Accused of Being a Christ Follower!

Acts 24:16
So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.

Paul spoke these words when he was giving an account of himself to his followers.  He was under attack from his enemies at the time.  He wanted his followers to know that he was under attack because he was leading a life that conflicted with how his attackers wanted to live their lives.  Paul may have been the first to warn us about living our lives according to political correctness and not according to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

How many of us would feel more comfortable being accused of any weakness rather than be accused of being a fervent believer in Jesus Christ, devoted to His service?  Unfortunately, this is exactly where the world wants us.  Everything we see, hear and read that comes from the world is designed to desensitize us to evil and to move us away from the holy life style that Jesus Christ call us to.

In the flesh, we are destined to fall for the tricks of the enemy.  We must call on the Holy Spirit to help us to live in the spirit of the one who dwells within us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing the Holy Spirit to keep us mindful of the truths that You have revealed to us through the life of Your Son, Jesus, and through the writings in Your Holy Word.  Strengthen us, Lord, to stand up to the ridicule and hatred of the world.  May it be the passion of our hearts to please You and not the world.

The Power of the Spoken Word

Proverbs 15:4
The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.
God spoke the world into existence.  Jesus cast out demons and healed the sick with His spoken words. There is great power in our words as well. Words cast out from our mouths have the power to build up and the power to crush.  We must be conscious of the power of every word that we speak.
“You will never amount to anything,” lives on in the life of a child forever.  So does, “You are wonderfully made by the hand of God.  He has a special plan for your life.”   We must be careful in choosing the words that we speak to our loved ones and to all the people that we encounter in life.  We truly have the power to plant life or death into those around us.
Satan will stay in our ears all day long, feeding us with destructive words to be spoken against those that we care for.  We must keep our armor up against the urgings to hurt others with our words.  We must continually ask the Holy Spirit to help us to be mindful of our words so that we comfort and build up those around us instead of crushing their spirits.
Prayer,
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the gift of speaking.  We rejoice in praising you with our words and our songs.  We take comfort in coming to You with our words of solicitation.  We pray, Father, that You will fill our hearts with words that speak life into those around us.  We pray that You will shield us from the urgings of the enemy to speak words of conflict and destruction.  Build us up, Lord, so that we may build up others in Your Precious Name.

Stepping Into Kingdom Living

Deuteronomy 11:11-12
But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

The Lord is our provider.  He provides everything.  He gave us life.  He sustains us.  He grants us eternal life through His Son, Jesus.  He endows us with the riches of His Kingdom for all eternity.

All we have to do is receive His Son as Our Savior and, through our faith in His promises, step out of the land in which we are living and into the land that God has set aside for us.  It will mean that we will look past those things that we think are unsurmountable. We will seek the promise and not get overwhelmed by the problem.  We will rely on God and not ourselves to be the source of our needs.

Once we turn our lives over to God and surrender to the reign of His Son in our lives, all of our needs will be met.  Provision may come from our own hands as God favors us with productive ideas and capabilities.   Provision may come from the hands of others or may even come from our enemies, if so directed by the Lord.  But rest assured, provision will come directly from the hand of God and it will be according to His perfect timing for our lives. 

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the countless blessings that You shower us with each day.  From breath to breath, You sustain us.  We praise You and bless You for Your eyes never leave us.  You are our constant comfort and provision.

Teach us, Lord, to rest in Your promises.  Strengthen us, Lord, so that we may step out of the world of the flesh into kingdom living.

Step by Step in the Spirit

2 Peter 1:5
In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge,
God sets the vision for our lives and puts everything in place for us to fulfill the plan.  We must, however, take all the small steps needed to move from one place to the next higher place that God has planned for us.  We must be obedient to the urgings of the Holy Spirit as we overcome the callings of our flesh.

Along the way, Satan will challenge each and every step.  And once we really start making progress, Satan will turn his evil on those around us, especially those close to us.  Built up by our faith and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, we will overcome.  Our tiny steps of obedience will take us to the awaited goal.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your promise to complete Your good work in our lives.  Thank You for the faith that You provide us through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  We pray that You will help us to build a relationship with Our Helper.  Help us to become tuned in to every tiny whisper from the Holy Spirit that reminds us of Your promises and guides us in faith on our journey of sanctification.

The Helper

John 16:7
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.


From time to time, you may hear someone say, “I sure wish that I had lived in the time of Jesus.  It would be easier to know and follow Him.” 

Jesus, Himself, revealed  to the apostles that life with the Holy Spirit would be better than life with Him on earth.  The lives of the apostles confirms His message.  The apostles were slow in understanding the teachings of Jesus.  They were even slower in adopting His power and His ways.  They scattered like the wind at His death.  In fact, they were still in hiding even after the Resurrection.

It was after the appearance of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that everything changed for the apostles.  Their knowledge of the teachings of Jesus became complete.  They were filled with the boldness to go out and proclaim the Good News, even under the threat of death.  And at once, they were able to exhibit the powers of casting out devils and healing the sick.

Everything that the apostles experienced after Pentecost is available to us today.  All we have to do is surrender to Our Savior and live in the spirit and not in the flesh.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we praise You and thank You for sending the Holy Spirit to be our Helper.   We thank You that we do not have to stand alone against the torments of our own flesh and the attacks of the enemy.  We come before You to surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  In accordance with Your promises, we pray that You will perfect Your strength in our weakness.  Through this process, may we come to a full understanding of Who You are. May we become living examples of our relationship with You.  May we serve the world around us through the gifts that You provide us through the Holy Spirit.

In the Hands of the Potter

Jeremiah 18:4
And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.

Jesus is the great potter.  He keeps His hands on us, His clay, at all times.  He is in no hurry to form us according to His purposes.  He knows that He will take whatever time is necessary to get us to conform to the purposes that He has for our lives.  He will even break us, the clay, if it is necessary for Him to see us reach His chosen form.

As the clay, all we have to do is surrender to the hands of the potter on our lives.  From the point of surrender, we should have no concerns for the potter will form us perfectly.  We simply wait on the glory of our finishing.

Prayer,
Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have good and perfect plans for our lives. We thank You for Your patience as You mold us into the good and faithful servants that will stand before You one day in the image of Your Son, Jesus. We pray for the grace to surrender to the hands of Your Son on our lives.  We pray for the strength to endure through the shaping process.  May we become the perfect vessels of Your love that You created us to be.

Freedom in the Word

Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

We have all become slaves to political correctness.  We struggle to find the right words to say to others when we know they fall short of having a relationship with Jesus Christ.  In an effort to risk offending the other person, we may offer a watered down version of God’s Word.  When we do this, we do an injustice to the person we are speaking to and we do an injustice to ourselves.  There is no substitute for the perfect Word of God.  We should have faith in the power of transformation that is in the Word of God.  After all, Jesus is the Word made flesh.  The way, the truth and the life is in Him.

On the other hand, we should not become slaves to “converting” the world.  We should live our lives according to the standards of the only perfect man, Jesus Christ.  With patience and gentleness, but never with the watered down truth, we should go and make disciples for Jesus and not converts to our own view of personal correctness.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You giving us Your Holy Word and the Word made flesh, Your Son, Jesus.  We rejoice in the freedom that we receive when we live by the standards that You have provided.  We pray, Father, that You will teach us how to make disciples by first applying Your standards to our lives and then by patiently and gently sharing the truth with others.

Overcoming the Judgement of Sin

1 Peter 4:17
For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

For every man and every woman, the time of judgement will come.  There will be no comfort for those that come before the Lord on their final day still covered in the filth of their sins.  They will face endless torment.  

For those that have been washed clean of their sins by the blood of Jesus Christ, the keys to the kingdom of God will be given.  Their sins will have been judged and forgiven in advance by their Savior.  

All sin must be punished.  So those that have received the grace of salvation will be punished for their sins in this lifetime.  The Holy Spirit will reveal to us the past and current sins in our lives.  We must ask forgiveness and turn away from these sins.  Until we completely surrender to Jesus, we will suffer great trials and tribulations.  Our suffering will continue until ever element of our self reliance is slain at the Cross and we turn to the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome sin in our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your loving kindness, Your mercy and Your grace in our lives.  We thank You for opening our eyes so that we may see the sin in our lives that separates us from You.  We thank You for preparing our hearts so that we could receive Your Son, Jesus, as Our Savior.  We pray that You mold our hearts, Lord, so that we fully surrender to Your Son each and every day of our lives.   Prepare us, Lord, to stand before You in the image of Your Son. 

Our Lives and Not Our Words Impact Change

1 Peter 3:1-2
Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.


God is a respecter of no man.  Therefore, what He directs to one, He directs to another.  Therefore, whatever He directs to the wives, He also directs to the husbands.  Therefore, whatever He directs to husbands and wives, He also directs for all relationships. 

What Peter is teaching us is that we do not change the lives of our mates, or others around us, by our words.  We change the lives of those around us by changing our own lives in accordance with the work of the Holy Spirit within us.  Through our new lives in Christ, and not through our words, all around us are drawn to the truth that is working within us.

As the Holy Spirit changes us, He will also change our spouses and others in our lives.  The Holy Spirit will work continuously to strengthen our marriages by making Jesus Christ the foundation of our union.  He will work continuously to open the eyes of those around us to the way, the truth and the life that is in Jesus.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the institution of marriage.  We thank You for providing us with mates who complete us in Christ.  We pray, Lord, that You will show us how to surrender our individual lives to the work of the Holy Spirit so that He can build the foundations of our marriages in Jesus Christ.

We thank You for providing us with friends and family to help build us up.  May our lives open their eyes to the wondrous work of Jesus Christ.  May He become the cornerstone of all our lives. 

Rebuke the Whisperer

Psalm 41:7
All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me.

Is the devil whispering in your ear?  He may sound something like this:
  • You are not good enough to minister to others.  Let someone else do it.
  • Why are you trying this?  You will fail.
  • Why would God have a place for a sinner like you?
  • You will be embarrassed if you do that.
The whispers of the devil may even come to you through the voices of those you know, you love and you trust.


We must take on the full armor of God when the enemy begins whispering defeat into our lives.  Our victory and our anointing in Christ has already been set.  We need to seize the anointing on our lives that will break off the yokes of insecurity, inferiority, fear, and unbelief.

When Satan accused Joshua, listen to how Jesus responded, “The LORD rebuke you, satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”  Zechariah 3:2  We need to respond in the same manner every time Satan accuses us.  We cannot accept or become familiar with his attacks.  Otherwise, we will become comfortable with the lies spoken against us.  The victory is ours in the name of the Lord, Jesus.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the armor that You provide us.  We thank You that the enemy cannot lead us astray when we take on the armor of protection that is ours in our Blessed Hope and Assurance, Jesus Christ.  Thank You, Jesus, for providing our victory over all evil.  Teach us how to live our lives in victory.  Strengthen us through our faith in Your promises.