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Authors: Joseph Prince

Tags: #Devotional, #Grace, #Joseph Prince

Reign In Life: 90 Powerful Inspirations For Extraordinary Breakthroughs (21 page)

BOOK: Reign In Life: 90 Powerful Inspirations For Extraordinary Breakthroughs
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…Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”
J
OHN
7:37–38
NLT
I will worship toward Your holy temple, and praise Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; for You have magnified Your word above all Your name. In the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul
.
P
SALM
138:2–3
Today’s Scripture
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age
.
T
ITUS
2:11–12
D
o you know what the Bible says produces character, godliness, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life? Contrary to what some preachers of the law are saying, today’s Scripture clearly tells us that it is the unadulterated gospel of the
grace of God
that will produce all these good fruit.
Let me say once more that grace is a person—not a doctrine or biblical topic—and His name is Jesus. The “grace of God…has appeared to all men,” teaching us the secret to godliness, character, and holiness. Jesus showed us that the life we want to live is all found in Him and His work on the cross. When you have Jesus, you are godly. When you have Him, you are made righteous. When you have Him, good character will manifest. When you have Him, you are made holy!
Does this really work? Listen to a praise report I received from James in Kentucky, who was raised in a Christian home and knew about Jesus since his earliest memories. By the time he was ten years old, he was in bondage to a sexual sin. Over the years, the consequences of this secret sin became very public. By the time he was forty-eight, he had lost two professional jobs, had been asked to leave three different churches, and was even shamed publicly in his community because of his sexual addiction.
James consulted many Christian counselors and ministers for help. However, the secret sexual thoughts and actions did not stop. He went for secular counseling and bought into the lie that he would always be addicted.
Finally, when James listened to my teachings on the gospel of grace, he found the freedom he was longing for. He said:
I realized that my heart was broken and wounded. I learned that Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted, and I also professed with my mouth that His precious blood covers my heart. I discovered that freedom from this addiction is His will for me and became completely set free. The Lord healed my heart and my emotions, cleansed my will, and gave me a deep revelation of His righteousness
.
I truly love Him with all my heart…I am so different now from the person I had been for forty-eight years. Now, I see the fruit of His righteousness manifested in my life without my relying on willpower or recovery programs. Jesus has healed my marriage and my wife actually trusts me now. I am an overcomer, highly blessed and greatly favored. Praise Jesus!
James was restored to wholeness by the Lord and able to see fruits in his life. The lie that is told to so many believers, such as James, is that before you come to Jesus you need to straighten things out first, or clean yourself first. If that is what you believe, the sad truth is that you will never come to Jesus, because you will never come to a place where you can make your life right.
Come on, Jesus is the “bath” that makes you clean! He is the solution, and He will help you to straighten out what you will never be able to straighten out on your own. Come just as you are with all your weaknesses and imperfections, and Jesus will wash you clean of all guilt and condemnation and set you free to reign in life through His righteousness.
Today’s Thought
Jesus is the “bath” that makes me clean. The secret to godliness, character, and holiness is all found in Him and His work on the cross
.
Today’s Prayer
Father, thank You that Jesus’ finished work has cleansed and made me righteous in Your sight. I thank You that the power of the gospel of grace is working in my life to produce the fruit of the Spirit. Thank You that godliness, character, and holiness are all mine because I have Jesus. I believe that in Jesus I am accepted, righteous, and beloved, and that He will help me to straighten out whatever needs to be straightened out in my life. I look to Him to turn my weaknesses into strengths for His glory. Amen
.
“No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the L
ORD
,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the L
ORD
. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
J
EREMIAH
31:34
As for me, I will call upon God, and the L
ORD
shall save me
.
P
SALM
55:16
Today’s Scripture
“I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.”
I
SAIAH
43:25
NLT
I
have some extraordinary good news for you today! Although you and I owed God a sin debt that we could never pay, Jesus has already paid our debt. Listen closely, my friend, because of who Jesus is and the value of that one Man, the price that He paid for our sins was an
overpayment
. All the sinners put together cannot compare with the value of that one Man. He
overpaid
it so much that we need never have the debt on our conscience ever again!
Let me illustrate what I mean. Imagine that you have borrowed $50,000 from a creditor and as time goes by, you find that you cannot possibly ever pay the money back. Then one day, a friend who is a billionaire hears about your debt and gives $1 million to your creditor to pay off your debt. Now, what has your friend done? Well, because he loves you, he has
overpaid
your debt to make sure that you will never feel the debt on your heart ever again, and that your creditor has no more reason to harass you to pay your debt.
This is what Jesus has accomplished for you through His finished work on the cross. His payment has wiped out your entire life’s sins—past, present, and future—once and for all! Perhaps in the past you were not aware of the fullness of this gospel of grace, but now I have conveyed the good news to you. It’s now up to you to believe the message. You can respond in disbelief, asking, “Are you sure? I’ve owed this debt for such a long time, and now you’re telling me that it’s all paid up?” Or you can shout, “Hallelujah!” and rejoice over this unmerited gift that has cleared your debt of sin completely!
My friend, because Jesus has already paid your sin debt fully, do you know what you are doing each time you allow that debt to remain on your conscience? Every time you are sin-conscious, you are insulting the payment of our Lord Jesus Christ. You are saying that it is not enough. You are saying that the cross is not enough. And you know what? You are also insulting the One who received the payment for your sin debt. Each time you try to pay off your sin debt that has already been paid, you are saying that God is not satisfied with Jesus’ payment even though the truth is that He is more than satisfied with Jesus’ overpayment. Jesus is the beloved Son of the living God. How can you say that His sacrifice is not enough?
Does it really matter if you condemn yourself and allow your sin debt to remain on your conscience even after Jesus has overpaid it? Yes, it matters, because apart from dishonoring the work of Jesus on the cross, sin-consciousness makes you avoid God and can produce in you condemnation, sicknesses, diseases, depression, and a cycle of sin!
My friend, Jesus, being the Son of God, has overpaid your entire life’s sins—once and for all! Believe the good news and draw near to your Savior today! The Word of God declares to you that you can have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19). Today, in the face of whatever you need help with, you can draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having your heart sprinkled from an evil, sin-stained conscience, and receive His tender mercies, grace, and help for all your needs (see Heb. 10:22, 4:16).
Today’s Thought
Jesus’ overpayment has wiped out my entire life’s sins—past, present, and future—once and for all!
Today’s Prayer
Father, thank You that because Jesus is Your dearly beloved Son, His sacrifice on the cross is an overpayment for my entire life’s sins—past, present, and future—once and for all! Thank You that nothing can change the fact that You are fully satisfied with Jesus’ payment and that there never needs to be debt on my conscience toward You again. I rejoice that I can always come boldly into Your presence to receive Your favor and supply for all my needs. Amen
.
Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us…
H
EBREWS
10:19
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need
.
H
EBREWS
4:16
Today’s Scripture
When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you…But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
M
ARK
2:5, 10–12
I
encourage you to start today with this thought: the way out of being sin-conscious is to hear more teaching on the finished work of Jesus and how His blood has cleansed and forgiven us of all our sins. When you believe that your sins have already been punished on Jesus’ body and receive Him as your sin offering, your heart will be sprinkled with His blood from an evil conscience. As you listen to Christ-exalting teachings, instead of carrying sin-consciousness and condemnation in your mind and heart, you will be washed with the pure water of God’s Word. This will in turn affect your physical body and bring healing to every part that is not well!
Some Christians are not able to receive healing for themselves or within their families because they are not able to receive forgiveness. They are still sin-conscious and doubt their forgiveness. They believe that God may have forgiven their past sins, but not the sins of their whole life. God knows that people need the assurance that their sins are forgiven before they can receive healing in their bodies, so the Bible makes His forgiveness of our sins very clear. In Psalm 103, when the psalmist lists the “benefits” from the Lord, he starts with “who forgives all your iniquities” before moving on to “who heals all your diseases.”
Not so long ago, I received this praise report from Patricia, who lives in South Africa. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer, and they were getting ready to go to the hospital for his positron emission tomography (PET) scan when she read one of my daily devotionals on the Holy Communion. Feeling consumed by worry for her husband and condemnation for not being able to entrust the situation completely into the Lord’s hands, she took Communion and for the first time, discerned that the body of Jesus was beaten so that our bodies might be healed and made whole. She also meditated on how Jesus’ blood was shed for the forgiveness of our sins. After that, Patricia said, “I felt a peace only God could give. I was able to enter into a state of rest and faith without any effort on my part. I am proud to say, my Savior reigns. No cancer was found in my husband’s organs and the doctors could not explain why.” What an amazing testimony of the power of knowing you are forgiven in Christ!
In Mark 2:1–12, we read the account of the paralytic man lowered through the roof and placed before Jesus. Jesus said to the paralytic man, “Son, your sins are forgiven you,” before He said, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Why? Because Jesus knew that unless the man had the assurance that all his sins had been forgiven, he would not have the faith to jump up, grab his mat, and walk out of that house.
Beloved, your sins are forgiven you. Stop punishing and condemning yourself. Believe the truth of the gospel and let your conscience be satisfied! Start enjoying all His benefits because they are your blood-bought rights. Forgiveness is yours. Healing is yours. Redemption from destruction is yours. Being crowned with loving-kindness and tender mercies is yours. Hallelujah! Simply believe that your sin debt has been settled and walk in these blessings today!
BOOK: Reign In Life: 90 Powerful Inspirations For Extraordinary Breakthroughs
7.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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