We are laborers together with God. When it comes to the great commission given to all saints, go into all the world and preach the gospel, our witness is very important. How we deliver the gospel is vitally important. Banging them over the head with it telling them, ” repent or you’re going to hell”, is not getting the better side of their listening ear. Many times it is simply living the righteous life in front of them, and quite often that does the job. We plant the seed of God’s word into people’s hearts and minds, and someone else may be doing the watering of that seed you sowed at a later date. But it is only God who gives the increase for growth. Without the Lord giving increase nothing grows and nothing happens of eternal value. We are ambassadors for Christ in a foreign land doing the bidding of our King here on earth. We can do all things through Christ Who strengthens us, but we can do nothing of lasting value without Him. Most of us aren’t even thinking about eternal value while we’re trying to put food on the table, and make a living. Why not rearrange your life and begin to live the life lifestyle of your King. The change will be a welcomed breath of fresh air, inhaling the new life of promise, and exhaling the old habits of defeat. Walk with the King and be a blessing.

As we work on staying in right standing with the Lord, we begin to reap the fruit of unfailing love. The word of God is conditional, if we bring certain areas of our lives into subjection to God’s word, in line with his teachings and precepts, we reap the benefits of the agape love of God. We reap according to mercy and loving kindness. His mercy and loving kindness in our life helps break up the uncultivated ground in our body, minds, and souls. That part of us doesn’t always want to line up with the program. Renewing our minds with the word of God helps us become aware of those uncultivated areas. Our human spirit was the only thing changed at the new birth, nothing else. You have to invoke your will to jump start your mind and your body. That means doing the right thing even though we don’t feel like it. When the Lord comes and showers His righteousness on us, things change for our good. Right standing with the Lord keeps us away from wrong standing with the enemy of our souls. Sowing righteousness, trying to do the right thing in every situation, attracts God’s grace and favor to undergird your actions. It is time to seek the Lord, until He comes and showers His righteousness on you.

The law of reciprocity is always in effect. What goes around comes around. When we give or sow into someone’s life it’s always a blessing to them. The quality, and quantity of what we give has much to do with the expected harvest. If we want a bigger harvest, and a harvest of good quality we must sow a better seed. Helping another person in any unwarranted way, is a good seed. Helping someone with the wrong attitude will affect your harvest. God loves a cheerful giver whose heart is in his giving (2 Corinthians 9:7 AMPC). We reap whatever we sow. If you’re sowing bad seeds of strife or drama, guess what’s eventually gonna come visit you. If you’re sowing large sums of money to someone or an organization, with a burning desire to see them blessed, and do well, that’s a very valuable seed of great promise on the return. Grudgingly helping others is a seed planted with a blemish. Fertile ground for our seed planting is when we’ve given to someone under the Lord’s direction that is really going through the worst time of their lives, and you stepped in with the solution to their dilemma. Remember, God loves a cheerful giver whose heart is in his giving.

There are wonderful benefits to keeping the Commandments of God. By keeping His commandments we prove to the Lord our love for Him. No one obeys another person’s directions or commands without having respect or love for them, unless you’re at work. The Lord keeps covenant and steadfast love and mercy with those who love Him, and keep His commandments. The one new commandment Jesus gave was to love your neighbor as yourself. That covers all the others. When we love, we won’t kill, steal, or destroy like the devil, who encourages people to do the same. Our God is a faithful God who won’t break covenant with us. We can trust His faithfulness and steadfast love towards us. He keeps His covenant, steadfast love, and mercy for a thousand generations to those who love and keep His commandments. His commandments have always been for our safety and protection in this world. Most people are oblivious to spiritual laws already in place that affect us because of our bad actions and bad behavior. God wrote the program way back when the devil gained authority over the earth. So if we follow the program (His commandments), we position ourselves for victorious living.

Has God become a vital necessity in your life yet? In the beginning of our christian walk many times He’s not. We must learn why He’s more vital than we may think for a victorious lifestyle on planet earth. The Lord has said in His word, ….”my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Knowledge truly is power, and the knowledge of God is the absolute highest of all impowerment on every level. Seek the Lord with all your heart, staying in His face by praying and having quality time alone. Close fellowship is the avenue to finding God with a completely elevated understanding of His existence. When you seek God with all your heart, you will have His undivided attention. With all our heart, all of our mind, and all our soul totally engaged in seeking Him, the rewards are unlimited as long as we stay tapped in (Hebrews 11:6).

As we inquire for, and crave peace and truly pursue it, what must go along with that is the departing from evil. The only way to have the peace of God that passes all understanding is to depart from evil practice. Once we are saved the power of habitual sin is broken, so you can stop it now. Seeking peace instead of pleasure pays a far better dividend. Pleasure can be and usually is attached to the sin nature. We can have pleasure, and not be in sin, but not like the world does. Turning from evil is the beginning part of today’s scripture verse for instruction on having peace. We must begin cultivating our surroundings with less drama folk. Some people thrive on drama and are addicted to it. Negative attention is better than zero attention when you’re desperate for it. Peace cannot exist when we have all the ingredients for trouble in our everyday life. Just like the soul of mankind must be quiet to hear the voice of God, our ears must be free from the outside noise of confusion and people who are alarmist. Since we still have the propensity for wrong doings in our flesh, we must use or start to develop the self-control given to us at the new birth. Much of the Lord’s help is dependent upon obedience to His word. He promises peace that passes all understanding but it doesn’t just happen automatically. Turning from evil, and doing good will bring us to the doorstep of peace on earth.

The Lord Himself is our strength and our defense. He is the only salvation that matters when it comes to where we will spend eternity. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to become a living sacrifice for our wrong doings. Justice must be satisfied due to the offense of sin in mankind. We were born into sin and shaped in iniquity (Psalm 51:5). It was all we knew before Jesus came and broke that power from over us. To be saved from ourselves was something only God could do for us. He is our Savior and our Deliverer from the bondage of sin, replacing that old nature with a brand new creation that has never existed before. We are new creatures in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). Becoming this new creation in Christ opens the door for a lifestyle conducive to strength and a built-in defense system called the Holy Ghost. He will never leave you or forsake you. The Holy Spirit is our Strength, He’s our Teacher, our Standby, the Power to help us be all we can be for God and others. So trust and don’t be afraid, you have everything going for you. Stay vigilant, because our enemy, Satan roams the earth looking for weak christians. The power in us will annihilate Satan and his schemes against us. Surely God is our salvation.

To be mighty and impenetrable to temptation, can only be God Himself. Because we are His children and have His attributes in our make-up, we can grow into becoming impenetrable to temptation well enough to keep temptation at bay (if you invoke your will to make it happen). As we grow in Christ, we grow into being more like Father God. Our refuge and strength also comes from the Lord. We need strength to resist temptations that lead us to wrong doings. Because of our flesh we get weak from time to time in the area of resisting temptation. Sin is pleasurable and we all know of the pleasures only available through sin. Stolen bread eaten in secret always tastes sweeter. Because of the end game of life if we yield to temptations regularly, it could cost us our souls. Refuge is necessary when troubles begin to mount up too high to bear. Go into the secret place of the Most High God for refuge and strength. As we conform to the Lord’s leadings, we find that He is a very present help in times of trouble. The Lord is our strength and our shield against high level attacks from our enemies. We can find that place of comfort, fortitude and clarity of mind while in the secret place of the Lord Most High. He’s there for us, but are we in position for Him to help us. If we are wilding out in sin, His not going to be there for us as He is for those in His secret place. Selah

If we could just not let what we see, or hear affect us to the point we are in fear because of it. We are less afraid when someone else is with us physically. But we must learn how to see our protector with the eyes of faith. No ocular proof but only His good word of promise to hold on to in times of fear and worry. A word of promise from God is a lot more sure than a word of promise from mankind. As we become more Christ inside minded, we begin to realize, He is always there to protect us. The more you believe that, the stronger your hedge of protection will be. It’s like the Matrix Movie, don’t think you’re safe, know you’re safe because God is with you. Walking by faith and not by sight is the christian walk (2 Corinthians 5:7). Building up our faith in the Lord and His promises will build in us a refuge system. A system of fortitude that will hold tight through your worst nightmare. We get rid of fear from an internal stance of resistance. Perfect love, (developed love from the struggles of life, mature love), drives our fear. And because faith works by love (Galatians 5:6), doing the work against fear would be to develop our love walk. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes (1 Corinthians 13:7), it’s also ever ready to believe the best of every person. In this strategy we are overcoming evil with good, that includes fear. Bye bye fear!

David speaks of the one thing he insistently required, which was to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life. He wanted to gaze upon the beauty and sweet attractiveness of the Lord. David was relentless in his pursuit to experience more of God in his life. Once we taste and see that the Lord is good, we will have that informed opinion that can change our life. For those of us today who have made Jesus Christ Lord, and Savior of their lives, we are dwelling in the house of the Lord now, and forever. Eternity with God begins at the new birth, not when we get to heaven. Once our inner man has passed from death to life by the power of the blood of Jesus and the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit, we stepped into eternity at that moment. We finish out our natural lives here on planet earth, but we stepped into the house of the Lord before physically being there. We will see the decor of the supernatural realm, (where our individual mansions are) once we leave these earthen vessels, (our bodies). To have the benefits of dwelling in the house of the Lord now, we must know the Kingdom rules for life on earth. Once we understand our authority in Christ and the guidelines for victorious living, we get the house blessings from the Lord while still on earth.