4:25, 5:6; John 3:16-18).

The reason that God's Spirit regenerates our spirit and sanctifies our soul is so that we will live in the divine life of Christ in us, rather than through our human life with its earthly thoughts and desires (2 Peter 1:4; John 1:1, 12-14).

This is possible once our spirit is Born Again. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us (Romans 12:2, 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Colossians 3:3-4). We live, move and have our existence in Christ alone (Acts 17:28).

We are united with Christ in our spirit, in the same way that Jesus' humanity was united with His Godly nature, while He lived on this earth.

The life, which we live in this body, is lived through the faith of God's holy Son (Galatians 2:20). We continue the work of Christ on this earth, and we do greater works as we function as His Body (John 3:3-6, 14:12).

We think, feel, speak and act in the will of God as we follow the leading of His Spirit through every decision we make, every word we speak and every action we take.

This affects our words and behavior in our vocation, marriage, extended family, neighborhood and church Body. We live as a city on a hill, and we never hide the light of Christ within us (Matthew 5:14-16).

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for sending Christ to redeem us from sin and its destruction. Thank You also for helping us to renew our mind through the washing of the water of Your Word (Ephesians 5:26). Since Christ set us free from sin, then help us to stay free from its demoralizing clutches (Galatians 5:1).

Teach us how to walk in the divine nature of Christ in us. Help us to live and move and have our being only in Him, so that we can walk in Your will, exhibit Your character and do the works of Christ all the days of our life.

Thought for the Day:

Since Christ abides in us by His Spirit, then even though our body will die because of the sin, which cursed this world, God's Spirit gives us His life in our spirit, soul and body, because of His holiness. - Romans 8:10 

Many thanks to Matt Milligan for the use of his photo.