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The Revelation of God

In the book of John chapter fourteen and verse six, Jesus said, “I am the only way (to God) and the (real) Truth, and the (real) Life.” AMP version.

As the Way, Jesus is our salvation, for there is no other name given under heaven for men to be saved. That would mean male and female. Amen!

As the Truth, Jesus is “the revelation of God” and He reveals this to us in John 14:6, by giving us His testimony!

His testimony was given to comfort His disciples and for all people through all times.

He started this comforting in John 14:1, “don’t let your heart be troubled, you believe in God and trust in Him (have faith, hold on to it, rely on it, keep going and) believe also in Me!” AMP version.

Trusting in God is the most comforting thing we can do, and trust is to believe the truth.  Jesus is the Truth based on His own testimony. So by trusting God we also believe in Jesus and fulfill John 14:1. Amen!

It’s our responsibility to hold onto our trust in God, and our belief in Jesus (the Truth).

I wrote this statement down the other day while studying the Word of God and it went like this, “your head will trouble your heart if you allow it.”

We have a revelational ability that we need to deploy when our head tries to make us wonder, this revelational ability is “faith”.

Faith comes by hearing, which is hearing the Good News about the Christ. Amen! Romans 10:17

One of our responsibilities is to attend and be involved in a Bible ministering church. The Good News about the Christ was revealed to Godly men throughout the Bible, and is absorbed by our hearing and receiving it with an open heart.

To truly hear the Word about the Christ we must get out of mindfulness and open up our spirits!

Remember our head will trouble our hearts if we allow it.

Let’s enter into the prayer and worship before the sermon when attending church services, this opens our hearts so we can truly hear.

Mark 4:25 in the Passion Translation says, “For those who listen with open hearts will receive more revelation. But those who don’t listen with open hearts will lose what little they think they have.”

This is the responsibility I was talking about; in this verse “you” is the intended subject.

It is up to us to shut out what’s going on around us, calm our mind, which is a form of comforting that’s in God’s revealed Word. We listen deeply and intently, with an open heart.

The revelation of God is a “must-have” to live a victorious life.  Mark 4:25 says, if we don’t listen with an open heart, we don’t receive any revelation and we lose what little we thought we had.

This back and forth, this gaining and losing only causes us to doubt in Jesus.  Who is our only hope at knowing the Way, operating in the Truth, and living our best life both now and eternally. Amen!

You see, doubt is duo (or double) which always leads to confusion and faithlessness.  Trust is assurance and always leads to confidence. Our confidence is based on our dependence and our relationship with Jesus Christ.

I just brought up another one of those words that we as a people kind of struggle with, “dependence.”

Dependence is relying on another.  In life, many of us have been let down by the people that we trusted, even those close to us. I will actually venture out to say that all of us experienced this letdown at some point in our lives.

You see no matter how great the revelation may be, no matter how intelligent we become, no matter how much knowledge we possess, it will never take the place of a “revelation from God.”

Besides ourselves, God is the only One who knows our spirit!

He made us and therefore we must look to Him to meet all our needs, and that is according to His riches in Glory, by Christ Jesus.

This is Philippians 4:19, a verse that God revealed in-depth to me while I was studying it, and pondering its meaning.

The verse reveals God’s heart in His giving to us, Jesus! Amen!

The revelation went like this, “Jesus Christ became the “way” for God to get riches to us from Glory!

God had all these riches for us, His people, stored up in Glory.  He needed a “way” to get them to those of us on the earth. So He sent His only Son to deliver us from the bondage of sin, and to open up the riches of Glory to us so that He can lavish us with all His Goodness! Wow!

What a great and awesome Revelator, this God of ours. If you know Him, endeavor to get closer, if you don’t know Him, pray this prayer; we can all affirm or reaffirm our faith.

Thank You, God, that the revelation of Your Word is very near to me, it is in my mouth and in my heart. By faith, I confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all and Lord of my life. He has all power, majesty, and authority of You, my God. I believe in my heart that you God raised Jesus from the dead; I also believe in my heart that what you are revealing to me right now is Your saving grace. I confess with my own mouth that you, Jesus, are my Way, my Truth, and my Life, and I thank You for the exchange from death to life, in Jesus’ name.  Amen!

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you like this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content, Acts 4:12, Acts 10:43, 1 Timothy 2:5, John 17:3, all of John 14, Romans 10:9-10, and John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”.  Amen!

Faith, Surrender, or Striving?

I recently read a quote from a prominent Christian preacher, it went like this; “Faith is a result of surrender, not striving.”

The faith movement in our country says we must, fight, confess, and do, do, do; sounds a little more like striving than surrender, so I spent some time looking deeper.

Surrendering by definition is to, “give oneself up to the power of another, or to yield to another.”  It has to do with submitting ourselves and giving place.

The definitions are Biblical and are what we must to do in order to be saved and to serve God. Amen!

Striving on the other hand is to, “make a great effort to achieve or obtain something.”  Is our faith in our actions, or is our faith in God?

To be an effective witness or ambassador, (which is a representative of another Kingdom) requires us to rely on the Holy Spirit to lead us and that my friend is “yielding.”

Living by faith means to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. Believers must appropriate daily, to live as Christians by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. This means that believers must trust the Spirit to empower them in specific instances, such as; temptation, being faithful, and sharing our faith.

Surrender teaches us this daily spiritual interaction and faith requires an act of surrender by those who accept Jesus Christ. Wow!  So, at this point, I am definitely leaning towards surrender, how about you?

Most people including Christians get stuck on this surrender word.  We want to keep control, which leads to striving and not surrendering. Hold that thought!

I believe faith comes in stronger when we trust God and quit striving.  Yes, we fight to hold onto the Word God has shown us, but sometimes that doesn’t require a lot of confessing and work, sometimes we just need to get quiet and surrender.

Meditation helps us surrender.  Claiming, fighting, and striving can lead to confusion, and let’s be honest, clarity from God comes when we get quiet in the Word and surrender ourselves to Him. Amen!

Something great happens when we truly realize that He cares for us and that He will take our striving and replace it with peace and rest.  This is the most contentment we can ever gain. Glory to God!

For most of us, it takes mind renewal to be able to surrender to God, cast our cares over onto Him, and then patiently wait for God to fight our battles. All the faith giants in the Bible did just that. Amen!

Yes, they fought some outstanding fights of faith, just as we have and will, but in the end (and the reason they are in the Book) is because they relied on God and they submitted to Him.

It is our job to cry out the Word, and then God goes into action.  We surrender to Him, and He causes our enemies to surrender to us while we patiently trust His love.

Here is another quote God gave me, “We will never enter into God’s rest without patience and surrender”; this quote was given, “by faith.”

You see “by faith” will never stop being how we receive from God, but striving isn’t faith, surrendering is!

God’s system is already victorious; all we need to do is quit fighting Him!

Sometimes we get mixed up on who or what our faith is in. Our faith should not be in our confessing, although it is necessary; our faith should not be in our works, although they are necessary.  Our faith should be in God, Who always causes us to triumph. Amen!

Here is a statement that is pretty bold, but I believe to be biblically correct, “To be led by the Spirit, you must surrender to God!”  This statement is also true, just because we say what someone else says or follow someone’s ministry doesn’t mean we have surrendered anything to God.

It is our heart that God is after and until we surrender our heart to God we are bound by the enemy.  Faith working through love will get us our breakthrough from striving to surrender. Amen!

It takes greater faith to surrender than it does to strive, and striving will never produce salvation, but surrendering will! That is the exciting plan of God, so we surrender ourselves under God’s mighty hand and He will exalt us in due time! Amen! That is 1 Peter 5:6.

God wants our hearts; He wants to lead us by our spirit.  For Him to have this place in our lives we must do and say what Jesus said, “Not My will, but Your will be done”. Jesus lived to only please the Father, as we surrender, we will too.

So I will end with this; keep confessing, keep doing the things of God, keep claiming the Word, but always surrender your heart, soul, mind, and strength to your good Father God, “First.”

I surrender all, how about you? And yes I say this, “by Faith.”

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you liked this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content, Acts 1:8, Proverbs 23:26, Galatians 2:20, John 12:49, 2 Corinthians 4:16, Ephesians 4:23, Matthew 11:28, Ephesians 2:8-9, Mark 11:21-22, Romans 8:14-17, and, Matthew 16:24-25, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, if anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever surrenders his life for My sake will find it”! Emphasis added.

The Word Manifested

In Matthew 14:28-29, when Jesus said come to Peter in regards to walking on the water, the Word manifested under his feet to allow him to walk on the H2o.

In John 14:21 Jesus says, “Whoever has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love them and show Myself to them”.

The word ‘show’ in this passage is translated as ‘manifest’ in many other translations and texts of the Bible.

John 14:21 was the first scripture that I remember coming alive to me.  I had an inkling in my heart about things pertaining to God while driving home from church one Sunday.

When I arrived at home, the TV was on a Christian channel and the Pastor was saying the exact thing I was pondering about in John 14:21.

I had confirmation about the things of God, through the Word of God, by a Godly minister.

Jesus is manifested through Godly people and by the Spirit! Amen!

In 1 Corinthians 2:10 we see this truth, “but it was to us that God revealed these things by His Spirit. For His Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets.” Amen!

Having a revelation and conformation from the Word of God through the Spirit of God to our spirit is one of the grandest happenings we can have this side of heaven.

God reveals deep secrets to us to either strengthen us in the Gospel or help us in our weaknesses.

But the fact that we have a glimpse of the manifest presence of Jesus is astounding to me and should be our daily quest.

I am not saying these manifestations will occur daily, but if we stay continually in God’s Word, day by day, we open up greater opportunities for a foretaste of life with our Heavenly Father! Amen!

You talk about joy unspeakable, when we have a manifestation of Jesus in our lives, 1 Peter 1:8 says, ” Jesus whom having not seen, you love Him, though now you see Him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of Glory!”

“By faith” we receive the Word of God about the Christ.  “By faith” we believe in Him, “by faith” we love Him (Who we haven’t seen, but have perceived), “by faith” we keep His commands and by this, the Father then shows His love for us and Jesus manifests or shows Himself to us! My, My, My.

You talk about power when the manifest presence of Jesus comes to you, and the Holy Spirit is moving in you, the power of God is present to do whatever is necessary in our lives and sometimes we don’t even have to ask! He just does it because of our faith and His love!

When His love finds us in faith, Godly explosions happen.  These Godly explosions can knock lack, right out the door, blow sickness and disease right off of us and clear the way for the light of God to manifest in our lives, and allow victory to always come.

1 John 5:4 says, “For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.” Amen!

This scripture came right after God was telling us to love Him and keep His commandments.

So to become a whosoever that John 14:21 started out with, and to become a whatsoever that overcomes the world as in 1 John 5:4, we must know and keep God’s Word. Amen!

You see His manifestations will be in direct relation to His Word. I can say from experience, “Stay in His Word daily, love Him, and His manifest presence will take your life to levels you haven’t even imagined.”

The good news is that we don’t have to accomplish a set of guidelines to receive from the depths of God’s love.

Although we do need to believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in Glory, we must love God’s Word, and stay under God’s authority by obeying what He shows us.

Then faith starts coming by hearing and hearing more about the Word of God, He manifests Himself in our open and willing hearts and we see more and more about the future. Amen!

We must keep our Bible open and the right things going in our eyes and ears.  When we do this, Jesus shows Himself strong on our behalf in every area of our life.

I’m a whoever – He’s talking about me.  I’m a whoever – it must be me!

This is a song that we sing sometimes at church, it’s very heartfelt and amazing when Jesus taps you on the shoulder and calls you by name, He changes us from whomever to forever. Amen!

Jesus loves us and when He manifests Himself in our lives, our water opportunities also become, walkable.

Let the Word of God dwell in you richly and look for Jesus to manifest Himself in your life. He loves us with an unexplainable love.

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you liked this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content, Matthew 14:28-29, John 14:21-23, 1 Peter 1:8-12, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Isaiah 65:24, all of 1 Corinthians 13, 1 John 5:4, Romans 10:17,Psalm 27:13-14, and, 1 Corinthians 2:10-12 in the Passion Translation, “But now God unveils these profound realities to us  by the Spirit. Yes, He has revealed to us His inmost heart and deepest mysteries through the Holy Spirit, who constantly explores all things. After all, who can really see into a person’s heart and know his hidden impulses except for that person’s spirit? So it is with God. His thoughts and secrets are only fully understood by His Spirit, the Spirit of God. For we did not receive the spirit of this world system but the Spirit of God, so that we might come to understand and experience all that grace has lavished upon us. Amen!

Living a Prepared Life

What is a prepared life and how do we live it? This is a question we all should ask ourselves.

This question has intrinsic value to our natural ability to have a hope of success and a hope of a succession life!

A life that continues and has successive stages as from glory to glory, or growth to growth would lead us to a preparedness that is sustaining and unending. Amen!

The value we place on different aspects of life will cause us to follow after our hoped-for inheritance.

Those with a natural value will always be thinking of how to please their elders while looking at the possibility of inheriting their goods.

Spiritual people on the other hand are all the time looking to Godly elders for wisdom and an inheritance of goodness on how to live a prepared life.

What or who we subject ourselves to will define our succession process as we move from season to season in our lives, I’m not talking about spring, summer, fall, and winter, but about a span of time characterized by certain circumstances.

As we subdue our own will and gladly become subjected to God’s will, these seasons will cause us to grow from spiritual harvest to spiritual harvest.

1 Corinthians 15:28 in the AMPC Bible says, ” However, when everything is subjected to God, then the Son Himself will also subject Himself to the Father, Who put all things under Him, so that God may be all in all ( be everything to everyone, supreme, the indwelling and controlling factor of life”).  Amen!

As we are preparing and readying ourselves for the coming seasons, a refreshing will come from God and will subject us to right standing with Him.

As we live a prepared life, one focused on the inheritance of eternal life, and move our focus off of temporal things, we grow in righteousness (which is right standing with God).

Righteousness becomes the main avenue a prepared life travels down; we keep our eyes on the road to avoid the ditches, which are located on both sides of the road. You see being extreme is not a new concept, it is veering off the center of a given point, I would say, “hardening your heart”.

Have you ever been on a temporary road or seen the sign that says, “road ends”, following on would lead to a ditch or possibly a drop-off?  Staying at the center of our being keeps us grounded. Amen!

Ephesians 3:16-17 says it best, “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”. 

Staying on God’s path and walking in righteousness was prepared for us before the foundation of the world, and is time tested and true to lead us to a well-prepared and ready life.

Being well-prepared is pleasing to God because without faith we can’t please Him, but with our faith and preparation, we can be well-pleasing to Him now.

“Now faith is”, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen!

As we live our lives and go through the seasons willingly accepting the changes that God brings to us we are being prepared for His use, “by faith”.

Being a vessel fit for the Master’s use is to be sought after more than gold or houses or anything this world has to offer. Amen!

Our usefulness to God will be highlighted by our spiritual accomplishments, not by our worldly possessions. God needs people reaching people!!!

As we ready ourselves for the Master’s use, spiritually fit, mentally strong, and powerful in faith, we will accept the things we cannot change while all the while keying on the thing we can change, “ourselves”.

 As we change, others around us notice, and as long as we continue like an edifice higher and higher we are completing the call of Jesus Christ which is to, believe in Him and make disciples of those we can reach.

Jude 20-22 in the Message says, “But you, dear friends carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit, staying right in the center of God’s love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life. Go easy on those who hesitate in the faith. Go after those who take a wrong way. Be tender with sinners, but not soft on sin. The sin itself stinks to high heaven”.

As we hold fast to the Word of God, it has the power to ready us for the unending peaceful life.

Ready means to be fully prepared, I was in a church service one morning and a little lady looking to be about 80 years old stood up and belted out, “you don’t have time to get ready, you need to be ready”.

She was talking about preparing our entire life for that one moment when, either Jesus comes back for us, or we go to Him. Amen!

Living a life of preparation will have us ready and joyfully shouting, “I’m ready”!

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you liked this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content: 1 John 2:17, 1John 2:29, 1 Peter 5:5, 2 Timothy 2:21, John 1:1-5, Romans 8:4-6, and Luke 21:25-28 TPT, “Expect to witness amazing and perplexing signs throughout the universe with the sun, the moon, and the stars. The raging of the sea will bring desperation and turmoil to many nations. Earthquakes will bring panic and disaster. What men see coming to the earth will cause the fear of doom to grip their hearts, for they will even see the powers of the heavenly realm shaken! And at last, when you see how the Son of Man comes–surrounded with a cloud, with great power and miracles, in the radiance of His splendor, and with great glory and praises—it will make you jump for joy! For the day of your full transformation has arrived.” Amen! So be it with me!