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Christian Articles WELCOME TO DR. ESTHER’S PENWe would like to congratulate her in receiving a Doctors degree in Theology . Dr Esther is currently a christian motivational speaker at various churches and we at Christian Hosting Plaza are priviledged to have her as our Professional content writer. She also writes articles for various Top ezines and Article Directories . Christian Hosting Plaza is the only website that she authorized to publish her material - The Webmaster
You are welcome to use these Free articles on your website but we would be pleased if you could add our website info at the bottom of every article ,we appreciate your kindness The Power Of The God Of DanielThen Daniel praised the God of heaven, saying, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for He alone has all wisdom and all power. World events are under his control (Dan. 2.20) PART 1
What a privilege we Christians have just trusting God and having the reassurance of His Word, namely that Jesus lives! Just knowing that the God whom we serve through Jesus Christ is in control of Planet Earth, no matter what is happening around us, is such a relief that we cannot but opt for this path of Salvation! And knowing that we have Jesus in the heavenliness interceding for us this very moment, is something we dare not overlook (Heb. 7.25)! For this will determine our peace of mind!
How many of us have felt despondency and despair threatening to overthrow our faith in God, sometimes even to the point where we sink into total unbelief, yet, hasn’t Jesus come for this main purpose, namely to set us free from unbelief? For lack of faith (=unbelief!) very often drags us onto the path of disobedience and once we have landed there, it will take all our willpower to again get back on track. Disobedience is nothing but defiance of God’s prescriptions and it is therefore the cause of man’s downfall! Once we begin to nurture despondency, we may soon find ourselves harbouring apathy towards the One who gave His life for us so that we can believe wholeheartedly in our Creator. Let us therefore do all in our power to get back on track! For it can only benefit us, for I can assure you that the world out there is too cold, too unfriendly to interact with on our own! We need Jesus to be our Guide, our Helper, our constant Companion for He alone has received all Power from God Most High – His Father – to protect us against every form of evil. He clearly promised that He will be with us until the end of times (Math. 28.20). Therefore, the time has come for us Christians to take refuge in Jesus for He is the Ark of Salvation God Most High has launched once and for all on the treacherous waters that are facing us daily. I can assure you that once you have made up your mind to follow Jesus and to cling to Him, you will, time and time again, experience His helping hand in your circumstances! God the Father has given Him the Name that is above all other names (Phil. 2.7-11). So apply it! When you are faced with a perilous situation, immediately (!) call on the Name of Jesus and on His blood for God the Father has given us two weapons to destroy the works of satan, namely the Name of Jesus and His blood sacrifice on Calvary (Isa. 53.5+) Jesus died for us so that we can share in His victory over satan, the great enemy of God’s Plan of Salvation for man! (Rom. 1.4). Satan is the evil force that has, since the days of the Garden of Eden, been seducing man to succumb to disobedience to God and once we can take hold of Salvation in and through Jesus who was sent by God the Father to introduce us to authentic Salvation, we will have Life abundantly (1 John 5.11-13; 1 John 4). We will be victorious even though we may not have all the material prosperity many around us may have and enjoy, yet we will have peace of mind within our circumstances for we will know that Jesus is with us (John 14; Rev. 7.14). We will have the surety that we belong to Jesus who is coming back again to claim His very own from a world that is progressively sinking into the deepest despair and wickedness (1 Thes. 4.13+). And we can only have fellowship with God the Father through the blood of His Son for we are sinful and we constantly need this covering especially if we desire to approach the Throne of God so that we can receive the answers to life’s painful questions. Why? The Most High is a consuming fire (Heb. 12.29)! And the blood of Jesus serves as a covering for man’s shortcomings and his sins and once we are willing to apply this gift of Salvation, we will have union with our Creator (1 John 1.7; John 3.16; 1 Pet.1.3+). And this is complete peace of mind nothing in this world can compare with! But we need faith to grasp Salvation and faith is something we must attain through perseverance! I can assure you that once you begin to nurture the small seed of faith God will drop into your heart when you receive Jesus into your life, making Him part of your daily devotion and life-style, it will grow and grow in proportion until you will be able to pass your faith in Jesus onto other despairing people around you. You will become so strong in faith that you will be able to serve as God’s instrument changing the world around you! Giving direction to sinking souls who are desperately waiting upon guidance and help from above! And this you can only acquire through faith in Jesus for Jesus is the touchstone of God’s Plan of Salvation for man! Whoever believe in Him, shall not perish but such ones will have life and life abundantly (John 3.16; John 14.6; John 5.12; Heb. 9.14). Forget everything that has brought you to the point of despair for this is hampering your spiritual progress. There is such an abundance of joy, happiness, life, comfort in Jesus that you must not miss it! And therefore I am directing you to the life of a young guy who was human like us,namely Daniel. Had he not opted for faith in his God, he wouldn’t have survived!
Now, before proceeding, let us declare our faith in Almighty God whom we serve in and through Jesus Christ our Blessed Lord and Saviour! (1 Tim. 2.5). Let us know, that everything we have thusfar experienced belongs to the past and the reality of our situation is that what was done in the past, can never be undone! Even everything that has happened for our own good and pleasure, is something we will never be able to relive! Therefore, let us weigh our options carefully for God has given us the will-power to make choices and decisions and we can either decide to remain shackled to our past, or we can reassess what we have thusfar gained in Christ Jesus our Lord. All we then actually need to carry with us into the unknown future, is that which had also motivated Daniel while he was in his predicament, namely faith in a Living God! Luckily for this faithful servant of God, he was already thoroughly grounded in his faith and by the time he had cast his eyes on King Nebuchadnezzar’s imposing palace with all its glitz and glam, contemplating his new future and surrounds, he must have known that he was going to be stuck in a foreign country for as long as His God had destined the Captivity for him and His people – and of course serving a merciless, pagan King! Yet, apart from all the negatives posing in Daniel’s history, we can also sense God’s faithfulness, and regardless His decision to hand His people over to humiliation and oppression, He clearly remained faithful especially to those who, like Daniel and his friends, clung to His promises. It is then in and through Daniel’s remarkable history that we have been left with a lasting testimony of how the ineffable only true God of Deut 6.4 (the so-called Shema) can use a mere man in all circumstances! (NOTE : There is an opinion that the Book of Daniel was not a product of the Captivity and that it was rather written ± two centuries before the birth of Jesus, yet the Biblical chronological sequence is for purposes of this edition maintained). We can then take it that, had this prophet of God not taken a firm stand to fully obey his God within his challenging situation and facing a shaky future,, God’s mission and timely calling for him as prophet of God could easily have failed. Had the young man therefore decided to brood upon the miseries that had befallen him and his friends who were earmarked to serve a fickle King at his bid and call, he would definitely not have been able to focus on his God’s Power and ability to sustain them in their predicament, nor would he have had the guts to boldly plead for time to consult his God at a time the unreasonable King had demanded immediate reaction to his forgotten dream! And does this not again bring us to the conclusion that even God’s anointed don’t always have all the answers and that they too have to always be ready and willing to consult God instead of only relying on their special anointing? Should it not also bring us to the realization that man is nothing without God’s Power and, in the same breath, isn’t lack of true commitment to God perhaps the cause why God’s servants have often become mere projectors of vainglory? What would really happen if today many a glib preacher were to face the same sorcerers Daniel had to deal with? It is easy to THINK that there will always be immediate victory, yet will victory come easy to a spiritual leadership who very often have become too taken with pride and too important to first and foremost consult the Most High concerning what He desires them to do? Why is a personal relationship with God the only preached? Can Daniel’s success not indeed be ascribed to his close walk with God? And he was clearly not out to please people for even he was rounded up for execution had he failed to interpret the King’s dream! But Daniel’s predicament was not a dream, it was real for the Temple treasures of his God (=the golden cups) were probably by the time already on display in this pagan monarch’s temple and of course boasting his victory over his newly acquired subjects’ Kingdom and especially their Sovereign God! Had Daniel also been the kind of believer who would have reproached his God for bringing the terrible tragedy upon His very own people, he would indeed have lost control and definitely long before he was able to taste the glory of God working in and through his prophet’s very own predicament and destiny! In and through the Book of Daniel we not only encounter the greatness of God unfolding before our eyes chapter by chapter, but we are also able to experience His extreme righteousness and faithfulness. (The Book of Jeremiah tells us why God had initiated the Captivity). He is indeed the God who remains true to His promise and especially to His identity, i.e. being the God whose Word will never return to Him void! (Isa. 55.11). But the crux of the matter is that God just knows how to reveal Himself as the Living Almighty One even while His Name is being crudely mocked and trampled upon. And what is even more astonishing is His willingness to forgive and to sustain those called by His Name and while being at the bid and call of a harsh pagan King! And Daniel’s people of course brought disaster upon themselves for they were disobedient to the Most High, the Omnipotent God! Like multitudinous Christians today, they continually defied God’s Plan and good intentions by opting for a lifestyle that could bring them immediate thrills and enjoyment yet it was a lifestyle devoid of the superabundance of God’s Presence! Yet, God still had good plans for them for among the disobedient, He decided to scatter a handful of innocent believers whom He could use in His appointed time to the glory of His Name and of course for the benefit for those very once who had offended Him! And Daniel and his friends were anointed for this exact purpose and in a foreign country among foreigners whose culture and character they didn’t know! Doesn’t this remind us of God’s love yet sometimes He has to wedge-in only one individual within a specific situation to bring man back to the reality of His existence! It is Biblical that God has always separated a remnant unto Himself who most of the times will only figure as an invisible number among the bulk of so-called "people of God" up until the time God is ready to unfold His banner once again. Then only will it be made visible for His strange working will then be experienced by the majority who is apt to follow the crowd unwittingly, yet sharing in God’s bountiful grace and mercy! Why then does God work in such a strange way? Because Jesus remains the Head of His Body, the Church, and He knows the needs of His People. If He is left out of the programme, He will surely weave His way into the centre of the spiritual arena just as He had done in the past when He always stepped in timely to save a remnant unto Himself and naturally to protect them from total spiritual destruction. God will always manifest Himself as the All-Powerful One to His faithful just as He had done in the days of Daniel and although He sometimes has to hand us over to be threshed, we must know that it is allowed for our own good, for by doing it His way, He eventually brings honour to His faithful who are simultaneously being led to perfection. As long as those who are faithful to Him will also be prepared to stand in the gap for the lip-serving throng who has forgotten their God! And this is why God will always bring new Christian movements into action for His Son has bled and died for the preservation of His Body, the Church – for this ekklesia (assembly) constitutes those who worship the Father in spirit and in truth (John 4.24)! All have the same opportunity to serve God through His Son, yet all are not focused on obeying God! As the onslaught of satan is always against true worship, God Himself will see to the survival of Truth and therefore He will remain in touch with His Body and very often especially through His anointed who are sometimes kept aside for a period of time up until that crucial moment when God will demand them to act. Only then will He touch them for they will be ready – yet , by the time God will inspire them to perform their calling, they will have kept the vigil, so to say, for they have fully and completely surrendered to God. And this is how God wants those who claim to follow Jesus. We can also take the example of our Lord. He lived in obscurity for thirty years full knowing His anointing,and awaiting God’s appointed time to become His fully-fledged instrument, yet we can gather from few brief testimonies contained in the Gospels that he busied Himself with the Kingdom of God from a very young age. His parents must also have shaped Him, full knowing His calling and of course God’s appointed time for His calling that was announced at his birth! Likewise, Daniel must have known that God’s hand was upon him and for this very reason he must have shaped his life deliberately around God and His prescriptions. For God found Him faithful! He was indeed ready to be used by the time the Captivity arrived. God therefore sent Daniel not to His People at large, but directly to the most important Sovereign of his day. A mighty King whose orders could not be disobeyed! And of course with the sole purpose, namely that His People could later enjoy God’s Providence!
To be continued in a separate discussion on Daniel. Article written by Esther Blomerus, a Christian writer who has a wonderful testimony of the abundance of God’s grace and mercy. A woman who was healed from a terminal lung-disease, yet Jesus snatched her from the burning and placed a calling upon her to pray for the sick, to uplift those in need, to encourage and enhance faith in Jesus Christ! May God therefore bless this brief article.
May God the Father,through Jesus His precious Son, give each and every Christian who want to follow Jesus with all their heart and understanding, grace and mercy. May we, as Paul rightly has instructed us, forget what lies behind us, and let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus who is able to keep us from falling so that we can share in the bliss of His second Second Coming. Let us take courage, deliberately turning our backs on every stumbling block that may impede our spiritual progress. Let us prepare ourselves to be servants of the most High God, full knowing that Jesus is able to sustain us to the end. And let us give a helping hand, gently and kindly, to those who have fallen, those who have succumbed to despair and desperation, full knowing that Jesus came to save sinners (1 Tim. 1.15-16). And let us uphold Biblical Truth, not falling into the sins of Sodom and Gomorra for God’s blessing can only rest upon obedience to His Word. He is a holy and righteous God who supports those who honour His Plan of Salvation. Let us also not abuse creation, for God is about to judge those who have done so (Rev. 21.24-27; Rev. 22; Rev. 20). And because man has abused nature and creation, God is about to restore heaven and earth (Rev. 21). And those who belong to Jesus will enjoy His wonderful Presence (Rev. 21.23). God has placed man over His creation (Gen. 2.19; Gen. 1.26). Let us therefore show mercy and kindness and love to both man and animal, doing all in our power to witness about the love of Jesus and His mercy. If we serve Jesus, doing all in our power to conform to His Word, He will be our Protector against crime and abusive behaviour (Ps. 34.8; Ps 91.4). So, if you are finding yourself in a predicament, following this tried-and-true recipe: Call upon the Name of Jesus! Cry out to Him and He will reveal Himself to you in a very personal way! But get to know your God for this was the one thing that sustained Daniel in a foreign country, paying allegiance to a cruel King, yet in the end, befriending Him closely and to the point of convincing him of the one authentic King ruling the heavens and the earth! Therefore: Feed on the Scriptures and be prepared to be guided by God’s Spirit as you pray God to open the greatest Book ever written! (James 1.5). Let us stand firmly like Daniel to spread God’s reality and His love for man, and this love He revealed in and through His Son Jesus, who was crucified because He loved us so much (Eph. 2.4). Let us be prepared to be renewed by God’s Spirit so that we, through obedience, can go to Him in prayer, full knowing that if we keep faithful, He will exalt us like Daniel, even though we may be surrounded by trouble! Let us mirror ourselves in Ephesians 5, written by a man named Paul of Tarsus, who sacrificed everything for the gain of Christ and His Kingdom! ________________________________________________ IN THE LIKENESS OF DANIEL –
WITNESS FOR HIS GOD! In these days of spiritual decadence, God is calling His faithful ones to once again pray earnestly for spiritual revival. We are clearly facing denial of Christ Jesus as never before in Christian history and we must therefore pray that God’s anointed will have the courage Daniel had for our prayers and supplications will ensure survival of God’s faithful in all circumstances! Let us not take the current onslaught against Jesus lightly for although there are many who still openly preach and especially in their own restricted environment (on their own Church premises, i.e. without hindrance), the screws are being tightened against so-called fundamentalism. One global, unified religion blending all faiths and confessions under the banner of tolerance, is progressively posing stronger. The big question is : What are we going to do with Jesus and to Biblical Truth? Are we going to just let go, only to become part of a happy, motley crowd, or are we going to be like Daniel and remain true to Jesus, Captain of our faith? And Jesus is definitely not the little baby in the manger whom we can push around to our liking! Neither can we change the meaning of Scripture according to our social needs and our survival! So what are we going to do with Jesus and the faith that was rendered to us (Jude v3)? The Jewish spiritual leadership who were supposed to act as loyal Teachers of God, were clearly in the days of Daniel, as apostate as the nation at large, and they were also among the first captives who were taken to Babylonia, yet among the stubborn and disobedient throng who should by then have known that they had brought disaster upon themselves, there were also the minority of faithful ones, like Daniel and his friends, who were willing to be God’s instruments even though they too had to pay the penalty of disobedience along with those who had defied God’s Law. May this then be our resolution for the ensuing year: Let us be prepared to side with the faithful remnant, God’s trustworthy and faithful ones. Let us first and foremost – before even thinking to do something constructive for the Lord – declare ourselves prepared to be used as purified vessels of the Living Most High God! PAUL’S PROPHETIC WORD INDEED REQUIRES OUR CLOSE ATTENTION AS IF IT WERE MEANT FOR OUR DAY AND AGE!
B”You may as well know this too, Timothy, that in the last days it is going to be very difficult to be a Christian. For people will love only themselves and their money; they will be proud and boastful, sneering at God, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful to them, and thoroughly bad. They will be hardheaded and never give in to others; they will be constant liars and troublemakers and will think nothing of immoraility. They will be rough and cruel, and sneer at those who try to be good. They will betray their friends, they will be hotheaded, puffed up with pride, and prefer good times to worshipping God. They will have a form of godliness yes, but they won’t really believe anything they hear. Don’t be taken in by people like that.” (2 Tim. 3.1-5 - Living Bible)
If the above prophetic utterance of, what I would like to call, the father of our faith, does not motivate us to take a good look at ourselves and of course with the intention to ascertain whether we are indeed prepared to place ourselves at God’s disposal, i.e. to be used by Him as and how He desires, then what will convince us? Also, if the example Daniel had set for us, along with Paul’s courage to boldly speak out against lukewarm Christianity - something that had already manifested in his day and age – does not convince us to make a full surrender to Christ our Lord and Savior, are we then not already spiritually dead? (Rev. 3.16; Rev. 2.5; Rev. 2.13; Rev. 3.3).
Let us consider a deeper dimension of Daniel’s calling….
Daniel had every reason to doubt his God. As was the custom with royal eunuchs, he was castrated and we have every reason to believe that he was among the priesthood class (the scholars of his day who were trained in scriptwriting and knowledge of the Torah) or he was at least a Levite who was ordained by Law to perform the general Temple duties. As a mutilated man, he would then not have been able to ever again serve in the Temple of his God, least of all living a normal life, that is as a married man and naturally being blessed with many children! Yet, because Daniel had kept faith, the All-Powerful, High and Almighty God had decided to transform his negative situation into a positive one! And He was quick to prove that Daniel was indeed not useless, for He took the rejected vessel and used him, not within the confines of the Temple, but to His own glory in the very place that so demanded his servant’s humiliation! And it was because of Daniel’s conviction and deliberate motivation to serve His God within all circumstances that God could make Himself known in a foreign country to a gentile King and his people who, at the time, had no inkling of the real and living God!
Daniel did not focus on his own misery. Instead, He CHOSE and MADE A DECISION to look to His God and to glorify Him in his predicament!
Daniel was virtually “hanging in there” because his life was fully surrendered to the God who commanded: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and all your understanding.” As a believing Jew, he must have known all too well what this command entailed, namely that should his faith in God and His commands ever be at stake, he had no option but to die in order to prove his faith in God! And Daniel’s tenacity to remain faithful to His God, was the secret of his successful ministry! May God help us to once again reassess our own callings, for if we are faithful to the task He has given us to perform here below, He will surely come to our aid, for He remains faithful and He cannot deny Himself! But what we seem to lack, is the personal experience Daniel had for he could taste God’s goodness because He was acquainted with the way to God’s Throne and of course His requirements. Daniel was human like all of us, yet his faith and trust in God enabled him to tap from the wealth of God’s abundant goodness! Now, many may feel that Daniel didn’t have a ministry at all. For those reasoning like this, he then only would have had a mssion, meaning that he was restricted to the royal palace and that God then merely used him as a prophet and naturally relating to his own peculiar circumstances. Yet, just as much as there are practically speaking no “major” and “minor” Hebrew (Old Testament) prophets as the same God had worked through each one of His anointed - and clearly in accordance with the specific needs and challenges of their times - likewise the diverse ministries of God’s anointed are something that, strictly speaking, hinges on God’s will which will then be executed for an appointed and a specific time. Everything falling outside this assigned parameter is then something what man himself will add – very often also pertaining to God’s will yet not coinciding with His special anointing. Very often the latter lacks anointing as God’s Presence is not continually sought – as Daniel did – and what then eventually remains is a personal ministry which may be appear vibrant, yet is something performed without the enhancement of God’s Spirit! Therefore, an anointed of God must always take heed of especially the apostle God had appointed to lay the foundation of the Christian faith, namely Paul of Tarsus. This chosen vessel of God emphatically instructs us in his First Letter to the Corinthians to take care how we proceed with our work, adding to God’s building! And this is the crux of Christianity in general for God has appointed Jesus as ultimate Judge and He will, on His return, assess the work we have done for Him and He will clearly do it according to His written Word for this is our specification just as Daniel’s was the Torah and the Prophets! (Acts 10; Rev 20). Like Daniel, we must therefore always focus on our specific calling. Like Daniel, we will have to enter into a one-on-one relationship with our God so that He will be able to accomplish His will in and through us. God and His Son, Jesus Christ can only be magnified in and through us, if we are serving Him in Spirit and in Truth (John. 4.24). We must therefore deliberately shed our message concerning Jesus as Messiah of God and the purpose God had sent Him into the world of the very things that lead us away from deep spiritual Truth. And lack of being able to experience God’s Spirit and His Truth within one’s gut feeling is very often the reason for the lukewarm, wishy-washy notion Christians often adopt towards Christianity. And because man can never find complete rest without knowledge of and unity with His Creator, he will forever yearn for reality, and because He was created by God, who is authentic in all His ways, man is able to differentiate between reality and superficiality. He may not always be able to cognitively define what he is searching for, yet subconsciously God’s Spirit will nudge His creature He has endowed with abstract awareness, towards Truth - for God Himself is Truth! We can infer from Daniel’s book that he was able to separate the chaff from the weed and therefore he opted for unity with His God through prayer and fasting. Because He was filled with the Spirit of Knowledge and Wisdom he could shun and outsmart the false prophets, but only because he was adhering to Truth. We can then indeed conclude : If we worship the real and living Jesus and His Father, God will instil Truth in us! And this is faith we must gain and we will be able to believe once we fix our hope on Jesus! Once we DECIDE to believe Jesus who was sent into the world to instil faith in us! (John 3.16).
Every faithful follower of Jesus should pursue holiness and righteousness for these two qualities determine our relationship with God
Once we can get ourselves to that place of complete trust and obedience, we will
be able to grow spiritually. We will be able to subject ourselves to God’s
will and we will then indeed taste His Presence in our lives. Jesus who was
sent by the Father as Living Fountain of Hope will then use us according to the
specific challenge we are faced with, that is the world we are living in today
with of course its own peculiar circumstances. And at this point in time, we
are especially dealing with spiritual decadence and just as Daniel had found his
solution in the prescriptions and commands of His God, likewise we Christians
and followers of Jesus must revert to first-century Christianity hope and
faith! This is the foundation of our faith (Jude v3). We must get a grip on
Truth in We must therefore deliberately make time for our personal relationship with Jesus and we must, like Daniel, be prepared to consult our God for guidance for we will need this opportunity if we want to be His instruments, putting our anointing in action according to His will. But we will have to muster all our spiritual strength in order to get a solid grip on our calling for our adversary is on the alert and he is therefore always actively involved with our spiritual destruction for he does not want Jesus to be victorious in our lives! (Rev. 12 should give us a clear understanding of the victory Jesus has gained over satan, yet we, His followers and heirs, must persevere up until the time when Jesus will return to claim His own (1 Thes. 4.13+). We may not understand everything but God has the Plan hidden in His Hand and this Plan cannot be interrupted up until the "fullness of time" when He Himself will place the full stop (Mark 13.32). Only then will everything belonging to this age (this current situation) come to a halt for that will be the time that God will reveal the heirs of His Kingdom, those who attached themselves to Jesus and His Gospel Truth through faith and Jesus will then act as God’s chosen King (Rom. 8.20-21;Rev. 20 & 21; Ps 2; 2 Pet. 3.7-10) While we are then proceeding on our daily Christian path, doing God’s will, we must always WATCH AND PRAY for satan wants us to bend the knee before false gods and we will often find ourselves in a situation similar to that of Daniel ( 1 Pet. 5.8;1 Pet. 4.14; 1 Pet.2 – self worship is idol worship). Yes, satan wants us to be lax in our approach to Scripture not bothering to study God’s Word so as to gain knowledge of the risen Jesus and how He intercedes for us with His Father on high (Heb. 7.25; Heb. 4.14 – how privileged we are having Someone tried and true in the heavenlies caring for us and helping us solve our problems here below!). Satan wants us to be passive about Jesus and especially when His Gospel Truth is threatened. He wants us to hate His Name (Phil. 2.7-11; Col. 3.17). He will do all in His power to eradicate Truth! He wants the Holy Spirit to be extinguished (2 Thes. 5.19-20). He wants us to be fast asleep and spiritually dead! He wants us to be immoral and ungodly, defying God’s laws. He wants us to be tight-fisted not caring to share the prosperity God is blessing us with. Fact is: Many a time Christians are not saved for if they were, they would have belonged to Jesus, purse and all!
Therefore, let us begin to bless one another so that God will help us to prosper to be able and willing to give!
I have known Christians who have experienced lack, yet who could still share the little they had, and even though things may sometimes have really been tough for them, they were always well-fed and they could keep their heads high, not allowing people to see their predicament. And their testimony again proved God’s lasting faithfulness to those who were crying out to Him in the day of their trouble! Truth is that God has not promised us a complete road of sunshine here below, at least not in the New Testament dispensation where we are called upon to finish the work that Jesus has begun on the Cross (Paul). Let us pray for all Christians (Paul)….
Let no curse come out of our mouths for this is against the commands of Jesus. Let us bless so that we can be blessed in return and let us never take our blessings for granted for we will each have our turn to be cleansed with God’s purifying fires of the Holy Spirit! Let us therefore walk in obedience and in reverence always leaning on Calvary for it is the blood of our precious Lord Jesus that can save us for unless we are purified, we will not be part of the Bride of Christ! Let us therefore always begin with ourselves first and foremost, always comparing us with those who had set the example for us and preserved for us in the Holy Book by those faithful who had gone to great trouble to perform God’s work and of course also by those servants of God who, through their obedience and perseverance – sometimes under strong onslaught from satan – was standing in the gap, always willing to bring the true message of God. We can bring many “Christian” messages, yet there is but one Truth that can bring down the strongholds of satan and it is Truth alone that can set us free! (John 1.17; John 14.6). As outlined in the Holy Book, God is still handpicking his servants among the vast crowd of lip-serving worshippers who very often only sign up to perform “God’s work” yet who are actually doing so for the sake of being part of the crowd! It is said that thousands among the early Christians had opted for denial of Christ Jesus when they were confronted with a choice to either curse Jesus or to die for Him in martyrdom. Will we be like Daniel who was always acutely aware of his own predicament, yet who was decisive to sanctify God’s Name among pagans in and through all his decisions, also his “peculiar” life-style?
The key to a successful life in Christ then is to know what God desires of us so that we can ready ourselves for action!
Like Daniel, we will have to seek God’s face in prayer, even fasting but it is as if satan is buffeting us on all sides just to hinder this type of dedication to God. Let us therefore pray that God will once again enable us to enter this particular one-on-one relationship with Jesus. We have great testimonies of men of God who had encounters with Jesus through fasting and prayer and of course getting away from the crowd. Dedication always has its own price tag and fasting is sacrificing ones personal and physical pleasures. But the reward is always great. As Christianity has generally lapsed into superficiality and laxity, let us pray earnestly for one another so that we can again be able to bring a proper fasting to God for this is the only way we can please God with such an offering. Let us begin to pray and fast for spiritual growth and a true encounter with Jesus. Let us lay our worldy trophies at the feet of Jesus so that He can reward us at His return with the real trophies that will give us something we can delight in. Let us help those who are weak by praying regularly for them and for their welfare.
Part of a series, based on Daniel’s story, written by Esther Blomerus, Christian author encouraging Christians across the world to overcome by faith and perseverance at these End-times, sewing seeds of love among God’s children and urging believers to once again take refuge in Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 3). To be continued…… Copyright http://www.christianhostingplaza.com Your christian Domain and Web Hosting Service
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DO YOU KNOW THE GOD WE SERVE?
GOD INSTRUCTED MOSES TO CONCECRATE THE PEOPLE
Before Israel could meet with their God at mount Sinai (Ex. 19) there was a pre-requisite set for them. Moses was to consecrate them: for two days they had to prepare themselves, They had to wash themselves and put on clean garments.
This primitive people had to realize that, if they obey His commandments, their God who chose them as His treasured possession, (Ex. 19-5) was holy. This also gives us an indication of the awesome greatness of the God of the universe as absolute Ruler. Neither man or animal was allowed to touch the mountain on the day Yahveh was to sanctify Himself before the eyes of His people. Israel’s God was not like any of the gods of the heathen. He could prove His existence on that historic day a people entered into a covenant with the living God . Should they obey Him. He would be their God forever and ever.
WHOM DID MOSES MEET ON MOUNT SINAI?
God instructed Moses to convey this to His people in order to prevent any person to run up the mountain where He was to meet with Moses, His servant, in a thick pillar of cloud.(Ex 19-9)
Ex 23:23 : For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hitites, and the Perizzitesites..and the Canaanites…….
This Angel of God could not be seen by the people of Israel in general. But Moses, Aaron, Miriam and some of the leaders of Israel were allowed to enter into His presence in the Tabernacle Moses was instructed to erect (Num 12-5). Note: The Angel was known as Lord and God. (Jud 13.3 and 13.22) . Moses, however was the only one who saw the Angel face to face. The everlasting God, omnipotent and eternal, far above all the planets, ( our planet earth is but one of them) could not be seen by any man. God emphatically said this to Moses (Ex 33 20.23 and Jesus who came in the likeness of man confirmed this in John 1.18) . The name of God was vested in this Angel, the Chief of all angels (Ex 23 20.22) and Israel stood in awe for Him
SO AWFUL WAS THEIR ENCOUNTER WITH THEIR GOD THAT THEY PLEADED MOSES TO INTERCEDE FOR THEM
On that special Day, the Israelites stood in the presence of their God and so awesome had this experience been to them, that they afterwards pleaded Moses to request God never to appear unto them in the same manner. Although the Israelites did no see the Image of God (the Angel of the Lord) face to face they saw and heard the signs of His presence.
They heard the rumbling of His decend, saw the smoke on the Mountain, heard the loud call of the trumpet and also the blazing fire on the Mountain. Note: this trumpet was not blown by any priest and Israel was instructed not to touch the Mountain until the sound of the trumpet had ceased. We read that the trumpet call grew louder and louder : an indication too that this was all part of the stage God had set before Israel to make Himself known to them as the greatest in heaven and earth.
This trumpet was the Trumpet of the Archangel, the Angel of the Lord, the Holy One of Israel who led Israel from captivity out of Egypt. The Name of the Most High God and His likeness was vested in this Angel. Therefore Israel was emphatically instructed by Moses to reverence Him as their God. (Ex 24.10) the unseen Most High was revealed in Him).
PAUL REVEALS A MYSTERY CONCERNING THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS
Paul endowed with the gift of knowledge and insight concerning the mysteries of the heavenly powers and principalities (2 Peter 3.15) shows us clearly in 1 Thes. 4.16: For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God…
So we can see clearly the correlation between the First Covenant Maker and the Second One: and also the greatness of Jesus of whom Paul witnesses in Eph. 1:19.23).
THE UNSEEN AND MOST HIGH GOD CHOSE A MEDIATOR TO ACT BETWEEN HIMSELF AND MAN
The Most High God chose a Mediator in the likeness of the Chief of His angels (Isa. 63.9) to stand between Him and Moses and gave the first covenant to ancient Israel through Him. In the New Testament God again chose a Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2.5) who, according to Paul (Phil. 2.6-7) had left His Glory to dwell among us. He had been with the Father before He had come into the world, being the firstborn of all creation (Heb. 1.6) (Col. 1.15) whose going forth was of ancient times (Micah 5.2) Jesus prayed in Gethsemane: (John 17.5) O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was
MANY CHRISTIANS DO NOT REALIZE THE GREATNESS OF JESUS
Now we can see the greatness of Jesus our Lord and Saviour who, by obeying His Father, had left His glory to wrought salvation for mankind on the cross of Calvary. Many people see Him as mere man, disregarding the greatness of the unseen Father in Him, never realizing His former glory in the midst of Israel. The prophets knew Him ( Isa. 6 Ps. 34.7 Judges 2.1 Isa. 63.9 Isa. 37.38 1Ch. 21.16) and foretold His coming as Servant of the Most High (Isa. 53 Is. 11).
Therefore, if we now enter into the Presence of God through Jesus, when we gather to worship in the assemblies, let us come in reverence. Although we have the veil of flesh and His abundant mercy through the sacrifice of His Son, our Saviour, on the cross, we must realize the we worship a Holy, Awesome God.
WE MUST HONOUR HIM AND CLOSE OUR EYES WHEN THE SPIRIT MOVES IN OUR MIDST
If the angels closed their eyes when they worshipped Him (Isa. 6: 1-2) how much more do we have to do so. We have to acquaint ourselves, through the knowledge of the Scriptures, with the awesome greatness of an Everlasting God who, in the Name of Jesus His Son, moves among His people through the Power of His omnipotent Spirit. (Jesus said: “ Where two or three are gathered in my Name, in the midst thereof I shall be.”
THOUGH WE HAVE A HIGH PRIEST INTERCEDING FOR US, WE MUST COME IN REVERENCE
We are not to take God for granted, making Him equal to us even though we have Jesus our Advocate and High Priest interceding for us (Heb. 4.14). Some might perhaps claim that we can now, in this new covenant, act fearlessly and approach God in a casual way , but we must always realize that God is a consuming fire (he. 12.29) and that we can only approach Him through Jesus (Rom. 1.8 Heb. 12.24) this great God has elevated our Lord far above all rulers, principalities and powers (Eph. 1.20) and made His Name greater than any other (Phil. 2.9-11) The fullness of the unseen God dwells bodily in Jesus (Col. 1.15) we can therefore see the greatness of God through Jesus. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the Holy One who descended on Mount Sinai before the eyes of the Israelites. He is the one whom David extols in Ps.2.7. He is the One who was raised from the dead by God the Father (Acts 4.10) and is now worshipped by millions of angels (Heb. 1.6-7 and Rev. 5.11).
Can we now see the glory Jesus had left when He took upon Himself the likeness of man and came to dwell on earth as the visible Mediator between the Most High God, His Father, and man? Rightly Paul says (Heb. 12.9) : But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace of God should taste death for every man. I hope that you enjoyed these articles ! Ester Blomerus- Professional Content Writer for Christian Hosting Plaza All articles are copyrighted http://www.christianhostingplaza.com
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