THE JOY OF THE LORD

The Lord our Father rejoices over us. An example of this joy is illustrated in the story of the prodigal son who returns to his father's house after a long absence. 

Whereas the son has already accepted that he will be relegated to servitude and scorn,  his father, seeing his son approaching from a distance, is filled with mercy and joy and calls for a great feast to celebrate his son's arrival. The father gladly restores the son to sonship and gives him a signet ring of authority in His house.

Such is our Lord's joy over us. The bible says that God sings and dances over us. When we are made alive in God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ who had died to redeem us, we come into contact with the Joy that our father has for us and by induction, find our spirit filled with great joy.

This joy is our strength in the natural world but especially in the spiritual realm. When we walk in the spirit, the joy of the the Lord is our source of energy and vitality.

Waiting on the Lord and then reaching Him by His grace is a sure way to be infused with the joy of the Lord. We will find that we can move easily and fluidly in the spirit and we can remain in the spirit for extended periods.

The joy that we then emit is part of the fruit of the spirit in our lives,

Amen.

WORD OF TODAY

OUR GOD OF MERCY

The Lord  loved us while we were yet sinners.  He gave His life for us while we were in rebellion  against Him.

If He was so gracious to  us while we were sinners, how much more will His grace abound towards us while we are His.

Our God provides mercy to give His children a passageway to His sanctification and His perfection.

Praise His Holy Name.

Amen.

THE LORD IS OUR SHEPHERD 

The Lord is our shepherd. We shall not want. 

The Lord looks after His sheep. He said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you." This means that we who follow Him and hear His voice need only to follow His leading and He will attend to the concerns of the availability of green grass and still water and rest. In other words, whatever our requirements for life are, He will attend to those while we attend to the matters of His leading in His kingdom.

He is attentive to each of us to the degree that He knows what we have need of  even  before we ask. 

For the salvation He has freely offered us (for which a great price was paid), it would be our reasonable service to Him to gladly be His servants who do His bidding.

But our Lord goes far beyond that. He asks us to serve in His Kingdom willingly and further to that, offers to attend to our corporeal needs while we heed His voice in matters of His Kingdom. Further to that, whereas a servant in debt to His lord should expect no special pivilege, our Lord makes us sons and daughters of His Kingdom with whom He shares His inheritance of righteousness.

Praise the Lord our God. 

Amen.

FOLLOWING OUR LORD AND GOD

The Lord our God undertook the extremely costly project of making salvation available to the human race.

He allowed Himself to be subjected to a frightfully brutal crucifixion as though He were guilty of sin as we human were. 

But of course, He was absolutely sinless and yet suffered the death of the worst of sinners. In doing so, He paid the price to redeem us from the evil  kingdom of darkness and into His kingdom of light.

We who believe in Jesus and the work He did on the cross to save us, are now in the kingdom of light. Now what? 

Now, we must learn to hear the leading of Him who saved us. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice."  This means that every person who believes in the salvation of the Lord should be able to hear the voice of God. 

Remember that His voice is described as a "still small voice" and hearing it requires quieting our souls to make out the words.

After learning how to hear the voice of God, we now need to learn how to follow the leading of the Lord. 

Here are some examples of what you might hear. The Lord may say He loves you  He may tell you to forgive someone in your life. He may tell you to call someone and encourage them. 

As you grow in this relationship, the Lord will tell you more things about His word, about His plans and even about the destiny He has for you.

This deepening of you relationship with God will come about by your responding to His guidance and following His leadership faithfully.

The bible says that His "yoke is easy and His burden is light." Pursue this relationship with God with everything that you have.

There is no greater value than a life lived in the will of the almighty creator.

Amen.

A HEART OUR LORD DELIGHTS IN

The Lord Jesus,  upon seeing Nathanael,  said to him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile."

In John 1 v. 47, the Lord describes Nathanael as a true Israelite because his heart was without manipulative deceit.  Nathanael was a straight shooter who never used cunning to get advantage over other people.

This trait is a high water mark of truthfulness because the guiless person not only does not deceive people,  he does not think deceptive thoughts in his heart nor does he pretend not to know things he does know or pretend to know things he does not.

Jesus, with His extraordinary perception, picked up the purity of Nathaniel heart by simply seeing him.  This is not to say that Nathaniel was sinless but rather that the mechanisms of deceit and subterfuge were absent from Nathaniel. 

The God of heaven finds that a heart with no guile is notable enough to be laudable within the hearing of others and to be inscribed in scripture for the ages to read about.

May we cultivate our  hearts to have no guile.

Amen.

THE LORD IS THE GREAT MONARCH

The Lord our God is the great sovereign king of heaven and earth. 

He is more powerful than we can concieve of and His influence is more vast than we can imagine.

He is perfect is all He does and righteousness and justice are the foundation of His kingdom.

He offers goodness and mercy to us who belong to Him all the days of our lives and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Believe in Him and make Him Lord over your life. You will never be the same again.

Amen.

THE LORD IS CLOSER THAN ANY BROTHER

If you have believed in Jesus for many years, you will start to understand this attribute of God that He shows towards those who trust in Him.

You will discover that the Lord is absolutely steadfast in His careing for you. When others would have long ago given up on you (including your own brothers), the Lord will continue attending to your wellbeing and preparing you for the destiny He has for you.

You sometimes will think He is not near and suddenly, a helping hand will silently right your boat and rescue you from disaster. 

The Lord is faithful and He is very close even when you think He is far away.

Honor His holy and wonderful name.

Amen.

THE LORD OUR CREATOR

The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it.

Even we humans were made by God. There is no part of our own existence that we are responsible for.

The Lord created us and knows each of us extremely well because we all came from Him. We are fearfully and wonderfully made by God. We are all formed with a purpose in the kingdom of God. 

He made us and set us free so that we might, by our own free expression and will, consign ourselves to His objectives. 

However, we are born into this world as rebels against God. Upon growing up, we find ourselves among a race of rebels and that we all cooperate with each other in our rebellion.

We, as a race, chose to set our own agenda and cast away the possibility of living our lives by the agenda of God.

It is here that Christianity speaks. 

We are rebels but most of us know there is something amiss. We know that we are wearied by our own evil behaviour and by the evil behaviour of other people. We know that we are running headlong into destruction and we can do nothing about it.

The rebellion in each of us has a remedy through the death, resurrection and lordship of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

If we reach a point in our lives  where we acknowledge our evil ways and repent from them and call upon Jesus to save us, He will provide the redemption for us that extricates us from the kingdom of darkness and translates us into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The God who created us, set us free to choose whichever way we wished to live including remaining in the center of God's purpose. 

Our progenitors chose rebellion against God but even now, we are given a choice  between  living independently of God and taking our chances with whoever (or whatever) replaces Him and  living under the domain of God our creator.

The making of this choice would require these actions:

1 - Surrender from the rebellion against God by          repenting of our sin and believing in Jesus            Christ who died for us to give us life.

2 - Stay in rebellion by doing anything else other         than item 1.

This is the choice we must make while we are alive on earth because our death marks the sealing of the decision.

Chose life.

Amen.

THE LORD OF MERCY

The Lord of heaven and earth  is perfect and  righteous. His absolute rulership over all things makes Him the great and mighty God. 

We, on the other hand, are but flesh. We are given to piques of self-pity, moral weakness, deception, pretense and carelessness.

It is at these times that we need the mercy of God. He has provided this institution so that we can interact with him even though we are dithering and distracted and derailed by the working of our coporeal selves.

The mercy of God provides a place for the sons of the kingdom of God to come in from the rain and seek the grace of God.

Bless His holy name.

THE LORD IS OUR FAITHFUL PROVIDER

The Lord is unwavering. He is unchanging. His word is true and He will not go back on His word.

His promises are yeah and amen to those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. 

He knows what we have need of before we ask and because every one of our hairs is numbered,  He has every detail of our lives in view and He gives bountifully and lavishly to those who are His.

To become His, you must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who died the death of crucifixion to pay for our sins. His immeasurable gift is that He underwent this death on our behalf so that we may be cleansed  of our evil deeds. 

Our evil actions had linked us inseparable to the kingdom of darkness but Jesus's gift of the sacrifice of His life broke our pact with the kingdom of darkness and joined us to His kingdom of life and light if we believe in Him.

Believe in Him and call upon His name and be saved.

Give your life to Him and become  a citizen of His kingdom. 

Amen.

THE LORD IS WORTHY TO BE PRAISED

The Lord Jesus is wonderful beyond description. He is majestic and full of glory. He shines brighter than the sun. 

He is worthy of adulation, adoration, exaltation, exultation and worship. 

He, the Son of God, undertook to save men from their sins and the damnation that was to follow. 

He alone paid the exeedingly costly  price of His blood being poured out on a cross. There is no other way to God except through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.

He is high and lifted up at the apex of all existence.

Praise and honor to His name.

Amen.

THE MERCY AND GRACE OF OUR LORD

The Lord Jesus Christ is our shepard.  He makes us like down in green pastures. He leads us besides still waters. He restores our soul.

He forgives us and cleanses us from unrighteousness. He remembers we are but dust.

He hold our hand so that when we fall, we do not fall headlong. The righteous stumble seven times but they rise up again. 

The Lord calls us back into His service and teaches us the ways to be overcomers.

Praise and honor to His name.

Amen.

 THE JOY OF THE LORD IS MY STRENGTH

The Lord of our salvation gives us two welcoming gifts when we are born into His kingdom. The gift of peace that passes all understanding and the gift of joy that is our strength.

The peace that He gives us truly is beyond understanding. In a place in the center of your heart and soul is a strange zone that you don't even realize that it is an area of turbulence. 

The Lord Jesus, who  has one royal title of " Prince of Peace", places His peace in your heart and calms a storm you didn't even know was raging.  You suddenly find a stillness deep inside that is indescribable to any person who has not experienced it. It is like explaining music to a person born deaf. 

The other gift is joy. This gift seems to bubble out of experience with the Lord. When you encounter Him and grasp how immediate and how personal He is, you find joying welling up in your heart almost as an involuntary response to His drawing near to you.

For these two wonderful gifts, give thanks to the Lord. 

If you have not experienced these two things, the Lord will save you first by your belief in Him and your belief that He died on a cross to pay for your sins.

The Lord will save you and from there, peace and joy.

Amen.

HOW OUR LORD SAVES US

We all  know we are not in good standing with our creator.

We know that we are lost and heading to darkness and damnation.

We can't help but feel that there is something wrong and that there must be something we can do but we never can figure it out. Most of the time, we just put it out of our minds and occupy ourselves with busy activities to distract us. 

Sometimes, we medicate ourselves to numb that nagging feeling that constantly gnaws at our hearts.

That feeling will never go away as long as we live. It is our human condition of being separate from God and trying to make do in a world system that does not seem made for us. 

The sensitivities of our hearts to the cruelties and absurdities  of our world are a hint that there is a mismatch between our world system and  our hearts.

The good news is that the God who made us has paid the price to redeem us from this fallen world and into the kingdom of light.

This good news is designed to work in a straightforward way:  We hear the good news that we have a redeemer who paid the costly price for us to cover our condemnation. 

We, by hearing this news, then believe the words and because these words are the very power of God unto salvation, find ourselves transformed into children of God. Things that we have never felt before, like true peace, suddenly fill our hearts and we become new creations in Jesus.

This is the only way we can be saved. Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us and paid for us to move from condemnation to righteousness.

Amen.

THE LORD IS OUR PROTECTOR

The God of heaven is our defender. He is our shield and our rock. He is the steadfast guardian of His flock of His believers.

He scatters our enemies and fends off those who attack us.

He strengthens us and prepares us to have courage.

He alerts us to the movements of our adversaries and teaches our hand to fight and our fingers to war.

The Lord is a great and mighty monarch. He is enthroned above every other throne. 

His kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness. 

There is none like Him.

Amen.

THE LORD OUR GOD IS WISE

The Lord our God is from everlasting to everlasting. 

There is nothing that can escape His notice. He knows when every sparrow falls. 

In His knowledge of all things, the Lord works in wisdom to perform His purposes. 

He undertakes insurmountable tasks ( like the salvation of men ) and devises plans to accomplish them. For example, He, being  perfect and loving, incorporated plans of great sacrifice of Himself by dying on a cross to accomplish His goal which was to save those He loves.

This daunting sacrifice of His life made possible the gift of redemption  which He offers to all men. All that we have to do is to be humble and believe in His gift of sacrifice and accept His matchless gift. 

This offer by God is wonderful news to to those who are repentant of their sins and is the power of salvation to those who believe.

The bible admonishes us not to overlook so great a salvation for there is no other way under heaven that the souls of mankind might be saved.

Amen.

 

THE LORD OUR GOD IS MERCIFUL

The Lord our God is merciful.

 He knows that we are but dust. He remembers  that we are but a vapour.

We are insufficient and we only gain sufficiency in our Lord and our God.

Thank Him for His mercy and grace.

THE LORD JESUS IS OUR ONLY HOPE

We humans are under the dominion of darkness. We are consigned to darkness because we, as a race, forfeited our sovereign position of leadership we were give over the earth.

The Lord our God, not willing to lose any of us, provided a way for salvation through the suffering and death of His only Son, Jesus. 

The death He underwent secured for us who believe a reprieve from our sentence of darkness. His subsequent resurrection granted us a chance to rise with Him into His kingdom of righteousness. 

Without this hope, we are doomed to existing in eternal darkness forever. This is not the environment we were made for. We were made for light and love and hope and life. For creatures like us, living eternally in a realm of darkness, hate, doom and death would be an unbearable existence.

The Lord Jesus paid the high price for us and is willing to save all those who call upon Him  asking for salvation from an eternity in darkness. 

He will not overlook the request of a humble heart. 

Amen.

BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.

The name of the Lord is greatly to be praised.

 The name of the Lord is like a strong tower. 

The name of the Lord is the only name given by which we might be saved.

Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.

Amen.

THE LORD OUR GOD IS A MIGHTY WARRIOR

The Lord our God is mighty. He is strong and unconquerable.

He fights against darkness and evil and injustice and cruelty. He is strong to defend the weak and the helpless.

He is their defender.

He teaches His people to fight against the forces of malice and rebellion and He replaces evil with good. 

Bless His holy name.

THE LORD OUR PROVIDER.

The Lord Jesus is the good shepard. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

He know when every sparrow falls. He knows what you have need of before you ask.

He is patient. He is kind. He keeps no record of wrong. He bears all things and forgives all things. He always protects. He always trusts.

His ways are ways of righteousness and all his paths are peace.

Wait upon the Lord and He will give you wings like eagles. You will run and not grow weary. You will walk and not faint.

Amen.

THE LORD IS OUR FORTRESS

The Lord Jesus is our fortress. He is our salvation. We who trust in Him run to Him and we are safe.

He is strong and He is mighty. Praise and honor to the Lord our God.

He is the perfect and only  Son of God who reigns forever and of His kingdom there shall be no end.

OUR GOD WHO SAVES

The very God who made us, knew that our free nature would lead us into a state of rebellion against Him.

Yet He wanted free people who could, as free entities, willingly choose the path of God.

Having chosen the life of rebellion, it is not easy to turn against our intrinsic nature and live a live of abandon to God. In fact, everything in us and around us works very hard to keep us in a perpetual state of enmity with God.

But the Lord is a capable shepard and is well able to provide all that is needed to guide His people to the knowledge of His salvation and persuade them that they want a relationship with God rather than with the king of darkness.

The darkness tries to disguise itself as a kingdom of light and  it clothes itself with promises of pleasure.

We live for a while in this realm and for some of us, the Lord lets us see the shallow futility of living selfishly and engaging in deeds approved by the agents of darkness. We know that we must find away out before we are engulfed in the miasma of savagery and mediocrity.

It is at precisely this time that a sliver of the gospel is offered to us and we are awakened to the possibility of redemption from our evil ways and our evil fate.

The Lord God is good. He has paid the costly price to redeem you. He is presenting the offer of the free gift of salvation.  

Accept this gift and be saved.

OUR LORD AS SERVANT

The Lord Jesus, to whom all authority and power over heaven and earth and over all men was given, modelled the life of a servant. 

He ministered to the poor and the sick. He washed the feet of His disciples to set the bar of service to each other.

The Lord wants  all subjects of His kingdom  to serve one another. The standard is clear: those who would be great in His kingdom would be servant of all. 

THE EXTRAORDINARY SAVIOUR

The Lord Jesus Christ is the superlative saviour. He is majestic and magnificent and awesome.

He willingly undertook to bear the sins of all mankind by surrendering to the Roman soldiers and then enduring a brutal physical penalty and then an excrutiating death on a cross. 

He undertook the death on the cross that we may have life but He also undertook the physical torture so that we could live healthy and be healed by His stripes. 

Further to that, in rising from the dead, He secured our resurrection and then when He ascended into heaven, He invited us to ascend with Him to be seated with Him in heavenly places. 

Further to that, He offers us His wisdom to navigate through life. He gives us comfort for the broken hearted. He offers peace that passes all understanding. He offers joy as a gift for just knowing Him and His salvation.  

He then goes further yet and Loves us with an everlasting love which He demonstrates to us through His faithfulness and His steadfastness and His patience and His provision and His presence.

There is none like Him.

Who is this king of glory?

The Lord God of hosts.

Amen.

Friday, April 30th 2021

Written May 1st 2021 12:20 AM

GIVE THANKS TO GOD.

The lord Jesus  is a mighty God. He is righteous and just. He is a great judge and will judge the whole earth. 

Seek Him while He may yet be found.

THE LORD IS OUR REDEEMER

It doesn't matter who you are. You need to be redeemed by God.

You may think that you are exempt from the fate  that humans face when they are eternally adrift from God but you are wrong.

If you have not believed that the Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood and died to save you from your sins, you will be eternally lost.

The gift that is given for salvation is straight forward and free  and so it is perhaps easy to ignore it. However,  the regret of having passed up a free gift that would have redeemed you out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light will be a bitter pill to swallow.

At least give serious consideration to something that pertains to your soul because once the curtains close, there is absolutely no way of getting a second chance. All second chances are gained while you are alive on the earth. Once the silver string is cut, once the golden bowl is broken, your eternal destiny is sealed.

Call on the name of Jesus with a believing and humble heart and He will hear you and translate you from darkness to light. 

THE LORD OUR GOD IS A SOVEREIGN KING

Praise and honor the Lord our God.  Even though our God is a superlatively great and mighty king, He is accessible to people who humble themselves and call upon His name.

He is near enough that He can be reached by humble souls who sincerely must have Him.

He is  wonderful and  gracious with mercy and kindness to give to those who ask. He is absolutely the best person you will ever have a chance to meet in your life.

 Seek Him while He may yet be found.

Amen.

 THE LORD JESUS IS OUR SALVATION

We who sat in darkness saw a great light.  That light is the light of Jesus who died for us on a cross.  He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven where He was crowned as king of kings and lord of lords. He was also made our high priest who makes intercession  for us before the Father.

This gift of salvation is imputed to us as righteousness that the perfect Son of God lived on our behalf. He also died on our behalf and in doing so, took our sins from us. We can therefore share in this great salvation by believing that Jesus did indeed die for us and that He has the power to save us having demonstrated his capability to do so by rising from the dead.

Believe in Jesus and His work of salvation and be saved.

THE LORD JESUS IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning was the word and word was with God and the word was God.

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.