THE ABUNDANT LIFE IN CHRIST – part 2

Wednesday, December 30

THE ABUNDANT LIFE IN CHRIST – part 2

Scriptural reference: John 10:10

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

Are you experiencing the victory Christ has already made available to you or are you on the receiving end of the blows of life? In life you are either a victim or a victor. There is no middle ground.

However, the good news is: the answer to all the problems and challenges in life is already given to us as a free gift from the good God. That answer is the Lord Jesus. He is the antidote to sin, sickness, poverty, depression and all the other fiery missiles of the enemy, Satan.

Are you struggling with a particular sin? Then He declares to you today that, ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you (Romans 6:14). He has set you free from sin and even more gloriously has made you a partaker of His own righteousness (Romans 6:18). Now you declare to yourself that you are the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21) and for that matter you cannot be a slave of sin. This is how to take dominion over that which you have been enslaved by.

Are you sick of any ailment? Now is the time to receive your divine healing. The beatings and sufferings Christ experienced shouldn’t be in vain. He bore your pains and sufferings through the stripes He received so as for you to live in divine health (Isaiah 53: 5). You therefore have no right to be sick. Neither is God trying to teach you a lesson through that sickness because He’s a good and loving Father. Refuse to be sick and take hold of divine healing and divine health which are you inheritance.

Do you know God wants you rich? Yep, He really does! Over the years many people have spoken against the prosperity of the saint. Yet should you go through the Bible, you will discover vividly righteous people in the likes of Abraham, Job and David were mega-rich. The people of Israel didn’t leave Egypt as poor beggars. In fact they plundered the Egyptians off their silver, gold and clothing. What they did wasn’t their own initiative but was in accordance to the direction of Moses – the prophet of God.

What God is against is the love of money (1Timothy 6:6-10) and discontentment (i.e. being greedy for more without having any godly or moral reason). These are the things you shouldn’t allow to defile your heart and your love for God.

God wants you rich so that you could financially help advance the gospel. It is true that the gospel is free but it is equally true that the means of getting it out to people is very expensive. Moreover, we have the poor and the needy living in our midst, and it is our responsibility to help them out, but you cannot give what you don’t have. So allow God to prosper you, then you can also help prosper others.

If we will be quite honest with ourselves, we would come to the agreement that most of the problems we get into are self-inflicted – they are caused by our own wrong choices and decisions. We most often ignore or reject God’s way of doing things for our own human and hence imperfect endeavours.

For instance, God has instructed us not to worry about anything but should let our requests known to Him by prayer, supplication coupled with thanksgiving (Phil 4:6). Although God has shown clearly the master key to dealing with any kind of challenging situations, many Christians don’t live by this principle. They would rather justify their reason for being worried, and before they could realise the door is opened for Satan to attack them with depression. Don’t be like that! Choose to be joyful even in turbulent cases – for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Christ has taken already your place of sin, sickness, poverty, worry, depression, confusion so that you could partake in His place of righteousness, perfect health, wealth, joy, sound mind and victory.

Grace unto you,

Osei Barnie

REFUSE TO BE PROBLEM-CONSCIOUS

Thursday, December 17

REFUSE TO BE PROBLEM-CONSCIOUS

Scriptural reference: Exodus 4: 10

Then Moses said to the Lord, ‘O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.’

Do you know the most effective step you would have to take in order to overcome any weakness? This might be simple yet very profound. Catching it will surely change your life.

There are so many factors that tend to limit us in life. In most cases, they appear to be endless. Once a solution is found to one, another obstacle also shows up. Just like Moses, they may be hindering us from fulfilling our God-given assignment.

Regardless of how gigantic the obstacle might seem, there is definitely a way of overcoming it. And it starts from a very simple but powerful truth: refuse to give your attention to that difficulty. So far as you keep brooding over it continually, it can never be overcome. In fact continual pondering over such issues would surely magnify that problem.

It is for this reason that the Bible urges us to renew our mind so that we might always be conscious of God and His power that works in us. The statement in Philippians 4:6; ‘be anxious (worried) about nothing‘, is not just a religious saying. We are to live by this principle as children of God.

Instead of worrying – whatever the problem might be – rather offer prayers to God concerning that case and thank Him for answered prayers. Paul said ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me’ (Phil. 4:13).

This wasn’t because he had a special anointing which distinguished him from the rest of us. He was God-conscious instead of problem-conscious. He was fully persuaded of the fact that: greater is He that is in him than Satan, sin, sickness or any limitation that is in the world.

Grace unto you,

Osei Barnie