BELIEVE

JOINT HEIRS WITH CHRIST :

Matthew 12:50, "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother."

We are not just heirs, we are joint-heirs with Christ. It would be wonderful to inherit any amount of God's glory and power. But, the idea that we share equally with the one who has inherited everything God is and has is beyond comprehension. This is an awesome blessing, but it also places a tremendous responsibility on us.

In the same way in which a check made out to two people cannot be cashed without the endorsement of both parties, so our joint-heirship with Jesus cannot be taken advantage of without our cooperation. Unaware of this, many Christians are just trusting that the Lord will produce the benefits of salvation for them. They are acutely aware that they can do nothing without Him, but don't realize that He will do nothing without us (Eph. 3:20).

The idea that God will do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, PERIOD, is not true. He has power, but it is the use of His ability combined with the power that works in us. "No power working in us" means no power of God will come through us. The exceeding greatness of His power that is to us-ward who believe is power that is not external, but is internal, within the believer. It is working according to the faith that we exercise in the indwelling Savior. It was this principle that Paul was stating when he declared, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

The way we place our endorsement on the check is to believe what God promised in His Word and act on it as if it were true. IT IS! Jesus has already signed His name to every promise in the Word. We aren't waiting for Him. He is waiting for us.

RECEIVE THE WORD GOD HAS SENT TO HEAL YOU :
PSALM 107:20 - He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

Your Bible will do you no good if you leave it on your bedside table, gathering dust. It will do you no good if you hold it like a teddy bear when you are facing your “giants”. But God’s Word will do you a lot of good when you receive it as truth and speak it as truth! Then, you will see your healing and deliverance from every evil condition that has been sent to destroy you!

The Bible says that “He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions”. Now, when God wants to heal you, what does He do? He sends His Word. Before God delivers you from your destruction, He sends His Word.

Are you still waiting to experience the blessing of healing that Jesus died on the cross to give you? Don’t feel condemned. Your Father in heaven loves you and wants you well. But how does your healing come? By you receiving His Word on healing that He has already sent you. His promises of healing are all there in your Bible. But have you received them?

During one of our church services, a lady took out her cell phone and started sending text messages of every scripture and almost every key point that I was preaching that day to her friend who was at home dying of cancer. I was telling the congregation to keep confessing the healing scriptures over their bodies, no matter how bad their conditions were. I pointed them to Isaiah 53:5, which says, “By His stripes we are healed.” The lady got so excited that she told her friend to keep believing and confessing it every day!

Her friend, on reading the text messages, simply received the Word of God and confessed it by faith. That very same week, when she went back to the doctor, the doctor could not find a single trace of cancer in her body!

Never underestimate the power of God’s Word. The lady’s friend was healed because she received God’s Word by faith. She gladly read the messages that her friend had sent her, was encouraged by the Word, confessed it and received her miracle. God sent His Word and healed her, and saved her from her destruction!

THE LORD IS YOUR REFUGE :
1 He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust.” - Psalm 91:1–2

Every day, we are bombarded with news of conflicts, natural disasters, diseases and new strains of drug-resistant viruses. We also hear of people losing their loved ones in freak accidents. And we ask ourselves, “Is there a place where I can take refuge from a world gone mad?”

Yes, there is! God foresaw all these things and He has promised in His Word protection from every evil known to man. There is no trap set by the devil that our Father cannot deliver us from, if we trust in Him and take Him as our refuge. That is His promise in Psalm 91.

Whether it is an earthquake at midnight, a crazy sniper, an unknown virus or a terrorist attack, God says, “You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.” (Psalm 91:5–6)

Because you have made Him your dwelling place, angels are watching over you right now. (Psalm 91:9–11) They give heed to the voice of God’s Word, so you should give voice to God’s Word. This means that you should agree with and speak what God’s Word says about His preserving and protecting you. Then, angels are sent to minister for you. (Hebrews 1:14)

My friend, don’t say, “If it can happen to them, it can also happen to me!” Say, “A thousand may fall at my side and 10,000 at my right hand, but it will not come near me!” (Psalm 91:7) The world says that you cannot but expect danger all around. God says, “You are in this world but not of this world. You have My protection because you are of Me and in Me.” (John 17:14–23)

You have access by faith into the secret place of the Most High where no evil can touch you. There is no need to fear living in the end times because the Lord is your refuge and fortress. His Word says so. And those who trust His Word completely find His Word completely true!

Thought For The Day :

The Lord is your refuge from every evil known to man.

FIGHT FROM VICTORY, NOT FOR VICTORY :
Ephesians 6:11 - Put on the whole amour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

God does not need you to defeat the devil today. Jesus has already done it and given you the victory. (Colossians 2:15, Romans 8:37) Your part is to enforce the victory by simply standing your ground, which is victory ground. In other words, you “fight” from victory ground by standing. You don’t fight for victory.

In Ephesians 6:10–18, the passage on spiritual warfare, the word “wrestle” appears only once (verse 12), while the word “stand” appears four times—“stand against the wiles of the devil”, “withstand in the evil day”, “having done all, to stand”, “Stand therefore”. (Verses 11, 13–14) Four times the Holy Spirit tells us to stand. Yet, many Christians are focusing on wrestling their way to victory!

My friend, you are already on victory ground. You already have everything in Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:21, 23) You are already blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. (Ephesians 1:3). The devil knows this. And that is why his tactic is to deceive you and make you think that you don’t have the victory.

So when he attacks you by saying, “Look at that small sum in your bank account! How are you going to pay the bills?” stand your ground. Declare, “I am not trying to be rich. I am already blessed in Christ!” It doesn’t matter how much you have in the bank. You are richly supplied because you are in Christ. And as the need arises, the supply will be there if you believe it.

It is the same with healing. The devil will try to attack you with symptoms in your body. He will try to put pain in your body, and make you feel weak here and there, so that you think that you are still sick. He is trying to make you believe that you don’t have your healing. That is the time to be conscious of Jesus’ finished work and declare, “I am not trying to get healed, I am healed! I am standing on the victory ground which Jesus has given me!”

Beloved, it makes a world of difference when you fight from victory and not for victory!

YOU HAVE THE SAME FAVOR JESUS HAS :
Romans 4:16 - Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all…

God’s grace is His undeserved, unearned and unmerited favor. And because it is undeserved, unearned and unmerited, all of us qualify for it. But how do we walk in it?

Just as a password gives you access to a computer program, faith enables you to walk in God’s unmerited favor. Now, faith has nothing to do with what you do or what you can do. Faith is simply believing and declaring what God has done and is doing for you.

When you believe that the favor of God is on you because of Christ’s finished work, His promises of provision, healing and restoration become sure to you. They are not just sure to the Jews, but also to you and me because we are “of the faith of Abraham”.
Ruth was a Gentile widow who put her faith in God’s grace. She believed and declared that God’s favor would lead her to the right field in which to glean, where she would find favor in the owner’s sight. (Ruth 2:2) Because she depended on God’s unmerited favor, God not only placed her in wealthy Boaz’s field, but also in the genealogy of Jesus! (Matthew 1:5)

Ruth’s faith in God’s favor opened up a whole new world for her. She went from poverty to supply, widowhood to marriage, and from being childless to having a complete family. She also became a respected member of the community. (Ruth 4:13–15)

If Ruth, a Gentile who was under the old covenant, enjoyed God’s favor, how much more will we who are under the new covenant of grace enjoy the blessings that the unmerited favor of God brings! In fact, because God sees us in the Beloved today, we enjoy the same favor that Jesus has! (Ephesians 1:3–6)

My friend, when you believe that you have the same favor that Jesus has, a whole new world will open up to you—a world where all of God’s promises are “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ! (2 Corinthians 1:20)