Tag: Son of God

No Need to Question if We have Done Enough

John 13:13
You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.

In every other religion in the world, except Christianity, the final goal is to have done enough to satisfy a god who provides eternal rewards for those who fulfill the demands. The followers of these gods live under a task master who has nothing to offer to those who bow before him.

For followers of Jesus Christ, the servitude to the Master is totally different. The Master has taken care of everything that is necessary for the servant to be worthy of eternal reward with Almighty God. The Master promises to perfect His strength in the weaknesses of every follower so that they are healed of their wounds, redeemed from their transgressions and made holy and worthy to stand before The Father for all eternity.

Sitting under this Teacher and Lord, Jesus Christ, means that we have someone who knows us better than ourselves, who is closer to us than our friends and family, who understands the deepest desires of our hearts and fulfills them. Through this Master, the Son of God, we have the security that our eternal destination is settled. There is no need to question whether we have done enough. In the words of Jesus himself, “It is finished.”

Let us follow closely the teaching of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Let us receive in faith every promise that He reveals to us in His Holy Word. Let us rejoice in all the eternal provision that He has made for us. Let us show the world our joy.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You that everything that was required for us to meet You in heaven for all eternity was finished on the Cross. We bless the name of Jesus who completed it all on our behalf. We pray, Lord, that we may sit humbly at the feet of Your Son and surrender to the way, the truth and the life that is in Him. May we become vessels of His perfect love and forgiveness. May we become instruments of His good work. We ask all these things in the name of Our Lord, Our Master and Our King, Jesus Christ.

Exalting the King of Kings Moment by Moment

Psalm 145:21
My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

We are stirred up in our hearts to praise God. We praise Him because of His power and His glory. We praise Him for His holiness and His love expressed through the redemptive work of His Son, Jesus.

Our Lord, Jesus, is the fullness of the love and forgiveness that we have been so graciously provided by Our Father in Heaven. Let our every breath be filled for praise for the Father and the Son. May our lives be living testimonies of the Son of God who has come to dwell within us.

Let us praise God out of the faith that He has built in us through His Holy Spirit. Let us praise God with the love and delight that He has placed in our hearts. Let us praise God as we are comforted by His goodness, His grace and His holiness. Let us praise God with the joy of the expectation of life in His eternal kingdom. Let us praise God with the unshakeable confidence that the victory is ours through God’s greatest gift to us, His Son, Jesus. Let us bless the name of His Son forever. Let us praise God for He is worthy.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we exalt Your name above all others for You are worthy. We pray Father that You open our eyes so that we may see Your glory in the tiny things in life as well as the large things. We lift our voices up in high praise for Your precious Lamb, Jesus. We bless His name and proclaim His holiness and His righteousness. We give thanks for His presence in our lives. May our every breath praise Him as we come know just how dear He is to us. We ask all these things in the name of the One whose steadfast love never ceases, Jesus Christ.

All the Powers of the Universe Formed Within Us

Luke 1:35
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.

Just as the Blessed Virgin Mary had the Son of God placed in her womb when the Holy Spirit came upon her, the Son of God is placed within each of us by the power of the Holy Spirit when we receive Jesus as Our Savior. Just as Mary carried Jesus Christ alive in her body, we carry Jesus as a living fount of holiness, righteousness, loving kindness, mercy and forgiveness. All that He is and all the powers of the universe have been formed within us.

If we had any natural resource of such incredible value within us, would we ever allow our attentions to be diverted from this precious resource? Would we ever hesitate to share the fruits of our resource with the world around us? Would we ever put aside for even a moment the thought of the magnificent power that we held?

Let us not overlook the power that dwells within us. Let us recognize and proclaim Christ Jesus. Let us strive to have His nature within us be as real and as fruitful as the seed received by the Virgin Mary.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for sending Your Son to be the fruit of the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We bless the name of Jesus as we rejoice in His presence within us. We pray, Father, that we will never set Jesus aside. We ask that the Holy Spirit aid us in allowing Jesus to pour His life into ours every single moment that we live and breath. May we clamor for His attention. May our holy communion with Our Savior lead others to be drawn to Him. We ask all these things in the name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Inheritors of the Only Bloodline without Sin

Matthew 5:20
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

No man can make himself pure enough to enter heaven by obeying the laws. The Pharisees created laws upon laws that were supposedly put in place to prepare them for their way to heaven. Jesus put to rest the folly in their thinking. Jesus taught that there was no possibility for anyone to enter heaven without accepting Him as Savior.

It is also revealed to us in the Holy Word that no one can stand before the eternal light and consummate holiness of Almighty God with the slightest taint of sin. Thus there is the need for us to accept Our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is He, and He alone, that washes us clean of our sin. It is His shed blood that makes us worthy to stand before the Most Holy, Almighty God of the Universe. It is the Son of God that secures our eternal destination in heaven.

As babes in Christ, we joyfully celebrate our eternal gift as heirs to the kingdom of God. But our joy is quickly challenged when we realize that we must still deal with the sin nature within us. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, we become cognizant of how wretched we are in our carnal nature. We also come to the place we recognize that we are incapable of overcoming our wretchedness on our own. But we must not let this steal our joy. In fact, we should experience an even greater joy as the Holy Spirit teaches us just how essential our decision was to accept Jesus Christ as Our Savior.

Let us not lose our joy as we struggle with our carnal nature. Let us remain in the joy that we experienced as new babes in Christ. Let us rejoice in knowing that we will stand before Almighty God with the assurance in Christ that the Father in heaven will only see our holiness.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for making it possible for us to stand in Your presence one day. We praise You for making The Word flesh so that we could be inheritors of the only bloodline without sin. We rejoice in knowing that one day our holiness will be complete as we shed our earthly bodies and take on the pure, supernatural bodies that You have set aside for us. We pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit guide us and strengthen us as we learn to shed the corruption of our flesh here on earth in preparation for the time that we go to our full glory with You in heaven. We ask all these things in the name of the Son of the Most High God, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Commands Us to Be of Good Cheer

Romans 12:12
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Rejoice. Endure. Pray. Now that is a winning combination. Each of these disciplines undergirds the other. The cumulative power gained by exercising these disciplines is even more valuable to followers of Jesus Christ when considering when they will be applied – during the times of trial and tribulation.

So how do these things work together. First of all, Jesus taught that in the world we will have tribulation. This is a given. There is no getting around it and it is becoming obvious in these days that tribulation for Christians is being ramped up in the form of persecution unlike anything that we have ever seen in our lifetime. More significantly, Satan is ramping up his attacks on us because he knows his time is getting shorter.

But knowing that our trials and tribulations are certain helps us to prepare for victory. We can rejoice as we have the hope given to us by the Son of God who has overcome the world. This is so certain that Jesus commands us to be of good cheer. And finally, because of the weakness of our flesh, the Lord God Almighty has provided access to His throne. When we are in the middle of the battle, losing strength and clearly not of good cheer, Our Heavenly Father invites us into His presence to receive an overflowing of His grace which will strengthen us, encourage us and lift us up into the joyful expectancy that belongs to us as children of the living God.

Let us rejoice in our hope, the ever faithful Jesus Christ. Let us persevere in our trials. Let us seek from God the fresh supplies of grace that we need to indeed be of good cheer at all times and under all circumstances. Let us claim the victory that is ours.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the constant flow of Your grace into our lives. Teach us, Father, to come to You throughout the day, not just at certain assigned times. Show us how to come into Your presence without ceasing. May we learn to humble ourselves before You endlessly as we come to You in prayer, bringing You the love, the honor and the praise that You alone deserve. We pray that we will endure all things as we rely on the Blessed Hope and Assurance, Jesus Christ. We rest on His promises. We ask all these things in the precious, holy and mighty name of Our Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Most Wondrous Expression of God’s Love

Job 26:14
Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?”

It is completely breathtaking to realize that we have only seen a mere portion of Almighty God’s power. It is quite inspiring to know that in Heaven we will be on an endless journey of enjoying and discovering all of God’s divine capacity.

Just think that all that has been revealed to us about Our Heavenly Father through the experiences of the ages and through the writings in His Holy Word is only a foretelling of His omnipotence. What we see of Him on earth and what we read of Him in the scriptures are illustrative of His awesome nature, but most of what He does each and every day is invisible to us. To name all the wondrous powers of Almighty God would be as fruitless as trying to count the stars.

God’s never ending works are completely immeasurable. They extend well beyond our ability to conceive of His might. We can be certain that what we see or know of Him is nothing in comparison of what we do not know about Him. Yet, we can be even more certain that all of His mighty wonders were eclipsed when He gave us His Son as the way, the truth and the life. With that gracious act of mercy and that unfathomable expression of His perfect love, He opened the gateways of heaven for all of His children to become heirs to His kingdom for all of eternity.

Let us press on through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that we may grow in our knowledge of the Lord and all His ways. Let us become willing vessels of His power and living testimonies of His love so that others will seek to know Him.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank You for drawing us to Yourself through the exhibition of Your divine power throughout the ages. We exalt the name of Jesus as the most wondrous expression of Your perfect love and forgiveness. We ask that the Holy Spirit instruct us in knowing about You and lead us into a personal relationship with You through Your Son, Jesus. We pray that we will become instruments of Your good work and vessels of Your perfect love and forgiveness. May the world know You through our obedience in following Your calling on our lives. We ask all these things in the name of the dunamis power of God, Jesus Christ.

Praising God with the Love and Delight that He has Placed in Our Lives

Psalm 150:6
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!

We are stirred up in our hearts to praise God. We are first moved to praise Him for the magnificence of His creation. We are inspired by the Holy Spirit to praise Him for His holiness and His love expressed through the redemptive work of His Son, Jesus. We learn to praise Him because of His power and His glory that we see expressed in our lives every day.

Let us praise God out of the faith that He has built in us through His Holy Spirit. Let us praise God as we are comforted by His goodness and His grace. Let us praise God with the joy of the expectation of life in His eternal kingdom. Let us praise God with the unshakeable confidence that the victory is ours through God’s greatest gift to us, His Son, Jesus.

Let us praise God with the love and delight that He alone has placed in our hearts. Let our every breath be filled with praise for Our Savior, Our Redeemer, Our King. Let us praise Him by allowing our lives to be living testimonies of the Son of God who has come to dwell within us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we lift our voices toward You in high praise. We bring our thanksgiving for Your precious Lamb, Jesus. We proclaim His holiness and His righteousness. We give thanks for His presence in our lives. We pray Father that You open our eyes so that we may see the presence of Your Son in the tiny things in life as well as the large things. May our every breath praise Him as we come know just how dear He is to You and to us. We ask all these things in the name of the One whose steadfast love never ceases, Jesus Christ.

We Are Intricate Pieces of God’s Divine Handiwork

Psalm 19:1
The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

It is undeniable. The heavens proclaim the glory of God. Every facet of God’s existence, power, wisdom and goodness are revealed in the starry canopy above us. Peering into the vast heavens gives us a sense of our infinite Lord, a sense of His control over all things and a sense of the magnitude of His power to hold it all together.

Our Creator provided the sun, the moon and the stars to provide light in our world. He provided His Son to be the Light of the World. Just as the Lord declares His glory through the display of His handiwork in the heavens, He also declares His glory through His Son. And the glory that He receives through His Son is multiplied over and over again through His children. He reveals His glorious Holy Spirit to the world through every single child that He has created.

The Lord uses powerful men of God to deliver His messages, but He does not use them alone. He chooses to use everyone of His children – of every age and every time – to declare His perfect love and forgiveness. He certainly does not need any of us to accomplish anything, but He loves to use all of us to reveal Himself to those who are in our everyday lives. We are the instruments of God’s perfect love.

Let us take time to consider how awesome our God is. Let us take time to marvel at all of His creation. Let us recognize we are intricate pieces in His divine handiwork. Let us insure that our lives reflect His glory.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You and praise You for the magnificent universe that You have created. We proclaim Your glory in all that we see before us. Father, we pray that You will use us as instruments of Your good work. May the world see the magnificence of who You are through our living testimony. May we be daily expressions of Your perfect love and forgiveness. We ask all these things in the name of Your Everlasting Light, Jesus Christ.

Bringing Ourselves into Proper Alignment with Christ

2 Corinthians 4:6
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

One of the greatest beauties in all of nature is the full moon. Yet the moon does nothing by itself to generate light. It is an unproductive body of dirt on its own. It only reflects the light of the sun as it moves into its proper position in concert with the earth.

We share similarities with the moon. We are worthless collections of dirt without the light of the Son in our lives. There is absolutely nothing that we could do through our own efforts independent of God that would evoke a light of awareness in the hearts of others. Yet if we keep ourselves in proper position with the Son of God, the light of the Son will shine through us for the world to see.

Just as Almighty God created the moon to be an instrument to transfer light of the sun on the earth into the darkness of the evening, we were created to be instruments to transfer the light of the Son into the darkness of the hearts of those who do not know Jesus Christ as their Savior. May our light shine out in the darkness.

Let us become humble vessels of the Light of the World, Jesus Christ. Let us bring glory to God in much the same manner as the brilliance of a full moon on a clear evening.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing light at the beginning of creation so that we could see Your glory in the world that surrounds us. We thank You for providing the Light of the World, Your Son Jesus, so that we could see and accept the way to our eternal glory with You. We pray, Father God, that You will shield us from the enemy who tries to take the Light out of our lives. We ask, Lord, that You cleanse us and purify us so that we may be lampposts of Christ for all to see. We ask all these things in the name of the True Light, Jesus Christ.

The Invitation from the Servant King

Matthew 11:29
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

In days of old, the yoke was used to pair field animals together. The yoke enabled the pair to work together more efficiently. In this passage, Jesus invites us to join Him in His yoke. He then points out that He is gentle and lowly in heart. Thus, He is telling us that He is a willing servant that welcomes us along side, where He will teach us about His demeanor and bring us rest. How could we pass on such an offer from our Servant King? How could we pass on the opportunity to learn from the only man who ever lived in perfection? How could we pass on being paired side by side in all things with the Son of God, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ?

And consider this…to make the offer even greater, Jesus places no limits on the time He will allow us to come along side of Him. Nor does He place any limits on the burdens that He would share with us. His invitation to be at His side is available 24-7 regardless of the burden we are carrying. He is always along side us to bring us comfort when we are under the greatest level of stress or experiencing pain at the limits of our ability to endure. Truly He offers us the endless joy that He shares with the Father. When we surrender to the yoke of Our Lord, the joy of the Lord is our strength when we would have none otherwise. When we take up His yoke, we take on His meekness, His humility, His lowliness and, most of all, His complete subjection to His Father.

Let us free ourselves from being yoked to anything of this earth. Let us humble ourselves and seek to be yoked to Our Servant King. Let us join Our Savior in His complete submission to His Father.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing all that we need to get through our troubles. We rejoice in knowing that we can find joy in the heaviest of burdens when we accept the yoke that is offered by Your Son, Jesus. We pray that You teach us how to be lowly in heart so that we readily accept our place in the yoke. We ask all these things in the name of Our Comforter who rescues those who are crushed in spirit, Jesus Christ.