OPEN THE DOOR

“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” Revelation 3:19-20

 

We all want an encounter with the healing, blessing and deliverance Provider but many of us choose to ignore the truth that it is repentance that opens the door for God to enter. In this life, nothing good comes without discipline. But it takes maturity that comes from faith to understand that God works through circumstances of life and can use anything to discipline us, if we go off track. From this angle, trials, tribulations and difficulties can truly become our friends as they force us to reconcile our heart with God, and submit ourselves to His will.

 

King David, a man after God’s heart understood this truth when rather than retaliating and punishing Shimei for cursing him, he said to his men, “Leave him alone; let him curse, for the Lord has told him to.  It may be that the Lord will look upon my misery and restore to me his covenant blessing instead of his curse today.” 2 Samuel 16:11-12

 

David knew that the way we respond to our discipline matters to God, because God tests our hearts to reward us. Our response to correction determines our future in Christ. Humility welcomes correction as a blessing and responds with the right adjustment of the heart toward righteousness and opens the door of mercy and favour. Pride despises and rejects correction and responds with a rebellious attitude of heart and triggers judgment.

 

James 2:13 says that mercy triumphs over judgment. We need a greater understanding of God’s heart toward us. He wants the best for us and nothing good happens without correction. God is our Father and loves us too much to leave us without correction. He is standing at the door of your heart, knocking. Let your repentance open the door.

 

  

 

GOD FIRST

18 April 2024

“Let’s take a lesson from David who was ready to be humiliated in his own eyes, so that God could be honoured. Ask yourself: Where does honouring God appear in your list of priorities? Do you thank Him for all that He has done in your life, all the way long? While men look at the outside, God looks at the motives of the heart. Instead of worrying about the opinion of others concerning you, let the motive of your heart each day be to honour God before yourself.”

THE SACRIFICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

6 April 2024

“There is no time to do what is right. We must set our heart to obey the Word of God, all the time. God’s kind of lifestyle calls us to do what is right in the sight of God at all times, even though it is contrary to what we naturally want to do. Choosing to do what is right is a great test to the flesh.

What is the sacrifice of righteousness? Choosing to do God’s will rather than our own. When our flesh says hate, God says love. It takes sacrificial love to love your enemy and to pray for them. These are the weapons of righteousness. This is the sacrifice that Jesus looks at and rewards. Even though that might not be a grand, or outward sacrifice, it is what Jesus values.”

LIFE ANEW

1 April 2024

“When we talk of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are talking of the rare opportunity He has given to all believers to experience a new beginning – a situation in which every dead area of our lives receives life anew.

We are dead to our past and alive to our future. Sin’s power over us is broken and we now put on Christ’s new life: we live in Him, move in Him and have our being in Him. Herein lies the significance of resurrection.”