I Can See Clearly Now
In the year 2000 I went to a well known eye hospital in Petaling Jaya to do a cataract surgery on my right eye. Four years later the vision in this eye began to fade.
Give Me New Bones
Menopause is the time during which a woman stops menstruating, usually when she is almost fifty. During this cycle of life, one may feel symptoms like hot flushes, mood swings, sleeping problems, night sweat, depression and joint pains.
Stroke Hits Without Warning
On Friday, 13th June 2008, I suddenly felt numbness in my right arm. When I got up to walk, my right leg also became numb. I was not able to walk because the right side of my body became paralysed.
The Life That Abides In Christ
By : Ps Ely Lingao
The Christian life is a life of victory, joy, peace and purposeful living. Jesus said, “I came that they might have life and might have it abundantly.”[John 10:10b]
Our confidence is not in ourselves. Our confidence and trust are in the true living God whom we love, worship and serve.
There are many professing Christians who are defeated and discouraged and do not realize the need of giving God time and their inner being daily for His Spirit to renew and sanctify.
Jesus made it possible for us to experience God’s love and forgiveness. He has given us the Holy Spirit to enable us to live victoriously in the midst of the struggles and trials we all face in our everyday life.
As we discover who we are in Christ, we will value ourselves more highly and will have a quiet assurance of who we are. Yet this should not lead us to become focused on ourselves. On the contrary, this should free us to be able to forget ourselves and choose to love and minister to each other. With a deeper understanding of who we are in Christ, we’ve seen how we can be set free to love others unconditionally and share the gospel with them more effectively. God’s love for us is unconditional. This is the same love that God commands us to demonstrate in our relationships with others. Although this is impossible by our own strength; by faith through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can love others with God’s unconditional love.
We learned the role prayer must have in our lives if we are to grow in our relationship with God. We must learn and understand how much we need each other’s fellowship and encouragement as we face the hindrances and challenges in walking closely and consistently with Him.
It’s only as we walk each day in the power of the Holy Spirit that we can say like apostle Paul, that we consider everything else in life as a loss in comparison to the to the joy of knowing Christ and making Him known.
Encounters With God
By: Terry Appel
Revelation 3:20
V8…I have set before you an open door!
One of the great cries that are in the hearts of God’s people is the deep need to have an encounter with Him, that moment that defines them and sets them up on a path that they will not deviate from. The problem I see is that God’s people do not know how to step into or are afraid to because of all the weird things that have been presented to God’s people over the years that have been called encounters with God.
The first thing to understand is that God sets for us in the heavenly realms open doors in every area of our lives so that we know that we can, if we choose, live in that realm. For instance; [Ephesians 1:3 nkjv] blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. [3 John 1:2 nkjv] Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. [Hebrews 4:16 nkjv] Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
The Bible is full of the richness of God and what is available to us. The problem before us is how do we walk and live in this realm that God presents to us in His Word. Again let me preempt what follows by saying that God has opened the doors of heaven and expects us to live in that realm and in order to do that He has also given us the keys to open up these realms to our life.
Matthew 16:19…”And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
God wants us to use the keys to open doors into the heavenly realm and live the way we were designed to live. We need to understand that on God’s side of the equation the doors are already open but we need to use the keys given and open the doors on our side of the equation. The doors where we live…. Bind on earth ……. Open or loose on earth…..
Here we see in this scripture (Revelation 3) God said to the Church …”I have set before you an open door.” This is God’s realm; no one can shut nor open that realm but Him. And these doors are open there all the time. They are open and accessible to us if we use the keys, use the authority placed in our hands.
God has given us keys to bind and loose these realms on earth for they are already established and in the heaven.
The second thing that needs to be understood is the power of our declarations. (Proverbs 18:21 nkjv) Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Again the power of the kingdom is there for us and what ever side we decide to live in will determine the fruit we eat.
What you declare determines what you see and what you see determines what you do.
God wants us to live a life having encounters with Him and living in the place of the open heaven so that we can then achieve all that we were born to achieve. When you look at the life of Jesus you see that He walked all His ministry life under an open heaven. Father’s side of the equation was open and He was waiting for His Son to open His side of the equation.
And the key to open this door in the life of Jesus is found in Matthew 3 – at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. John the Baptist tried to hinder Jesus from being baptized; but Jesus took the key that opened the heavenly realm and answered John in v15 “permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
Jesus declared it was the thing He needed to do as a man to fulfill all righteousness. Then we see what the key did (v 16) “The heavens were opened to Him and they never closed over His life until He went to the cross at Golgotha. The thing that determined this open heaven over His life was His obedience for the sake of righteousness.
The third thing to understand is we do not need more anointing to do what God has asked us to do. We need more obedience, what I like to call relational obedience. The anointing will position you for success, but relational obedience will develop you and your character and guarantee you for success.
Jesus opened up an encounter with God the Father that kept Him, that determined Him all the days of His life. The keys we have are given to us so that we can have an encounter with God in all areas of our life and that encounter will define us all the days of our life.
We have to open doors to let eternity determine our lives. In this day we live with all the turmoil with people loosing their jobs and the financial stress so many are facing, we will shine in that dark place for He will Arise and Shine on us because we have opened the door with the keys of trust, that my God shall supply according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
In the season we find our self in all we need to do is put a key in the door from our side and open it up to all that the Father wants to give us from His side. Because every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no shadow of turning.
We want the blessing of God on our family and work and business – there is a key to the door from our side of the equation, to the realm of this blessing that is already ours through relational obedience.
In Malachi 3:10 we have God speaking to His people about an encounter of blessing that would determine them all the days of their lives. Note the key to this encounter of open heaven.
V10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,” Says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it.
This whole blessing encounter is about relationship with God and His great desire to let us enter the fullness of 1 Corinthians 2:9…”But as it is written; Eye has not seen, ear has not heard nor entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
The key to open the windows of heaven of blessing or an encounter with God that will determine you the rest of your life is; “the bringing or returning the Lord’s tithe to His house.”
We loose this on earth –that’s our realm; God pours it out from His realm. What you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
The binding and loosing authority is a real and very powerful tool that God has placed in our hands. If you declare this to be God’s way it will determine what you see and what you see will determine what you do.
Binding and loosing is powerful. Note v13…God says to His people “Your words have been harsh against me.” What you declare determines what you see. What did they see? V14…”we have done the right thing but we don’t see the return.”
How many Christians I have heard over the years say, I can’t afford to tithe, I can’t afford to give to God what belongs to Him. They bind this dilemma to their lives and the blessing, the encounter with God and His open heaven is locked up.
The door in heaven is open but the door in our realm is closed. Because the key of the kingdom is not being used and that key is relational obedience.
In (Revelation 3:20 nkjv) we read; Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
Here we hear Jesus expressing his desire for us to have an encounter with Him so he stands on his side of the equations and knocks on the door to our side of the equation, both realms meet when the door on our side is opened.
The encounter is left to us, we must use the key, we must open the door. In Song of Songs chapter 5 we see that the lover came to the door, called out and knocked, but the cry from inside the door was, “I have removed my garments how can I get dressed again” and by the time she had changed her mind and opened the door he had gone.” The encounter is there for us, we have to open the door
What we loose is loosed in Heaven, what we bind is bound in Heaven. We have been given the keys – the authority. If we want an encounter, we have to open the door.
Behold I stand at the door and knock. If you follow this Scripture through to Chapter 4 of the book of Revelation you will see the response to one that opened the door. Verse 1 “After these things (all that proceeded “stand at the door and knock) I looked and behold a door standing open in heaven.”
Keys open doors on our side to see the doors already standing open on God’s side of the equation.
Hebrews 4:16…”Let us therefore come boldly into the throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
This is an encounter we can have any time, the key is in our hands. These things are recorded for us to show us the potential encounter we can have with God.
If you want an encounter of mercy, then blessed are the merciful.
All the doors are open for us, Jesus has finished the job He came for and that was to give us life and much more abundantly. We now have to do our part.
Matthew 18:20…”For where two agree.” That’s a key because where brothers come in unity it commands the blessing of God. So where two agree concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in Heaven. Doors will be opened!
I give you said Jesus “the Keys of the Kingdom.”
We are seated with Him in the Heavenly places – Ephesians 2:6.
These doctrines are written and recorded for us to show us the potential for encounters we can have.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” – 2 Timothy 3:16