Monday, October 5, 2009

The Blood of Jesus - I am “faith”ing

I am beginning to put my faith in the blood of Jesus because I believe it is the blood of Jesus, the perfect lamb slain, that made me right with Father God. It is the blood of Jesus that set me free. He did it freely for me, because God loves me so much, it is a free gift to me. His grace is a free gift to me. The only thing I need to do is reach out and receive it.

Grace is getting the blessing that I do not deserve.

Mercy is not getting the punishment I deserve.

I am made right (righteous) by the blood of Jesus.

These are simple revelations from God but why do I constantly struggle? Because, grace is SUPERNATURAL, it is not from this world. It is a gift from God. And I need the HOLY SPIRIT daily to understand these simple revelations.

I say "daily" because somehow my mind has been conditioned to think “do good, get good”, “do bad, get beat” – the way of the world. Even Wendy’s friend told her “Why is it bad things happen to good people”. That is the way most people think, even us Christians.
But that is not what righteousness (right standing with God) is. That is not what grace is. In fact, I live under a curse if I continue to think like that. Although, Christ has redeemed me on the cross, I negate the cross everytime I have this “do good, get good”, “do bad, get beat” mentality. I forget what grace is! I need to be filled with the holy spirit daily to understand grace, to experience grace, to experience God’s love, to not fall under the curse again. And it happened to me this week – I was under the curse of the law! I have fallen away from grace again! The bible says it clearly.

Galations 3:10
10All who rely on observing the law are under a curse…”

Galations 5:4
4You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

It is deep revelation for me to note that this is not just the laws of Moses but the works we do everyday “to do good, get good”.

Ethan was down with cough for the past 9 days. I myself developed slight cough over the weekend and by Monday morning, I had developed green phlegm, a sign of infection. The thing is both Henry and I have been praying for Ethan the rebuking and casting out way, in all kinds of prayers but the stubborn cough did not go away. Instead, I got infected too.

It was a hectic weekend too with lantern party, baby sitting the kids during the town hall meeting. I uploaded some pix to show you the havoc activity! Plus all the routine of a busy weekend surrounding the kids. Then, I was stressed because I could not do my devotion first thing in the morning because of the busy activity around me. Deeper Life Seminar (DLS) requires us to discipline ourselves to spend at least 1 hour 20 mins with God, singing praises (20 mins), thanking Him (5 mins), praying in tongues (20 mins), reading and studying the bible (20 mins), meditating His word and jotting notes (15 mins). Plus - I hadn’t finished my exam which had to be done after revising the notes. All this plus being overworked and coughing was making me all stressed! And stress is an open door for the devil to work its way in again! Thankfully, I just felt in my spirit to not go for the Deeper Life Seminar class Monday night because I just needed to rest. But no sooner I decided on this, condemnation and feeling guilty started hitting me but I put it aside. I decided to tell Elaine as she is my classmate. Amazingly, she volunteered to pick me up for class. I thank this dear sister of mine but the devil works in ways unimaginable. I decided to just rest on the Hamir’s gauge of "got peace no peace thing" – decision that gives peace is from God, decision with no peace plus guilt and condemnation is NOT from God.

I told the devil:

“You can stop condemning me for not praying correctly over Ethan”
“You can stop condemning and making me feel guilty for not doing my devotion the first hour after waking up”
“You can stop condemning me and making me feel guilty for not being able to complete my exam and passing up on time”
“You can stop condemning me that I won’t be able to pass up my devotion time table on time”
“You can stop making me feel guilty for not attending the 1 hour talk on miracles by Dr Lay and making me feel guilty that I will miss out on all these details”
..because I need to rest! I just want to spend time with God and talk to Him. Begone, devil in Jesus’ name! Amen!

I started my morning jog around the neighbourhood and then started praising God and continued my quiet time with Him even after I got home. I marveled that at the end of it, how I had a good time with the Lord, enjoying talking and singing to Him without any stress - just pure enjoyment, like a holiday with Jesus! PLUS, believe it or not, I still fulfilled the DLS criteria to do my devotion in the first hour after waking up. Amazing but true. I am in returned blessed because I placed my trust in Jesus 100%. I just followed Him and NOT allow the things that had to be done for the day to rule me! Yet, the outcome was the same and the feeling ecstatic – my heart is filled with love, joy and hope! I feel so blessed.

Henry called me in the morning and told me Ethan did not cough at bed time last night. That’s the first time! Praise the Lord! I also told Him that I have no more green phlegm today! Praise the Lord! The blessings continue to flow!

Those who have faith are blessed with believing Abraham. (Galations 3:9)
Abraham believed in justification (made righteous) by faith (Galations 3:8). Amazing! The bible foresaw God would justify the gentiles (not Jews) by faith. The gospel was announced in advance to Abraham long before the Jews received the law! And we are blessed with believing Abraham because we believe what He believed too – justification (made right with God) by faith. I have to keep explaining in brackets because words like righteousness and justification are just too big words for me!

Faith is from the greek word “Pistis”. It is a verb, an action word and if you translate it to English, it really means “faith”ing. So faith, on contrary, is not a set of beliefs like the world thinks. “Oh, what faith do you belong to”. Nope, faith is not a noun. It is a verb. Faith is believing in Jesus and what He did for us. Like believing Abraham, it is a continuous action of believing. Some days we wake up and it is not fine and dandy and we forget God’s grace. It IS possible, I know because I experienced it last week!

Now that I know that faith is a verb, I will ask the holy spirit daily to reveal himself to me and to explain to me “grace” again, so that everyday I can be renewed in mind to be more and more like Christ, so that I can fall in love with Jesus all over again, so that I can be born again, over and over again to experience His grace, His love and the most beautiful part is – blessings will flowwww! Be it love to others, sharing His word to others, receiving favor from men and God, prosperity, good health, deliverance from bad habits – blessings will flowwwwww! Hallelujah! Such great revelation!

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