Believe Right!

It's no coincidence that Psalm 23 is so famous worldwide. The Lord made it so. To get a glimpse into who Christ is to you who believe Him, consider the relationship between a shepherd and his sheep. Without the shepherd, the sheep is lost and as good as dead. Once a sheep is cast (falls on its back,) no amount of effort on its part can right it. It cannot get back on its feet by itself. It needs someone to right it and make it whole. In the cast position, it becomes easy prey for devourers who begin to eat it while it is still alive- the story of many in the church who are still trying to "get right with God" by human effort at doing right (keeping the law.) But in Christ, we have His righteousness as a gift! Christ our Shepherd gave Himself to set us right with God. He Himself has said: "for without Me you can do nothing." This is grace. Psalms 37:24 says of the righteous:  "When he falleth, he is not cast down, For Jehovah is sustaining his hand....

Believers, remember 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ," From what we are up against in the verses above, we see that this warfare that Paul spoke of here isn't fought in some coven, church building or some mountaintop; what we are up against is "arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God " and "thoughts." The battleground is our minds where we ingest and analyse thoughts and arguments, and we overcome not through carnal means (human effort such as attempting to break generational curses or curses of lack, sickness, stress, depression, etc, by 40 days' dry fast when Christ already hung on the tree to redeem us from the curse of the Law.) We overcome by bringing the weapons of ...

Believers, our High Priest, Jesus Christ pronounces righteousness on all who come to Him for salvation when such see themselves as sinners through and through. This means seeing ourselves as sinners way beyond confessing select sins that we are conscious of. It is His gift of righteousness that makes us righteous, not ours. Whether we confess remembered sins or not, WITHOUT His gift of righteousness, we are just as guilty as the vilest offender. Whether we confess these select sins or not, WITH His gift of righteousness, "as He is, so are we in this world." He sees us as righteous through and through. When you say "Lord Jesus, of myself, I am a sinner through and through. There is no good in me. You Lord are my Righteousness. I have none of my own," you are confessing your sins. You are saying what Paul said of himself in Romans 7:18- " For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that: is, in my flesh;" When you come to Him in this manner, Christ fo...

Believers, Christ says in John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." In the natural, it is quite impossible to "let not your heart be troubled" if you are depressed or if your child is sick with an incurable disease. Just imagine that you are on holiday and you get news that you might lose your job/source of income (that paid for the same holiday) upon your return. For many of us, no amount of "don't worry, it is well" would suffice in making us totally worry-free. But in Christ, we get to see His word through the lens of grace and see its manifestation in our lives by grace too. The One who says "Let not your heart be troubled" has already finished the work of giving us rest and ensuring that we enter His rest. So how to let not your heart be troubled? First, one has to understand WHY God raised our Lord Jesus ...

Check out the laws concerning leprosy in Leviticus 13. The one having as much as a spot on his body infected with the disease was to be pronounced UNCLEAN by the priest. But the one whose body was covered ENTIRELY from head to foot by the disease with no area untouched was to be pronounced CLEAN! See Leviticus 13: “And if leprosy breaks out all over the skin, and the leprosy covers all the skin of the one who has the sore, from his head to his foot, wherever the priest looks, 13 then the priest shall consider; and indeed if the leprosy has covered all his body, he shall pronounce him clean who has the sore. It has all turned white. He is clean." This is a picture of how our High Priest, Jesus Christ pronounces righteousness on all who come to Him seeing themselves as sinners through and through. When you say "Lord Jesus, I am a sinner through and through. There is no good in me. Help me Lord," you are confessing your sins. You are saying what Paul said of himsel...

Before we became born-again, carrying the old/sin nature that was inherited from Adam by all mankind, did we have to force ourselves to be broke, sick, depressed, barren, proud, anxious, fearful or commit sin in general? No. These things - works of the flesh - happened naturally because of the inherited sin nature that controlled us. So also, now that we are in Christ, dead to sin, no longer having that sin nature but made righteous by Christ's obedience, our sufficiency, health, fruitfulness, humility, peace of mind and living a righteous life in general - fruits of the Spirit - also happen naturally because of God's abundance of grace and His gift of righteousness that we have through Christ's obedience. Romans 5:19 says "For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous." With Christ as our righteousness, our path is like the morning sun that shines brighter and brighter unto the pe...

Believers, in God's eyes, the difference between the righteous and the wicked is not what they do or do not do. It is HOW they are made righteous. When your believing is right, right living will follow. The bible tells us in Romans 5:19 - "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous." Committing acts of sin is not what makes a person a sinner. Adam's sin made the whole human race sinners. Wicked. Committing acts of sin, alongside sickness, stress, depression, lack, oppression, etc are fruits of the old nature (sinner nature) that was inherited from Adam. Everyone with this old nature is subject to the Law. As long as this old nature is intact, sin will multiply. Because "the strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor. 15:56,) those who try to keep the Law in order to be righteous only strengthen the grip of sin over their lives. The more people with this old nature try to keep th...

Believers, do you remember the story of Balak and Balaam and how the former hired the latter to curse the children of Israel? Balaam tried to curse them from three different locations but ended up blessing them according to God’s will instead. Check out part of what the Lord caused this professional hexer to say at his second prophecy- 20 Behold, I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it. 21 “He has not observed iniquity in Jacob, Nor has He seen wickedness in Israel. The LORD his God is with him, And the shout of a King is among them. God did not observe iniquity in Jacob nor did He see wickedness in Israel. But wait a minute. Look what Moses told the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 9:6-7 after Balaam failed in his bid to curse them and as they were about to cross the River Jordan into the Promised Land – “6Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, fo...

Believers, the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. By God's grace, choose life. Today, we have the same choice that Adam and Eve did: The Tree of Life (Christ Himself) or The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that brings Death (a picture of the law that gives the knowledge of good and evil and kills, even if you eat only the good part.) It all depends on the word you are feeding on- the Law that was given through Moses or Grace and Truth that came through Jesus Christ. To be neither cold nor hot is to pay lip-service to Jesus and His finished work of saving us. It is believing that it is your own obedience that makes you godly and not the obedience of Christ. See Romans 5:19- "For as by One man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous." See the effect of trying to keep the law to attain righteousness that Christ died that we might have: "For if you are trying to make yourselves rig...

UNDER LAW, you try to obey the Ten Commandments, preach, fast, sow seeds, help the needy and do the right thing by human effort because the law says to do so in order to enjoy God's blessings and avoid punishment. You give, give and give but because you are doing righteous things by your own strength (walking in the flesh,) all of your righteousnesses are like filthy rags according to Isaiah 64.6. Perfect obedience is required to avoid the curse of the law (Deut. 28:15) and enjoy the blessing (Deut. 28:1.) But all have sinned. James 2:10 says " For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws." All of our law-keeping and good works amount to nothing. Romans 3:20 says- "For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are." Under law, even when you do right, the result is death because the letter kills. Under law, sin has dominio...

Growing up, so many religious pastors and prophets meandered in and out of our lives, each one with his own vagaries and preaching his own variant of the word. I suspected that something was amiss when one very light-skinned Pastor Frank that had been visiting our house under the guise of “church” started pestering, no, more like ordering me, to visit him at his house by myself. I was 15 or 16 years old. I'm using the description “light-skinned” for Pastor Frank because we had another cheery and very nice “Uncle Frank” who used to come around to tell us bible stories when we were very little. Fair-skinned Pastor Frank taught my siblings and I how to “hear from God:” simply place your thumb on and open your bible at random and the verse that is closest to your thumb is what God wants you to know. Heh heh heh! One time, he used this system to show me what God was saying to me. We arrived at Psalms 18:16- “He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters....

Growing up, my mom had an almanac featuring the names of God (in Hebrew) and what they mean. One is Jehovah Rapha - "The Lord Who Heals." As believers in Christ, we depend on the Lord for healing. Also Jehovah Jireh - "The Lord will Provide. " When we are in need (of children, jobs, money, wisdom, peace of mind, whatever,) we depend on Him for provision. He gives power to create wealth according to Deut. 8:18. Of all the Names of God that featured on the almanac, one stuck to my brain because for me, it wasn't as famous as the rest: Jehovah Tsidkenu- "The Lord our Righteousness ." I never knew how crucial this name is to our salvation. Romans 10:9-10 says "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." Many of us have no...