Believe Right!

Believers, "all have sinned." Stand before God as one who has even just a tiny bit of righteousness from obeying the law and He will be to you the Righteous Judge that "will by no means clear the guilty," and the wages of sin is death. But stand before Him as a sinner through and through, without an iota of righteousness of your own and looking to Him for Salvation; He will be your Justifier. See Romans 4:5- "But to the one who does not work [that is, the one who does not try to earn his salvation by doing good], but believes and completely trusts in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness (right standing with God)." God the Righteous justifies the ungodly who believe and completely trust in Him. Let's not follow after the example of Eve who thought she could be godly (be like God) by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (a picture of the law which gives the knowledge of good and ev...

Believers, Grace, in the person of our Saviour Jesus Christ, saves from sin. See Matthew 1:21- "And she will have a Son, and you are to name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” The One who works His salvation into you will work it out for you. According to Philippians 2:13 "...it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." When you no longer cover yourselves with your own righteousnesses (your own righteous works geared at pleasing God or being "good") which Isaiah 64:6 says are like "a menstrual rag" and believe/depend fully on His righteousness and His strength, you get to do His will. You get to give because He will make a cheerful giver of you. You get to love because you see how much He loves you! Nothing to do with our efforts at being good; all to do with His Spirit transforming us. And on the last day, you will ask our Lord Jesus Christ when you did all these things because you won'...

Believers, see Romans 5:20: "The law was given so that sin would increase. But where sin increased, God’s grace increased even more." Paul preached the gospel as it is written above and the religious people of his time falsely accused him of preaching that it is okay to sin because of grace. See this in Romans 3:8- "Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, “The more evil we do, the more good God does, so let’s just do it!” That’s pure slander, as I’m sure you’ll agree." But how is it that "where sin increased, God’s grace increased even more?" What does this mean? We see how God's grace increased even more in the life of Peter. He boasted that he would not deny Christ, rose to Jesus' defence in Gethsemane and even cut off someone's ear, ready to fight for Christ! But in the end, he denied Christ...three times!... with swearing and cursing...and the first time upon being ac...

Believer, rest in Christ is not inactivity. Rest in Christ is Holy Spirit-directed activity. The Lord our Shepherd does it all, even our getting up from our beds in the morning, brushing our teeth and deciding on the type of moisturiser to use on our hair:) He says to us in Luke 12:6-7: "Aren’t five sparrows sold for two pennies? But God does not forget even one of them. 7 In fact, He even counts every hair on your head! So don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows." If God takes the time to number each hair on your head, hair that you cut off and some of which break off whenever you run a comb through it, what do you think He's doing with every detail of your life! Even your hair cream matters to Him because it affects your hair that He numbers:) He cares about every tiny detail of you. For the believer, it's all of Christ and none of self. But most of the time, His blessings in our lives are so supernaturally natural that we think we did good a...

Believers, good works (works of faith) are the evidence of our salvation and not the condition. The condition for our salvation is to believe in Jesus; It's in John 3:16 ".. .that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." and Acts 16:3- "They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” As believers, having the Lord Jesus Christ as our Righteousness, faith works must follow. We see this in the life of Abraham who was pronounced righteous long before he was going to offer Isaac at Mt. Moriah or even did any work.   See Genesis 15:6 -  "And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness."  See the MSG: "And he believed! Believed God! God declared him “Set-Right-with-God.”"   Between the time that he was  “Set-Right-with-God.”  and when he was going to offer Isaac at Mt. Moriah, Abraham helped himself get an heir through Hagar, even after the Lord had promised...

Believers, remember Jesus' transfiguration where Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with Christ in Matthew 17? In v.4, Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Peter imagined that Moses (the law giver) and Elijah (the law restorer) were on the same level as our Saviour Jesus (Grace) but God set him right in verse 5: "While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!”" 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. 7 And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” 8 And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone." Believers, our Abba Father says we should listen to Jesus, not to Moses (the law) and Elijah (the prophet...

Jesus described only two people as having great faith in the four gospels: the centurion with the paralyzed servant (Matthew 8:5-13) and the Canaanite woman with the severely demon-possessed daughter (Matt. 15:21-28.) Let's look at the centurion's story. How come he had great faith? Our thoughts could go to how he was a man of authority with soldiers that obeyed him under his command. But what about the woman of Canaan who acknowledged herself as being in the category of little dogs that eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table? She wasn't commanding soldiers or anything like that. How did her own great faith come to be? Here goes: The centurion and the Canaanite woman had one thing in common: THEY WERE NOT UNDER LAW (they were Gentiles, not Jews.) They were not trying to keep the Ten Commandments in order to be righteous. They were not paying tithes in order to be blessed. They were not involved in annual 70 days fasts to get God to deliver their sic...

Believers, believe that you are the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21.) We are saved (made righteous and whole) not by what we do or don't do (law-keeping) but by what our Lord Jesus Christ has done - by grace through faith. See our Saviour's word to us in John 6:43-46: "Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over Me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent Me is in charge. He draws people to Me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End...." See His word to us: “You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent Me is in charge. He draws people to Me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come." Our believing is a gift without which we would never know the truth that makes us free. See His word to us: "Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End...." Our wholeness and ability t...

Check out what Christ says about how and why His people believe and live right in John 6:44: "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him [giving him the desire to come to Me]; and I will raise him up [from the dead] on the last day." See the MSG version: John 6:43-46 "Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over Me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent Me is in charge. He draws people to Me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End...." See: “He draws people to Me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come.” Our believing is a gift without which we would never know the truth that makes us free. Our ability to live right is a result of Christ's work of "putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End." We would be no different from the souls out there that don't believe or those that we see ...

Believers, bad things NEVER happened to sinners who rolled with Christ in the gospels. "The same yesterday, today and forever" was and is still Saviour and friend to sinners who believe in Him. He transforms lives for good forever. He came to save us from our sins, not condemn and punish us for them. Think about it - from Zacchaeus the reviled tax collector and the prodigal son to the woman caught in adultery in John 8:1-12 and the thief on the cross that was destined for hell- no sinner ever got the punishment that they deserved from our Saviour in the gospels. Upon meeting Him, they all got the good that they did not deserve and freely too, as we who are in Him do today. No "go and sow seed and fast for ten days so that you can be "delivered" and escape judgment." Christ got the bad that we deserve. Are you bogged down by sins and addictions? Are teachers of religious law in the church (aka accusers) telling you that Christ demands that you do ...