Receiving versus Achieving!

Do you realize that most people believe that one needs to work hard to achieve success in life? The Bible states very clearly that we are to reign in life through Jesus Christ just by receiving two things from Him: The abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. Romans 5:17 says, “For if by one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the ONE, JESUS CHRIST!” 

God’s ways are contrary to man’s ways. Man thinks that for God to bless him he needs to deserve, earn, and merit God’s favor and blessings by his own efforts. Man thinks that God’s blessings are based on his performance and good works. However, this is not God’s way. His way is not about achieving but about receiving. He promised that when we receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, we will reign in life. He did not say that when we achieve grace and our own righteousness, we will reign in life. But for some reason, many Christians continue to live based on a system of achievement!

The world’s system of success is built on the twin pillars of self-effort and diligence. There are always some “law” that you have to abide by and some method and technique that you have to keep on practicing before there can be any results. Most of the time, any result that you may get will start to fade once you cease to follow through with the prescribed methods and steps. We have been taught to focus so much on achieving, on doing, and on relying on our self-efforts that we are driven to “do, do, do” forgetting that Christianity is actually, “done, done, done”.

The world tells you that the more you do, the harder you work, and the more hours you put in, the more success you will achieve. The world’s way is to nag you to work harder, and to spend more time in the office working through the nights, weekends, and holidays.

But I’m here to tell you God wants you to stop achieving and to begin RECEIVING THE FAVOR, BLESSINGS AND GRACE OF GOD! When Christ hung on the cross over 2,000 years ago, He cried out, “It is finished!” Everything that you and I require to reign in life was accomplished at Calvary on our behalf. That’s why we call what Jesus did on the cross His “Finished work!” He finished, He completed it. It is DONE, His GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING YOU DESIRE IN LIFE, all you have to do is to stop trying to achieve it, because it is a gift, and JUST BEGIN TO RECEIVE IT!

Forever In His Grace!

Toinette Neube

Reference:

Prince, J. (1982). 

What does it mean to SIT at the right hand of God!

In Psalm 110:1, the Bible says, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’” Did you notice that God is not saying, “Sit only when all your enemies have been destroyed”? No, He is saying SIT (as in a commandment to do now)! And notice He did not say until you find a way to fight your battles. He said, “Till I MAKE your enemies…! That tells me that God himself is fighting the battle and ALL I HAVE TO DO IS HAVE FAITH IN HIM TO WIN IT FOR ME!

“Sit” is a picture of rest and what God is saying to us is to stop worrying and struggling, and start resting and believing in His love for us. Start believing in your faith in Him more than you do your own strength, and works. Rest assured that it is He that will fight your battles, answer your prayers and win your wars!!! It is not how much you pray, how much you preach or how many scriptures you know by heart, (unless you are using them to build your FAITH IN HIM)!

Instead of being conscious of your challenges, choose to be conscious that God is bringing all your enemies under your feet because of Jesus’ finished work on the cross!

SO LEARN TO SIT AND REST IN THE LOVE, GRACE AND MERCY OF JESUS CHRIST!!!!

Forever In His Grace!!

Toinette Neube

Reference:

Prince, J., (2013). Retrieved from: Facebook.com. 

"There is therefore now NO condemnation…”

According to a study intrinsically religious participants (those whose faith is central to their lives) scored higher on a guilt-proneness scale than extrinsically religious participants (those who evaluate their religious faith in light of their other needs). Basically people of faith tend to carry around more guilt than those who are not (McMinn, 1996).

All I can say to that study is WOW! Sad but true! Guilt is the enemy’s number one scheme for holding down The Christian!

A few weeks ago I blogged about being more Christ conscious vs. sin conscious, but I know first-hand how religiosity has made Christians so sin conscious until it has become a way of life. Seeing this, Christian’s need to be reminded daily that according to Romans 8:1, “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.”

Before we begin I know some of you may be saying, yes, what you are saying is right, but don’t leave out what it says about “there being no condemnation if you walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” Well, if you read further along this scripture it also says, in verse 9 of this same scripture, “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you…And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Without getting to deep into this, are you saved? Do you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life? If you can truly answer yes to these questions, then you are not of the flesh any longer, you are dead to the flesh, and alive to the Spirit; therefore now, there should be NO CONDEMNATION IN YOUR LIFE!

Condemnation is in my belief one of satan’s biggest schemes for getting Christians to focus on their sins and not on Christ and His gift of righteousness and grace! The definition of condemnation is, “blame, criticism, attack, disapproval” (to name a few).

Condemnation is a deep rooted attack of the enemy and from this attack springs many other self-defeating sin conscious schemes, and once these schemes and tactics take root, without proper Biblical understanding, knowledge and prayer, it could take a lifetime to uproot the harm and get on track to being Christ conscious!

You see the minute a Christian feels condemned for sinning, he then feels God has criticized him for that sin, that God blames him for that sin, or that He is disappointed in him because of that sin. Once this happens fears begins to set in and once fear sets in, stress begins to take over because you now feel you have disappointed God. Once you feel you have disappointed God several consequences take place; some people feel they won’t be rewarded once they get to heaven, some feel they will be judged by God for committing the sin, some people feel they have already committed so many sins what good would changing them now do, some Christians feel shame and don’t even bother with accepting Christ, and unfortunately some people feel so condemned by their sin until they feel they won’t even make it into Heaven.

The root of condemnation is so deep that it doesn’t just stop at stress, once stress sets in your body, sickness can then take over, once sickness becomes a part of your life and by now a part of your vocabulary, then comes the cycle of a destructive life style; financial lack, mental attacks, physical attacks, hanging with the wrong crowd, believing the wrong thoughts about yourself and your family and thus you are on the road to a destructive lifestyle.

This is not the life God desires for His children to live, and the destructive cycle I just explained is real. But here is the HOPE, God knows it’s real, and He knows the cycle of attack satan attempts to put on His children. Do you really believe God wants His heirs to go through life this way? Of course not, and if God is all knowing as we claim He is in our testimonies when we talk to people, then wouldn’t you think He already knows that condemnation will cause this type of effect on our lives? God doesn’t want you to be condemned; no He doesn’t desire sin either, BUT THAT’S WHY HE GAVE US CHRIST!

In Hebrew, the name satan is ha-satan, (I don’t even like typing it) which literally means “the accuser”. He is a prosecutor, an expert at condemning you, pointing out your shortcomings, faults and yes of course your sins. Condemning is his gift so to speak, it is the thing he does best. Condemnation is a cunning and sly tactic of the enemy because most Christian’s know the law, they know they shouldn’t do this or do that, so once they know this, they try not to do it, (their focus turns to trying not to sin instead of living in acceptance of their righteousness) but here comes that devil once again, now he will try and make them feel condemned once they fall back on what they know they shouldn’t do! Well I’m here to tell you to stop it! If you are a child of Jesus Christ, know that God knows you, know that He even knew you were going to sin before you did it, but also know that He still loves you in spite of that sin!

Many Christians believe that the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sins, He condemns you when you disappoint God. The Holy Spirit does not convict you of your sins. As a true Christian, do you really need to be reminded when you have sinned? I think not, most of us know when we have done something wrong, even nonbelievers. The HOLY SPIRT never points out your faults, He only reminds you of your righteousness, of God’s inexhaustible GRACE in your life, and that you are eternally cleansed by the blood of Jesus!    

Forever In His Grace!

Toinette Neube 

Stepping in your abundant life!

According to John 10:10, God’s desire for His children is to have life and have it more abundantly!

How many of you really believe this scripture to be true? Do you really believe that God desires for you to live an abundant life or do you think this only applies to Pastors, or the rich? Well according to my Bible, it says, in Numbers 23:19, “God is not man, that he should lie or a son of man, that he should change his mind”, if He said, His desire for you is for you to have life and to have it more abundantly then why can’t you believe that? He said it and He meant it!

The word abundant that Jesus uses in John 10:10 is the Greek word perissón, and it means "superabundant," "superfluous," "overflowing," "over and above a certain quantity," "a quantity so abundant as to be considerably more than what one would expect or anticipate." I’m not sure about you, but when I look at my life, I have way more than I need or could expect. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m Oprah, but I am saying I have more food than I can eat, more clothes than I can wear and shelter over my head everytime I lay down to sleep.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying I do not pray for more in your life, but what I am saying is too many times as Christians we pray for things that already exist in our lives, and for one reason or another we have missed that the very thing we are praying for already exist in our lives. It’s like praying for a loving and caring husband or wife, when other people can see that we already have one, but we can’t. I believe this is how God see our lives. He sees it as it as already abundant, and He is just waiting on us to recognize that we already have what we are praying for. We pray for an abundant life when we already have a roof over our head, some of us two or three roofs (houses), an over abundant amount of food to eat and way too many clothes in our closets.

For years I played into the whole, “My blessing is on its way!” mindset. Until one day the Holy Spirit made me realize I was already living out my blessings each and every day I opened my eyes. Not necessarily because everything I desired in life had come to fruition, but because there was not a prayer or decree I had ever said or prayed to God for that hadn’t come to fruition. Basically there was nothing I had prayed for that I had not gotten. This made me realize that God was doing what He said in Psalms 37:4, He was giving me the desires of my heart, and He was going to continue to do so, all I had to do was continue to walk in this belief and receive what He handed out to me on a daily bases, His provision, His love, His mercy and YES OF COURSE HIS GRACE, (for the forgiveness of my sins). On this day I realized I was already living an abundant life. This was the day I stopped begging and pleading with God to answer my prayers, walking up and down the church isles and begging Him to hear my prayers. His Word already says in James 5:16, “The Prayers of the Righteous availeth much,” so I had to think, I am righteous by my belief in Him so this must mean that my prayers have great power and will produce wonderful results, which is what “availeth much” means. That day I began to pray for things from God with a different mindset. I began to pray, and leave them at the altar, because I knew at some point in time they would be answered. What loving father do you know of doesn’t want to give His daughter The World?

Yes, there are times when spiritual warfare happens and continual prayer is necessary for a spiritual breakthrough, but that’s not what I am talking about here. I am talking about how we as Christians are always talking about “our blessing is on its way”, meaning the blessed life we always thought we would have is just around the corner or that it hasn’t arrived yet. We’ll I’m here to tell you the blessed life is here; all you have to do is change how you view your life, and how you view God desiring to bless your life!  

God is God and He is God all alone. You might be saying, “Well I’ve been asking God for a lot of things, but I’ve received nothing.” Well I would say to you, “How are you asking?” Do you ask in doubt or do you ask believing that you will receive and then walk into that belief? Check this out; how do you ask the sun for sunlight? Do you say, “Sun can I have some sunlight?” Or do you just get out there and walk into the sun and experience it! How do you ask electricity to give you light? Do you say, “Electricity give me light?” Or do you switch on the light, and you receive the light it is prepared to give. This is the same way you should begin to receive the abundant life that God desire for you to live. He has already prepared it for you through His Love, Grace and Mercy, now it’s up to you to just walk into it!

Forever In His Grace!

Toinette Neube