Receiving from God after Salvation!
INTRODUCTION
Faith has been described in many ways. It has been called the anchor of our Christianity, a spiritual force for obtaining miracles from God, a spiritual currency with which heavenly (Spiritual transactions) are concluded.
Faith has been 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 may remain sick, lonely and in poverty many years after receiving Christ.
When it comes to receiving the promises of God, faith is at the centre of it all. This is why I will refresh your mind briefly about faith. So, what is faith?
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 transcend 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 short-cuts 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 them that diligently seek Him. You should live by faith because it is only by faith that you can obtain a 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 working are not willing to take the steps of faith to back up your words.
Possessing your Blessings
Nothing pleases God-like obedience. 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 of 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. Abraham 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.
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 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 to sacrifice. 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 superior, not minding the consequences and thereafter, when they are punished, they start binding demon.
Obedience pleases God because its a sign that you believe in Him. Its 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.
1. Determine to Please God
Seek to please God today and always and experience what is called sweat-less 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, 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.
2. Develop a fellowship with Jesus Christ
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 love relationship with the Lord 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, your divine assignment and thereby hit the road running with your divine assignment.
3. Discover your Purpose in life
What were you created to fulfil on earth? Every one 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 fulfill 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 is locked up. Before the Lord, a man is successful, when he did what God created him to do, otherwise, such a person remains a failure before God, 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 is the foundation of your faith and your relationship with God. When the word of God is built into your mentality, it moulds your conduct and behaviour, and later become your lifestyle. The word of God is life, they are seeds for vision, they are potential pictures and uncommon faith and trust is born when the scriptures become pictures in your mind.
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.
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.
If we love the Lord:
a. We will reverence (Fear) Him - Fearing the Lord Leads to Blessing. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and to fear the Lord is to depart from sin.
b. Keep God's commandments - God loves to bless those who obey Him and He remains faithful to all such people that keep His commandments. In Exodus 20:6 He says He "shows mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."
c. Realize That God Is the Source of All Blessing - All good and perfect gift comes from the Lord and His gifts added no sorrow. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the One who was, who is and who is to come (Revelation 1:8). He is the Source from whom all things flow and every living thing looks to Him for sustenance.
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 to 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, remembers that someone has a problem with them, the person bringing his gift to the Alter should stop there with, 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 godly relationship with God and man, God expects you to:
a. Humble yourself before God and man and have a humble and gentle spirit.
b. Take responsibility for your actions: Repent when you do evil and turn from wickedness. Say sorry to people you have wronged and restore whatever you may have taken from your neighbour on false pretence.
c. Love holiness and hate sin. Hunger and taste for righteousness and also do the works of righteousness - Render help to people in need, be a voice for the voiceless, father to the fatherless, husband to widows, especially those in the household of faith etc - these are works of righteousness.
d. Repent of every sin and evil ways and bring forth fruit worthy of repentance.
e. Let Mercy not leave you - show mercy to the needy for "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." - Matthew 5:7. Be considerate and compassionate. Let all your actions be weighted and remember that everyone needs the mercy of God. Love mercy and let it not forsake you, then will the Lord have mercy on you also. If you are merciful to others, He will be merciful unto you, and mercy triumphs over judgment.
f. Have a pure heart. Remember heaven and the nature of your heavenly Father and cleanse your heart of every filth. 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. He says we should remember His promise to be our Father, and cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
g. 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)
h. Love your neighbours unconditionally. This is never easy for a canal and worldly 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.
i. Expect persecution - Especially when you are living right and doing His will in your life. The bible says "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:10
The way to receive kingdom blessings after salvation is to follow Christ, walk by faith, love holiness and hate evil. Study and meditate on the Word and let the word of God dominate your life - attitude, belief, actions, and thoughts.
If you will fear the Lord and do righteously, you are accepted by God and all the struggle which sin brings into our lives will not be there...and your profiting will be evidenced by all.
FIRE...
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