When your motive is love the world will listen to you. Love is the most talked about subject on TV. Love is the theme of most movies in Hollywood. Love is what the world is drawn to, yet they are looking in the wrong places. Jesus laid a foundation for our faith by saying it requires the right motive to get the right results. Faith works by love. Jesus said that if we love as He loved then all the world would be drawn to him.
He also said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all people know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34).
This type of love is not understood by the world, but the world is drawn to it because it comes full of forgiveness and acceptance. This love believes in you and wants the best for you.
The world has forgotten what God is like, so God became flesh and dwelt among us and showed us what He is really like. God needed flesh to show off His love.
Let’s give our flesh to God’s purpose—being examples of love.
Jesus came to reveal not only Who God is, but who we are! Here are a few revelations that the Scriptures give us about Who Jesus is and how much we—all of us—are like Him:
[Now] He [Christ] is the exact likeness of the unseen God [the visible representation of the invisible]; He is the Firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15 Amplified).
Jesus began a new species of god-men. He is the first-born so we are born of His family and likeness in the image of His Father who is now our Father.
“For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Romans 6:5). And when did our resurrection occur? The moment we were born again from death to life!
“…Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him” (2 Cor. 3:18 The Message).
We go from faith to faith, from love to love, from adventure to adventure!
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John yesterday, have now become the Gospel of you today. Christ in human flesh in the Gospels has become Jesus in your flesh today!
Much of the modern church would think this is an extreme goal that is too lofty for humans, but how does the unseen God reveal Himself to humanity? God is revealed in flesh.
There is too much wasted prayer for God to come down and reveal Himself. He will not. He is in heaven with many wonderful ideas, but He needs flesh to reveal those ideas. He needs a voice. Christ in you is what He needs.
As I travel the world and speak to multitudes who do not speak English, I need an interpreter. My ideas are without power until they are heard, received, and acted on. In that way I am like God. He needs a voice. This is an awesome responsibility that God has entrusted us with; the message that saves humanity! If we don’t do it, God can’t do it!
Matthew 18:20 promises that where two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus —He is there in our midst. When the Word is preached, His presence is preached, and His presence fills the atmosphere around us.
In Luke chapter 4 Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, to declare freedom for the prisoners…” Mark 16 says that He sends us to do the same thing!
Declare with me today, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for He has anointed me; His Holy Spirit is upon me.” When we speak His Word, His power and His incorruptible presence is in that Word.
When we are born again He dwells in us, His presence is in us, and we have the mind of Christ. He is there wherever two of us gather together. His presence is here in our midst and upon us, dwelling in us and surrounding us.
Now what does this mean to Christians? It simply means that we are not seeking to find a manifestation of God; we are living in the manifestation of His grace and His presence.
I no longer have to beg God for a miracle, because I am a miracle; He’s come to dwell in me! I no longer have to beg God to show up and present Himself, for I know the miracle of His presence exists in His Word!
The church has settled for a knowledge of the miracle worker without the miracles.
Years ago there was a Wendy’s Hamburgers commercial where a little white haired lady famously demanded: “WHERE’S THE BEEF??” Where are the works? Have we settled for a meatless hamburger?
If Jesus needed miracles to validate His ministry, how much more do you need miracles to validate your ministry? Why should someone of another religion leave their religion and accept your Jesus as the way and the truth? They have a black book and you have a black book. They have morals and you have morals. They have a history and you have a history. What do you have that they don’t have?
The answer is a living Jesus and the proof of that is miracles. Christianity is the only form of worship in the world that can be validated by miracles that no witchdoctor or psychologist can duplicate. The whole history of God’s intervention in the affairs of mankind as recorded in Hebrew scripture is that of miraculous intervention.
Jesus continued the tradition of miracles and we as His followers after Him continue in this same fashion!
Years ago I preached in a Bible school in Latvia. The first time l got up to speak the students started to clap and stomp. When I finished they clapped and stomped some more, and I was gratified that they appreciated my lesson.
A short time later I returned to the front to teach the second session amid more clapping and stomping. When I finished I received the same response, and was really pleased that they seemed to be getting so much from the teaching.
When I got up to teach the third hour they clapped and stomped as usual, only this time when I finished the clapping and stomping was louder than ever.
I was finished with my teaching sessions and sat down in one of the back rows. Another teacher stepped up to teach and the students once again began to clap and stomp. Finally I approached the director of the school and asked, “Why do your students clap and stomp so much? Did they like my lessons?”
He replied, “They’re all freezing. They’re allowed to clap and stomp between lessons to keep warm.”
Several years ago my husband and I preached the Gospel in Africa. Every day many people gathered together and eagerly listened to the Good News. From the first day, I noticed a young African man who was disabled. He moved around on his knees on a special small cart that he had made for himself. I cannot even call it a cart; it was rather a small board on wheels. Crawling on that board, he developed big blisters on his hands and knees. Every day he would crawl to our meetings with the hope of getting a miracle, and God did heal him! The Lord responded to that man’s faith, once again showing everyone that He has an immense love for all of us, and that He desires to change the life of everyone who asks Him!
A large crowd of people that was present at the meeting saw how that young African man, whose legs had been paralyzed for many years, ran up on the stage with a cart in his hands screaming, “Look! I can walk! Look at me! Look!! My legs are moving! Just a few minutes ago I had big blisters on my hands and knees that would never heal. And now, look, those blisters have completely disappeared!”
Full of joy, he knelt back on his cart and showed everyone how difficult it had been for him to move around in that cart for so many years. Then he stood up, pushed that cart aside and walked down the stage!
This is what the Lord does! He wants to heal all people, and He can!
Christians should be the leaders in the field of science, where discoveries are made. They should be the leaders in the business community, where favor is needed. They should be the leaders in the stock market, where having a hunch is often the key to success. They should be the top surgeons in the medical field, where skill and insight are required.
Why? Because Christians have the Anointed One living on the inside of them, giving them knowledge of clever inventions and showing them things to come. “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him”(1 John 2:27).
We are not left to our own intelligence or wisdom in this life. We have a living relationship with God, Who has chosen to live inside the believer!
Understand that God knows where the opportunities are and will readily open them to you! He is on your side. When you run up against a closed door and there are no open doors at all, He will make one for you.
In Astana, Kazakhstan, our team leader and the local organizers came bearing bad news on the day the tent was to go up on the palace grounds of the Muslim president’s own central park. This was going to be a first for Christianity, as no Christian evangelist had been allowed to preach in the capital before and here we were next to the palace grounds in the heart of the city.
The bad news was a flash flood had covered the grounds with six inches of water. The local administrators were planning on abandoning the site, but we rose up as we have done before and said, “NO! We’re keeping the site. Now let’s start draining it.”
In our efforts to try and drain the field, a man with a dump truck drove by and felt compelled to give us eleven truckloads of sand. He was an angel on assignment from heaven, even if he did not know it. It was enough to cover the ground for the big tent so that we could start on time. It was a miracle idea for a miracle moment. God is involved in the affairs of men!
I believe there are moments that transform a life. Your future doesn’t always hinge on the long hours you put into building your present. A new person, new opportunity, or new thought can set you on a dramatic new course.
One of those moments occurred in my life over 30 years ago when a small, $1.25 book called “The Believers Authority” was put into my hand. I had already made my decision to follow Jesus, but a few words from that book shot into my heart: it was not a special anointing, or special education, or special will of God that would change my future. But rather, it is the authority God has given to me already that must be exercised over the devil, the flesh, and circumstances that will be the major determining factor. He had already defeated my enemy, and it was up to me to do something about it!
This took me from stagnation to action. This empowered me for today instead of waiting for tomorrow. This energized my value of decision for destiny, over resignation to circumstance. Understanding what God has done for you and in you, and that His expectation is for you to use it, is a defining moment. He will not do what He gave you the right to do.
Discover this, and you are on your way to an exciting life!
