“Jesus Christ (the Messiah) is [always] the same, yesterday, today, [yes] and forever (to the ages).” To have someone in your corner all the time, no matter what, is not easy to find. Because Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever, we can count on Him being there for us 24/7. To not be affected by storms of life, different temptations, or crises, and not be swade by it to leave our original position of purpose and destiny before the trouble hit, is being more like Jesus. We can get to the point where we’ve learned who we are in Christ and know our authority in Him, and how to wield the word of God in every situation and circumstance of our lives. Once you’ve come to this maturity in Christ, you can be more consistent with being the same today, tomorrow and forever. Getting over what people think is very important to victorious living. People can make us or break us if we let them. Surround yourself with people of faith, conviction, and purpose. They will already have the consistency, and steadfastness in their personality. The more time we spend with the Lord, the easier it will be in staying steady during troubled times. We can’t go back into our past but we can change our future.

Sacrificial Love

“But love your enemies and be kind and do good [doing favors so that someone derives benefit from them] and lend, expecting and hoping for nothing in return but considering nothing as lost and despairing of no one; and then your recompense (your reward) will be great (rich, strong, intense, and abundant), and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind and charitable and good to the ungrateful and the selfish and wicked.” Our instructions from the Lord are to love our enemies and be kind and do good. Can you do that without God’s help, maybe not. This doesn’t mean being their best friend or hanging around them all the time. Acts of love with agape love for our motivation should eventually be of general M O dealing with everyone the same way. That makes things easier to do if you don’t like them. You can love someone without liking them. Love is an action word, a word of sacrifice under agape rules. It only knows how to give out, and at the same time it knows not to become a door mat for people to walk all over. There is the wisdom of love embedded in agape love traits. Agape love is the love of God, the way He loves without restraint no matter the offense done to Him. You can love your enemies from a distance if necessary, but the love of God doesn’t respond to offenses.

“For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking, [the door] will be opened.” Today’s text is for those who are lazy or give up easily. It is our persistence that wins the victory on every side. If we never ask, we’d never know or understand for ourselves. If we never seek out things we’d never enjoy the rewards of discovery, nor would we be in line to receive from the Lord (Matthew 6:33). If we’d never knock, all doors would be closed to us. Just like a traffic light that has a sensor, if you pull up to a red light but stop too far back, you’d never trigger the sensor to change the light green so you can be on your way. Go all the way up to the door of your challenges and knock so God can open it and you can be on your way to the next one (learn the process and you won’t feel the battle as much). We cannot sit home and believe God for everything without putting work into it. Just like your body is dead without the spirit, so is your faith dead without corresponding actions (James 2:26). For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks finds, and everyone who Knocks the door will be opened. This is the Lord’s promise to you. We must do our part, or nothing will change from where you are now.

“Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few. So pray to the Lord of the harvest to force out and thrust laborers into His harvest.” What Jesus is saying here is, there aren’t enough of God’s people handling His business down here on earth. Many people are ready to hear another way of living in this demonically influenced world. Most don’t have a clue as to there even being an answer to the trouble in this world. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Until a person decides to follow Christ, they along with everyone else, will be unknowingly trapped in this world’s system of life, and bound by its rules and regulations. We can live above the evil in this world as Jesus prayed to the Father God long ago (John 17:15 BRG). We should be praying that the Lord would send the laborers into the world to reap the harvest, and being prepared and always ready to go out ourselves with the message of the gospel. You may think you don’t have the where with all to be God’s messenger but if you are saved, and belong to Christ, start there tell others how you became a christian. That’s testimony and spreading the gospel. As we become more knowledgeable of God’s word, the Lord can use us in more diverse ways to bring His family home. People are hungry for the one true God, but they just don’t know it. Go get’em.

“For you, brethren, were [indeed] called to freedom; only [do not let your] freedom be an incentive to your flesh and an opportunity or excuse [for selfishness], but through love you should serve one another.” We are free in the Lord, and have been redeemed from the curse of the law. We are genuinely free from the control of sin. The sin nature is no longer a dominant force in our lives. We are living in the dispensation of Grace. There’s no eye for an eye, or tooth for tooth immediate retribution from the hand of justice. But we will all go before the judgment of God in the end. Meanwhile there is a liberty we have which should not be an invite to sin. To serve one another humbly in love is our portion as per the Lord. The grace of God should not be frustrated in you. Our insides let us know when something’s wrong and that, we should always heed. Our flesh, our bodies, still have the sin nature in them. The appetites of our flesh have not lost its strength. We are to keep our bodies under control and make them line up to the teachings and precepts of God. Renewing your mind, starting a new way of thinking based on the word of God. That’s the only way to begin keeping our bodies under control. Be free, but don’t be uninformed about your liberty in Christ, there are limits.

“I will [earnestly] recall the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will [earnestly] remember the wonders [You performed for our fathers] of old. I will meditate also upon all Your works and consider all Your [mighty] deeds.” David reflects on the deeds of the Lord. Sometimes we need to slow down and smell the roses. Our busyness of life can take away the clear sight of appreciation. When the Lord has been with you through thick and thin, you develop a fellowship of trust between you. We look back and realize all the things He has delivered us from or brought us through successfully. There will always be those secret things God does to help us through life that we’re not even aware of, it was Him behind the scenes all the time. As we give God the glory and honor, and straight up appreciation, and gratitude for His unseen involvement, He becomes even bigger in our lives. The more we talk about something or someone, the more present in our life they become. Our words bring reality over time. We have what we say according to the law of reciprocity and karma. Keep talking about the goodness of God and His faithfulness to you, and you will cause Him to draw closer to you. David communed with God regularly for everything. Every battle he faced was won because he acknowledged God in all his ways, and God directed David’s path unto victory. Our path of victory has already been laid out, but God has the flashlight, so leave the dark side now and live for God.

“Whatever may be your task, work at it heartily (from the soul), as [something done] for the Lord and not for men, Knowing [with all certainty] that it is from the Lord [and not from men] that you will receive the inheritance which is your [real] reward. [The One Whom] you are actually serving [is] the Lord Christ (the Messiah).” It becomes easier to do our day to day tasks whatever it may be, going to work, taking care of the home and family, an assignment from whoever and for whatever, it should be done as unto the Lord, for Him not man. With this mindset, we stay focused about who we are in Christ Jesus. Our service is always for the Lord no matter what we are called to do in life. With all your heart serve as unto the Lord in everything, this will instill and help develop integrity and character. It starts in your mind, your way of thinking should conform to the Lord’s, by the renewing of your mind with the washing of God’s word. The person we deal with at work or in school, or actually anyone anywhere should be looked at as either an opportunity to grow in Christ because they are testing your love walk, or as the vehicle to getting your heart positioned to receive the inheritance which far out weighs the troubles of this life. Give it your all, it’s in you to succeed.

“The next day John saw Jesus coming to him and said, Look! There is the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world!” John the baptist noticed Jesus approaching him to be baptized. Jesus went through the normal channels to set the example for us to follow. He was baptized by John even though John told Jesus, I’m not worthy to tie your shoes. Jesus said, we must fulfill all manner of righteousness. Jesus had to come the same way we must come to be right with God. To be baptized is an outward expression of what happened to you spiritually. Death, burial and resurrection. We go down under the water when baptized, which exemplifies the death and burial of Jesus Christ, and then we are pulled up out of the water exemplifying Jesus being raised from the dead, which now you have been through water baptism. All things have become new, and old things have passed away. Your new recreated human spirit is then sinless, and you are in right standing with God. But the sin had to be dealt with first, thus the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice. Jesus has taken away the sin of the entire world, but because mankind has free will not everyone chooses Christ. God said, my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. This world system is designed to keep us so busy, and distracted from the things of God that most people will miss this message, die and go straight to hell when it’s all over, which is very soon. Look around you in this world, it’s falling apart, so the Lord can fall into place in your life if you let Him, because the time is short. Jesus will return for those who have chosen Him before their body dies. Now you know.

“You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.” Perfect peace can only come from God. Jesus is the Prince of peace who understands our struggles. He walked the earth with God’s perfect peace as a man without His deity. In other words He didn’t use the power He had in heaven, His heavenly status was stripped away to conform to mankind’s make-up, yet without the sin nature like we were born into. God will guard us and keep us in perfect peace once our mind is stayed on Him. Being steadfast in our minds with both its inclination and its character locked in place brings change. You must go after this peace, if you want it, like a bull dog on a bone, tenaciously, with a relentless state of mind until you get it. As we put and keep our minds on the Lord, peace is automatically transmitted to our hearts and souls which will cause our bodies to experience less stress in it. (Joshua 1:8) Meditate in God’s word (the bible) night and day and you’ll get more than just peace in your life. God will keep us in perfect peace, that’s a promise. But discipline and perseverance are required of us to manifest His peace in our lives.

“So then, whatever you desire that others would do to and for you, even so do also to and for them, for this is (sums up) the Law and the Prophets.” Do to others what you would have them do to you. That is an attitude of love. When we take the first steps towards peace or establishing camaraderie or to set a standard of life for ourselves, we begin to live the lifestyle Jesus lived while walking the earth, and His entire ministry was based on love for others, or He would have never came to deliver us from our undeliverable state of being. Only God’s love could change the nature in mankind from fallen, (dead to God), to alive to God in right standing with Him. This act of love, to do to others what you would have them do to you, is beneficial to you and the other person. Planting seeds of love by treating people with respect, kindness, and an obvious caring spirit towards them, puts you in God’s good graces. In God’s good graces we find favor, and clarity in life for ourselves. We are love children of a love God. We as christians should always imitate our heavenly Father. Start sowing seeds of compassion, and kindness to others, it’s a good start for the rest of your life.