Can you really have a merry Christmas even when you have a thousand and one pressures bearing down on you? Yes, you can—and you don't have to leave the country to do it. No matter how intense or how trivial the problems are that you're facing right now, you can have the most wonderful, most carefree Christmas season you've ever had in your life; and you can start having it today.
Did you know your name has been changed? It's no longer the same as it was before you were born again. You gave your old name away when you made covenant with Jesus.
To fully appreciate what that means, you have to think about it in the light of what we know about blood covenant. When someone enters a covenant of blood, he is giving himself completely away. He is no longer his own. His assets and his debts, his strengths and his weaknesses belong forever to his covenant brother.
One thing the world needs to see is good examples. They need to see believers walk in love and purity and faith in their homes, in their schools and in their businesses.
Disciplining the flesh. For many believers that phrase stirs memories of frustration and failure. They know it's important—the Word of God clearly teaches that. But they're not sure exactly how to go about it.
Some have given up, shrugging off such discipline as impossible. Others are still fighting stubbornly to get their flesh under control—and losing one battle after another.
But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, we can't afford to let it be that way. It will cost us too much.
No weapon formed against you shall prosper. Isn't that great news! Isn't it good to know that no sickness, no circumstance, no problem that rises against you can successfully bring you down?
Some years ago, one of our friends was facing a lawsuit. He and I prayed together according to this scripture and agreed it was the final word in the situation, not the allegations against him. We stood in faith, believing that lawsuit had to fail.
The deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is something that can never be brought into question by any born-again believer. Our very salvation rests on the fact that Jesus Christ is divine, the second person of the Godhead, God—the Son.
The beloved disciple and apostle, John, forever puts to rest any doubt about that in John 1:1,14. Anyone who doubts what those verses say could not possibly have been born of the kingdom of God. For the deity of Jesus forms the very foundation of our faith in Him.
Hopelessness. As this age draws to a close, that's a feeling that's going to be more and more common among the people of this world. But, you know, it's something we as believers never have to feel! Because no matter how much pressure comes on the earth, no matter how dark the natural circumstances around us are, we know that we have hope in the soon return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God has raised us up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus! That's what the Word of God says. Very few of us have actually dared to believe this. We've uplifted Jesus. We've exalted Him—and rightly so! But at the same time, we've unwittingly belittled what He did by not allowing Him to bring us alongside Him.
That was God's purpose at Calvary: to bring us alongside Jesus. To make us what He already was.
When you were born again, you weren't half-reborn, you weren't made half-righteous or a quarter righteous. You were made the righteousness of God in Christ! You were made a "joint-heir with Him." According to Strong's Concordance that term joint heir refers to "a personal equality based on an equality of possession."
Grace teaches us! The "Spirit of grace" instructs us from the inside. Let the Holy Spirit of God counsel you and teach you how to live in this present world.
Satan has had us in a poverty mentality so long that it's tough for us to grasp just how intensely God really does desire to prosper us—even though He's demonstrated that desire again and again.
Take Abraham, for example. God made him an extremely wealthy man. Genesis 13:2 says he was rich in cattle, in silver and in gold.
Then, of course, there was Solomon. The Bible says he surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.
There's a subtle strategy Satan uses to take control of our lives. The Bible calls it lasciviousness and it means "to have no restraint."
Lasciviousness has been preached as being extreme immorality, but it doesn't start out that way. It begins with just a few seemingly innocent thoughts. Then those thoughts grow and grow until they begin to produce serious sin.
It's wonderful to know you've been set free from the law of sin and death. It's glorious to know you never again have to submit to the slavery of sin. But what do you do when, in spite of those wonderful, glorious truths, you still miss the mark? What do you do when you stumble and fall into sin?
Run to your Father and repent!
When you made Jesus Christ Lord of your life, you became what the Bible calls a “new creature.” Inside, you’re not the same person you were before. You have the nature of God born into you. But it’s not enough for you just to have that new nature on the inside. You have to let it take over the outside as well.
Don’t expect that to happen automatically. You have to make a decision to bring your body into obedience to the new man within you. You must determine to do what Romans 6:12 says and “let not sin...reign in your mortal body….”
When someone hurts us, our natural human reaction is to strike back...to ask God to clobber them. But that’s not God’s way.
I realized that one time when some relatives of mine got robbed. I was praying about the situation and puzzling over it. “Lord,” I began to ask, “why did You let that happen? Why didn’t You just knock that thief over the head when he tried to do that?”
Suddenly, God enabled me to back up from that situation and look at it with spiritual, instead of just purely natural, eyes.
As long as you live on this earth, you’re going to be saddled with a weakness. What is it? The flesh and blood body you live in. It’s a body that’s subject to death. A body that’s subject to the physical world around you.
Your reborn spirit doesn’t want to sin. It wants to be completely obedient to God. But the weakness of the flesh causes you to fall prey to the temptations around you.
Does that mean you’re doomed to a life of failure till Jesus comes and that flesh body is glorified?
The company you keep has such an influence on your spiritual life. Fellowshiping with godly people will help speed you on to victory, while fellowshiping with those who are ungodly will drag you down to defeat.
That’s why the Bible has some things to say about your friends. That’s why it tells you to separate yourself from the world. Because evil companions will corrupt you.
Now, I’m not talking about ministry. Jesus Himself ministered to sinners. You have to mix with them to preach to them and pray for them. What I’m talking about here are the people you choose for friends.
Someone’s done you wrong! Sooner or later it happens to all of us. Somewhere along the way, we all get hurt or cheated or lied to or abused.
It’s as predictable as it is painful. Yet when it happens most of us find ourselves strangely unprepared. In our outrage, we often cry out to God against the one who wronged us. We ask for justice, or even vengeance, and end up making things tougher on everyone involved—including ourselves.
If that’s been true of you, it’s time you found out how you can put the power of God to work for you the next time someone does you wrong.
Did you know that Jesus has unlocked the prison doors of guilt that have kept you captive? It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve been. I don’t care if you’ve been a prostitute, a murderer, a thief, a drug dealer or a churchgoer who’s never made Jesus Christ Lord of your life. The Bible says that today is the day of salvation.
A new life is only a prayer away.
Have you ever been frustrated with the weaknesses of your flesh? Have you ever resolved never more to yield to a particular sin, yet when the temptation came, you fell right back into it?
It’s happened to all of us—even the disciple Peter. He swore he would never deny Jesus...but he did it anyway, time and time and time again.