JOB 5:19
He shall deliver you in six troubles, yes, in seven no evil shall touch you.

God will deliver you from all your troubles. (Psalm 34:19, 2 Timothy 4:18) But deliverance is actually not the best that God has for you because it implies that you are in trouble. God’s best for you is the place where no trouble or evil can touch you. And with His help, you will come to that place because the Bible says, “He shall deliver you in six troubles, yes, in seven no evil shall touch you.”

This does not mean that God will only deliver you six times. It just means that as you keep believing God’s promises of protection, after some time, you will come to a place where no evil will touch you!

So when trouble comes, God does not want you to be discouraged. He wants you to know that it is only the devil trying to steal His Word from your heart. The devil is afraid of leaving God’s Word in your heart for even one second because he knows that it will lead you to a place where no evil will touch you. That is why he comes immediately to steal God’s Word from your heart.

He will do so by telling you, “Look, your child is sick. Where is God now?” You must not respond by saying, “Well, I guess it does not work. Maybe God’s promises of deliverance are not for my family.”

No, you must continue to stand on God’s promises. Say, “The previous flu my child had did not stay. God promises me deliverance and He did deliver my child then. So I will live life believing His promises of deliverance because His Word is true. And I will come to a place where no evil can touch me and my family!”

Beloved, even if in the next moment you happen to stub your toe against something hard, don’t be discouraged and wonder why God did not protect your toe. The devil had meant to cause greater harm to you, but thank God that he could not because God is watching over you. And keep standing on His promises until you come to the place where no evil will touch you!

 

…And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Ephesians 3:17–19, NIV

Can you imagine a young child growing up and always wondering in his heart, “Am I pleasing to Daddy? Am I pleasing to Mommy? Do Daddy and Mommy accept me?”  This child will grow up emotionally warped if he does not have the security and assurance of his parents’ love and acceptance.

This is exactly what’s happening in many households today.  Parents are not being living examples of the Father by being selfish and abusive, to their children and spouses.

That is why Jesus wants you rooted, established and anchored in His unwavering love for you. He demonstrated His love for you when He became your sin on the cross so that you could become His righteousness. And when you meditate on and are rooted in His love for you, you will be filled with the fullness of God.

To be filled with the fullness of God puts others before you.  This is not a case of what would Jesus do but what Jesus did.  He gave His life so that we will be His righteousness.  We can go into the presence of the Father with full acceptance knowing He loves us more than we could ever love anyone else.

How could you ever fail at anything when you fully understand how much you are loved and fully accepted, no matter what, by your Heavenly Father?

PSALM 118:8
It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.

A lot of people think that the way to get health is to watch what they eat. For example, many people say that the Mediterranean diet is a very healthy one. I agree, generally. But do you know that the people whom Jesus healed were also on a Mediterranean diet? They did not eat pork and prawns, for example, because they were Jews and these things are not kosher for them.

I know that you want to walk in divine health. But God does not want your focus to be on food—what to eat, what not to eat—or even exercise—how to exercise, when to exercise. All these are natural means which the people of the world trust in. It is better to trust in the Lord and His finished work, than to put your confidence in the latest man-made diet plans and exercise regimes.

At the cross, Jesus took your sicknesses and carried your pains, and by His stripes you were healed. (Isaiah 53:4–5) The Bible even tells us how to escape sickness and premature death—by discerning the Lord’s body when we partake of the Lord’s Supper. (1 Corinthians 11:29–30) But instead of focusing on these truths, many of us prefer to focus on dieting and exercising.

I am not against eating well or exercising. What I’m trying to get you to see is doing it for the right reason.  I exercise some and I try to watch what I eat. I don’t exorcise to the excess but only do what makes me feel good.  In the same way I don’t obsess over what I eat.  I try not to eat a lot of fatty foods because it makes me feel crummy and I try to avoid sweets, which is my weakness, for the same reason.  Know your body and what it does well with and what it doesn’t.

Don’t trust dieting to make you healthy. Exercise not because you trust exercising to make you healthy. No, trust the finished work of Christ to make you healthy. Eat well because you like to feel good and exercise for the same reason!

God wants you to be free when it comes to eating and exercising. Don’t make laws for eating and exercising, and then trust these laws to give you “divine” health. Trust in the finished work of Christ. Discern His body when you partake of the Holy Communion. Just enjoy your food and workout!

Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.  3 John 1:2, NASB

You need look no further than 3 John 1:2 for a prayer that reflects what God’s heart for you clearly is. This verse is the reason you can know without a doubt that He wants you healed, healthy and fully provided for, just as much as He wants your soul to prosper!

Don’t go by human experiences to know if God wants His people healed today. If you say, “Well, I know of Christians who are sick,” I can point you to many others whom God has healed. We’re not called to base our believing on human experiences. We’re called to believe God’s Word.

Never put your eyes on people and their experiences, even good ones. The basis of your faith must always be God’s Word. If you are sick today, don’t focus on your symptoms or compare yourself with someone else. Meditate on His healing promises and believe that God still heals and blesses today because His Word says so!

Many believe they are too insignificant for God to care about them. So how interested is God in us today?

Then, as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread… Jesus said to them, “Come and eat breakfast.” JOHN 21:9, 12

Realize that our God is not just interested in the big things that affect us. He bothers and cares about the minor things that affect us too. There is nothing too trivial for Him. So don’t be like some religious people who have this idea that God only wants us to bring the big issues to Him, and that He doesn’t want us to bother Him with small issues.

Nothing could be further from the truth. God cares about everything that you experience, from the small ulcer in your mouth to your concerns about the world’s economy. Even when you tell Him about the inconvenience that might arise if you’re running late, He takes note of that too. In fact, when you come to Him often about anything and everything in your daily life, you compliment Him because you are telling Him that He is your Daddy God who watches over you.

Jesus represented the Father’s heart and will when He was on earth. (John 5:19) He cared when His disciples were out at sea the whole night, cold and shivering. He cared when they caught nothing that night. (John 21:3) He cared that they would not have fish to sell. So He gave them a huge catch early the next morning. (John 21:5–6) He knew that they were cold and hungry, so He prepared breakfast for them, served over a fire of coals to keep them warm.

Jesus showed us that God is our loving heavenly Father who cares about the big and small things that happen every day in our lives. Nothing escapes God’s eyes, ever, because He loves you.  Don’t limit His love for you by making Him to big to care for you.  Trust Him with your life as the Father trusted Jesus’ life for yours!

 

“No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,

and their righteousness is from Me,” says the Lord.

Isaiah 54:17

If you are familiar with today’s verse, you’ll know that believers usually quote only the first part: “No weapon formed against you shall prosper.”

Now, do you want to know the secret to unleashing this promise of protection, and walking fully in your inheritance in Christ?

It is actually right there in the second part of the verse: “‘…every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me,’ says the Lord.”

You see, it’s when you know that your righteousness is from the Lord that no weapon formed against you will prosper, and every tongue of accusation, judgment and condemnation that rises against you will fail!

Use your faith every day to believe that you are indeed righteous in Christ, and that this righteousness is of the Lord’s doing, not your own doing. This is how no weapon formed against you shall prosper. This is how you live an overcoming and victorious life!

Be Righteousness-Conscious!

Don’t allow others to speak condemnation, judgment or accusation into your life.

When someone says to you, “You’ll probably have breast cancer because your mother and her mother had it.” Or “That looks like arthritis in your hands.” Or “You’ll never amount to anything.”  All these words, and I’m sure you’ve heard many like them, are passing judgment and condemning you to a life of pain, failure and premature death.

They are words of death to a person that doesn’t understand they are the righteousness of God.  Do you see now why you need to be aware of who you are in Christ? 

The enemy has many weapons in his arsenal that are trying to take you out and bring you down.  Even well meaning Christians will speak death words not realizing the power their mouth has to create strongholds upon those not fully understanding their position in the family of God.

I like to tell people that once you’re born into the family of God, you no longer suffer from anything your earthly family has suffered from.  If God doesn’t have it, and Jesus can’t catch it, then why would you think you’d suffer from it?  To be righteous conscious is to fully understand that “As He is, so are you in this world!”

 

Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest…
Hebrews 4:11, KJV

There are so many things to do every day—prepare breakfast, drive the kids to school, finish up your presentation, chair a meeting, meet a client, counsel a friend…It’s like we’re always working on something!

Actually, if there’s one thing that we ought to prioritize working on every day, it is working at being at rest! Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? How can you work at resting?

Yet, that is exactly what God wants us to do. Given our inclination to work, worry and rush to finish all our tasks every day, He wants us to prioritize spending time with Him, and letting His love and words of grace flush out all our agitations, worries and fears.

Make laboring to enter God’s rest number one on your to-do list every day. When you are at rest, God’s grace can flow unhindered through you to accomplish—with ease--all which needs to be accomplished for the day.

Once you’ve reached that place of rest, everything you’re involved in flows smoothly.  Resting creates an atmosphere of abundance to flow without hindrance.  Experience an abundance of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Bear the fruits of the spirit when you rest in Him. (Gal 5:22-23)

Rest in the fruit of the truth that Father has already provided for you today. Receive it and thank Him for it!

EPHESIANS 1:3 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

Some people think that the term “spiritual blessing” refers to only non-visible and intangible blessings like peace and joy. To them, God’s promise of “every spiritual blessing” excludes the tangible blessings of health, provision, a healthy marriage and so on. They say things like, “Don’t expect God to remove this tumor because our blessings are only spiritual.  You’ll be healed when you get to heaven anyway.”

Do you know what the word “spiritual” here means? In the original Greek text, it is pneumatikos, which in this context means having properties and characteristics belonging to the Spirit of God. So if you have the pneumatikos blessing of health, for example, it means that it is of the Spirit of God, and therefore does not depend on your exercising or dieting.  Not that I’m saying to not exercise or diet, only don’t do it only to attain good health.  Do it because you know you feel better when you do.

The same goes for the pneumatikos blessing of provision. It is of the Spirit of God and does not depend on our toiling seven days a week or monitoring the stock market closely.  We’re blessed when the job we have is a pleasure to go to and doesn’t control our every waking hour.

You must believe that you have received every pneumatikos blessing, and you will find yourself enjoying blessings that are eternal, just as God is eternal, and of a quality that only the Spirit of God can give!

What are eternal blessings?  I think first and foremost is to believe in His Son, but broken down in simpler terms, it’s to spend time with your family and friends.  Enjoying your life because you know you are free from the power of sin and death.  Sharing love with others brings joy to the Father’s heart.  We love because He first loved us.

So what do you think about the majority of time?  Is it love for others or is it worry and fear?  I believe we become what we think about the most.  In our thoughts roots are formed.  Are they roots of love or fear?

If our thoughts are the root then our words are the fruit.  Loved filled thoughts produce healthy words that bless.  Fear filled thought produce death. 

Are you fearful about your job or health?  What you fear will come upon you.

“For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.” Job 3:25.  Job feared for his sons lives because of their actions and speaking his fears caused that very thing to manifest in his life.  Before he could speak his fear he had to be consumed internally by it.

What consumes your thoughts?  “I’m approaching 55 and my dad died of a heart attack at 55.  I hope that doesn’t get me too.”  Every little pain in your chest becomes the precursor to your greatest fear.

Child of the Most High God, do you not know that you’ve been born into a new family?  Does your Heavenly Father have heart problems?  Does Jesus?  If they don’t have any problems then why do you expect it?

Even the world knows you get what you expect.  Only most of the time it’s not good they expect but bad.  “Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.”  Haven’t you heard that before?  Does that even sound remotely positive to you?  Why would I have to be careful of what I wish for if it’s something good I want?

I like the definition of hope in the bible.  It’s a confident expectation of good.  The worlds version of hope is, “I hope I get this or that but you never know.”  Don’t we?

As a believer we are told over and over again the good we can expect from our loving Father.  But even believers read about the good and say I hope He will, but really what they’re saying is I don’t think He will, at least not for me.  Maybe someone else is more deserving.

Wake up child of God!  None of us deserve what the Father gives us but we get it anyway.  What a great system!  All bought for the price of one life, Jesus Christ.

Don’t waste what Jesus paid for.  Turn your hearts, and thoughts, towards His goodness and mercy.  Look up, not around.  Take your eyes off the things that are only temporary anyway and fix them on the eternal blessings of God.

Jump into the river of “great expectations”.  If the trees along the bank are thriving then the river of love and everlasting life you swim in is the cause.

 

Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” Mark 4:39–40

I believe that one reason Jesus could calm the storm in this much-loved story was that He was the only one in the boat who was at peace. And what was within Him overflowed and affected the storm outside.

After Jesus had stilled the storm for His disciples, He corrected them for letting their hearts be troubled. And in His loving rebuke, He shows us how we can always have peace in our hearts. He asked His disciples, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” In other words, “Why do you take so little from Me?”

God loves you dearly and has already supplied you with His health, healing, provision and protection through the cross of Jesus. When you know and believe this, fear will flee and peace will rule in your heart. And His peace on the inside of you will cause every storm in your life to subside!

So take much!  Draw from Him moment by moment.  When you live in peace, all around calms down.  Are your children out of control or pressures and deadlines at work about to overtake you?  Step into peace that passes understanding and watch everyone and everything around you line up into the power of peace. 

When peace reigns in you, others sense it.  Know Who’s in control and others will fall into peace with you.  If God is for you, who or what can ever come against you? (Romans 8:31)

Psalm 91:5 says” Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night, nor the arrow that flies in the day.”  If God says do not be afraid, then He has the cure for your fear.  Take a peace pill from the gospel and rest day and night.  Rest assured His promises are always yes and amen!