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Word for Today:  December 4

What pleases God?

What is it that really pleases God?  What one thing brings Him the most pleasure and fulfillment?  What gives Joy to the Lord?

When we receive to the fullest measure what He has freely provided, God is pleased.

Our acceptance of and confidence in His Covenant moves us into the place of receiving the Kingdom and all Kingdom benefits and provisions.  This is what brings joy to the father.

  …for the joy of the LORD is your strength.  Neh 8:10 

The Joy in this verse is referring to the Joy God receives  (as well as us) when He sees us living in and receiving  the Supernatural Strength which comes from the blessings and benefits of our Salvation.

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.   Lu 12:32

Word for Today:  December 3

The Pre-Incarnate Christ.

The pre-incarnate Jesus is clothed in the Splendor and Glory of the Omni-powerful God.  He is shares co-equally with Him in all things.

He is Omniscient and Omnipresent as well as Omnipotent.  He is immutable.  He is not just a “babe born in a stable and wrapped in rags”… He is God.  Almighty God.  He is the Eternal LOGOS.  He is the Creative Agent of all that came into being as God Spoke:  “Let there be…!”

Jesus is the Force and the Power behind Creation.

He was in the world, and the world was made by Him… John 1:10.

Heaven is His Domain and the earth is His footstool…  By Him and through Him all things consist (hold together).

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Col 1:17

In order for us to really behold His Glory, we have to transition from our “Bible Story” concept of Jesus…  “Meek and mild…” as a “Helpless child…”  Our early concept of Jesus has, for the most part, remained unchanged.  We have greater revelation therefore we must leave the “principles” and move on into the “perfection” of our knowledge about Him.

Some see Jesus as broken and bleeding and dead… impaled on a cross… the victim of hatred and religious prejudice.  Some can only behold a Dead Jesus.  They see the Crown of Thorns and the Bleeding Side and the Beaten Back.  They are moved to pity Him and feel sorry for Him.  They have developed a concept of His Human Limitations and see Him as weak and helpless.

The Jesus of the Word is All-Powerful.

• He is Deity Personified.
• He is the Face of God.
• He is Majestic, He is Awesome,
• He is Full of Power.
• He is Originator, Creator and Sustainer.
• He is the All in All.
• He is the Great I AM.
• He is LORD OF ALL

And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.  Rev 19:16

Word for Today:  December 2

Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise…  Luke 23:43

Here a guilty criminal simply asks Jesus to:  “Remember me when You come into your kingdom…”

• He was not a “church” member.
• He had not been baptized in water.
• He had no character and no good reputation.
• He had run with the wrong crowd.
• He had broken the Law.
• He had violated decency and destroyed that which was innocent and good.
• He was guilty.
• He was worthy of death.

And justice had caught up with him.

Now… this common criminal understood and received what the Jewish Nation and organized religion was blind to comprehend.  Jesus is no respecter of persons!  He loves criminals and drunks and prostitutes and homosexuals and thieves and robbers and murderers… He is color-blind!  He is LORD OF ALL!  He is compassionate and kind and loving and forgiving.  His kingdom is open and available to “whosoever shall call on the Name of Jesus…”

How odd that God would choose a murderer as the initial trophy of His Divine Grace… cleansed, restored and made acceptable by the Blood of Jesus.

“Grace, Grace, Marvelous Grace…”

Word for Today:  December 1

Forgive.

Father, forgive them… they don’t really know what they are doing…  Luke 23:34

The Revelation of the Person of Jesus in this statement is a Revelation of Forgiveness.  “Forgive them…”

Can you forgive?  Have you forgiven?  Do you have anything against anybody?  Are you holding a “grudge”?  Are you not speaking with someone?  Have you “written off” a previous personal relationship?   What right do you have to harbor unforgiveness in your heart?  Have they done to you what these individuals did to Jesus?

Notice that Jesus looks beyond the outward act into the intents of the human heart… “They do not know what they are doing…”

In essence Jesus is saying “They are not responsible for what they are doing… they are being driven by a force they do not understand… it is the nature of satan in them….Father… be merciful to them… they do not realize what they are doing…”

The force driving of any unforgiveness in your heart is not God.  If it’s not God, then it is pretty obvious who it is…

Love forgives

Word for Today:  November 30

The Word declares:

Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith:  Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God…  Heb. 12:2

How could Jesus possibly have “joy” before Him in the midst of such torture and agony?  How did this “joy” give Him strength to “endure” the cross and bear the shame connected with it?

Why did He not call for “10,000 Angels” to come and loose Him and rescue Him from such pain and shame? He could have!  He willingly laid down His life… for He had declared that

…no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself…  John 10:18

Why?  How?  Because Jesus looked through His Eye of Faith and saw into the future… He saw the time when you and I would hear the Word and Believe it, Act on it, and make it a part of our living and our breathing.  He knew by His death and obedience to the Father, that He would become the Firstborn of many Brethren… that He would establish a New Race and New Breed and New Creation that would crush the head of satan and trample demon powers underfoot.

That is the reason for His Joy in the midst of suffering, agony and death

Word for Today:  November 29

A Higher Call

God calls His People into realms beyond the natural.  We are birthed into a higher dimension when we get Born Again.     The New Creation is delivered from the “old things” and brought into the realm of “all things new”.   The Word says “we are in the world, but not of the world…”  We are citizens of “another country” and we have been raised up to sit with Jesus in “heavenly places…”   The New Testament is the Believer’s Instruction Manual.  It tells us how to Live in the realm of the Supernatural and it gives instructions about how to live Heaven’s Life here on earth.

The majority of the Church is living far below the full potential God has birthed in it.  Most who make up the Church do not know the hidden forces that are in them.  The very Forces that make God, God are inside every Believer…  There is great and awesome potential inside every New Creation in Christ.  Why do you think the Word tells us that we “can do all things through Christ…”  Why do you think God tells us that “nothing shall be impossible to you…”  Why do you think God promises us that “if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven…”  We are called to be “more than conquerors…” and we have been equipped with mighty weapons of warfare that are “not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds…”  God is calling you and me to SEE THE INVISIBLE and DO THE IMPOSSIBLE…   Heb 11:27

Live in your Supernatural Dimension

Word for Today:  November 28

What really happened at Calvary?

We have read about the Crucifixion, heard sermons on the Crucifixion, studied about the Crucifixion, but in reality very few know and understand what happen on the Cross.  What we believe about the Cross will determine the depth of our Revelation of Jesus.

Justice had decreed that sinful man must pay the penalty for his transgression.  The Human Race stood guilty before God of Spiritual High Treason.  Man had turned away from God and embraced the devil.  However, the human race was impotent, helpless and incapable of meeting the demands of justice.

“I owed a debt I could not pay,

He paid a Price He did not owe,

I needed Someone just to wash my sins away,

And now I sing a brand new song:  Amazing Grace!

Christ Jesus paid the Price that I could never pay!”

And so out of the Heart of God comes the solution to the human problem.  Jesus steps forward and declares:  “Here am I, send Me…”  And so toward the Cross He goes.

Calvary is center stage for the entire human race.  What happened there is the pivotal point of all history.  Calvary is more than the death of Jesus at the hand of His enemies.  Calvary is more than the suffering and horror of such inhumanity and torture.

• Calvary involves Jesus and it involves God.
• It involves man and it involves sin.
• It involves time and it involves eternity.
• It is the place of a divine Exchange

Here, Jesus became what man is in order than man can become what Jesus is.

“God made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him…”  II Cor. 5:21

What a Deal

Word for Today:  November 27

Behold Jesus as a Perfect Man

ALL the miracles that Jesus performed while He was on earth were performed by a Human Being Full of the Holy Ghost and Power.  What He did… we can do.  What He accomplished as a Man, we can accomplish as men and women full of the Holy Ghost and living in that anointing.

He spoke to storms and they stopped.  He spit and made mud from it, put it on blind eyes and they were opened.  He confronted demon powers and they feared and trembled and begged for mercy.  He touched crippled and broken bodies and they were made whole.   He spoke healing to the sick and diseased and they were healed.  He received sinners and had mercy on the guilty.  He loved the unlovable and had compassion on the masses.  He raised the dead… cleansed lepers… resisted the devil… opened graves… interrupted funerals and restored the dead to their families…   He made wine out of water… friends out of enemies… peace out of confusion and torment… joy out of sadness and Heaven out of hell…  And then He told us that:

greater works than these shall ye do; because I go unto my Father… John 14:12.

Jesus is our Example.  Jesus is our Pattern.  Jesus is the guarantee that we can overcome the devil and take dominion over the powers of darkness.

What He did… we can do

Word for Today:  November 26

Jesus’ self-emptying.

(Jesus) Who existing in the Form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation (Kenoo) and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross…  Phil. 2:6-8

Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call His name Immanuel…  Isa. 7:13

The Kenosis of Jesus is a Foundation Truth that many have failed to grasp.  Kenosis or “self-emptying” simply declares that Jesus willingly “emptied” Himself of His God Characteristics and condescended to the stature and state of a man… a human being… born of a woman… and came to earth to live and die as part of God’s Plan to Redeem Man from Adam’s failure.

Jesus laid down and left in heaven certain characteristics and privileges He exercised as God.  He willingly emptied Himself of His God Form… His God Power… His God Knowledge… His Eternal Life.  He became subject to sickness, disease, death, failure, sin and any and all human liabilities and limitations imposed by Adam’s sin and failure.  The Scripture tells us that:

He was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin… (Heb. 4:15)

Jesus willingly and obediently subjected Himself to the possibility of sin and the possibility of failure when He put off His God Characteristics and took on Himself the form and limitations of humanity.  He literally risked His Deity.

But He was Victor over temptation.  He was Victor over sin.  He was Victor over every human weakness.  He was Victor over all…

Even death and the grave