Embrace

“Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really loved me, you would be happy that I am going to the Father, who is greater than I am.”  John 14:28

If you can embrace the truth of your union with Christ, you will begin to see life from a completely new perspective.  It is challenging, but the reward is a total liberation into the grace of God.

One of the traps that the world tries, with great success, is to make us believe that we are separated from the power of almighty God and if we are separated then we are alone and powerless.  We start to believe in a distant God who only shows up and acts in our lives when we cry out, pray and need him.

Our perception of God is often dependent on how we feel and experience his presence.

You as a believer in Christ are entwined and united into the glorious God who has created the universe. Every spiritual gift, blessing and ability has been made available to you and the infinite power of God dwells inside you. You have been made a New Creation in Christ, you are living in a place where there are no limitations, time does not exist, a place of no worries, no fears, a place where you are no longer a singular identity, because you are connected with God and Christ in his fullness lives inside of you.

Your true essence is that God, who is greater than you, now lives inside you and you in Christ have become a child of God. Acknowledge and embrace God’s greatness, feast on God’s greatness, let His greatness permeate and immerse your identity and let his power flow out of your life.

Christ Died For You

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. ” – John 10: 10-11

God created you to be loved so that you could enjoy the delights of heaven and experience the wonder of the divine beauty in your life and that radiant bliss would shine like a bright candle in a dark dungeon void of light.

God is captivated with you, so in love with you, that before you did one thing, you breathed one breath, you thought one thought, that he sent Christ to die for you.

Christ died for you before you could do one thing to earn his love.

Christ died for you before you could clean yourself up.

Christ died for you before you had faith enough to believe it.

Christ died for you before you could say sorry, vow to change, surrender, promise to do better, make him Lord of your life, feel bad about your sin, or even ask for his help.

Christ died for you before you were even born.

Christ died for you in a demonstration that you are loved.

Christ died for you and said to all eternity, “You don’t have to be good to be loved.”

Christ has forgiven all your past, present and future sins.

Christ has redeemed you from the curse.

Christ moved to help you, save you, cleanse you, free you, redeem you, ransom you, sanctify you all before you even existed and before you were born.

God created you to be loved and poured his love upon you by immersing you into Christ.

Nothing is Impossible

“Nothing is impossible with God” – Luke 1:37

In Christ we have entered into the eternal realm. A grace covenant that was sealed before anything existed, in the silent expanse of nothingness Jesus was slain; he initiated redemption and connected us to him eternally.

His love has now been shed into our hearts, his light has invaded our hearts and his life is now our life. For in Christ we live and have our existence and the faith of Christ is now the faith that motivates our actions.

In the Old Covenant faith is me trying to please God, but in the New Covenant faith is something that God gives to me and something that Jesus has on my behalf. Today, Jesus has faith in me.

The impossible is now accessible to me because the most powerful influence over my life is Jesus who believes in me. He is the author and the finisher of my faith and his faith resides in me.

Before the cross, the flow of faith was man to God. Now after the cross the flow of faith is God to me. He gave himself for me, I am crucified with him and the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God.

The power of the Kingdom of God is rooted in God’s faith in me. Christ invested everything at the cross for me so that now he accepts and values me in his finished work.

Nothing is impossible with God and his faith is now the power within my heart.

Creation Shouts

“For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Romans 8:22

Since the beginning of time, God has consistently demonstrated his heart through his interaction with his creation.

Everything in creation shouts out that he is rich in love, he is abundant in goodness, he is good to all, he has compassion on all he has made, he is faithful to all his promises, he is trustworthy in all he does, he upholds all who fall, lifts up all those who are bowed down, he satisfies the desire of every living thing, and that he is righteous in all his ways and he is near to all who call on him.

Life starts to finally make sense when the revelation of the true nature of God is shared. His two-way communion with his creation has been the desire and overflow of his heart. The deep bond from the very first heart beat with man was an intimate relationship that connected creation into God’s existence.

God is always consistently and faithfully good, gracious and full of love. In a world full of cynicism, disappointment, clouded truth and manipulation, his desire is to bless, give and to be the source of all we do. It is when these attributes of God drop deep with our mind, our souls, our beings, I believe our outlook and life has an expectation and a flourishing certainty of the unconditional grace of God.

The important thing is that God shows his nature by doing good things for us and blessing us. He does this to us without distinctions, or anything required from us. No effort, no works, no levels of goodness, no qualification to obtain God’s blessings.

Grace is freely given, he loves us unconditionally, and His heart is to shower us with the fullness of heaven.

The Starting Point

“We also rejoice and exulting glory in God in his love and perfection through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received and enjoy our reconciliation” – Romans 5:11

I am constantly perplexed by how hard it is for my heart to embrace what my mind affirms. The more I read, the more I listen, the more I see , everything that filters into my head, I find it easier to acknowledge and agree with ideas and thoughts but most of this usually is fodder for my mind.

The essence of who God is, if you like his glory and nature and all he has brought me into by his grace, has been birthed deep inside my innermost being. My heart is a garden of new creation soil, where the seed of Jesus Christ has been planted and watered by the Holy Spirit. Through his glory and goodness he has given me all his precious and great promises. His words to me are a treasure map that contains his plans and dreams for my life, and I know that every word he has provided he will always be faithful to, it is always true and that he is committed to it.

For it is one thing to agree with the finished work of Christ but it is something altogether different to experience its power and reality in the everyday crisis of life.

So how does this finished work of Christ become reality in my life?

The starting point for me was the realisation that I have become a partaker of the divine nature. That all my sins, past, present and future sins were forgiven at the cross, before I was born.  That every promise of God had its fulfilment in Christ. That the ground of my heart was the fulfilled sacrifice of Christ and that everything pertaining to Christ had been planted into me.  The Holy Spirit alive in me had cultivated a Garden of Delight within my heart and he was quietly, actively, effortlessly bringing my heart into blossom and ripening his fruit.

I now have a divine nature, and I no longer had a sinful nature. I had been made righteous and good, I have God’s desires inside me, I experience God’s delight within me, I have a fountain of life bubbling up through me.  I had been set free from the slavery of the world, I had been delivered form the corruption, decay and death that I inherited through my natural birth and I was eternal clean, holy and blessed through my spiritual birth.

I have been brought into the fullness of Christ and his abundant grace has set me free to live in intimate communion with the lover of my heart.

The Steadfast Love of the Lord

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23

You and I as believers in Christ can live in the abundant treasure of God’s grace. With our eyes wide open, our hearts soften and our minds awaken we can see and experience the cosmic glory of all Christ accomplished at the cross and we can discover the fullness of all God promised in the New Covenant

God had with a loud and clear voice shouted out his promises to all who would listen throughout the Old Testament. In fact his promises are so transparent that they are easy to miss. Even in the midst of extreme suffering, oppression and captivity, God’s grace shines from eternity and declares that he loves us, he is loyal to us, he is faithful to us and committed to us.

The Jewish prophet, Jeremiah declares from exile, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.”

Jeremiah touched, cherished and embraced the grace of God. He tasted the love of God that never ceases, that goes on and on, and no matter what situation we are in, never fails us, is never outside us and is constantly being poured upon us.

There is never a day of completion to God’s grace. God is working in and through us and with every breath and every heart-beat the grace of God is fresh anointing oil. We can’t out live it, we cannot out run it, we cannot out do it, it is fresh, new and always there for us.

There is no place that grace cannot find us, there are no depths that it cannot reach us, and there is no escape from its all encompassing goodness, never-ending provision.

The best of God is now working for us; we who live after the cross have all the promises alive in us through the cross. We receive all the benefits for which others only hoped.

Christ is ours, God is ours, his nature, his grace, his love, his faith, all his fullness abides and remains in us, by his goodness we are in him and he remains in us.

A Radical Change As Happened.

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” – Ephesians 2:10

All of us, at some level, have a deep emotional need to be loved and to give love, and all of us, at different levels, have a desire to be accepted. But somehow the conflicts, suspicions, hurts of life invade our desires and our view on each other’s kindness, goodness and motives slowly becomes tainted.  Out of these dust and ashes of suspicion it becomes increasingly difficult to focus on something done for our good.

Mercy is a prism of God’s grace. For God so abundant in love is so rich in mercy, so overwhelmed with his kindness towards us, reached out to a world lost in sin and self righteousness and poured himself upon us and in love withheld the punishment that our rebellion deserved.

We had fallen into the pig sty of life, we had chosen to eat in the slop and degradation of our self effort and intelligence, and we had taken all the provision and beauty of heaven and squandered it on our own self pleasure. Cold, alienated, lost and alone in His mercy God reached out to us to embrace us, to cherish us and with his lavish goodness gave us a place of honour at his banqueting table, an inheritance provided for his own and a seat at his right hand in glory.

Christ paid in full for all our self-effort and self-justification. At the cross he eternally dealt with the sin that stains our hearts, once and forever all sin – past, present and future sins were forgiven in one ultimate, atoning act of sacrifice. The price was paid in full, so that it would never have to be repeated again.

We are free to walk in the righteousness of Christ because his righteousness has become our righteousness.  We are free to walk in the holiness of God because his holiness has become our holiness; we are free to walk in the faith of Christ because his faith has become our faith.

A radical change has taken place in you, Christ took your place and died as you, you are a new creation in Christ, you are seated in authority beside God, and you are showered with God’s kindness because you have entered into an eternal love relationship with God in Christ. And He overflows out of your life into good, loving, kind, generous acts that God initiates from the well of your heart.

His Light Inside You

"Light is shed upon the righteous, and joy on the upright in heart” – Psalm 97:11

God has chosen to reveal his true identity in us.  He has done everything good and kind and generous for us to have fellowship with him.

His light inside you is the purity of his essence, therefore pure love, pure goodness, pure truth, has invaded your heart and his pure light expels all darkness. His light enlightens you and shows you your own beauty and your own purity, because you are a new creation, made in his image.

He has captured and captivated our hearts, with a thrilling fascination. The magnitude of his grace is discovered as the light of the incalculable greatness of Christ invades the boundaries of our understanding.

Just as the natural creation displays the glory of the father, so the new creation reveals the glory of the son. His life is seen in every one of his children and like mirrors, we now reflect his divine life.

The grace of God flows through our hearts in rivers of eternal life, cascading over us from grace to glory, without a break.

Let joy overflow from your heart as you delight in his power within you.

Embrace The Truth

“Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really loved me, you would be happy that I am going to the Father, who is greater than I am.” John 14:28

If you can embrace the truth of your union with Christ, you will begin to see life from a completely new perspective. It is challenging, but the reward is a total liberation into the grace of God.

One of the traps that the world tries, with great success, is to make us believe that we are separated from the power of almighty God and if we are separated then we are alone and powerless. We start to believe in a distant God who only shows up and acts in our lives when we cry out, pray and need him.

Our perception of God is often dependent on how we feel and experience his presence.

You as a believer in Christ are entwined and united into the glorious God who has created the universe. Every spiritual gift, blessing and ability has been made available to you and the infinite power of God dwells inside you. You have been made a New Creation in Christ, you are living in a place where there are no limitations, time does not exist, a place of no worries, no fears, and a place where you are no longer a singular identity, because you are connected with God and Christ in his fullness lives inside of you.

Your true essence is that God, who is greater than you, now lives inside you and you in Christ have become a child of God. Acknowledge and embrace God’s greatness, feast on God’s greatness, let His greatness permeate and immerse your identity and let his power flow out of your life.

God Has Provided Eveything

“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies.” Psalm 23:5

One of the hidden truth’s of the Bible is that the enemy knows that God has provided everything.

Every blessing of God, every treasure of God, every pleasure of God freely given to us has been lavished upon us in the presence of our enemy.  The enemy is fully aware of the measure of all God’s love and grace.

The enemy will try everything in his power, use all his influence, lie, deceive and manipulate to stop you from enjoying and living in the provision God has made for you.

Just take a glance at the Garden of Eden, where is the midst of infinite pleasure and provision, the enemy deceived Adam & Eve into believing that God would be pleased with them by doing something that would make them accepted when they were already accepted.  His message has not changed, he sneaks around trying to make us do things to please God, when we’re already the delight of God’s heart.

The enemies subtle whisper is that God is holding out on us, that we have to plead with God to get the full measure of his glory has been so embedded into our minds that we have become suspicious of believing that God has poured out into our hearts the completeness of heaven.

The truth of the finished work of Christ is magnificent and wonderful that the nature and acts of God are now imparted into our hearts for the King of heaven to manifest himself through us in all we are and all we do.  His grace revealed in his love is the full provision of the victory of the cross, bringing forgiveness, health, wholeness, joy, peace and reconciliation.

The enemy knows the truth and wants to deceive you into settling for less when you already have it all.

Today, put on the finished work of Christ, live in his glory revealed in Christ and deposited into your heart.  Be rooted and grounded in the unconditional love of God and let the power of Christ shine out of your life. Take hold and be all God has called you to be, for that is the best way you resist the devil as you take hold and rest in the infinite grace of his love.