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Monday 19 February 2018

IN CHRIST ALONE

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Ephesians 1:3

Paul makes a remarkably inclusive statement when he says, ‘We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ.’ There is nothing of spiritual substance left out in that statement.

What’s more, it has been given to us ‘in the heavenly realms.’ Whatever else that means, it has cosmic proportions. In the breadth of space and time, we have every spiritual resource we need in our union with Christ.

Therefore it’s essential that we understand what it means to be in Christ. To be in Christ is to be united to His status before the Father.

Paul goes on to say in the Book of Ephesians that we are ‘chosen in Him’; we are recipients of grace ‘in the One He loves’; we have redemption ‘in Him’; His Will for us is purposed ‘in Christ’; our hope is ‘in Christ’; we were sealed by the Holy Spirit ‘in Him’; and we approach the Father ‘in Him' (Ephesians 1:4-13,3:12). *God has nothing to give us outside of Christ and everything to give us in Christ.*

In a modern motoring metaphor, ‘in Christ’ we have a full tank and
the resources to go the distance. Therefore it follows that *the more we know Him, the more we trust Him and the more we relate everything in our lives to Him, the more satisfied we will be in Him.*

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, thank You for all that You are in me, and what I become in You.... Amen🙏🏼

1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN: Exodus 9:8-10:29

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SEEK THE KINGDOM OF GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART.

INSIDE AND OUT

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9

We are a chosen people and a royal priesthood, set apart to God.
That is a wonderful truth. But we must never let the joy of our intimacy with God exclude us from interaction with the world.
Why are we set aside to God? Peter goes on to say, ‘that you
may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light’ (1 Peter 2:9).

There is an ‘in and out’ dimension to our relationship with Christ.
 *We come in for worship, out for witness; in to meditate, out to minister; in for fellowship, out for faithfulness.* If we focus only on
coming ‘in,’ we will become stale. If we focus only on going ‘out,’ we will exhaust our resources. We are first in union with Christ, and we are then to witness to the world, but these two aspects belong to one condition.

If we do not go out to declare Him, we will go out to criticize and judge the world. It is sad that is how some people see the Church. It was never how people saw Jesus, who stated, ‘I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world’ (John 12:47),
 *and that is the business we are about.*

We come into our union with Christ, to be equipped to go out into the world.

Do you have prejudices that need to be brought to God?

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, I humbly ask for grace to imitate Jesus in respect to His relationship with you and His assignment on earth.....In Jesus' name I pray....Amen

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Monday 12 February 2018

CV FOR DISCIPLESHIP

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles.
Luke 6:12-13

Choosing His twelve apostles was a crucial decision Jesus had to make. They were going to be the ones entrusted with the responsibility of taking His Gospel to the world. So, whom does Jesus choose?

We might expect Him to look for
extraordinary people, to find the spiritual supermen of the time. The reality is, He called a group of extremely ordinary people who had no idea or quality of being great, but who, in His years of training them, had to break their self-sufficiency until they lived out of the disposition of *‘not I, but Christ.’*

No wonder Paul wrote to a later generation, ‘ *Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called.* Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world
to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him’ (1Corinthians 1:26-29).

If you fit those categories, you qualify as a disciple of Jesus.

Our qualification for being a disciple of Christ is exchanging our weakness
for His strength.

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank You for using me as I am. Your strength in my weakness.

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JESUS LOVES YOU.

EVIL FORCES

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Ephesians 6:12

Demons or evil spirits are mentioned many times in Scripture. They are a part of the invisible world that operates behind the scenes. It’s a world every bit as real as the one we can touch and see. The most likely origin of demons is that they are fallen angels who joined Satan in his rebellion (Revelation 12:7-9). Today they remain active in seeking to destroy everything that is of God in our world.

While God has given Satan and his demons permission to operate in the world (the Book of Job for instance), we must never forget that the devil has been defeated by Christ. God placed Satan under His feet through the victory of the cross. While Satan and his demons continue to battle
and fight, *the future is established and certain the victory is the Lord’s.*

We are to respect the dark side as permitted by God, but we must also recognize we can resist the impact of demonic forces. By putting on the full armour of God we can stand our ground and withstand the devil’s schemes (Ephesians 6:10-11). *The battle is real, but so is the ultimate victory. We fight not to accomplish victory but from a position of victory already won.* That’s why the instruction to the Christian soldier in Ephesians 6 is to ‘stand.’ We stand on victorious ground.

With confidence in Christ, we can
engage in battle and be secure in
our outcome.

What does it mean for you to put on the full armour of God today?

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, I humbly ask your Spirit Will help me to put on your full amour beginning from today. In Jesus mighty name....Amen.

1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN: Exodus 3:1-22

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CHASE AFTER GOD THIS MONTH.

DON'T CLOSE YOUR BIBLE

Direct my footsteps according to your word; let no sin rule over me. Psalm 119:133

We hear many people say they hear from God and you will assume that they read and meditate on Scripture until you talk to some for them to tell you they listen to God directly.
When you hear this, it's like telling people to close their Bible and listen to God.

Some seem to have the idea that
Scripture is old, predictable and gives second-hand information, but direct communication and guidance from God is exciting, living and fresh.This is extremely dangerous.

God may personally apply His Word to our situations as His still small voice speaks to us through it, but there is nothing more dangerous than closing our Bibles to hear from God.

What we do hear when we close our bibles are our own ideas which we then conveniently attribute to God. To know God and His truth, we need to get our mind and heart into the Scriptures. As we live within the revelation God has given for all people in His Word, He will guide us in the particular detail He may have for us personally.

We should also note that His personal revelation to us will always be consistent with, and in the framework of, His general revelation.

 *Through His Word, God directs
our footsteps.*

What has God been saying to you in His Word?

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, please speak to me through your word. In Jesus mighty name....Amen

1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN: Exodus 2:11-25

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HAVE A BLESSED MONTH

Wednesday 7 February 2018

JUST TRUST

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3

Jesus brings us back to childlikeness. What characterizes a child?
One thing is dependence. The humility of a child is expressed by their awareness of their lack of self-sufficiency. They are completely dependent on someone else.

Young children don’t clothe themselves or put their own food on the table yet they don’t worry. Doubts about these things don’t enter their mind. They just trust.

When we travel with our children, they are never worried about the bus fares, about
where they are going, or when they are
coming home. They just trust their parents. To live a wholesome Christian life, we must become
childlike again.

  *In the Christian life, we mature
by becoming childlike.*

A physical child grows from dependence to independence. *A spiritual child of God must grow from independence to dependence.* It is the reversal of the natural order of things.

Jesus is saying that we must change and it’s not going to be accidental.

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, please help me become a child again, dependent on You alone every day.

1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN: Exodus 1:8-2:10

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Tuesday 6 February 2018

SECOND-HAND FAITH


So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him.
Genesis 13:1

The sidebar to the story of Abraham is the story of Lot – Abraham’s nephew, the son of his brother Haran. We know that Haran died young, and perhaps Abraham adopted Lot, it’s hard to know. We do
know that when Abraham left Ur and came to Canaan, he took Lot with him, and when they found themselves in a famine, Lot went
with Abraham to Egypt. *Lot’s guidance came from what God told Abraham*

Lot’s value came from hanging around Abraham. The problem is that Lot did not know God for himself. While Abraham got direction from God, Lot just followed Abraham. While Abraham experienced God directly, *Lot’s relationship was
second-hand.*

His faith was only experienced in the slipstream of
Abraham’s relationship with God.
God calls us primarily to Himself. He may use others to help us get to know Him, but ultimately we must be weaned from them and
have our own relationship with God that is direct and personal. Lot failed to do this. When Lot became separated from Abraham, he had no personal relationship with God himself and inevitably spiraled away and ended up in Sodom, living in sin and despair and Abraham had to come and rescue him from Sodom.

The work of God in other people to help us can
never be a substitute for our own personal walk with God.

Do you have a first-hand or second-hand relationship with God?

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, please help me to know you personally in Jesus mighty name....Amen.

1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN: Genesis 49:1-33

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Monday 5 February 2018

DO NOTHING YOURSELF


Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
John 5:19

Jesus, as a human being, professed no ability of His own when He said, ‘The Son can do nothing by himself.’ He also went on to say that He had no agenda of His own, ‘he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does’ (John 5:19).

The only agenda
He had was the agenda His Father prepared for
Him. Right through Jesus’ life this was the constant criteria for everything He did and everything He said. Jesus obeyed the Father and lived in complete dependence on Him.

When Paul says that we are to have the mind of Christ in
Philippians 2:5, he is speaking of this same dependency on God
and obedience to God. It’s not a passive dependency where we
do nothing, but an active obedience that derives from a dynamic sense of dependence upon the living, active life of Christ within us.

After all, he said to his disciples, ‘… apart from me you can do
nothing’ (John 15:5). It is a daily disposition of dependence and
obedience, no matter what.

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, I depend entirely on You. Have Your way in me.

1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN: Genesis 45:1-28

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GOOD DEBT


Let  no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled  the  law. Romans 13:8

None  of  us  likes  being  in  debt. As  far  as  financial  debts are concerned, the apostle  Paul  admonishes  us  to, ‘let  no  debt  remain  outstanding’ (Romans  13:8).  But  that’s  simply the  lead-in  to  his  real  point  in  the other  half  of  the  verse:  ‘except the  continuing  debt  to  love  one another’  (Romans  13:8).

It’s  like an  eternal loan.  It’s  our  debt to  love. How would it change  us if  we began  to  see  ourselves  as  being  in debt  to  the  world,  to our church members and  to  our neighbours?  Suddenly,  *we  wouldn’t have the luxury of responding ‘tit for tat’ in relationships.* Instead, we would have a debt of love to pay them regardless if we think they  deserve  our  love  or  not.

Love  has  nothing  to  do  with deserving.  That’s  radically  unique  to  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ, our  greatest  obligation  as  a  Church  is  not  to  ourselves  but  to others.  We carry a debt of love to the world.

 *Love is not an option for us as Christians but an obligation.  We are in debt to love.*

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, Please help me to love others as you have commanded me to do, in Jesus' name.....Amen

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1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN: Matthew 17:1-23