Reform Church Audio Articles

Length: 3 Minutes

Today, all Christians agree on the love of God for them — at least the fact that Christ died because God loved the world. However, at times there are people that are confused regarding circumstances in their lives. Did God allow this evil in my life? Is this sickness or disease God’s way of punishing me for my sins? The answer to both questions is a resounding, “No!” God does not allow evil in our lives, nor does He inflict evil to a child of His. 

These questions come from a lack of understanding of a God that sent His only Son to deliver us from all evil, not to bring or allow evil into our lives. 

John 17:15 (KJV) I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

The good news is that the God who received the payment for ALL our sins in the body of Jesus, and declares that good news to us constantly, would never allow or inflict death on those He loves and who love Him.

Judges 13:23 (NKJV) But his wife said to him, “If the LORD had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have told us such thingsas these at this time.”

Some may ask, “Would God use someone else or allow them to hurt me? Again, the answer is still “No.” Isaiah says, when people gather against the children of God, He will deliver you from their hand, but He did not send them to oppose you.

Isaiah 54:15 (NKJV) Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake.

The way we are protected from all evil in this world is by allowing the Lord to continually teach us who He is and what He’s done for us. We know who God is as He reveals Himself to us through the Son of His love, whom He sent. As you listen to the good news you will grow and become established in why Christ was sent. When you are perfected in that knowledge you’ll be sure. You’ll know exactly what God gives to you —  life and life abundantly! 

John 17:3 (KJV) And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

John 10:10 (KJV) The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Pastor Jose

Length: 10 minutes

There is this line of thinking that says, “If God wants to be known, why doesn’t He just manifest spectacularly in physical form to prove Himself? If He showed up spectacularly, I would believe.” But this logic is leaving out a very important detail.

Here’s the detail this logic leaves out. All of who God is, and everything that He has provided through Jesus is described this way:

1 Corinthians 2:9 (NKJV) But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Essentially, this is saying that who God is, and what He’s provided to us through Jesus, cannot be comprehended through our eyes, ears, or a mere human mind. There is no amount of studying physical things or human intellect applied, that could ever comprehend who God is and what He’s prepared for us through Jesus. 

Knowing that God cannot be understood through our eyes, ears, or human intellect, why in the world would He try to reveal Himself with spectacular physical form? We wouldn’t be able to know Him by merely witnessing Him with our eyes. God would be trying to prove Himself by an unprovable means. In fact, if God tried to convince us through physical manifestations, He would essentially just be leading us on, making us believe it were possible to know Him this way. If you continue reading this article, you’ll realize this is not a copout, as if God doesn’t manifest Himself physically, but he doesn’t use that to reveal Himself.

When people say, “If God wants to be known, why doesn’t He show up in spectacular physical form,” that logic doesn’t hold up when you realize, He cannot be known by our human senses or mental capacity.

It’s like someone who wants to learn history, but they’re asking you for a math book. That may be what they’re asking for, but they’re never going to know history by that means. Likewise, most people are asking for a sign, but they’re never going to know God by that means. They’re asking for the wrong thing.

The only way a person can be persuaded of the truth of God is by the preaching of the gospel, revealed by the Holy Spirit. Whether that preaching comes from another person or from the Bible, people need the word of God revealed by the Spirit. That’s the only way they can be persuaded. In fact, the word “faith” in this next verse means “persuasion.”

Romans 10:17 (NKJV) So then faith [persuasion] comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

To most people, that is very unspectacular. They want something more. “Don’t just preach to me and say the Holy Spirit will reveal it, if I’ll think on it. I want a physical sign or a manifestation.” Well, there’s a place for signs and wonders for people that are already willing to believe, but God will not give someone a sign to instill faith. As we just read, faith comes by the word of God, and the word of God only. 

That may sound foolish and unspectacular, but that’s the way that God does things. Why? Because our peanut brains cannot understand the true nature of God through observation of physical things. And because we cannot understand by that means, He has chosen to reveal Himself through the gospel alone.

1 Corinthians 1:21 (NKJV) For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

This is saying, “It’s because God understands that people can’t know Him through their intellect, that He chooses to save people through the message of the gospel, even though it seems foolish.” Think about it: If God knows that people can’t know Him through their own wisdom, why would He try to reveal Himself that way? If you can’t know Him by your eyes, ears, or human senses, why would He appeal to you that way? He knows it’s not possible. Therefore, He appeals to people through preaching – whether that’s in verbal form, written form, or through the Bible itself. It doesn’t matter. As the preaching of the gospel goes forth, the Holy Spirit reveals it, and that’s the only way people can know God.

Now, this is important: I am not using this as a copout to say that God does not want to manifest Himself powerfully through us, in spectacular ways. All the contrary. Signs and wonders should happen, and will happen if we believe correctly about Jesus (Mark 16:17-20), but He does not do this to reveal Himself or make people believe. Anytime He does this, He does so to heal sickness, raise the dead, give words of wisdom, or to confirm the word to someone already willing to believe. Jesus did signs and wonders all the time. No problem. But when the Jews wanted to see a sign to make them believe, Jesus called them an evil and adulteress generation for asking (Matthew 16:4).

Did Jesus have something against signs and wonders? Of course not. He was healing the sick, raising the dead, and casting out demons all the time. But God does not use physical manifestations to try and reveal Himself. The only way that God can be known, is by the Holy Spirit revealing the message of the gospel. Sounds foolish to the skeptics, but it’s the only way that works.

This is why, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man assumed that if his family simply saw the dead raised, they would believe. Abraham corrected him and told him that if they were not willing to receive the message of the gospel (by revelation of the Holy Spirit), they wouldn’t believe even if they saw the dead raised. 

Luke 16:31 (NKJV) But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets [the Gospel in the Old Testament], neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’”

God wants to do spectacular works of power through us. But He doesn’t use those works of power to prove Himself or to make Himself known. That means would be a lost cause. You don’t buy someone a math book so they’ll know history, and you don’t give someone a miracle so they’ll know God.

For those that are still not convinced, Jesus did appear to His disciples, in physical form, after His resurrection. That’s exactly what most people want! And guess what happened? When the disciples witnessed Him with their own two eyes… they marveled in unbelief. They assumed He was a ghost. They saw but did not believe in His resurrection. These were His very own disciples, who walked and talked with Him, but faith could not come through what they witnessed with their eyes. But after this, Jesus, by His Spirit, opened their understanding to the scriptures, and that’s what did the trick… as usual. 

Luke 24:40-41, 45 (NKJV) When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled…
Verse 45) And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.

They saw a physical manifestation yet disbelieved. It took a revelation of the word of God to open their mind to who He was. You see? You need to seek the word of God, the preaching of the gospel, and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you. No physical manifestation can do the trick. Only the word of God can instill faith, if you’ll continue in it.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a purpose for signs and wonders. We have teaching on this, but at best, the Lord uses physical manifestations to draw people’s attention to His word. As we preach, the Lord wants to add miracles to confirm what we’re saying (Mark 16:20). At best, miracles only draw people’s attention to listen to the message, but it’s the message itself that instills the faith.

God hasn’t chosen to reveal Himself through preaching, because He’s hiding or wants to make things harder. He does so because it’s the only way we can truly know him. Actually, God would be hiding Himself if He only approached us through physical manifestations. Because the world through their own wisdom cannot know God. Your eye cannot see, your ear cannot hear, neither can it enter into your heart, the vastness of what God has prepared for those who love Him. Therefore, He reveals these things by His word, through His Spirit — not because he’s hiding, but because he wants to be truly known. 

If you want to know God, stop trying to gather enough physical evidence and talk directly to Him. Tell Him that you want to know Him, and start seeking the preaching of His gospel with all your heart. Reform Church is a great place to start. I promise you, if you seek to know the truth of God — not a religion or a trend, but the true God — even if it contradicts what you heard before, you will find Him.

Matthew 7:8 (NKJV) For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

If this article blessed you, share this with someone else!

Length: 21 Minutes

Righteousness is a gift, not by our works, but through the work of Jesus!

This article summarizes many hours of teaching from Reform Church and is taken from our Journey Bible Curriculum (available on our store).

Before we say anything else, we need to know what being “righteous” means. To make it simple, the word “righteous” just means “right.” It can be used in a variety of contexts, but when we’re made righteous that just means that we’re made right. This doesn’t mean that we do everything right (although that can change). No, being made righteous is when God re-creates us right as a gift.

Righteousness is two-fold. It has to do with being forgiven and cleansed (1 John 1:9). 

If you didn’t know, you are three parts: A spirit, soul (or mind), and a body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Your spirit is the unseen part of you, in your body. When you first believe, it is your spirit that God makes completely righteous and perfect (Hebrews 12:23; 1 Corinthians 6:17). 

All of this worked a little bit different for believers in the Old Testament, but that is how righteousness works today.

There are men and women throughout the Bible that God called pleasing and righteous. Mary, the mother of Jesus is said to be highly favored by the Lord. Noah and Abraham are said to be righteous men. And Hebrews 11 is full of people that had a good report from God, a report that they were righteous. But when many hear God call someone “a righteous person” they think, “What a godly life they must have lived. Despite all the sin around them, they chose to do what was right. While they weren’t always perfect, they certainly must’ve been a great example of godliness for God to call them out as ‘righteous.’” While good works and godliness are very important, none of that is the reason God calls people righteous. The only reason why anyone has ever been called pleasing, favored, or righteous before God is because they chose not to work for God and instead believe in the work of Jesus.

Romans 4:5 (NKJV) But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,

People aren’t called righteous because of their right works. Quite the contrary. That verse said that righteousness is for those who decide not to work for it, but merely believe the work that Jesus already did for them. 

One foundational way to know that none of these people were called righteous by their works is because… no one can. No one has the ability. That might sound simple, but that’s a baseline revelation that everyone needs. Apart from Jesus, we can’t do anything truly godly or make any lasting change. The best that human beings can do is have a “form of godliness” and the “appearance of righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:5; Matthew 23:27-28). It’s not that human beings can’t love, for instance, but human love is subject to whether someone is your own or loves you back (Luke 6:32; Matthew 7:11). This is not God’s love. It’s not morally pure. The Bible says that there is none that do good, no not one (Romans 3:10). Jesus said without Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). Isaiah says that even our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). That’s not talking about people at their worst, when they don’t care anymore. That’s talking about a person’s best attempt! Galatians 5:19-21 is a list of what human flesh looks like when it’s working. I’ll tell you; it doesn’t look good! So, thank God we don’t have to work for our own righteousness!

These verses are not talking about believers, neither is it reflective of God’s value on people. God values people immensely, more than His own life. These verses are not describing people’s value. They’re describing the value of our work. They establish the fact that we can’t do this ourselves. There’s no way that any person in the Bible was ever called righteous because God was so proud of how they were serving Him. Enoch, Mary, Abraham, and Noah all could do nothing without Jesus. These are people that much of the church looks up to as if they had achieved something of themselves, but they needed God’s gift of righteousness as much as we do! 

God gave them the titles of pleasing, highly favored, and righteous, even though they had done nothing good for God in their life! That sounds radical, but it’s absolutely true. Any good results you saw in those people was transformation by God’s own Spirit in them, not their own works being served to God for righteousness (2 Corinthians 3:18; 1 Corinthians 15:10). Righteousness was a gift that God served to them, not a result of their service to God!

Abraham was righteous by faith (Genesis 15:6). When he lied, also offering his wife to a king, to potentially sleep with her to save his own life, God still took his side and defended him against his enemies (Genesis 12).

When Abraham didn’t learn from the first time, he did this again and God again took his side. Despite that Abraham was wrong, and the Bible says that the king was innocent (Genesis 20:6), God still took Abraham’s side and stood against the king. How can this be? Because Abraham was righteous by faith and the king was not. Abraham had believed and the king had not (Genesis 20).

God called Lot righteous and would not allow him to be judged, even at a time when he committed the heinous act of offering his daughters to be abused and raped by men to save the angels that were with him (Genesis 19:8; 2 Peter 2:7). 

Rahab was still a prostitute at the time of receiving the spies (Joshua 2:1, 9-11), but because she had accepted the faith of Israel, she was still declared righteous (Hebrews 11:31, 39, 4).

Samson committed himself to ungodly relationships, slept with a prostitute, and not only was he called righteous, but God supernaturally empowered him having just left a prostitute’s house (Judges 16:1-3). 

In Hebrews 11, Samson and Rahab are named as having the same title of “righteous” alongside Samuel and all the prophets of the Old Testament. Their title was no different, because they received that title through the same Jesus as all of us (Hebrews 11:31-32, 39, 4).

None of this is to condone what they did. Sin is harmful to us and others. It’s not that God agreed with their works. He certainly didn’t. They were righteous despite their works. If we will get to know Jesus better, the Holy Spirit will transform our actions! In fact, being made righteous in this new covenant produces good works! You could say, righteousness doesn’t come from our good works, but good works come from being righteous! When God puts His righteousness inside of us (as we will discuss later), it also comes out of us, producing that righteousness on the outside. But if God doesn’t put that righteousness in first, He’s never going to get any righteousness out because we certainly aren’t able to produce it of our own power! 

Being pleasing, pure, and clean is not based on what we do. This is why all those men and women were still blessed and righteous even when committing terrible acts. Their righteousness was secured through Jesus, not the caliber of their performance.

They all had nothing to offer to God, but God had everything to offer them through Jesus. So, they chose not to work for righteousness, but believe on the One who could justify them! Being righteous and pleasing to God is not something we do for God. It’s a free gift we receive through Jesus.

Romans 5:17 (NKJV) …those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)

That verse says righteousness is a gift. That means that there’s not a single good deed that needs to be done or committed to before receiving it (Romans 11:6). Jesus took our sin and everything it deserves at the cross, so we could receive His righteousness and everything that it deserves today! That’s why God can give righteousness to us as a free gift, because Jesus paid for it! 

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV) For He [God] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

This verse says that Jesus became our sin at the cross. But what wrong did Jesus ever do to become sin? What evil did He do to deserve such a title? Nothing at all. Jesus didn’t do something wrong to make Himself sin. He received our sin without ever doing anything wrong. Likewise, we can now receive His righteousness without ever having done anything right. Jesus received our sin without a sinful work, and we can now receive His righteousness without any right work. For all who have believed, we have this righteousness forever!

Many people say that they believe in the gift of righteousness, without works, but so many people still find ways to sneak work in. 

For instance, we will have an altar call on Sunday asking people (who can do nothing) to stop sinning and turn their life around for God, rather than God turning their life around for them. We falsely call this repentance (which, in reality, is just changing your mind to acknowledge the truth, 2 Timothy 2:25; Mark 1:15; Hebrews 6:1; Acts 20:21). We ask people for this so-called “repentance” before they can truly be saved and righteous.

Sometimes, we’ll tell people that “no work is required.” Sounds good. But then we’ll ask people to commit to living for the Lord for the rest of their life before being made righteous. That’s just receiving righteousness on credit. He’ll give you the righteousness up front, but only if you commit to working for Him later. That’s still righteousness by works. It’s just not paying Him up front but paying it back later. You’re not made righteous because you give your life to God, but because Jesus gave up His life for you! Good works are just a fruit, not a prerequisite.

Even when we truly invite people to receive righteousness as a gift, we then compel Christians to maintain their righteousness by their works, saying that if they sin, they are out of fellowship with God or they are in a “backslidden” state (which is a term wrongly used as almost a fallen state of a believer). As if we received righteousness without works, but now our works can affect the quality of it.

There are so many ways that people try to sneak work in as a requirement to be righteous, but Jesus became our sin and paid the price for it at the cross. His work is enough to make you righteous, pure, and clean without you adding to it! There is no work up front or commitment of work later that can make you righteous. Jesus’s work is enough. Only believe. 

Many times, the way that people teach righteousness sounds more like the Old Testament Law, rather than the New Testament gift. Let me tell you how the law worked:

A couple thousand years before Jesus came, people started thinking that they could be right without believing on the Messiah to come. They started breaking faith with the Lord and depending on their own efforts (Galatians 3:19-20). When God saw that people were depending on their work, in a last-ditch effort to save their lives, God gave them the Old Testament Law. That’s the Ten Commandments and all the other commandments with it (Exodus 20). In summary, the law is just a list of good works. 

Knowing that they would fail, God’s intention was for the self-reliant people to try and keep those commandments and see that they could never be right by themselves. They needed Jesus to make them right as a gift (Galatians 3:19-25). 

The Ten Commandments and the whole law was not given with the notion that people could keep it. It was given so that people would realize they can’t keep it.

Romans 3:20 (NKJV) Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin [a realization of our sin, not how to be righteous].

Despite these commandments being in force for a span of over a thousand years, many people today are still trying to do their best for the Lord to please Him or gain approval from Him. God gave the law so the people would stop working for Him and start believing His Son. The law’s intention was to scare you away from it so that you would rest from it (Galatians 2:19).

Some Christians are working for God and they’re thinking, “Wow, this is so stressful.” But they think there’s something wrong with them for thinking that. No, that’s perfect! Working for God is too hard for us! That’s the whole point of the law! God was trying to prove this so people would stop and rest in Jesus! There’s nothing wrong with that thinking! You’re ahead of many preachers!

It’s not just hard. It’s impossible to work for our righteousness (Romans 8:3-4), but the Bible says that through Jesus, a righteousness without the deeds of the law has been offered to everyone, if they’ll receive it. That means that God is not looking for a single good deed to call someone righteous. He’s looking for someone to believe His Son’s work. That simple.

Romans 3:28 (KJV) Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

There are many people who have not yet received the Lord’s gift of righteousness (although they can), but do you know something that will keep somebody unrighteous? Most people would think, “Sin! Continuing to sin would keep someone unrighteous!” By far, no. The Bible says that His gift of righteousness is only for the ungodly (Romans 4:5). Something that keeps people unrighteous is their continual attempts at working for God. 

In Paul’s time, he saw that the Jews were working for God and the Gentiles weren’t. Out of the two of them, it was the Jews that never attained to righteousness because they were seeking after it as if it were by works.

Romans 9:30-32 (NKJV) What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.

One could sin all their life (as we all had), but when they choose to believe in Jesus, they are made just as righteous as Jesus is! But, seeing as work is a dead end, continuing to work for God is something that keeps people unrighteous, just like the Jews of Paul’s time. It’s those that work for righteousness that will never attain it. Faith in Jesus is the only way to get there. 

Ever heard the term “fallen from grace”? That’s referring to a person who can’t receive the grace of God. People usually apply that to sinners, or to “the backslidden” as they say. But that’s not what the Bible says. God gave His grace specifically for those who sin! The Bible applies the term “fallen from grace” to workers.

Galatians 5:4 (KJV) Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

“Fallen from Grace” is a term for those trying to be made righteous by the law (their good works). Righteousness and grace can only be received as a gift, by faith in Jesus. So, if you try working for it, you’ll never attain it. If you try working for it, you will fall from it. 

Of course, even if you are someone who has worked for righteousness in the past, you can change your mind and start receiving the same grace you were falling from before.

Sin is wrong and God wants to transform us from it, but sin doesn’t keep people unrighteous. Sin doesn’t cause people to fall short of His grace. Any form of unbelief does. That includes work.

Some people bring up an understandable, but misunderstood concern about whether teaching righteousness apart from works so strongly will cause people to sin? The assumption is that people will say, “I’m righteous regardless of what I do, so it doesn’t matter if I sin” — using the grace of God as a license to sin.

Well, let’s see what the Bible says. When a Christian lacks virtue in his thoughts or actions, the Bible doesn’t say that they’ve been taught righteousness and cleansing too much. Actually, the Bible says they haven’t been taught enough! Specifically, it says that when good fruit is lacking in their life, they are either blind or shortsighted to how clean they are in Jesus!

2 Peter 1:5-9 (NKJV) …virtue …knowledge …self-control …perseverance …godliness …brotherly kindness …love.

Verse 9) For he who lacks these things [good works] is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

This means that seeing your cleansing and righteousness does not cause sin. All the contrary. Sin is caused when you don’t know how clean you are from old sins! It means you need more teaching (or perhaps, better teaching) on this gift of righteousness. Christians lack virtue in their life because they don’t realize how clean they are. 

This is a biblical principle: What you acknowledge that you have in Christ will be demonstrated in your life. What you don’t know will not be demonstrated (Philemon 1:6; 2 Corinthians 3:18; 2 Peter 5:8). So, what happens when we shy away from teaching the gift of righteousness, thinking it will cause sin? If Christians don’t know they’re righteous through Jesus, they won’t live righteously either.

Essentially, if you’re not teaching the gift of righteousness, you’re not empowering your people to live right.

We say that we want love and good works, but when we don’t teach this message of the gift of righteousness, we’re actually robbing people of effortless, good works. The very sin that we’re trying to avoid, we are causing. That is the definition of counterproductive.

What about people that twist the grace of God into a license to sin? They certainly exist, but the only people who do that are those who do not know God at all.

Jude 1:4 (NKJV) …ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

These people that twist the grace of God into an excuse for lewd behavior are not people that understand the Gospel. They are people that deny it! Anyone who knows the gospel will be transformed (Romans 12:2). In fact, if you think the gospel is an approval of sin, you don’t yet understand the gospel. The Gospel isn’t an approval of sin. It’s the message of how Jesus was condemned to cleanse you of it! 

It’s not mere grace and the gift of righteousness that produces results. It’s knowing it, that produces good results! If you deny the knowledge of God, of course that will produce an advocacy for sin in your life — all forms of it (1 John 4:8). But when people truly know what Jesus did for them, it will only ever produce godly results with time.

The danger is not in teaching the gift of righteousness. The danger is when people don’t know it. 

Think back. How much work did you do to become a sinner? None, at all. We were all born into sin through Adam. Adam sinned in the garden and made himself sinful. Then everyone that was born of him thereafter was born into his sinfulness.

People aren’t sinful because of what they do. People are made sinful through the deed of somebody else, Adam. Their sinful works are just a byproduct.

Romans 5 tells us that Adam, in this way, is a symbol of Jesus. Just as Adam made us sinners because of his work, not our own, so Jesus has made us righteous, through His work, not our own. We entered Adam’s sinfulness because of a deed he did. Likewise, we have now entered Jesus’ righteousness because of a deed He did, not of our own!

Romans 5:19 (NKJV) For as by one man’s [Adam’s] disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s [Jesus’] obedience [not ours] many will be made righteous.

We weren’t made sinners because of something we did. It was because of one man, Adam. Whenever we sinned, we only did so because it was the nature that Adam gave us.

Now, we’re not made righteous because of what we do. It was through the one Man, Jesus’ work! When we do righteous deeds, we only do so because it is the nature that Jesus gave us!

We’ve received Someone else’s righteousness, through Someone else’s work (1 Corinthians 1:30)! This is why Jesus is called the “last Adam,” because it is through this One Man’s work that we’ve received the identity we have today (1 Corinthians 15:45). And if you didn’t receive it by your works, how can you lose it by your works? If your works did not gain it for you, then how could your works defile it?

You received God’s pure righteousness through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus. All we did was believe and receive a gift.

If this blessed you, share this with someone else!

Length: 5 minutes

If you didn’t know, Jesus became your old man at the cross (Romans 6:6) so that you could be exactly as He is today. In fact, a believer is so much like Jesus, the Bible calls Him your mirror. That means when you see Jesus, you’re seeing what you look like.

2 Corinthians 3:18 (NKJV) But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image [on the outside] from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

This verse says that we look at the glory of the Lord as in a mirror. That’s talking about Jesus, in His glorified state right now. When you look at the state Jesus is in now, you are seeing what you look like on the inside. We use mirrors to see who we are (James 1:23). That’s why it’s calling Jesus our mirror here. If you want to see your face, you don’t look at your face, you look at a mirror. You look at something else to see what you look like. And we also need to look at someone else to see what we look like! We look at Jesus and His characteristics to understand who we are and what we have! Defining Jesus is how we define ourselves, because we have everything He has (Romans 8:17)!

We know everything Jesus knows, we act the way Jesus acts, and speak the way Jesus speaks. I’m not talking about your flesh, on the outside. I’m talking about your spirit, on the inside (Hebrews 12:23). All these things are inside of you, but you can’t see them with your eyes. So, the way God reveals what you have inside is by showing you Jesus — not Jesus in His crucifixion or in His earthly ministry. Rather, as 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, Jesus in His glory – His resurrected form.

Look at this passage here, where John was having a vision of Jesus.

Revelation 1:17-18 (KJV) And when I saw him [Jesus], I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not… I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen…

When John saw Jesus, his body gave out and fell down as if he were dead. Look at the beautiful thing that Jesus did in response. When Jesus saw that John’s body had given out, to assure John that he would not die, He told him, “Fear not… I am He that lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.”

Did you catch that? If John was concerned that he would die, why would Jesus start telling John, “I am He that lives”? To most Christians, they wouldn’t even see a correlation. Why would Jesus reply, “I am He that lives” when John was the one who fell down as dead?

To assure John that he wouldn’t die, Jesus revealed something about Himself to John. Instead of telling John, “You won’t die” or “You will live,” Jesus said, “I am He that lives…” Jesus used Himself as a mirror for John to look at. Jesus knew that if He is alive forevermore and does not die, then John had that same privilege and ability, through Him. So, Jesus was assuring John that he wouldn’t die, by showing John that Jesus Himself will never die again. Jesus assured John that he would live by showing him the Jesus Himself lives forevermore!

Jesus could have said “You won’t die” or “You will live,” and perhaps John would have been assured that he would not die in that moment, yet John would not have understood the full extent to which he was free from death. But when Jesus says, “I am He who lives, and was dead, and am alive forevermore,” John’s eyes are drawn to Jesus to define his inheritance. Now John looks at how alive Jesus is. Now John looks at how free from death Jesus is! Jesus is not just alive. He’s alive forevermore! He is perfect! He will never die again! 

Instead of John looking at his own body or circumstance to find himself, Jesus was drawing John’s eyes to Himself, because it’s only in finding Him that we find ourselves.

It’s not about what you see in your body or in your life, what you do, what you say, or what you think that defines you. As a born-again believer, it’s Jesus Christ that defines you now. Once you know that, what you say, do, and experience on the outside will change into that same image also, but you need to define yourself first.

Don’t contemplate who you are. Just find out who He is and you’ll end up defining yourself altogether accurately. Whatever He has, you have. Whoever He is, you are now. Whenever Jesus says, “I am…” pay close attention to what He says after that. Because whatever He says next, you can apply to yourself as well, just like John.

If this article blessed you, share this with someone else!

Length: 5 minutes

I have heard many people that have either given up on their faith or backed off of seeking the Lord. Many, if not most of them, say that it’s because of betrayal or hypocrisy that they see in the church. But we are missing something if we are leaving God because of something one of His kids did. How would you feel if someone left you because of something someone else did?

Imagine one of your family members stole something, yet you were accused and sent to jail? Wouldn’t it be unjust to accuse you for something someone else did?

Imagine your spouse left you because someone at work mistreated them. Wouldn’t it be unfair to hold you accountable for something someone else did? 

It also doesn’t make sense to stop seeking a God that has nothing but love for you because of something one of His family members did. God is not your local pastor. God is not your fellow believer. Don’t stop seeking God because of something someone else did to you.

Ultimately, why is it that many people leave church when a believer betrays their trust? Why is it that many people give up seeking the Lord when a minister lets them down? The only reason this happens is because many people think being a Christian is about the community of believers around them, rather than communion with the One who made them. 

If you asked most people why they go to their specific church, their first response is not usually “the knowledge of Jesus being taught.” Many people will say “because they loved me and treated me like family when I walked in” or something to do with the style and culture of the church. Many people go to church with a primary focus on the community and family atmosphere. 

I’m not saying we shouldn’t treat one another well, but if being a Christian becomes about the community of believers, when that community inevitably lets you down, no wonder people give up on this “Christian” thing (or rather, what they thought being a Christian was). 

Instead of basing your life around the community, if you based your life around communion with The One who loved you, there is no betrayal by a fellow believer that would put a damper on being a Christian. You would realize that being a Christian is about getting to know what Jesus has done for you, not what His ministers have done for you. Being a Christian revolves around how Jesus has treated you, not how people are treating you. Being a Christian is not centered on community. It’s centered on communion with the One who died for you.

Now, should we seek Jesus together as a community of believers? Absolutely. We should never forsake assembling ourselves together (Hebrews 10:25). Anyone that is truly seeking the Lord would never withdraw from the company of believers. But the community of believers should not be centered on the community itself. We, as a congregation of believers, should be centered on one goal: Knowing Jesus. The community is to help bring our attention to Him, not that being a Christian is about the community itself.

Whenever being a Christian becomes about the community, then the treatment of that community will dictate to us whether we stick around or not. When being a Christian becomes about getting to know Jesus, there’s no betrayal, mistreatment, or hypocrisy from a believer that would make you skip a beat.

If being a believer was about the community itself, then the story of Noah would have never existed. At the time, the Bible doesn’t state that anyone else on earth was righteous except Noah. The Bible doesn’t even say that his family was righteous. Actually, it implies that they were only saved because Noah himself was righteous (Genesis 7:1). Noah was a preacher, and very possibly, there was not a single person that was listening to him, nor believing like him at the time (2 Peter 2:5). If Noah was in it for the importance of a religious community, he would’ve never sought the Lord to begin with. He had no community.

Noah wasn’t in it for the fellow believers. Very likely, there were none. He wasn’t in it because his local church treated him like family. He didn’t have a “church family.” He was in it for the One that loved him and was to give Himself for him. Noah was in it to know Jesus. Because of that, despite the lack of community around him, he was in it for the long haul. We have him today as an example of someone who found favor with God.

Being a Christian isn’t about who is around you or how they’re treating you. Being a Christian is about how God has treated you through Jesus.

We should never neglect attending church. We should never neglect getting together with fellow believers. We should never stop assembling ourselves together as a community. Never. But if this community is worth anything, it will be because we’re all encouraging each other to look at Jesus, instead of looking to one another.

If this article blessed you, share this with someone else!

Length: 7 minutes

Today, in the church, faith has been twisted out of shape. It is hard to say “faith” without many people having many different opinions in their head. But faith is not what you’ve heard before. Let’s see how simple and beautiful it is from scripture. 

To a lot of Christians, faith is believing hard enough that what God says will come to pass. To other Christians, faith is about speaking something forth, before it ever happens. And still, to other Christians, faith is about acting upon what they believe. But all of this is simply not faith. Faith is a spiritual perception to see Jesus. That’s what it means. It’s not believing something will come to pass. It’s not speaking something before it happens. It’s not an action you take. Faith produces good words and actions, but faith is not any of those things. It’s just seeing Jesus — understanding what Jesus did a long time ago. 

Pay very close attention to this. Below, Paul says that we should not look (with our minds) at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

2 Corinthians 4:18 (KJV)  …we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen…

Ok, so Paul is talking about focusing on the unseen (in our mind), rather than focusing on the things that are seen. In other words, he’s contrasting a focus on spiritual things with a focus on physical things. We can either focus on the things that we can see with our eyes or we can focus on the unseen. Simple enough. He’s contrasting two types of “seeing.” But just a few verses later, look at how Paul refers to “seeing the unseen”:

2 Corinthians 5:7 (KJV)  For we walk by faith, not by sight

Notice, first Paul contrasted “looking at what we can see” with “looking at the unseen.” But now he’s contrasting “walking by what we see” with “walking by faith.” Did you catch what he did there? If you read those verses carefully, he replaced the term “looking at the unseen” for the term “faith.”

Paul is defining faith as “seeing the unseen.” Paul defines faith as a kind of spiritual perception. Faith is being able to perceive and understand spiritual things in your mind, that your eyes can’t see!

So, faith is a spiritual perception. It’s being able to see (or believe) spiritual things in your mind. But let’s be more specific. What exactly does God want the eye of your mind focused on (Ephesians 1:18)? What unseen thing does God want your mind to see?

Hebrews 11:27 (NKJV) By faith he [Moses] forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.

First, this verse says, “by faith” but then it says that Moses endured as “seeing Him who is invisible.” Faith is a spiritual perception. True. This verse confirms that, but specifically it is about seeing a Person. When this verse speaks of “Him who is invisible” it is speaking about Jesus. Faith is seeing Jesus in your mind. Not that we should try to picture Jesus’ physical form or something like that. No, faith is a kind of spiritual perception by which we can believe and understand what Jesus has done for us, even when we have not seen His finished work with our eyes (yet).

Faith is often used for other religions, but ultimately, in the biblical sense of the word, faith is not applicable to false religions. If someone is believing inaccurately, they’re not really seeing the unseen. They may be religious, but they’re not seeing the unseen correctly. Otherwise, they’d believe what Jesus did for them. 

Even simply saying “faith in God” is not enough. It’s about understanding what Jesus did, because God is not self-revealed. We need to see the Son in order to see the Father (1 John 2:23). It’s about seeing Jesus! Faith is a spiritual perception to see Jesus! 

1 Peter 1:8 (NKJV)  …Though now you do not see Him, yet believing…

We need to uncomplicate faith. I think most Christians would agree with most of what we have said here — faith is seeing Jesus. While believers may agree with this, we still have so many other definitions for faith that we add. The problem is not that Christians disagree with this. It’s that we add so much to it! We complicate it so much. 

We will say, “Yes, of course, faith is seeing Jesus”, and in the next sentence, “Faith is an action,” or “Faith is speaking something before it happens,” or “Faith is taking your manifestation by force,” or “Faith is believing that God is going to show up right on time.” Faith certainly has a lot of definitions today, but it seems “seeing Jesus” is just one of many. Yet of course, it is not. 

Faith produces a lot of things. Faith produces powerful good works and spirit-filled words, but faith is not those things. It produces those things! Faith is simply a spiritual perception to see Jesus and what He did.

Finally, let me add that faith is not a future tense belief, being assured that something will manifest (that’s called Hope). Faith is a belief in things that are true presently. For instance, Jesus is really inside of us. Healing is really inside of us. Wisdom and power is really inside of us. You can’t see it, but it’s truly there. It’s something that’s already happened. It’s something that’s already real. Faith is simply understanding these facts, before your eyes ever see it. Faith is seeing things that are unseen, not seeing things that are unreal.

Unfortunately, most people think that faith is believing and acting on something that isn’t real yet, that is, until it becomes real. That’s why, for instance, a person in a wheelchair might say, “What wheelchair? I don’t have a wheelchair. I’m speaking forth my faith.” But that’s not faith. That’s lying. Faith is seeing the unseen. If that person is a believer they could say, “I believe Jesus already healed my body on His end. I believe I have my healing inside of me and can access it through Jesus.” That’s faith! Those things are actually real. Faith is just seeing it before it comes into the physical realm.

So, get to know Jesus and take your time doing it. Faith is not all of the complicated things it’s been made out to be. It produces a lot of great results, but faith is just understanding what Jesus did for you 2,000 years ago. 

Hebrews 12:2 (NKJV) looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…

If this article blessed you, share this with someone else!

Length: 8 Minutes

Many times, believers look at things they’ve done in their life and think they’ve messed everything up. Or they look at some hardship they’ve experienced and feel they’ll never recover. Or they may have gotten off track and feel like everyone has left them behind, forgotten. The truth is, if you’ll take the gospel and believe it, you can thrive no matter what has happened.

I understand that no one wants to go through a hardship. God doesn’t want that for you either. I understand that no one wants to do the wrong thing or mess things up in their life. God doesn’t want that either. But the miracles that God has for you are not based on how bad your performance is or how bad the tragedy was. It’s based on what Jesus did at the cross. And He already succeeded! If you would just steadfastly believe it, you’d receive miraculous fruit in your life – fruit so miraculous, no one will be able to recognize you from where you were before.

Psalms 1:2-3 (KJV) …in his law doth he meditate day and night… and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

It takes all the discouragement out of messing up, when you know that Jesus already carried your faults so that you could be blessed despite your works, if you’ll just believe Him. It takes all the discouragement out of a hardship, when you know that Jesus already bore your pains so you can be revived and renewed, if you’ll believe Him. These things barely look like a bump in the road when you see that, because of everything Jesus has done, you can believe Him and thrive (3 John 1:2).

The only thing that can hold you back from thriving is your own unwillingness or slowness to believe the truth of Jesus. But if you’re willing to pursue the truth, no matter what you’ve believed before, you will inevitably thrive in the blessings of God, no matter how things look in the present. Nothing can stop you from walking in the blessings of God, but you. And I’m not talking about your sin. I’m talking about your thinking.

If you let your mistakes convince you that you can’t recover from them, then you won’t. Not because you can’t recover, but because you believe you can’t recover. That is an antichrist mentality. Jesus became your sin and took the consequences, so that you could be changed and thrive apart from your works. What’s stopping you? Just what’s between your ears.

If you’ll let your past hardships convince you that you can’t get out of them, then you won’t. Why? Not because Jesus hasn’t already declared victory over your problems, but because you don’t believe it yet. The issue before you is not the problem. It’s the mentality in you.

Jesus’ death is a door to absolute prospering in every area of your life (heaven on earth). Nothing can stop you from entering – not your family, not your circumstances, not your past – only an unwillingness to reach out and receive it by faith. On the other hand, if you refuse to allow mistakes and hardships to dictate your future because you believe Jesus died for your past, present, and future, then you will prosper. There’s nothing more to say about it. Jesus paid for it. You believe it. You will prosper.

When you know that you can thrive no matter what you’ve done or where you’ve been, why would you sit there and be discouraged over something that wouldn’t make a difference to your future, if you’ll just believe Him? You sit there thinking you can’t recover from this, but if you’d just get up and start learning what Jesus did, you would prosper! What’s the problem? It’s more than possible. It’s inevitable. But you need to hear Him.

Suppose there was a runner. He was preparing for the biggest race of his life, but a prophet came up to him and told him, “On the last lap you are going to trip and fall, but if you keep running you will inevitably win the race.” Suppose the runner verified that this was true. When he runs his race and then falls on the last lap, do you think he’s very discouraged? Do you think he sits there on the track sobbing? Do you think he throws in the towel? Absolutely not. Why? Because he knows that this fall will not hinder him from winning, that is, if he keeps running.

That fall is like any mistake or hardship you could ever experience in this life. If you would just believe (keep running), you would walk in victory like it never happened! It’s inevitable.

If that runner didn’t know ahead of time that he could still win the race despite his fall, that trip could be very discouraging. Thoughts could be running through his mind as to whether he lost it all. But when he knows that he will still prosper if he keeps running, it saps all the discouragement out of it. “What difference will that make if I keep running?”

Likewise, when you know the gospel ahead of time, you know that no mistake or hardship can keep you down. You’re not receiving through your work or through your circumstance. You’re receiving through the cross of Jesus Christ! And that door is still accessible! If you would continue to believe the Lord and the grace He provided to you, you would inevitably prosper. You would inevitably be in health. You would inevitably grow and impact the lives of others. It is inevitable, but you must keep running! By running, I’m not talking about just keeping your chin up. I’m talking about pursuing the gospel with all of your heart.

If that runner stopped out of discouragement, he would’ve lost the race. Not because he couldn’t have won, but because he allowed discouragement to convince him he couldn’t succeed. His fall wouldn’t have caused his loss. His beliefs would have (Hebrews 3:19, 4:3). 

You can quit out of discouragement and you will not finish the race. You will not see the blessings that God wants for you, but it won’t be because you couldn’t have. It would only be because you stopped and believed a lie that the work of Jesus was not good enough to prosper you out of your situation (Mark 6:5-6).

Thank God this is not true. Thank God He sent a Savior to rectify our mistakes and free us from our hardships. Thank God, He redeemed us from our cruel bondage and set us at liberty to receive grace we didn’t deserve!

Runner, there is nothing holding you back from living a blessed and prosperous life except you and your beliefs. Faith is how you access the grace of God (Romans 5:2). That means that unbelief is the only thing that keeps you from laying hold of it. A mere belief is keeping you down, not your mistakes or hardships. A mere belief is keeping you where you are. The question is, will you let a simple belief keep you where you are? Or will you get up and acknowledge the truth of the cross of Jesus?

Jesus did enough for you to thrive. He’s not asking you to fight your way out. He already did that. He just wants you to believe that He already fought for you. He wants you to believe what He already accomplished. If you will devote your mind to learning the truth of what this one Man did for you, nothing will be impossible for you (Mark 17:20). You will forget the shame and the toil of your youth. You will enter a new day of blessings and security. Don’t take my word for it. It was paid for with blood.

Isaiah 54:4 (NKJV) For you will forget the shame of your youth…

Genesis 41:51-52 (NKJV) “For God has made me forget all my toil and all my father’s house… For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

If this blessed you, share this with someone else!

Length: 5 Minutes | Download>

Most everyone sees pride as an emotion that is built on self-reliance, but guilt is just the same. Pride is just self-reliance with the belief that you’re succeeding. Guilt is self-reliance with the belief that you’re failing. Both are self-reliance which we need to trade for Jesus-reliance.

If you feel that your purity and sufficiency before God is based on what you do (which is what many Christians are taught), you’re relying on yourself. Everything is weighing on what you do. If that’s the way you feel, when you do something right, you’ll feel pride (as any self-reliant person would), but when you fail, you’ll feel guilt (which is also self-reliance). 

The problem is not simply that we shouldn’t feel guilty. The problem is that we shouldn’t be relying on ourselves. We should be relying on God’s righteousness that we have received as a gift. We should be relying on the work of Jesus, who paid for us to have it.

When your Purity, Integrity, and Competence is another Person, Jesus, and not from yourself, how could you ever feel guilty from something you’ve done? You can disapprove or disagree with something you’ve done. That’s perfectly acceptable. But you’ll never feel guilty, dirty, or insufficient in the slightest if you knew that your integrity is Jesus Himself, through what He did at the cross.

The same thing goes for pride. You could never feel proud and lifted up because of something you’ve done, when you know that Jesus is your Righteousness, not yourself. Everything worthy that you have is found in the person of Jesus. It’s not from you. (1 Corinthians 4:7).

When you rely on your own work, you’ll feel prideful when you think you’ve succeeded, and beat yourself up when you slip. The common denominator is you. That’s where self-reliance gets you. It gets you pride or guilt, but they’re two sides of the same “self-reliance-coin.” It just manifests differently whether you believe you’re succeeding or failing. And trust me, no one has ever succeeded on their own.

When people feel guilty, many try to cheer themselves up by telling themselves they did a better job than they actually did. But you see, they’re still relying on themselves. All that will do is push you into pride. When people are proud, many try to depreciate themselves, to convince themselves they’re not as good as they think. While it’s true that we can’t do anything without the Lord, that will just push someone into guilt. The problem is, they’re still relying on their own performance! Whether they convince themselves their performance is good or bad, it’s still about their performance, not about Jesus.

The same thing goes for people that are either depressed or prideful based on their looks, speech, or personality. It’s all just highs and lows based on you, not trusting in what Jesus has done — not realizing that Jesus has provided a better you. In fact, He has given you the image of Himself on the inside, if you’re a believer, and it’s ready to come out! The problem is in looking to yourself for sufficiency.

When I was younger, there were a couple of people in my life that I noticed were always the butt of everyone’s joke. They were teased quite often, so I made up my mind to complement them and lift them up. I did this for only a few weeks, and it’s funny, rather than humbly being encouraged, they started bragging. That’s not what I expected, because I didn’t realize that, whether through complements or criticisms, they were still making it all about them. Whether they were up or down, failing or succeeding, ridiculed or complemented, they were still basing everything on their own performance. They were still relying on themselves.

The answer is to realize that, while we could do nothing of ourselves, we don’t have to, because everything needful to be done has been done by Jesus. He has completed us. For those who believe, our integrity and purity comes from Him, and what He did at the cross. This takes your eyes completely off your performance, it makes you give up on yourself, and leans all your weight on Jesus. That’s Jesus-reliance. That won’t lead to guilt or pride. It takes your eyes completely off yourself and sets them on another Person, as your Righteousness, Competence, and Sufficiency.

Jeremiah 23:6 (NKJV) In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell safely; Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

The answer is not to put yourself down or lift yourself up. The answer is to forget yourself, give up on yourself, and start trusting Someone else. Start trusting Jesus. 

When you mess up, you’ll be so thankful that Jesus is your righteousness. When the Spirit works something right through you, you’ll be so thankful that Jesus is your righteousness. Sounds like consistency, doesn’t it? And that’s how your emotions will be: Consistent. Consistently happy. Consistently content. Consistently satisfied with the work and person of Jesus. Yourself? Eh, yourself was lost when you received Jesus. What you see in Him is your new self (Romans 6:6).

Give up all hope in yourself and start relying solely on the finished work of Jesus. Your works could never cut it. His work already has.

If this blessed you, share this with someone else!

Length: 8 Minutes

Sometimes, even though we know that we should be meditating on Jesus, our minds can get caught up, chasing after the so-called “good things” of this life. Whether that’s wealth, our job, other people, or any earthly pleasure. These things can be temptations to draw our mind from the Lord, but here’s the answer to keep you from getting caught up in the world.

The answer is to see the Lord as your source of every good thing, even adding all earthly things you need. 

When you see the Lord this way, it’s pretty easy to seek Him. Who wouldn’t seek someone that they thought was the source of everything they could ever want? If you saw the Lord as the source, you’d never look away from Him. Even when you needed earthly things, you wouldn’t neglect Him. Why would you? If He’s the one that adds all profitable earthly things to you, to neglect Him would be to neglect the addition of the earthly things you need. That wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense.

It’s like someone seeking for golden eggs, but neglecting the golden goose. It doesn’t make sense. You’re seeking for something, but neglecting the source. If you’ve got a golden goose, focus your attentions there. Don’t neglect it. What you need, it produces. 

When someone is chasing the things of this life, instead of the Lord, it is a clear evidence that they don’t realize the Lord is the source of everything they need, even power toward earthly things. They’re seeking after the world for happiness, entertainment, security, and well-being. All the while, these are the very things that the Lord, (I say respectfully) our Golden Goose, produces for us. Not to mention He would add many of the very earthly things you were seeking! Whether it’s relationships, finances, position or honor. You’re out there seeking for something in the world that God adds to those who seek Him! You’re out there looking for gold, but neglecting the Goose, who is the source.

The problem is not that people need to be forced to seek God. The problem is, people don’t know that He is the source of what they’re looking for. That’s the only reason people don’t seek Him. No one in their right mind would neglect Him if they knew who He was and what He’s offering. Jesus said this exact thing to the Samaritan woman.

John 4:10 (NKJV) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

Jesus said that if the Samaritan woman knew the gift of God and who He was, she’d be asking Him for what He had to give. So, if you’re not asking and seeking, it’s because you don’t know what’s on the table. If you’re not furiously seeking after the knowledge of Jesus, but seeking the things of this world, it’s because you don’t see the Lord as the source of everything you need — including empowerment toward many of the earthly things you’re trying to add for yourself.

It’s funny, people neglect the Lord to seek earthly things, but when you see Him as the one that adds “all of these things to you” (Matthew 6:33), even if you need earthly things, you end up seeking Him all the more, not the stuff! Why? He’s your source. 

I’m not saying that the Lord is merely the source of power toward earthly things. He’s blessed us with all spiritual blessings, but that certainly includes power toward profitable physical things (Ephesians 1:3, Deuteronomy 8:18).

Am I saying that we should just seek God for His benefits? The problem is, people see God and His benefits as two separate things. God is those benefits. The thing we need is Him! He is our righteousness, power, wisdom, peace, happiness, health and well-being, protection and redemption, life and length of days, and all heavenly things. And while He is not wealth or physical things to us directly, He is power toward all these things. 

In Matthew 7:11, Jesus said “How much more will your Father give good things to those who ask Him?” InLuke’s account (Luke 11:13), He says “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” Why this discrepancy? Because His Spirit in us is the good things that we need. So, we seek Him because of who He is to us. He is what we need! Jesus is what we need! 

The benefits are not something that God gives you separate from Himself. All the benefits are merely qualities of who He is, being produced in your life. 

When people aren’t taught everything that Jesus is to them, that’s when they go out and seek it from the world. After all, if they need it and Jesus hasn’t provided it, then they’ll seek it elsewhere. But when you find out the fullness of what Jesus provided — that it’s all inclusive, that it’s everything you need for this life and the one to come, why would you go anywhere else? Seeking Him, His kingdom, and His righteousness just starts making the most sense. Everything’s going to be added. 

When people don’t realize that Jesus is the source of what they need, they look elsewhere. But when they realize that Jesus is the source, they look no further than the cross. Want to get people’s eyes on the Lord? Show them that Jesus is the answer to what they’re looking for. 

God warned Israel against forgetting him and taking pride in earthly wealth. Listen closely to the advice that God gives, which would keep them from neglecting Him for physical wealth?

Deuteronomy 8:13-18 (NKJV) and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God… then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ “And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth…

What was God’s solution for people that would forget Him, taking pride in physical wealth? He said, “Remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth.” The solution He gave them, to not be distracted with earthly things, was to remember that He is the source of everything they needed, including power to that very wealth! 

When you neglect mindfulness of Jesus for other things, you’re forgetting that you’re neglecting the very One that would add all these things to you. 

This is also why, when David had become very wealthy and honored, he started seeking for himself a wife. He saw Bathsheba and he was willing to lie, steal, and kill to get her. After he had done all these things in seeking her for himself, what was the Lord’s advice? He told him that He was the one that made David wealthy. He was the one that gave David all of Saul’s house. The Lord said that if David had thought it was too little, He would’ve added to him much more. What is the Lord doing here? He’s establishing Himself as the source in David’s mind (2 Samuel 12:8), because if David had remembered that the Lord was his source, even to add earthly things, he would’ve never sought what he needed from the world. He would have turned to the Lord when he needed something, and the Lord would have added the very things he began seeking after. 

David was looking for gold, but neglected the goose! He was seeking for things on his own that the Lord would have added. 

You can see from these examples that when people seek the things of this life, God’s advice to them is to recognize Him as the source of what they need. It’s very tempting to turn to the world, when you think God is withholding something from you. But it’s very tempting to turn to God, when you know He’s offering everything to you.

If you continue to recognize the Lord as the source of everything you could ever need or want, no matter how much you need physical things, or how much they are increased in your life, you will never turn away from seeking Him with all your heart. Why would you seek anything else? You’ve found the Golden Goose.

If this blessed you, share this with someone else!

Length: 10 Minutes

God is not asking us for any payment for the things He’s given, but when things hinder our knowledge of Jesus, those are things we should certainly let go of — not as if we’re offering it to God, but for our own sake. Trust me, when you give something up to know Jesus more, you’re not making a sacrifice. You’re letting go of the things that make you poor, for a Wisdom that wants to make you rich.

There are so many cares in this life that can serve as distractions from our knowledge of Jesus. It doesn’t even have to be sin. It could just be earthly. It could be unprofitable relationships, things on our agenda, certain career goals, or any earthly thing. Even if there’s nothing wrong with it, in and of itself, when things start hindering our knowledge of Jesus, it’s time to change it or let it go, so that we’re not held back from entering God’s fullness!

I’m not talking about making a sacrifice for God and Him rewarding you for your good deed. Unfortunately, most Christians believe that they can give something as a show of trust, and He will open the windows of Heaven to reward them for it. That’s the Old Testament and not what I’m talking about. In the New Testament, Jesus already offered one sacrifice to pay the Father on our behalf (Hebrews 5:1-5). There’s nothing more we owe the Father. There is no return He wants from us. Jesus has paid the Father in full for everything we receive. We’re square. We don’t receive from God because of what we give to Him, but because of what Jesus, our High Priest, gave to God for us.

I’m talking about letting go of things in life that are hindering us or slowing us down, to more fully pursue the things God has for us! You’re not giving to God. You’re giving it up for your own knowledge sake.

Of course, I’m not saying we should leave true responsibilities to the side, but there may be certain distractions that we have convinced ourselves we can’t change, even though it’s in our power to change it. If we are willing to make those adjustments, in order to see what God is showing us, it will be like pruning a plant. You’re not pruning it to take away from the plant, but to make it more fruitful (John 15:2 ASV, Ephesians 5:26). 

It’s worth it, to give something up that’s making you poor, for something that can make you rich. Look at what “wisdom” says in Proverbs 8. Wisdom is personified here as a woman and is a symbol of Jesus. I encourage you to read the entire chapter, but here’s a bit of what she says:

Proverbs 8:10-11 (NKJV) Receive my instruction, and not silver, And knowledge rather than choice gold; For wisdom is better than rubies, And all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her.

Verse 19) My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold, And my revenue than choice silver.

Proverbs says that we should choose wisdom rather than silver and choice gold. Notice the words “rather than.” This is saying that when you’re faced with a choice between wisdom and some other earthly thing, choose wisdom rather than the alternative. Now, why would we choose to seek wisdom? Because what it produces is better than anything you could desire elsewhere. In fact, it says that nothing you desire could even compare to it. Not even close. 

The fruit that Wisdom produces in your life is better than gold, even fine gold. It is long youthful life and health to your body, it’s order instead of chaos, it’s clarity of mind instead of confusion, it is resurrection for those that have died, empowerment to physical wealth, a wiping away of all your tears, a perfect peace and happiness, and deliverance from all the trouble in this world, no exceptions. In short, it’s perfection. 

What could you possibly desire to hold onto, if it were to the detriment of this wisdom? Nothing you desire could ever compare with her. She’s the answer. She’s what you’ve been looking for, even if you didn’t know it. Anything you could give up to receive this wisdom, wouldn’t be regrettable, it would be despised in comparison.

When God calls you to let go of things or relationships in your life that are hindering your pursuit of Him, He is not trying to take value away from you. God is asking you to let go of what’s in your hand, because it’s keeping you poor, in exchange for something that will make you incredibly rich.

I’m not saying that this applies to everything in your life. I’m not telling you to be rash or insensitive. But I am telling you to be honest with yourself. Sometimes we try to convince ourselves that something isn’t a risk to the knowledge of Jesus, but if it has that potential, why would we ever want to keep it the way it is?

Maybe you hold onto it for a while. Maybe you keep it in your back pocket, but why would you want to do that? God’s not asking you to change it because “life is about sacrifice.” No, Jesus was about sacrifice. God wants to make you manifestly rich. God is trying to bring His fullness out of you. If we’re only focused on the earthly thing in front of us, we may not be seeing that right now, but those are His only intentions toward you.

2 Corinthians 8:9 (NKJV) For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

Jesus suffered utter poverty, being in love with you, so that you could be made rich! When the God who wants to make you rich asks you to leave something behind, it’s not for the sake of sacrifice, but for the sake of enhancement and enrichment (1 Timothy 6:17).

Let go of unprofitable relationships that can hinder your progress. Let go of the noise in life that drowns out the voice of God. Let go of the things in your schedule that you once deemed important, but are slowing you down. The funny thing is, when you let earthly things go for the sake of knowing the gospel, you’ll find that the things you let go, God adds to you later in far better fashion! You simply can’t lose!

Mark 10:29-30 (NKJV) So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions [because people won’t like you for it]—and in the age to come, eternal life.

This is not about God rewarding you a hundredfold for a good deed. This is about you letting go of earthly things to pursue the gospel, and yet gaining more through the gospel than you ever could previously. 

By the way, Jesus is not talking about leaving your family or your spouse behind, but when you pursue the gospel, people may leave you. If that happens, but you continue in the truth, the gospel will far overcompensate you! Either, those people and possessions will come around and be restored to you or God will restore better relationships and possessions in their place. Whatever worldly things you give up, the gospel will restore a hundredfold, and in the age to come, an eternal world!

The point is, there’s nothing that you can give up for the sake of pursuing the gospel that you will ever regret. When you pursue the truth of Jesus with all your heart, He’ll bring out all his spiritual blessings from the inside of you, and add all physical things to you as well! It’s not a sacrifice. It’s an investment in knowing the One who wants to enrich you.

In 2 Chronicles 1:7-12, Solomon was faced with a decision as to what he would seek —  silver, gold, and physical things, or wisdom. God told Solomon to ask of Him whatever he wanted. Rather than Solomon asking for riches, honor, or the lives of his enemies, Solomon just asked for wisdom. Good choice! It’s revenue is better than any earthly thing! But when Solomon asked for wisdom, not only did he get all the blessings and life that goes along with it, but God also added all physical things to him as well! So much so, that there was no king who had more riches, wealth, and honor, before or after him. When you put an extreme priority on wisdom, you step into extreme fruit.

In a sense, Solomon let everything else go in his mind. He placed the priority on wisdom, seeing it as his answer. And when Solomon saw the value of wisdom, that it was worth letting everything else go, he received the value of that wisdom in his life!

If you give up relationships for the sake of knowing Jesus, God will add truly beautiful relationships to you later, which will profit you and not distract you. If you (responsibly) give up certain career choices that would hinder your discipleship, God will add honor, position, and great wealth, more than what you gave up. If you let go of the noise of life or things in your schedule to see Jesus, wisdom will always overcompensate you.

When you see the value that God wants to add to your life, the things that you thought were gain, start seeming like loss, if it hinders your knowledge of Jesus. You just don’t wish to tolerate it anymore. If it hinders your pursuit of wisdom, enough is enough, because nothing you could ever desire compares with this.

Philippians 3:7-8 (NKJV) But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ

This is not about you giving something to God, and Him rewarding you. This is you having a clod of dirt in your hand, with your fist clenched tight, and God wants to give you a diamond. But if you don’t let go of that dirt, and drop it to the ground, you can’t reach out and receive the diamond. What are you actually sacrificing? What are you really giving up? You’re not giving anything to God. You’re simply letting go of the thing that’s making you poor, to pursue a wisdom that will make you rich. 

Let go of that clod in your hand. God has destined you for more than this. Choose wisdom rather than any earthly thing, because nothing you desire can compare with her.

If this blessed you, share this with someone else!