HOW TO RECEIVE KINGDOM BLESSINGS.............After Salvation

   
FAITH TO RECEIVE FROM GOD

Introduction

Faith has been described in many ways.  It has been called the anchor of our Christian faith. It is a spiritual force for obtaining miracles from God, a spiritual currency with which heavenly (Spiritual transactions) are concluded.

 

Faith is described as the victory tablet of believers that determines the quality of life a believer can live and the success he may achieve.  One thing is sure, that faith is believing the Word of God and obeying His instructions.

 

We are saved by faith, healed by faith, delivered by faith have victory over the enemy by faith.  Faith connects us to God and keeps us going with Him.  Faith delivers everything we need from God, faith is the strength of our Christianity and without faith, the righteous man will be stranded in life.  Without faith, the righteous man will not be able to prosper and enjoy his life on earth.

 

When it comes to receiving the promises of God, faith is at the centre of it all.  A born-again Christian should know how to pray and receive anything from the Lord. This is why I will refresh your mind briefly about faith.  The discussion will follow in this order:

Characteristics of Faith

1. Faith is the life wire of Christianity, it is the basis of our relationship with God.  We believe that God is who He is - The creator of heaven and earth, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He is the God of all flesh that calleth the things which be not, as though they be.

2. Faith is the believer's winning ticket for receiving all known blessings and all the creative blessings we may desire from the Lord. Faith involves the totality of a believer and transcends his attitudes, conducts, beliefs and approaches to life itself.

3. Faith is our response to the goodness of God, all the provisions He has made for us before we were born and all His plan and purposes for our lives. Faith is saying YES LORD to the plans of God for our lives and that response is BELIEF, OBEY AND RECEIVE.  As we respond in obedience, we receive the benefits promised.

4. Faith is the lifestyle of redeemed children of God.  In every little and big thing, they commit it to God, search out His mind concerning the matter and obey His instructions to that effect.  They find answers to all of life's challenges in the Word of God and follow godly instruction/opinion and counsel, without considering any shortcuts or other alternatives.

5. For the redeemed, faith is a lifestyle that has no alternative.  God commanded it to His righteous when He said the Just shall live by his faith (Habakkuk 2:4).  It is a lifestyle because it says that the word of God is true, it says that godly wisdom is the principal thing in life and earthly wisdom without godly wisdom is foolishness.  

The Life of faith is not what you switch to when you need a miracle from God...NO! If you switch to faith when you are in need and later return to your carnal self, you will be disappointed, I counsel you to rather LIVE BY FAITH every day!

6. Why should you live by faith - God Himself has told us that without faith, we cannot please Him.  We must believe that God is who He says He is, the rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. You should live by faith because it is only by faith that you can obtain good reports from the Lord, conquer nations and stop the Pharaoh and the Goliath the devil has arranged to withstand your progress in life.  Without faith, you cannot overcome the devil and his agents.

7. Faith is not passive. It means absolute dependence on God and doing the work of faith, which involves walking in His instructions to obtain the promise made. The process of believing is not complete until you demonstrate your faith in action.  There is what you need to do and what to say for your miracle to manifest.  Faith remains alone until action is in place and your action is proof of your faith that God is looking for.

Faith is born when the word gains entrance into your heart, but your miracle is born when you back your confessions up with action. There is no need for confession if you are not willing to take the steps of faith to back up your words.

Possessing your Blessings

The devil rules a person until he or she repents and accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. When a person rejects Satan, he should also reject every demonic alternative his agent offer to people.  He should also be delivered from worldliness, desiring to be like the world, to talk like them, walk like them and dress like them.  The reason is that worldly desire can easily take a person back to the world, or create confusion in the heart.  We were asked to come out of the world and be different, and not to compete with worldly people in fashion fame and money - 2 Cor 6:14-18. Whenever a person separates from the things of the world, the Lord will be enthroned as the "Master" of such life.  

People who live outside of Christ think they are living their own lives and doing their own thing, but that is not true, because there is no middle ground.  If the Holy Spirit is not inside of you, then it is the spirit of darkness that is there, controlling the person.  Without Christ, you belong to the sinful side and are under the automatic and subtle control of the devil.  This is why some people say they just feel like dressing this way or doing something that is strange, without knowing that it is the devil speaking to them, to do it.

After Salvation:

1. Follow Jesus, obey His word and serve Him in truth and spirit.
2. Establish a lasting relationship with God, and learn to be in His presence.
3. Know the person of the Holy Spirit.

The important steps after salvation are very critical to our eternal glory in Christ. After giving your heart to Christ, you should follow Him along the way, learning and being renewed daily by the Word of God.  This is what the Bible means by 'working out your salvation with fear and trembling'. 

Following Christ is important to your soul.  If your soul is tied to the world, to worldly things and pleasure, or sold to the devil, such a believer will hardly think and walk in the spirit and the soul may be lost.  I believe it is for this reason that God advised us not to love the world and the things in the world.  If we love the world so passionately, the love of the Father will not be in us and our soul will be lost, though our spirit may have been saved at one point.

After salvation, we will have to make a choice between the Kingdom of God and the world.  The salvation of the spirit is the beginning of our faith walk, we should seek to overcome the world and sin.  Here comes the irony of the Christian walk.  So many have given their heart to Jesus, but their soul is still in the world and they find it difficult to 'let go' of the world.  So they continue with their old Adamic nature simply because the love of the world is still intact in their lives.  

To possess your possessions after salvation, you need faith, obedience to the word of God, guidance, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. You have to walk in a way that is pleasing to God, you have to walk in obedience to His Word and instructions.  Let's look at obedience.

Obedience

Nothing pleases God the way obedience does.  That is why all through the scriptures you will notice God asking His people to hearken diligently to His voice and obey His commandments.  The Bible is full of this instruction and I will look at Deut 28:1-2, which says 

" And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth.  And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God".

The sum total of our walk with God is to please Him according to Ecclesiastes 12:13 which says the whole duty of man is to "Fear God and keep His commandment" and if God can look down from heaven and say "That is my beloved son/child, then your life will begin to make sense in every way.

Walking to please the Lord is the greatest of all prosperity the child of God can desire.  Many of our heroes of faith were blessed not because they prayed and fasted, but in addition to praying and fasting, they pleased God with their lives.  Starting from Enoch, the Bible says Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

Enoch was a man like me and you, he had a wife and children.  Yet not the wife, nor his children stood in the way of his righteous living to the end that he had a testimony that he pleased the Lord.  God was pleased with Enoch and He did not allow him to see death at all, God took him. Abraham obeyed a difficult instruction from the Almighty God, to sacrifice his son he got from God after 25 years, that was to replace him.

Abraham obeyed God's instruction and God was impressed and God sealed His promises on Abraham and vowed by Himself that in blessing, He would bless Abraham and in multiplication, He would multiply his seed as the stars of the heaven Genesis 22:16-18.  Was it a prayer that earned Abraham the blessing - No.  He pleased God by his obedience.

What is Obedience and why is it Important?

Obedience is simply an expression of faith in the instruction and the giver of instruction. You believe He would do what He has promised, so you take steps to obey His instructions.  God delights in our obedience and relates to us based on our level of obedience.  

Obedience determines what we receive from God.  You are to obey His words written in the bible as well as His instructions to you from time to time.  God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to Him and without questioning, he took the boy on a three days journey the next day to comply with God's instruction. We do not question God, we simply obey, knowing that His thought for us is good.

God never told him what He would do, or that there may be a cow caught in the forest as a replacement...NO.  God does not try us, He gives us instruction which is ever to our benefit if we can obey happily.  Abraham believed in God so much that he valued the instructions from God more than the life of his son.

Obedience itself is a sacrifice when it is not convenient and obedience is superior to prayer.  The Bible says to obey is better than sacrificing.  It will cost you less to obey God than to raise a sacrifice. Disobedience is related to rebellion, and man has the tendency to be stubborn and to revolt.  Many people reject instructions from their superiors, not minding the consequences and thereafter, when they are punished, they start binding demons.

Obedience pleases God because it's a sign that you believe in Him.  It's a sign that you consider Him faithful that made the promise.  When you obey His word and instruction, you are simply expressing confidence and trust in Him.  Obedience comes easy when the Word of God has dominated your heart to become the final authority in your life.

Obedience to God's word and instruction is FAITH.  Obedience is also proof that you love the Lord and fear Him.  No one can claim to love the Lord or says he feared the Lord, who continually disobeys Him.

Though you are created for dominion, that dominion will not happen until the Word of God dominates your life.  When you are under the dominion of His word, and fully submitted to Him, everything answers to you. Beloved, it is obedience to God's word and instructions that establishes your dominion on earth.  Until the word of God dominates your life, you cannot dominate your world. 

Keys to Possessing your Blessings:

1. Determine to Please God
Seek to please God today and always and experience what is called sweatless breakthroughs.  There is a level of blessing you experience when you are constantly obeying God's instructions and pleasing God.  Obedience to His word and instructions validates your sonship, and then all things in the kingdom become yours.  

If you want to move God to bless you, every time you see a promise in the bible you desire, look out for the instructions attached to the promise, obey those instructions and you have got God committed to fulfilling the promise in your life.  No one can please the Lord, without walking by faith and in spirit, calling forth those things that be not, as though they be.  As you please God, you need to be prayerful and develop how to speak words of faith, and how to command things into place, the same way God Himself created the world.

2. Develop fellowship with Christ, God the Father and the Holy Ghost
After salvation, a person redeemed is expected to continue in Christ and developing his faith to relate with the Lord.  You are expected to know the person of Jesus and His acts. You are also expected to know God the Father, His ways and His works as well as the Holy Ghost, your comforter, guide and Destiny Helper.

You are not saved to just play around and make confessions of faith...NO!  You are redeemed to be a different person.  You were born unto spiritual death because of sin and you remain in darkness till you accept Christ as Lord and Savior.  Except you are born again means that only Jesus can transform you from the darkness where you were born into light, the kingdom of God is light and life.

You were not born holy or righteous...NO, nobody was born holy, except Christ.  So you need to develop a loving relationship with the Lord and allow the Word of God and the Holy Ghost to work out in you, those things that are pleasing to God.

You also need to learn and know what to do in the kingdom and how the kingdom works.  If you don't have a relationship and fellowship with the Lord, your salvation is not complete.  Your claim to be His son and daughter is not real until He knows your name. You need to know God deeper, know how to please Him, understand why He created you and then...hit the road running with plans to fulfil your divine assignment.

3. Discover your Purpose in life
What were you created to fulfil on earth?  Everyone created has a purpose for which God created him.  There is an assignment from God for that man or woman and the earlier he/she knows and understands his purpose, the more successful he/she may become.  There is nothing as frustrating as discovering your destiny at an old age when you are weak and may never be able to fulfil it.

Divine destinies are better fulfilled in Christ.  This is why the new convert is advised to seek the face of God concerning his/her divine assignment, so he can focus his efforts in that direction.  Why is this important? It is at the place of destiny fulfilment that the resources to fulfil the assignment are locked up.  

A man is successful before the Lord if he did what God created him to do, otherwise, such a person remains a failure, though he may be seen as a success in the eyes of the world.

 4. Discover and love the Word
Believers are born-again by the Word and without the word of God in your spirit, such a believer is empty. The word of God is God Himself, the word of God is Jesus Christ - for the bible says, in the beginning, was the word and the word was with God and the Word was God.  

The word of God contains godly wisdom, precepts and the mind of God in all things that pertain to life and godliness.  This is why God did not hide anything from us.  The word of God must dominate your entire being - Attitude, belief, actions, and thoughts.

The word is the foundation of your faith and relationship with God.  When the Word of God is built into your mentality, it moulds your conduct and behaviour, and later becomes your lifestyle. The word of God is life, they are seeds for vision, and they are potential pictures.

The more of these positive pictures you can see, the more abundant you will be in the kingdom - for you are not blessed by what you hear, but by what you see.  Let the words you study and read become pictures in your heart today, as you see them, you will possess them also.

You must love the Word, the food of the spirit.  When we love the Word, we would take time and meditate on it and receive a deeper meaning that comes with meditation.  When we love the word, we love God and when you obey His instructions and the Word, we show that we love Him.  Jesus says if you love me, do my words, do my commands. When we love the Word of God, it means we love godly wisdom and instructions.  When we love the Lord, His commands would not be difficult for us to bear or fulfil

5. Love the Lord your God first
Jesus replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments. 

6. Love your neighbour as yourself
In loving your neighbour as yourself, God expects us to have a good relationship with our neighbours.  He expects us to forgive our neighbours who offend us, accommodate and share the good things we have with them and think good about them always, and not evil.  

It was for this purpose that Jesus advised the people that if they bring their seed and offering to the church and there, remember that someone has a problem with them, the person bringing his gift to the Alter should stop there, go back home and reconcile with his neighbour and thereafter present his gift to God.  

God values the relationship with neighbours more than our gifts and presents.  He values love and has no place for bitterness.  Therefore to have a good relationship with God and man, God expects you to:

7. Be full of good Works.  You need to serve the Lord with a pure heart.  The bible says "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" Math 5:8. He says you should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers in behaving like them and covering yourself with spiritual and physical filth.  The Lord says "Touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters", saith the Lord Almighty.

You should be a peacemaker - God expects us to be peacemakers inside and outside the house, for by so doing, we shall be called 'the children' of God."(Matthew 5:9).  He expects us to love our neighbours unconditionally.  This is never easy for a carnal man, but for a redeemed, it is easy.  Your relationship with your neighbours and how you forgive them will determine the kind of Christian you are - a love Christian or unforgiving Christian.

FIRE...