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"Owe no man
anything..."
-Romans 13:8
"...the borrower becomes the lender's
slave."
-Proverbs 22:7
"...the
righteous man shall live by faith."
-Romans 1:17
"...without
faith it is impossible to please Him."
-Hebrews 11:6
"No one can
serve two masters..."
-Matthew 6:24
"The Lord
will make you abound in prosperity..."
-Deuteronomy 25:11
"...God
loves a cheerful giver."
-2 Corinthians 9:7
"...the
Lord... is giving you power to make
wealth..."
-Deuteronomy 8:18
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Greetings in the name of Christ Jesus!
Many Christians can tell you that the Old Testament was based
on obedience and the New Testament on faith through love.
Under the old covenant, if you obeyed God’s commandments
you received His blessings including deliverance and salvation;
and if you disobeyed you were subject to the curses.
Deuteronomy 28 lists the possible blessings and curses and
under the blessings you will find all the elements that produce
biblical prosperity (nothing missing, nothing broken) while
under the curses the fullness of failure, defeat and bondage.
Now we are under the New Testament that Jesus started for us
at the Cross of Calvary. We receive deliverance and salvation
by faith instead of by obedience, and the Bible tells us that we
have better promises under this new covenant than under the
old one (Hebrews 8:6). But friend, it was never God’s intention
for you to stop obeying His commandments or to ignore living
by the principles of conduct in His Word just because you have
been justified by faith. On the contrary, Jesus told us to focus
on obeying in particular two love commandments so in that
process we could wind up keeping the whole Law of God
(Matthew 22:36-40).
Many churches today avoid teaching too strongly about the
consequences of disobedience because they don’t want to
offend their people. By nature most sinners prefer not to be
confronted with their sin. But loving confrontation is the job of
the Holy Spirit and He uses the Word to provide that
confrontation and bring about conviction. Therefore, Pastors
and teachers should be faithful to teach us the entire Word of
God and let it do its job because the parts we stop hearing
about we tend to start disregarding. The truth is many
Christians today are disregarding the requirement to OBEY the
commandments of Christ which causes them to fall short of
realizing the abundance in life that was won for them at
Calvary.
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The Meaning of Obedience |
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The dictionary says that obeying is the act of carrying out the
instructions and commands of one who is in authority. Thus, in
a biblical sense obedience is the yielding or submitting of
one’s conduct to the sovereignty of Creator God. As soon as we
become aware of His instructions and commands, obedience
requires that we make every effort to comply completely and
without hesitation or delay. Incomplete compliance is the
same as disobedience. Delayed compliance is also
disobedience.
Now, there are two ways God gives us instructions and
commands: out of His written Word and by speaking directly to
us in the present, Spirit to spirit, which He does continuously.
Once we know what His will is for a particular matter, we are
faced with a decision: to obey or disobey. There are only two
choices. God will not force us to obey. He will not override our
free will right to disobey if we insist on having our own way. In
other words, He will permit us to choose to live out of our own
strength by our emotions and intellect if that’s what we prefer
instead of by every Word that proceeds out of His mouth
(Matthew 4:4).
Obedience then requires that we choose His way over the ways
of self and the flesh, that we put Him at the head of our
priorities and over our own self-seeking and self-satisfying
agendas. Mature Christians full of wisdom have decided to
obey Him out of love, out of reverence and respect, and with a
concern that disobedience will always produce an
undesirable outcome that is less than God’s best. Scripture that
seems to illustrate this quite well can be found in Matthew 7:21-
25:
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the
kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in
heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we
not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name,
and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will
declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who
practice lawlessness!' Therefore whoever hears these sayings of
Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built
his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods
came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did
not fall, for it was founded on the rock.”
Obedience requires that we take the time and make the effort
to become knowledgeable about the written Word and to put
ourselves in a position to hear the Lord’s present voice. If we
don’t stop our busy striving long enough to hear from Him, to
hear His instructions and commands, how can we demonstrate
obedience? The truth is most Christians are too busily involved
in their own priorities so they fail to consult with the Lord as
they go through their daily lives. Therefore, if we don’t know
what God is saying to us, we fall into disobedience by default
and experience the same negative consequences as if we had
heard His will and decided not to comply.
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The Commandments of Christ |
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If you are having trouble today establishing contact with God’s
will for your life, you can start correcting that by learning about
the commandments of Christ and then applying them by faith
to your daily conduct. Once you do this, a lifestyle of
obedience will start to open up for you. In previous articles of
this series (see Parts 5 and 6) we discussed the commandments
Jesus gave us in Matthew 22:37-40 when He was asked by a
lawyer to specify which of the commandments of God is the
most important. His answer bears repeating:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and
foremost commandment. The second is like it, You shall love
your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments
depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Thus, there are two commandments: to love God and to love
your neighbor. And by the way, these are
commandments, not suggestions so we must assume we
have been given the ability to obey them by faith. If we don’t
at least try to keep these commandments, if we are
disobedient, then the principles of life from the Word (referred
to here as “the Law and the Prophets”) will not work for our
benefit and we will routinely receive less than God’s best.
Why will love work? The underlying concept is that those who
are truly walking in the love of God with all their heart, soul
and mind will be motivated to pursue obeying the things that
are important to the One who is the object of that love. You
will want to learn from the Word about the things that please
your Father. You will long to hear His voice for your life and
make the effort necessary to do so because you don’t want to
disappoint Him by deviating from His plans. Love always works
and produces obedience which in turn activates the Blessings
of God.
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Abiding in Christ |
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The Bible says clearly that if your sincere intention is to love
Jesus, you must keep (obey) His commandments (John 14:15).
It goes on to say that if you are keeping His commandments,
He will love you in return and manifest or disclose (reveal)
Himself to you (John 14:21). Why is this important? Because
the form the disclosure takes is that you come to abide together
(John 14:23), you in Him and He in you, which will serve to
glorify the Father (John 15:8) and create a manner of life in
which whatever you ask is done for you (John 15:7).
The relationship of abiding together with Christ is central to
New Testament life. If the abiding relationship doesn’t exist,
you will be unable to accomplish anything (John 15:5) but if it
does exist you can have whatever you ask for. The key
ingredient that produces the abiding life is the obedience of
the two love commandments. We cannot disobey the words of
Christ and expect biblical prosperity. We can’t ignore the will of
God and expect victory and success. If you want to know why so
many Believers are failing to live the life of abundance that
God intends for us to have, you need look no further than our
disobedience and related failure to walk in love.
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Some Final Thoughts |
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The Bible says that God has set before us a blessing and a
curse (Deuteronomy 11:26). The blessing always comes from
obedience and the curse from disobedience. God requires us
to exercise our free will and make the choice between these
alternatives. Everyone including Adam and Eve has been/is
required to choose: blessing or curse, life or death. The events
in our lives then are a result of what we choose, of the choices
we make throughout our lives.
Certainly it’s true that Jesus has delivered us from the curse of
the Law (Galatians 3:13) but we can choose to subject
ourselves again to the consequences of the curse through our
disobedience. The curse is not present when we are involved
in an abiding relationship with Christ and an abiding
relationship is possible only if we are keeping His
commandments. In sum, the biblical Law that is operating here
can be stated as follows: We must walk in obedience in
order for the fullness of biblical prosperity to be manifested in
our lives.
Thanks for reading Prosperous Life Newsletter today. We
hope our teachings bless and edify you and then inspire you to
study His Word. We’ll be looking for you again in three weeks.
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Sinners’ Prayer |
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If you have never invited Jesus to become the Lord
of your life, you can do so today by saying the
following simple prayer: Jesus I believe in you
and I receive you as my Lord and Savior. Please
forgive me for my sins and come into my life
today.
If you were sincere as you prayed this prayer, God
has already come into your life and you are a new
creation. Congratulations! Now ask the Lord to lead
you to a good bible teaching church where you can
be developed to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom
of God. And please send us an e-mail advising your
decision so we can rejoice for you in our prayers. If
you’re unable to find a church, give us a call and
we’ll help you find a good one.
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Prayer Requests |
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If you have prayer requests, please e-mail them to
us and we’ll be honored to bring them before the Lord
each Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM, Eastern Time.
Then, let us know about your answered prayers so
we can rejoice with your family. Praise the Lord!
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Donations |
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If you have been blessed and edified by
Prosperous Life Newsletter, please pray about
making a Spirit-led love offering to support the work
of the Ministry (Galatians 6:6-7). PLN is a non
profit [501(c)(3)] gift to the Body of Christ so your
financial gifts are tax deductible (please consult your
tax advisor). You may mail your check or money
order payable to Cornerstone Consulting Ministries to
10621 N. Kendall Drive, Suite 113, Miami, Florida
33176 or click on the donation tab for other payment
options. May God bless you with His abundant
harvest from sowing your precious seed into this
Ministry.
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Questions and Suggestions |
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It would bless us to have an opportunity to answer
your questions concerning any of the financial areas
covered by this ministry. We would also be happy to
consider your comments and suggestions. Please feel
free to e-mail them to us or give us a call anytime
during normal business hours at our toll free number
1-800-357-4223.
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