Good Morning Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
“2024, Expect More.” I believe I’ve relayed to you that beginning six months or so ago, during my morning prayer time, God spoke this phrase to me clearly, “Your Father is The God of the impossible.” I spent the next five minutes saying over and over to myself, “My Father is The God of the impossible.” Remember that Romans 10:17 teaches us faith comes by hearing and hearing by The Word of God. God gave me this Word, so meditating it over and over again that day and most every day since is building up my faith in my Father, The God of the impossible. I do know when God delivers such a message to me, He is preparing me for the next big step in faith in my life walk. And, what’s exciting is the next big step of faith, if I’m willing and obedient, brings a massive blessing with it. God has always worked this way in my life, and He does it because it’s Scriptural. It’s His promise to me, to us. “2024, Expect More.” In I Chronicles 4:10, part of what Jabez prayed was that God would “enlarge his coast.” Remember there is a physical and a Spiritual meaning to The Word of God. Jabez was asking for both an increase in prosperity as well as an increase in his ability to believe God for all of God’s blessings. Jesus said the same thing in Mark 9:23.
Mark 9:23
Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
How many things? “All things.” No wonder Jabez prayed for God, “to enlarge his coast.” It is hard for our minds, which the Scriptures say is part of our flesh (Ephesians 2:3), to comprehend “all things.” However, God tells us we don’t believe with our minds, we believe with our hearts. In other words, the child-like faith Jesus spoke of in how we must come to God about “all things.” A young child doesn’t understand in their mind what they believe in their hearts. So, too, must we or else we’ll never live by the faith God has called us to live by, and to enlarge.
Do we all understand that God’s desire is to bless His children?
Psalm 67:5-7
5 Let the people praise Thee, O God; let all the people praise Thee.
6 Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.
7 God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.
Psalm 115:14
The LORD shall increase you more and more, you and your children.
Psalm 36:7-8
7 How excellent is Thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.
8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house; and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures.
Psalm 68:19
Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.
Psalm 103:1-5
1 (A Psalm of David.) Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name.
2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits:
3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases;
4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;
5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
These are but a few of the hundreds of verses speaking of God’s Blessing upon His Children.
With such wonderful verses of Blessing, why do we as Children of God suffer such lack in our lives? Why are we limited in our thinking, in our believing, in our physical manifestation of His promises in our life?
We understand it was man who fell. God didn’t fall.
Man’s fall brought in the curse. God did NOT curse man. Religion teaches God cursed man for his sin when He expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. This is a lie from hell. God’s wonderful loving grace and His absolute unyielding love for us drove Adam and Eve from the Garden. Had He not and had Adam and Eve eaten of the Tree of Life, mankind would have lived FOREVER in the fallen state of the curse. The Tree of Life is now situated in Heaven, and we can eat from it as much as we like when there.
PEMISSIVE VS CAUSATIVE
What is the curse? It is the absence of The Blessing.
Let me blow your mind for a moment. Think about this. Darkness is not a creation. It is the absence of light. Cold is not a creation. It is the absence of heat. Hate is not a creation. It is the absence of love. Death is not a creation. It is the absence of life. Fact is not a creation. It is the absence of Truth.
God ONLY blesses His children with good and perfect gifts (James 1:17). God CANNOT give us, His children, anything but good and perfect gifts. Read the verse. If God gives us anything other than good and perfect gifts, then He would be a liar. He would be unjust. He would be variable meaning He would change from one moment to the next. This IS NOT God.
God is pure love, pure light, pure mercy, pure justice, pure Grace, pure life, pure Truth, pure infinity.
This IS WHO GOD IS, NOT WHAT HE HAS. “HAS” implies a limit. “IS” can never be exhausted because God IS infinite, unlimited.
We, as Believers, ARE IN CHRIST. We ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST. WE ARE WHO GOD IS, NOT WHAT HE HAS. WE ARE NOT AN ATTRIBUTE OF CHRIST, WE ARE CHRIST – The Body of Christ. The Body looks to Christ, the Head, for instruction, for wisdom, for direction, for commandment.
II Corinthians 5:17-18
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [creation]: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
18 And all things are of God, Who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
satan is death. He cannot create anything. Death cannot create life or something new. satan can only take God’s creation and pervert it.
What is a perversion?
“The alteration of something from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended.”
One of God’s Blessings to man was to send Himself to the earth in the form of flesh, Jesus Christ, to save all of mankind. “For God so loved the world……”
However, this was NOT the only reason God came in the flesh. God also wanted to return man to The Blessing that He spoke over man in Genesis 1:28.
Why? So, Believers could begin to fulfill Genesis 1:28 and take dominion over the earth and occupy it until Jesus returns.
John 10:10
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Who is “the thief?” satan. satan has one mission: to steal, to kill, and to destroy. Now, can satan, the thief, steal, kill, or destroy anything in Heaven? No, he cannot. Where can satan steal, kill, and destroy? Yes, in and under the earth.
Jesus came that Believers might have life and have life more abundantly. “Have life” means to receive salvation. Jesus had to come as a man, as flesh, to take the keys to hell and death from satan and give life unto those who will believe. Where? On earth. “Life” for any Believer starts on this earth. However, Jesus said He came not to only give us eternal life when we finally reach Heaven, but He also came to give us an “ABUNDANT” life on this earth. Do we need life and abundant life in Heaven? NO! We need it here on this earth.
How do we as Believers experience or have this “abundant life?” Through operating in The Kingdom of God.
Matthew 4:17
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
In Hebrew, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” in Matthew 4:17 reads, “Reform ye, for come nigh is the reign of the Heavens.”
Matthew 4:23
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching The Gospel of The Kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
In the Hebrew, “the gospel of the kingdom” in Matthew 4:23 reads “good news of the reign.”
Notice in both verses in Matthew above, the Hebrew talks about “the reign.” Who is to reign? Yes, US. We, the Believers, are to reign on this earth and to bring The Kingdom of God into this earth. Our job in God’s Army is to kick satan the squatter out of those things he is claiming belongs to him in this earth. Jesus took from satan the keys of hell and death. satan is a toothless imp. I could spend two or three pages showing us God expects us to get violent against satan with God’s Word and kick his impish butt out of our lives, out of our marriages, out of our families, out of our health, out of our finances, out of our jobs, out of our businesses, and on and on. We are NOT to let satan squat anywhere in our lives or anywhere around us.
The Holy Scriptures is God doing everything He possibly can to connect mankind to Him and to The Blessing after the fall. This is EXACTLY what Jesus spoke to us in Matthew 11:28-30: how to connect to The Blessing, how to learn to expect and receive more from our doting and admiring Father.
Matthew 11:28-30
28 Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.
Part II of this email message, which will be published next week, will take us through Matthew 11:28-30 looking closely at what Jesus is actually saying to us. It is awesome!!
“The Word works when we work The Word!” Mark Hankins.
In Christ,
Larry