In the Old Testament God told Moses that His name was “I AM.” God never changes, and in the New Covenant I AM now lives in us, reminding us: “I AM what you need me to be, I AM your comfort, I AM forgiving, I AM mindful of you, I AM your healer, I AM loving, I AM a deliverer, I AM a giver, I AM a friend!”
Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom, which is justice, our freedom, our redemption, our justification, our salvation and our restoration. He proclaimed it and then He spoke it when He said to the sick, be healed! Blind eyes open! Deaf ears open! He declared for all time that we don’t have to live under the authority of darkness anymore!
In many areas of life you can slip back into old patterns that you had previously freed yourself from. You wake up one day and realize you are back in the rut of doing what you were stuck in 10 or 20 years ago! This can also happen in your thinking, which ends up limiting the power of God actively working in your life. It happens when you start reading the Bible more as a history book than as a living letter to you, to be applied and acted on every day. Remember, back then it was the ministry of Jesus in a Jew. BUT NOW, it’s not just history, it has become the ministry of Jesus carried out through you!
When the children of God forgot the miracle of deliverance from their past bondage in Egypt, they lost interest in the provision of daily bread as well as the shade by day and warmth by night. They turned their eyes to go back to slavery in Egypt. We all can lose our hunger for the miracles of today and replace our rejoicing with memories of the past. Let us never look back, but plan a future in the impossible!
As you negotiate through the traffic and the bustle of stores, and thrill in the beautifully decorated scenery around you, remember that on that night an angel stood in the heavens declaring the reason for our celebrations. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord…” (Luke 2:11). Merry Christmas! What a precious and amazing gift God has given to us!
We are like the town criers, announcing the truth to people that they are forgiven, healed and free—it’s already been given to them by grace and they don’t have to earn it! It’s God’s justice delivered to His children in Christ!
Egypt kept Israel in bondage for 400 years—long enough to cause them to forget how a free person thinks. When they had the opportunity to be free, they wanted to return to the security of the chains in Egypt. If a Christian is in bondage, it’s not because the devil is so strong, but rather their will to walk free is so weak. How is this bondage broken? By allowing the truth that Jesus has set them free to renew their minds and reprogram their thinking!
People who work too hard at having faith tend to have the least amount of it! They’re more aware of and focused on their lack of it—leaving them feeling like they’ll never measure up—instead of becoming the mountain-movers God intends them to be!
Justified means “just as if I’d never sinned,” but it also means, “just as if I was never a sinner and was never under the devil’s oppression, just as if I had never lost anything, just as if I had never been sick, and just as if I don’t have to be under the curse of the law anymore!”
When you really get it that Jesus paid the entire price for sin, you’ll understand that you’re no longer under the devil’s tyranny and oppression. Know this as confidently as you know your name—the devil has NO power over you anymore, in any area, because Jesus took your sin and permanently gave you HIS righteousness!
