Leave your Worries to God..............

"For he is the living God, enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion has no end. He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and n earth." Daniel 6:26-27

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You have probably heard the story of Daniel and the lions. Daniel grew up in Babylon, in the King's house and has faithfully served  both King Darius and Nebuchadnezzar. Others were jealous of his stature. They plotted and fooled Darius into outlawing prayer to anyone but the King, knowing full well that Daniel is a worshiper of the only true God. It was both a test of faith and an opportunity for Daniel to show his faith as well.

The first thing I admire is the fact that Daniel chose to obey God even though He knew the consequences of his actions. Daniel's prayer relationship with God was important enough to risk losing his life over. Second, Daniel put himself in danger for God sake, and he didn't ask God to rescue him, he knew that God would keep those lions in control. He did not seem to doubt God's ability to shield.

Friend, there has to be a time in your life when you have to get past the point of "trying" to trust God. You have to trust Him naturally. Trusting Him has to come without a struggle. That's why the Christian walk is called a journey. As you're walking you have to make progress, you have to advance until you reach your destination. You must reach a point of complete reliance on the omnipotence of God. How sad would it be to go through the journey of life and to never know God intimately? It's only when you know God intimately that you will learn to trust Him and walk through life without fear. Imagine life without the fear of dying, the fear of getting hurt at night and the fear of jumping out of your skin every time something happens in the world. Imagine what the quality of your life would be with God in complete control!

Like Daniel, you and I face all kind of difficulties in our daily lives. Lions come in all shapes and like him we need to learn to make the difficult choices and take a stand for for righteousness. Daniel got a miraculous ending. He trusted God and as a result he benefited from God's faithfulness and mercy. Who knows what you will experience when you learn to let go of yourself and learn to trust God? It is through our adversity that our strength gets perfected.

God rescues His people. He is the same today, yesterday and forever (Malachi 3:6). God's character never changes. He never is "less than" who He used to be. He never gets better. He never improves because He is perfect. There is no room for improvement. God is as good, as perfect and and as merciful as it gets right now. Praise God! He is already perfect. God is always good and wise. He is always sovereign. he is always the loving Father. He is always just, always holy, always merciful, always gracious and indeed the Almighty. Whatever God was, He always is. There are no "sometimes" attributes of God. All of His attributes are "always" and "forever" attributes. He always is what He is and he desires to accomplish great things through you. He wants to take you to the next level. He wants to give you victory in all areas of your life. The question as you are approaching the weekend is will you let Him accomplish His will in your life?

Praise the Lord!

We Have Been Redeemed..........

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace. Ephesians 1:7

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” I peter 2:24

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One of the things I realized is that whenever I start my day without confessing the truth about myself, my day gets challenging. you and I must confess who we are in Christ on a regular basis. Our faith is as strong as our confession. We have the responsibility to see ourselves as God sees us, and to remind ourselves who we are in Christ; Or else, the enemy will try to convince us otherwise. We need to be firmly planted on the Word of God to be able to resist the devil's attacks. If you are a person who struggles with certain things I suggest you write them down on a poster board and place them on your wall. A battle is something to take seriously and you and I are facing spiritual warfare. We really have a common enemy. We have already been redeemed. The blood of Christ already provided us with the victory. All we need is to accept it and confess it.

I am increasingly amazed at the number of Christians who do not understand redemption. We are redeemed by the blood of Christ.
To be redeemed means :
1) To place firmly in a desired position.
2) To cause to come to rest.
3) To put in order.

My favorite definitions include:
4) To atone for; compensate and acquit, reinstate, restore and save.

My friend, the blood of Jesus restored us. We were acquitted of wrong doing. We were eternally saved. We are reinstated in the family of God. Jesus Christ took our punishment and we became like Him. We now have the same power that raised Him from the dead in us. Jesus took our punishment on His body. Jesus took death in our place. We were healed. We were made Whole. We were forever changed. We were redeemed. Some Christians either do not believe it or cannot believe it because they think they are not worthy of such great love. They think that it could not possibly be this easy. But I tell them, you are right. It was not easy to die like Christ on that cross. He suffered a great deal. They are right in assuming that they were not worthy of eternal life but the blood of Christ redeemed/changed that and made us worthy. That is why Jesus Christ is called the redeemer. He offered us (Those of us who accept Him)eternal life. We have eternal life now. His death provided us salvation from eternal death. we now have abundant life. The abundant life isn't something we will have in the future. We already have it now. We receive it the moment we accept Christ as Lord and Savior.

Friend, your sins are forgiven. You have eternal life. It was done. You are healed. You are made whole. It does not matter what you hear, what you see, what people are saying and what the doctors are trying to tell you. The truth is Jesus died in your place. He gave you power to win. Fight the good fight of faith. Believe God's truth about you and hang on to it until you see Him face to face in Glory.

For though I am far away from you, my heart is with you. And I rejoice that you are living as you should and that your faith in Christ is strong. Colossians 2:5

Praise the Lord!