The Triumphant Church, Part 7

Romans 8:31, 32: "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” How many things are “all things”? ALL! I’ve studied this word for nearly thirty years, and I’ve used various lexicons, dictionaries, and concordances. As nearly as I can tell, the word “all” still means all!

 

Do we understand that God makes everything He has available to us? Do you believe that? All things! Paul repeats that phrase: “God has given to you all things.” He’s given you His kingdom. He’s given you the mind of Christ. Paul said, “For ‘who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”

 

What does that mean to have the mind of Christ? Well, do you believe that Christ is God? Then don’t tell me that you can’t get God’s thoughts. If you have the mind of Christ, you are capable of doing it if you will seek Him. This can only be found in His Word and in His presence. You’re not going to get God’s thoughts by being bent on doing things your own way.

 

Look at Romans 8:33: “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?” Who are God's elect? We are! It is God who justifies. It is Christ who died, rose, and is seated at the right hand of God. It is He who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Distress? Persecution? Famine? Nakedness? Peril? Sword? Paul says, "It is written that for your sake we are killed all day long and counted as sheep for the slaughter," and then he goes on to say "that in all of these things we are more than conquerors."

 

We’re not just conquerors, we are more than conquerors. The Greek word is “upernikaw” (pronounced hoop-er-nik-ah'-o), which means to utterly vanquish, to go beyond conquering. It’s slam-dunk, then rub it in your opponent’s face. It’s beyond conquering. God has called you and I to utterly vanquish the works of darkness on the earth, and it begins in our own lives!

Peace and grace,

Pastor Emory

The Triumphant Church, Part 3

I’d like to talk about growing in grace. It makes me think of a group of women who recently went on an Encounter Retreat with my wife, Vickie, leading the way. That Encounter Retreat was simply an opportunity for the participants to grow in grace. Peter said that we should grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord. How do we go about doing that?

Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” The preceding verses tell us how we can do that. It speaks of Jesus Christ as being our Mediator and our High Priest, the One who was tempted in every way such as common to us, but He was found without sin. He becomes our qualification. Through faith, we are made ready to go before Him, and nothing that we do in and of ourselves qualifies us to do so. In fact, as we all know, if we go before the throne of God unworthily, that makes us eligible for death. You have to meet the requirements to go before the throne of a king.

You’ve seen movies where some crackpot goes before the king unworthily, and what happens to him? His head is cut off! He’s either thrown into a dungeon, set on fire, or some other equally terrible outcome. Nobody just walks in boldly before a king, no less the King of the Universe! I mean we’re talking about God, the Creator of everything that we see, right? He’s the ultimate King! We dare not approach His throne in an unworthy manner. So the writer of Hebrews gives us the qualification: only through Christ. Can you imagine? We have the privilege and honor of coming before God’s throne! He says not only can we enter boldly, but once we get there . . . BOOM . . . what happens? Two key things take place.

• We obtain mercy. That’s automatic! Mercy is waiting for you at the throne. Why? Because without it, you’d be zapped! In and of yourself you don’t qualify. So without mercy, the moment you step before the throne, you would turn into a pile of ash! Praise God, mercy is there just waiting to be obtained. 
• The Scripture says that we find grace. We don’t just obtain it; it’s not automatic. We find it! There is a biblical principle connected to “finding.” Jesus teaches the following lesson. Knock and the door will be opened; ask and you shall receive; seek and you will find! What is it that we seek? We are seeking grace. What is grace? Grace is the divine influence on the heart and the reflection seen in the life.

What have you been seeking? When you ask God for grace, what are you asking for? Many Christians don’t even know. They simply ask, “Oh God, give us grace, give us grace, give us grace.” What is grace? I’ve become a bit more calculated in this. Do I really want to ask for grace? Because when I ask for grace, I’m asking for God to divinely influence my heart. “God, I need grace in this relationship; I’ve been offended by a brother. Give me grace.” Do I know what I’m asking for? Literally, what I’m saying is, “God, I need Your divine influence on my heart and the reflection of that influence to be seen in this relationship.” “Oh, oh, oh, I thought maybe I was asking God to change the other person, God would dump some mercy on them, or that God would just move and do something!” What I’m asking is that God would change my heart and the evidence of that transformation to be seen in my life. That’s what grace is! Do we understand that? We might be a bit more careful asking for grace after we’ve grasped this. No, we need to ask for more grace. We need a greater grace. Why? Because many times our hearts are not right.

The good news, no, the really great news is that we can come boldly before the throne of grace, obtain mercy (which is right there waiting for us), and we find divine influence for our heart. We know that the reflection of that influence can be seen in our lives.

Now what does this have to do with the triumphant Church? Next week we’ll pick up with the topic of being an overcomer. God is trying to show us that this is the way for us to live a victorious life! This is how we succeed! We’re going to read how Paul goes through so much in his life, yet he says, “Thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph!” He says things like, “In all these things we are more than conquerors.”

God hasn’t called us to simply conquer; He’s called us to do more than that. We’re going to do it by the grace that God provides every time we go to Him and ask for divine influence. It’s through the work He does in our hearts, my friends. It’s not through our own strength, ability, good looks, or just because we think we’re all that. Without Christ we are nothing, but through Christ we can do all things, which means we are more than conquerors through the grace of God that is working through us! 

~ pg

Standing on His Promises, Part 4

The last time I wrote, I talked about gaining God’s perspective in every area of our lives. I want to talk about that just a bit more. As we begin to renew our minds with God’s Word, our perspective begins to change; we acquire God’s perspective.

God has vision and provision for every area of life. For sickness, God has healing. We view death; God sees life. He has a totally different perspective than we have in our human mind. So the carnal, unregenerate mind must come into alignment with God’s mindset and with His perspective. That can only happen with revelation that brings conviction. Conviction brings persuasion. The purpose of conviction is to bring about change: transformation. Revelation without transformation has no effect.

So God’s not just revealing His will to us so we can simply know what it is; He reveals His will to us so we will have a conviction about doing it! After we have done the will of God, we will have the promise. Oh, how God wants to lavish the promises upon us! He wants to just pour out His promises in every area of life, but He knows that we must first do His will! In order to do His will, we have to know what His will is. And for us to know what His will is, we have to receive fresh perspective and revelation so that we can develop a conviction that will ultimately result in a life transformation.

Prayerfully we are moving to the place of living according to the principles and precepts of God, and then we won’t even have to chase the promises. The writer of Deuteronomy said the blessings of God will overtake us! They’ll just come up on us! Why? Because suddenly our lives are lined up with the will of God, and then this weird thing starts to happen. We find ourselves at the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, and with the right people. Instead of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing, with the wrong people! Suddenly things come into alignment with the will of God and then boom! Oh, there’s’ one of those promises right there! BAM. Oh God, You’re overtaking me! Is this making sense to you?

We have need of endurance, but in order to have that endurance, our perspective must change. Our human perspective must be transformed in order to have and demonstrate a correct, spiritual perspective. There is a God-given, Spirit-inspired vision for our lives. God has a vision for your life! You may or may not be living out that vision. I’m not judging that. In order to live out the vision that God has for your life, your perspective has to change. You have to begin to see your life as God sees your life. This will bring you to a place of being able to determine ultimate purpose. We talk a lot about purpose, but until your perspective changes, you cannot fulfill your God-given purpose, and that purpose goes beyond you! It actually goes beyond you and your household. Human purpose must come into alignment with God’s will for our lives.

Purpose is simply having an objective. What is your objective in life? What are you attaining to? Someone might say, “Man, I’d be happy to just get a job and pay my bills.” Okay. Let me tell you something. Everything I’ve been asking God for this week has been happening unbelievably beyond what I expect. Do you need a job? Then let’s agree together right now. “Father in the name of Jesus Christ, open the door of employment and opportunity for my brothers and sisters to get the job You have for them. I pray that you each may have the boldness to go through that door no matter how menial the task may seem, and BOOM, a bigger door will open in front of you. May you see that it’s not simply a job or source of income, but it is an opportunity to represent Christ in a place of employment. God, I ask You to open that door of opportunity for each one who is believing You for it.” Friend, now that we’ve prayed and believed God together, when that door of opportunity opens for that job, I don’t care if it looks good to you or not, just do it . . . as long as it’s legal and it’s from God.

As I was stating earlier, my seeking God for a few things recently was borne out of frustration, and I said, “God, I need to see this, this, and this,” and boom, boom, boom happened within twenty-four hours. I’m telling you that God is in a good mood, and He’s just opening up opportunities.

Things are going to start happening! And don’t let your human perspective mess you up. Before you know it, you’ll start weighing things out and thinking about things and get that old unregenerate part of your mind going.

God has promised provision, but many times that provision is a result of us getting the vision and having the perspective of God, which is seeing life, our life, through His periscope. We can ask ourselves, “How is God viewing that? Is God just taking us through a bitter circumstance and trial because He’s a mean, old God who doesn’t like us anymore?” NO! Maybe He brought us to some bitter waters because He knows we need to be cleansed and strengthened and prepared for what’s ahead.

Having done all to stand, therefore stand. Having already conquered, and every one of us has conquered, let’s conquer again! In fact, the Scripture says that we are MORE than conquerors! Why? Because having conquered, we’re ready to conquer again! Aren’t you ready to conquer again? You know, conquering is better than being conquered. The only one I want conquering me is Jesus. I almost got a t-shirt this past week that said, “beautiful losers.” At first I thought, “Who’d want to wear that?” But then I began to think about my life and thought, “I’m a beautiful loser.” And I would gladly lose it all, again, for Jesus. In the world I was a loser, but He made me beautiful.

I have to stop. Hallelujah. I said that God has been answering prayer; He surely has been. You have to change your perspective; you have to find the promise. Isn’t God good?

~ pg