You and I were once in the kingdom of darkness. The god of this world used to dominate and rule over us with fear, worry, doubt and unbelief. Since the day that you and I each have confessed our sins and unrighteousness to God, put our faith in Christ Jesus, and believe that God has raised Him from the dead, we are saved. We are forgiven. We are redeemed. We are brought from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of light; from the kingdom of Satan into the Kingdom of God. We are born again.
Jesus said, “Unless a man is born again, he is not going to inherit the Kingdom of God.” Jesus is now the Lord of our hearts. He is the blessed Savior and wonderful Master of our life. He rules our life with faith, joy, peace and power of belief in the resurrected Christ Jesus.
We gladly surrender our everything under the lordship of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We are melted, shaped and molded by the power of God to offer ourselves as living sacrifice good and acceptable to God everyday.
God wants us to live by faith. That’s what the righteous do. He wants us to be led by the Spirit, to live by the Spirit and to walk by the Spirit. We no longer want to sin at will. The Laws of God are written in our hearts. He removed our hearts of stone. As a result of that, we do not want to displease God by following the desire of our hearts and be subdued by the natural desire of the flesh and the carnal mind.
However, everyday, you and I have a choice to make whether we choose to yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit or to act according to our selfish, inflated egos or to the carnal way of thinking. As the people of God who were led out of Egypt by Moses but when they encountered difficulties on their journey, they still wanted to go back to Egypt to live, eat and die there. We must get rid of the Egypt-bound and enslaved mental thought process and be transformed into the likeness of Christ and take on the mind of Christ.
We are no longer condemned criminals bound for hell and destruction. We are now the children of God. We are the disciples of Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit has put the seal of approval upon our hearts. We belong to God and to Christ Jesus. He bought us with a price, His blood, His death on the cross. All our sins are paid for in full. We don’t owe Satan anything any more. Satan, the Evil one has no more claim or legal rights in our lives. Christ by his dying on the cross has paid the sin penalty and broke all the curses which were ever put on us. We are free to love God. We are free to worship Christ Jesus. We are free to obey the Holy Spirit and His Word. We are free to live for God. We are no longer our own.
Will you yield to God or to your flesh today when you encounter temptation, when you go through trials of various kinds and the testing of your faith? Will you give thanks to God and be grateful to Him for He has worked everything together for your good and the good of those who love God? Will you be better or bitter? Will you love, or will you hate? Will you submit yourself to God and resist the Devil? Will you draw near to God as He has drawn near to you?
Live by the Spirit and taste how good the Lord is in your life. You and I have a choice to make today to live by faith or by fear. It’s a clear-cut choice; there is no middle ground; there is no neutral position in the spiritual realms, either God or Satan; light or darkness; truth or falsehood; the Spirit or the flesh; believing God’s Word and accepting His gift of eternal life and life abundantly or accepting Satan’s lies, deception and death; God’s power or Satan’s power.
Today, indeed God has put a choice for you and me to make. Therefore, we must wisely choose life and live; we must carefully choose faith over fear; we must courageously choose to do the will of God in heaven. As children of God, let’s live, act and carry ourselves as transformed people of faith who are led by the Spirit to live out God’s plan and will for our life.
Pastor Linh
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