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Christ in me, the hope of glory

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Advent Thought – The Promise of His Comfort.

“Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God.” – Isaiah 40:1

The coming of Christ into a lost world is good news. It is the news all creation has waited to hear. It is the news that healing is here, captivity is broken, oppression will cease, peace will be restored and the glory of God will be revealed to all mankind.

It is good news because God full of goodness, mercy and compassion demonstrates to us, the ungodly and the helpless his love. His love is greater, more self-sacrificing, more amazing and abundant than any other love.

It is given to us, the way it was proclaimed to God’s people through the prophet Isaiah. It is poured out to us when we were rebellious, when we had resistant thoughts and when we had a disobedient attitude towards God. For just like Israel and Judah we were not running towards God trying to find him, we like them were running away from God, hiding from Him, not wanting to be embraced and found.

Jesus Christ died for us when we were lost. He died and at that moment every past, present and future sin was eternally forgiven. It was a once and eternal sacrifice reconciling a loving, good God to a lost, shameful, rebellious creation.

The light of the Good News of Christ is that he has transferred our darkness into his abundant, radiant brightness.  In our rebellion there is comfort, there is hope because God has given us a confident expectation of His goodness, and that is in Christ we now have abundant life.

We have passed from the shadows of despair into his glorious, bright light.

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psalm911

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Today’s Impression – Align Yourself to God.

Today I had the impression of these words laid on my heart: –
 
Today is a day to align yourself to God.
 
To bring your thoughts, your mind, your feelings in line with what you already possess in your heart.
 
The encouragement of the Father is to align your heart with his heart and embrace the abundant life that is yours.
 
Don’t be drawn into viewing and seeing everything from the natural, don’t be influenced by worldly wisdom, but transform your thoughts by letting the power of the Holy Spirit wash over you with His goodness, mercy and compassion.
 
Remember Paul on the road to Damascus, God took the most vehement hater and persecutor of his Son, the man intent on destroying all Christ has accomplished and changed him into the most powerful writer and ambassador of Christ. This was accomplished through the grace of God. God’s goodness and his provision changes our worldly reasoning into divine power and life.
 
So if you want, you can agree with me:-
 
“Thank you lord for all Christ accomplished for me at the Cross. Thank you Lord, that you have provided health, healing in my body and mind, thank you Lord that you have embraced me with all the blessings of heaven and that my Spirit, soul and body are wrapped in the power of Heaven. I align my thoughts and feelings to your word, I align my life to the power that works within me and I thank you that today you are going to do exceedingly abundantly above all I could ask or think, because your power is within me.”
 
Jesus Christ accomplished a complete salvation at the Cross, Forgiveness, health, wholeness and freedom are all ours, today align yourself to the life of Christ working inside your heart.
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Word Whispers – 1 John 5:14-15.

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have whatever we asked of him.” – 1 John 5:14-15.

In Jesus Christ we are now the child God created us to be. His call to us from before time was to enter into all He planned and purposed for us. His will for us was birthed in Jesus Christ, formed in Christ, provided and given to us in His finished work. The cross was and is the declaration of God’s will to all who desire to listen.

Our confidence is now rooted and grounded in the finished work of Christ. It is not based upon our performance, effort and work. We can now be fully persuaded of God’s goodness towards us, in the fulfilment of all His promises through Christ.

And because our confidence is based on the finished work of Christ, we know that whatever we ask of him, he has already provided and given to us. For today, in Christ, we live in the day of answered prayer, the season of Christ’s eternal harvest, the time of the Lord’s everlasting favour.

You can be certain that God hears you, responds to you and gives you all the abundance of heaven through Christ.

Today is a day of anticipation and expectation.  You can anticipate goodness and unfailing love dwelling in you and flowing from you and you can expect the favour of God to shower his blessings on you and on everything you touch.

Let your whispers to your Father be filled with confidence and trust in all Christ has accomplished for you at the Cross. For you live in a day of answered prayer.

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Word Whispers – Colossians 4:2

“Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving” – Colossians 4:2

Grace at its deepest root means joy or rejoicing, and God accepts us into his arms and rejoices over us forever! Within us is a deep, deep well of living water formed from droplets of thanksgiving.

God has committed himself to you, He delights in you with gladness and is happy with you. He will never cut you off from him, leave you, reject you, abandon you or leave you alone to fend on your own. He is here inside you and He delights in you.

Jesus’ perfect work of grace has brought you into the relationship you always longed for, always wanted. In Christ, you have unconditional love, acceptance and intimate satisfaction.

Therefore, the pure satisfaction of our hearts united with Christ is an overflow of delight, vocalised with declarations of praise.  For thanksgiving is the voice of faith.

You were created for intimacy with God, to look in wonder at his wonderful provision, to touch the velvet skin of creation, to smell the perfumed fragrance around you, to hear the glorious sounds and to taste the delicious, healthy delights given to you. Everything God created was to fill your heart with delight and share with him his goodness,  that overflowed in a song of thanksgiving.

The essence of prayer is intimacy, the overflow of prayer is love and these are made beautiful with a heart of adoration.  Knowing all Christ has provided for us, experiencing his goodness in our life, is the way we cement ourselves into our abundant life.

Let thanksgiving be always in your heart and on your lips, for every word of thanksgiving confirms faith and realises the promises of God in you.

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Words Whispers – Psalm 62:8

“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” – Psalm 62:8

God loves us as we are. We can be bundles of doubt, confusion, insecurity, pain, turmoil, frustration, self-contentedness, envy, and irritability. And even when we act awful, think awful thoughts, feel awful feelings, do the worst things imaginable, God is there, God loves us, accepts us and takes us under his wing. He is our refuge, our everlasting shelter, the safe harbour in the storm.

He has committed himself to us by placing His Spirit in us to abide forever.  His Spirit gives us complete security that he is on our side forever.   The finished work of Jesus Christ at the cross declares that if God is for us, no one and no thing can stand against us.

We can place our trust in Him, because He is totally trustworthy.  He has covered us in His love, bathed us in goodness, wrapped us in grace and embraced us with His kindness.  Our hearts have been united with his heart and our desires are now infused with His holy desire.

And trust is simply our heart’s positive reaction to His grace, our hearts confidence in His love, our hearts anticipation of His goodness.

Christ Jesus has soaked our spirit in the fountain of his life; we have been immersed into the abundant life of His new life. So, you can let the streams of living, healing water pour out of the overflow of your heart, and let the knowledge that you are safe in Him, become your refuge and shelter in every circumstance of life.

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Word Whispers – Luke 3:21-22

Now when all the people were baptised, and when Jesus also had been baptised and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.'”
Luke 3:21-22

The truth is that delighting in the Lord is important. Delight is at the core of our very existence. The infinite delight of God the Father in his only-begotten son, is an infinite delight in every member of Christ’s spiritual body. For when God accepted Christ my head, he accepted me and when he praised and glorified my head, he made me a partaker of that glory through Christ’s finished work at the cross.

It’s very easy to believe that if I feel and experience something then and only then does it become good, but the truth of the power of Christ’s resurrection is the indwelling power to become flooded with the delight by the assurance that I am accepted, beloved, and delighted in by God.

The evidence is there for me to reach out and take.  The resurrection power of Christ in me will make my heart dance for joy as I see myself in Christ fully pardoned, justified, and accepted into the Father’s heart.

Delighting in God is the overwhelming knowing and confidence that my relationship with God is rooted and grounded in the Father’s overwhelming delight and acceptance of his son, “’You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.'”

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Grace is God’s Overwhelming Chance.

“This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”  – 1 John 4:10

We are devoted to filling our lives with distractions and amusements to captivate our every waking hour.  The media circus that fills the air is a constant stream telling us our lives need something new. We need better things, brighter things, things that will make us complete, things that we cannot live without, things that will add value. Somewhere created inside of us is a longing for newness, new beginnings, fresh starts, second chances.

Many evangelists, preachers and song writers boldly proclaim that God is a God of second chances.  That no matter how many chances it takes, he is always ready to welcome you back. He is waiting there for you, arms wide open, ready to receive you when you have blown it for the umpteen time.

While this is wonderfully true it is not the whole story because God is much more glorious and wonderful than that picture.  He was so moved by love that to keep us in his embrace once and forever he did something unimaginatively big. He prized us so greatly that he entered into our world and committed himself to our grief.

God gave the world his son. He gave of his own family, of his own heart, the son of his cherished love. His one and only begotten son, he willingly gave up for each one of us. He gave up the best he had, without us having to be anything or do anything, he gave his one and only son.

God’s love is so immense, so overwhelming, so encompassing that even the worst person could be reached. For God doesn’t just love good people, he doesn’t just love those that are worthy, he doesn’t just love those that are seeking him, doesn’t just love those that are repentant or those that turn to him or those that are committed to him. He loves the world. He loves people who are running from him, who hate him, who rebel against him, who do not want anything to do with him.

He prizes and loves each of us; he loves a godless world who values things and amusements over the love of himself.

He is a God of the overwhelming  chance,  a God that with divine love will keep you, hold you, embrace you, love you, cherish you, commune  with you, whisper to you, enjoy you, desire you, all you need is to see him in his beauty and loveliness and accept his wonderful gift of grace.

He desires to lavish the glory of heaven into your every waking hour.

His life is an eternal life, an everlasting life, once received he welcomes you in and keeps you. You do not need second, third, endless chances, for the loving embrace of God is so infinite that once you are united into him; you are united into eternity, once and forever.

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Grace is the Tearing Down of Walls.

“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. “– Revelation 3:20

Most people feel there is a wall, a barrier of separation between them and God and this wall is something they have no control over. But this wall is in reality a barrier created in our minds, by the shame and guilt of our wrong actions.

There is a fantasy that God has a shadow of disappointment over his face that causes us to worry that he is willing to withdraw from us or that he would distance himself from us, because we feel the shame of our wrong choices our minds logically compute that God must also feel the shame.

All right that sounds reasonable, a holy God would withdraw from his creation when it indulges in unholy acts.

Only there is one thing that punches a massive hole in this wall of withdrawal. Christ took away the wall forever! From God’s side there never was any distance or barrier between him and us. He was always there ready to welcome us, to accept us, to interact with us. It was our sin that created the barrier and that was in our minds, where we associate our actions with guilt and shame.

Jesus removed our sins, and therefore our consciousness of sin is gone and the wall has been taken down. The feelings we have of distance from him are all lies and illusion. Jesus took away our sin and brought us into perfect relationship with God where nothing can ever come between us.

No sin can make us go out of fellowship or lose connection with God because our relationship is based on Christ and his perfect work, not our own works. Christ has given us the gift of righteousness, his sacrifice dealt with all our wrong choices, every wrong choice, past, present and future was put into Christ on the cross and eternally forgiven.

Your relationship with God is perfect and unalterable. God himself is satisfied with this perfect union fellowship he placed inside of you. There is never a wall separating you from God, there are no barriers in your relationship with the father. You have been given the very relationship that Jesus has with his father, for you have been put In Christ and you have been given his own perfect, eternal, righteousness.

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