FREE AND UNDESERVED

And since it is through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved.  Romans 11:6, NLT

I love the apostle Paul’s description of God’s grace: free and undeserved! When you truly experience this free and undeserved favour and love from God, you don’t have to worry about performing. His love and unmerited favour within you will flush out all the wrong thinking and wrong believing, and you will produce good works—true fruits of righteousness that are lasting, sustainable, and enduring!

You may have heard a teaching going around where grace is defined as “divine empowerment.” Be careful about defining grace as mere empowerment—that is diluting and reducing what grace truly is.

Grace produces divine empowerment, but in and of itself, the essence of grace is His undeserved, unmerited, and unearned favour. When are you in your most undeserving state? When you have failed. Unmerited favour means that when you have failed and are in your most undeserving state, you can receive Jesus’ favour, blessings, love, and perfect acceptance in your life. Let me tell you, when you understand and receive grace as God’s unmerited favour, not only will you be empowered, you will be healed, and you will be changed from the inside out.

The real danger with defining grace as just divine empowerment is that we can unconsciously flip grace around and instead of seeing it as God’s work in our life, we make it our work. From being centred on what Jesus has done, the erroneous definition of grace as “empowerment” swings it to being about what you must do and how you must perform now that you have received this grace, this “divine empowerment.” Can you see this? With such a definition of grace, the onus to live the Christ life falls back squarely on your shoulders.

My friend, make sure that what you believe in your heart always points you back to Jesus and Jesus alone and not to yourself.

Remember, it is all about His work, His doing, His performance, and His love in our lives. It never points back to you. Don’t be hoodwinked by those who move away from the pristine definition of grace as God’s unmerited favour and end up making it all about you and what you need to do. That’s not grace. Grace is God’s doing—from inception and all the way to the end.

Today, receive His abundant grace—see that God has already started a good work in your life and He alone will lead you to and give you the victory in your area of need.   (Article and Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince Ministries used With Kind Permission).

TEST EVERYTHING YOU HEAR WITH GOD'S WORD

Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. 1 Thessalonians 5:20–21

I encourage you to test everything you hear with God’s Word. I always tell my church to read the Bible for themselves instead of simply swallowing all that any preacher, including myself, says. Be wise and don’t just swallow everything—hook, line, sinker, fisherman and even his boots! Be discerning when you hear something that does not sit well in your spirit, such as when a preacher tells you that “God gives you sicknesses to teach you a lesson.” Ask yourself, “Is this in line with the new covenant of God’s unmerited favour? Are there new covenant scriptures to back up this teaching?”

The answer is obvious once you align it with Jesus and what He has done on the cross for you! Why would God give you sicknesses when Jesus has taken every sickness and disease upon His own body at the cross? With full assurance in your heart that sickness is not from God, you can have faith to be healed! But what assurance can you have if you believe the lie that the condition is from God? Now, instead of thinking that God is against you, you realize that He is on your side! Your confidence is restored, faith is renewed and His healing can flow unabated through every cell, tissue and organ in your body!

Let me just share with you the words of Miles Coverdale, who said, “It shall greatly help thee to understand scripture, if thou mark not only what is spoken or written, but of whom, and unto whom, with what words, at what time, where, to what intent, with what circumstance, considering what goeth before, and what followeth after.”

Essentially, he was saying that to understand the Bible, we need to read everything in its context. What powerful advice from the man who translated and produced the first English Bible in the 16th century.

My friend, rightly divide the covenants whenever you read the Bible and you will never be ashamed. Now that you have received Jesus into your life, you are under the new covenant and it is your new covenant right to enjoy Jesus’ unmerited favour to succeed in life! (Article and Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince Ministries used with kind permission).

OPEN UP THE SCRIPTURES

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.  Romans 10:17, NASB

When I was studying the Emmaus story, I asked the Lord why He chose to restrain the eyes of the two disciples such that they couldn’t recognize Him (see Luke 24:13–35). I asked Him, “Wouldn’t it have been better for them to see You with Your nail-pierced hands?” Wouldn’t it have been better if Jesus had walked down the busiest streets of Jerusalem, lifted up His hands, and hollered, “Yo! Everyone, check this out!”

But Jesus knew that doing that would not produce true faith. He revealed to me that it was more important for the disciples to see Him in the Word than to see Him in person. Wow, those words brought so much hope and encouragement to my heart. If the faith of the disciples was based on them seeing Jesus physically in the flesh, then what hope do we have today? Jesus purposefully restrained their eyes so that they would see Him first in the Scriptures. That places you and me on equal ground and with equal opportunity as the two disciples. Jesus wants us all to see Him in the Word.

God’s Word tells us that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17, NASB). This means that the more you hear Jesus unveiled, expounded upon, and pointed to in the Scriptures, the more faith will be imparted to your heart to believe everything God’s Word says about you. Could it be that the reason many believers are still living in defeat today is that Jesus has not been unveiled in the Scriptures to them?

The gospel is all about Jesus. It’s not about right doing. It’s all about right believing about Jesus that makes a difference in people’s lives. The apostle Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith’” (Rom. 1:16–17).

That’s the gospel that I am not ashamed of. I pray that you will experience your own Emmaus Road journey as you open up the Scriptures and allow His Word to bathe your heart in the warmth of His loving grace and tender mercies. It’s truly all about Jesus! (Article and Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince Ministries used with kind permission).

GOD'S PERFECT LAW PERFECTLY FULFILLED

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.  Colossians 2:13–14

In the account of the woman caught in adultery, the Bible is silent on what Jesus wrote on the ground with His finger. But I believe that when He stooped down, He was writing the Law of Moses. I have been to Jerusalem many times. During one of my visits many years ago to the temple precinct where Jesus would have met this woman, the Lord opened my eyes to see that the floor of the temple precinct was made of hard cobblestone. This means Jesus was not writing on soil. He was writing with His finger on stone.

Then, in a flash, I saw that Jesus was writing the law on stone. He was effectively saying to the Pharisees, “You presume to teach Me about the Law of Moses? I am He who wrote the law.” Jesus wrote twice on the ground with His finger, thus completing the typology, as we know that God wrote the Ten Commandments with His finger twice.

The first set of the Ten Commandments was destroyed by Moses when he saw the Israelites worshipping the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. God then wrote another set on stones and gave it to Moses for it to be placed under the mercy seat in the ark of the covenant. I had never heard anyone preach this before—it was a fresh revelation straight from heaven. I love it when the Lord opens my eyes to see His grace!

Do you know why it’s so exciting to know what Jesus wrote on the ground that day? It’s so significant because it shows us that the very author of God’s perfect law does not use the law to judge and condemn us today. And it’s not because God simply decided to be merciful on us. No! It’s because Jesus Himself fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the law on our behalf and took upon Himself every curse and stroke of punishment for our sins on His own body at the cross. We are forgiven because He was judged. We are accepted because He was condemned!

Whatever your challenge today, your answer is found in receiving a fresh revelation of how much you are forgiven in Christ. (Article and Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince Ministries used with kind permission).  

COME AS YOU ARE AND RECEIVE

Come as you are to the Lord with your need, and lean on His unfailing and unconditional love for you. You don’t have to pretend to be more than what you are to receive the blessing you need from God. You don’t have to pretend to be someone else to appear more deserving to receive from God.

A Canaanite woman desperately seeking healing for her demon-possessed daughter came to Jesus (see Matthew 15:22–28). Knowing that He healed and did miracles among the Jews, she pretended to be a Jew, calling out, “O Lord, Son of David!” (Only the Jews addressed Jesus as the “Son of David.”) Jesus did not answer her. His silence made her drop her pretense and cry out, “Lord, help me!”

Only when her pretenses had melted away did she see the grace of God extended to her. Jesus made a way for her to receive her miracle even though it was not yet time for the Gentiles to receive His blessings. He told her, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

Many people might be offended at being called a “dog.” Actually, the Greek word used here by Jesus means “puppy,” and is thus an affectionate rather than offensive term. So this woman was not offended. In fact, she knew then that she could receive healing for her daughter because even puppies get to eat what falls from their masters’ table.

She saw that the crumbs under the Master’s table were enough for a Gentile, a “little dog,” like herself. You must understand that the Jews then considered Gentiles dogs. But what Jesus was trying to say was that He was called to the Jews first, not the Gentiles. Yet, He loved this Gentile woman and her daughter enough to provide a “loophole” for them to receive their miracle.

So when the Canaanite woman took her place by dropping the title “Son of David” and just leaned on Jesus’ compassion for her, her daughter was healed from that very hour.

If God was willing to extend His grace to a Gentile, how much more you, His beloved child! You do not need to depend on pretensions to receive a miracle from Him. Come as you are and lean on His grace. If He has delivered Jesus up for us, “how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). (Article and Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince used with kind permission).

THE FOUNDATION FOR LASTING BREAKTHROUGHS

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.  Galatians 5:1

The cross, my dear reader, is the foundation for lasting breakthroughs and genuine inside-out transformation! I submit to you that many people are unable to experience lasting breakthroughs from their fears, addictions, and bondages because they don’t yet understand the gospel of grace. You can evaluate how well you understand what Jesus accomplished at the cross for you by looking at how free you are in Christ today. Are you constantly struggling with thoughts of fear, doubt, guilt, and condemnation? Are you persistently entangled in a sinful habit or addiction?

If that is you, you need to study, meditate upon and feed on the gospel of grace. Don’t back away from grace; be strong in the grace of God extended to you. Be strong in understanding that your sins are forgiven. Be strong in the knowledge that you are justified by faith through grace. Be strong in the revelation that today, you are the righteousness of God in Christ.

When you are strong in the gospel of grace, you will produce a godly, holy, and glorious life! In the same way that you can’t touch water and not become wet, you can’t “touch” grace and not become holy. And this holiness is a true holiness that comes from the inside out. It is a holiness that flows from a heart that has been emancipated from self-condemnation. We are not talking about superficial outward changes. We are talking about changes that happen in the deepest recesses of a person’s heart, motivations, and thoughts. Real change in a person whose heart is washed by the precious blood of Jesus and touched by His grace brings lasting breakthroughs. (Article and Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince used with kind permission).

LIVE THE ‘MUCH MORE’ LIFE

When God created man, He did not intend for man to grow old, become weak and powerless, suffer diseases and die—first the physical death, then the second or eternal death.

God never meant for man to go through all these and for death to reign. But because of one man’s offense—that man being Adam—death reigns.

The ultimate death is the second or eternal death in the lake of fire. Before this death is physical death. Before physical death, you have diseases and illnesses. Not all diseases and illnesses lead to death, but they are manifestations of death. One step before diseases and illnesses is tiredness, weakness and powerlessness, which are signs and symptoms of death. Now, all these are forms of death. As you can see, death reigns!

Are you resigned to the fact that death can strike whoever, whenever and wherever it wishes? Are you allowing death to reign in your life and in the lives of your loved ones? Or are you allowing God’s Word to tell you the truth about death?

“For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more…” Thank God for the “much more”! What Jesus, the last Adam, did is much more and far greater than what the first Adam did. We are those who have received the “abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.” Therefore, our “much more” is that we will reign in life through Jesus Christ!

God considers death an enemy. He came to destroy death and give us eternal life. And the more we walk in the grace of God and His righteousness, the more we will reign in life. The more we believe in His grace or undeserved favour, and the more we know that we have been made righteous by His blood and not our good behaviour, the more we will reign over all forms of death! (Article and Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince used with kind permission).  

THE ENEMY IS BENEATH YOUR FEET

Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”  Luke 10:17–19 (boldface mine)

Our Lord Jesus sent seventy disciples out against the kingdom of darkness, as “lambs among wolves.” Look in today’s Scripture at the exchange between the seventy disciples and the Lord Jesus when they returned. My friend, the power and authority our Lord Jesus gave them to operate in is the power and authority we have as believers today!

Romans 16:20 declares that the God of peace will crush Satan underneath our feet! He is a defeated foe. The Bible is very consistent and always puts the devil beneath your feet (see Gen. 3:15, Eph. 1:22). You are not at the mercy of the enemy’s attacks. Don’t put him on a pedestal, as if he has power and dominion over you. Remind yourself that in Christ, you are “far above all principality and power and might and dominion” (Eph. 1:21), and every lion and serpent you shall trample underfoot!

We exercise our authority as believers when we go on the offensive against the enemy today. How do we do that? We wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God! Our authority, our strength, and our victory are found in His Word.

Look at how the Bible describes the armor of God: “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:14–17).

Do you see that the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is the only piece of the armour that is offensive? That is why for every round of attack the devil launched at our Lord Jesus, He fought back with the sword of the Spirit—He used the written Word of God.

When we pray the prayer of protection in Psalm 91, we are praying according to the Word of God and wielding the sword of the Spirit. So no matter what report is roaring at you, be it from doctors, bankers, or from the news media, take your place of authority and lay hold of Scriptures for your situation. Fight back with the Word of God!  (Article and Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince Ministries used with kind permission). 

BE ESTABLISHED IN GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS

Have you ever asked yourself why some Christians are constantly beset with overwhelming challenges, sicknesses and defeat if God’s promise, “No weapon formed against you shall prosper” (Isaiah 54:17), is true?

Well, this promise comes with a condition—“In righteousness, you shall be established.” When you are established in righteousness, you will be far from oppression and terror, and not a single weapon formed against you will prosper!

This condition is not hard to meet. For a start, you already have righteousness! When you received Jesus as your Savior, you received the gift of righteousness which enables you to reign in life (see Romans 5:17). This righteousness does not come from you but the Lord (see Isaiah 54:17). And when you are established in His righteousness, no weapon formed against you will prosper.

But what does being established in righteousness mean? To be established in something is to have that something as your very foundation for security. So God wants you to know, be sure of and grow in the revelation that you are righteous by the blood of Jesus, by His perfect sacrifice at the cross.

When you feel as if you are in a storm, tossed here and there, and you begin to experience worry and fear, remind yourself of who you are in Christ. You are the righteousness of God in Christ and you have His righteousness!

As you do this, you will begin to notice the worry and fear slide off you, for when you are established in righteousness, “you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you”! That is why God wants you to be established in righteousness. He wants you to be free from fear, and far from oppression and terror.

So when the pressure is on, hold fast to the belief that you are the righteousness of God in Christ. That is where no weapon formed against you can prosper. As you keep believing and confessing your righteousness in Christ, revelation will break forth and you will experience the release of God’s miraculous provision, divine protection and blessings into your life! (Article and Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince Ministries used with kind permission).