Beloved in Christ Ministry

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” (John  12:24 , NKJV) TODAY’S WORD   We all face difficulties and challenges in life. But you have to remember, as a believer in Jesus, you have the life-giving seed of Almighty God on the inside of you. When you go through disappointments or tough times, you may feel like you’ve been buried. You may feel like you’re in a dark, lonely place. You may feel like it’s the end; but in reality, it’s only the beginning. The fact is, you haven’t been buried; you have been planted. That means you’re coming back. And not only are you coming back, but you’re coming back in increase, better and stronger than before! In those tough times, you’ve got to draw the line in the sand. Make a declaration, “This difficulty is not going to bury me. This loss, this disappointment, this injustice is not going to cause me...

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory...” (2 Corinthians  3:18 , NKJV) TODAY’S WORD  from Joel and Victoria Today, if you’re not seeing in your life what God promised in your spirit, then you aren’t finished yet! What you see is only temporary. It’s time to keep moving forward. Don’t put your stakes down; don’t settle here. If where you’re living doesn’t match what God put in your spirit, be grateful, keep a good attitude, but keep stretching to a new level. If the medical report doesn’t agree with what God says about you, don’t accept it as the way it’s always going to be. Your attitude should be, “This is just a season that I’m passing through. I’m coming into health, wholeness and victory.” Maybe it’s even something good. God has blessed you: a family, a job, health. You’ve seen His favor, but you know there are greater levels in front ...

ZECHARIAH  9:12   Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope. Even today I declare that I will restore double to you.   I am sure that you have heard the expression, “When life throws lemons at you, make lemonade!” Well, I want you to know that when the devil throws lemons at you,  God Himself  will make lemonade for you! After all, the Bible says that God works all things together for your good. (Romans  8:28 ) And He does it with style—He restores double for your trouble! Beloved, if you have lost a husband or wife through divorce, or a precious child through death, God can restore double to you, so that you end up having more than before, if not in quantity, then in quality! Consider Job in the Old Testament. When he lost everything, his wife told him to curse God and die. He refused and, instead, responded to God in faith, and “the Lord gave to Job  twice  as much as he had before”. (Job 42:10) When David lost the child he had ...

EXODUS  15:26 …I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”   After crossing the Red Sea, the children of Israel came to a place called Marah. The waters there were bitter. That is why the place was called Marah, which means “bitter”. The Israelites could not drink any of the water, so the Lord made the bitter waters sweet. (Exodus 15:23 –25) Then, He brought up the subject of the diseases of Egypt and, for the first time, revealed Himself to His people as “the Lord who heals you”. Why did the Lord suddenly mention the diseases of the world (Egypt represents the world in the Bible) at a place called “bitter”? What do diseases have to do with bitter waters? I believe that it is because He wants His people to know that a major cause of diseases in their bodies is harboring bitterness and resentment! Some years ago, a lady shared with me about her sister who had died of cancer at a young age. She said, “Pa...

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE “It is an honor for a man to cease from strife and keep aloof from it, but every fool will quarrel.” (Proverbs 20:3, AMP) TODAY’S WORD  from Joel and Victoria Did you know that when you allow someone else’s words or actions to upset you, you’re allowing them to control you? When you say, “You make me so mad,” you’re really just admitting that their actions have power over you. As long as that person knows they can push your buttons, as long as you keep responding the same way, you are giving them exactly what they want. Sure, people have a right to say and do things that are upsetting, but we also have a right to not get offended. We have a right to overlook their actions. In fact, the Bible says that it’s an honor for a man to keep “aloof” from strife. In other words, we have to remove ourselves, either physically or emotionally, from strife and offense. It’s not easy, but we can choose to let it roll off of us like water off a duck’s back! Rememb...

EPHESIANS  3:19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.   We would all like to experience more health, abundance and success in our lives. God, being God, has all of these things, won’t you agree? So to be full of God is to be full of health, abundance and success. But how does one become full of God? In the past, I was told that to be “filled with all the fullness of God”, I had to fast a certain number of days, pray a certain number of hours and speak in tongues incessantly! I am not belittling fasting, praying or speaking in tongues, but to be filled with all the fullness of God is not about what you do. It is not even about your love for Christ. It is actually about  knowing the love of Christ ! No one ever told me that if I knew how much God loves me and focused on His love for me, I would be full of Him. When God made you, He designed you to run at optimal level when you are filled with His lov...

ISAIAH 55:11  So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.   Some years back, I had a skin condition which refused to heal. I told God about it and began to take the Holy Communion believing and confessing that by Jesus’ stripes I was healed. Nothing happened, or so it seemed. But the Lord did not forget about my skin condition. One day, He prompted me to check my body to see if it was still there. I did so and realized that it had disappeared! God had not forgotten the Word which I had confessed in faith. A couple in the United States who has been hearing me preach on God’s grace began to catch a revelation of God’s love for them. They started confessing their righteousness in Christ, and meditating on provision scriptures and declaring that they were debt-free through Jesus’ finished work. Not long after, the wife phoned their mortgag...

REVELATION 1:8 “I am…the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”   Ever been too busy to get something done, and then find out that it’s too late when you finally get down to it? As human beings, we live our lives constrained by time. But Jesus, the one who created time, is not time-bound. He always has time for each one of us! Even in His earthly ministry, in His limited form as Man, He always had time to minister to people. Consider a typical day in His ministry: When a severely demon-possessed man cried out from the tombs of a distant region, He had time to sail all the way from Galilee to the country of the Gadarenes to save that lonely, tormented man. On the way there, He had time to respond to the cries of His disciples when a fierce storm arose. He awoke from a much-deserved sleep and calmed the storm for them. After He saved the demonized man and returned to Galilee, another man, Jairus, came to him for help. Jai...

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.” (Romans 5:3–4, NLT) TODAY’S WORD  from Joel and Victoria The way you handle adversities has a huge impact on your success in life? If you shrink back, choose to get bitter and lose your enthusiasm, then you are allowing the difficulties of life to bury you. You are allowing hardship to keep you from your God-given destiny. But if you choose to keep pressing forward with a smile on your face, rejoicing even in the hard times, you are allowing God’s character to be developed inside of you. You are setting yourself up for promotion. Think about this: the only difference between a piece of black coal and a priceless diamond is the amount of pressure that it’s endured. When you stand strong in the midst of the trials and difficulties in life,...

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians  3:14 , ESV) TODAY’S WORD  from Joel and Victoria Are there some tent stakes in your life that you need to pull up so you can press forward? Maybe you’ve stopped in a temporary place, and it’s time to keep going. Maybe you’ve gotten comfortable and decided that your dreams are never going to come to pass. Your health is never going to improve. I’m asking you to pack up your tent, gather up your belongings and start moving forward. You may have taken a temporary delay, but that’s okay. That didn’t stop your destiny. Today can be your new beginning. God is breathing new life into your spirit. He has greater victories in front of you! Remember, the first place we lose the battle is in our own thinking. If you don’t think you can be successful, then you never will be. If you don’t think you can overcome the past, meet the right person or accomplish ...

JOHN 19:2  And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on His head…   If hard work is the formula for prosperity, then everyone who works hard should be prosperous. But this is certainly not the case. Many people who work very hard are still in lack! I am not advocating laziness. What I am saying is that working hard by the sweat of your brow is not how God’s provision comes. In fact, if you have to work overtime all the time and are stressed out, you are probably operating under the curse. What curse is that? It is this curse: “In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread…” (Genesis  3:19 ). And it refers to the stress, struggle and anxieties that come with working hard and yet producing little. Now, work itself is not a curse since God gave Adam work before the fall—Adam was to tend the garden of Eden. It was only after he sinned that the land was cursed and it brought forth thorns, and man had to toil to eat of it. (Genesis  3:17 –18) But pra...

MATTHEW  6:28 –29 So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;   and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. You may think that you must work very hard to provide for yourself and get ahead in life. But God wants you to consider the lilies of the field—they do nothing. They toil not, spin not and struggle not. Yet, they grow and are clothed by God while simply resting and basking in the sunshine of God’s love! And when God clothes them, they look even more glorious than King Solomon, the richest king who ever lived. Like the lilies of the field, God wants you to let Him take care of providing for your material needs, instead of you striving to do it yourself. When you let go and let Him, you will see Him bless you supernaturally, abundantly and generously! This is what happened to one of our church members who had been looking for a job. Initially, he rece...

LUKE  17:15   And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God,   People who have a grateful heart are always praising God. You often hear them say, “God is good!” They know that God is the reason for every blessing they get. But there are those who look to God for blessings and when they get blessed, they just go on their merry way. Their hearts are captivated by the blessings instead of the One who has blessed them. Jesus had an encounter with both these types of people when He walked into a village one day. Ten lepers cried out to Him, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (Luke  17:13 ) Now, when you call out to Jesus for mercy, He always hears you. On another occasion, when two blind men cried out to Him, “Son of David, have mercy on us!” He took the time to give them their miracles. (Matthew  9:27 –30) So these 10 lepers cried out to Him for mercy. He stopped, looked at them and said, “Go, show yourselve...

LEVITICUS  2:11 ‘No grain offering which you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey in any offering to the Lord made by fire.   Imagine yourself walking past the prodigal son sitting in the pigpen. (Luke  15:11 –24) You look at him and see him salivating for the pigs’ food. Believing that it is good to show kindness, you give him money to buy food for himself. That is human kindness which says, “I am a Christian. I should be kind, good and forgiving.” Such human sweetness or kindness may be likened to honey. Interestingly, while we elevate it, God tells His people not to bring Him a grain offering with honey in it. The grain offering speaks of Jesus’ life on earth. Not mixing honey in the grain offering speaks of how the compassion and goodness we see in Jesus during His earthly ministry were all divine. There was no “honey” of human goodness that is tainted with human weakness. In retrospect, the worst thing one...

COLOSSIANS  2:13   And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, Let me ask you a question which Jesus asked the Pharisees: “Which is easier, to say [to the paralytic], ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’?” (Luke  5:23 ) In the context of ministering to a paralytic, saying “Your sins are forgiven” is probably easier. Why? Because you don’t need an outward manifestation to prove that his sins are forgiven. But when you tell him, “Rise up and walk,” he must rise up and walk, or you will look very foolish! So that makes saying “Your sins are forgiven” easier than saying “Rise up and walk”. The truth is, what is seemingly more difficult for man in the natural is not so for God. With God, physical healing is clearly “easier” for Him than forgiveness of sins. The latter is the “harder” and greater miracle because it required God to deliver up ...

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE “The LORD had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.’ ” (Genesis 12:1, NIV) TODAY’S WORD  from Joel and Victoria In the Scripture, Abraham is listed as one of the heroes of faith. God made one of the first covenants with him. But what’s interesting is that before Abraham, God spoke to Abraham’s father and told him to go where he told Abraham. It says in Genesis 11 that Abraham’s father “left Ur and headed out toward Canaan.” He was going to the Promised Land just like God told Abraham. But it says, “He stopped along the way and settled in Haran.” Why did he stop? There were too many difficulties. It was hard traveling with all of his flocks and herds. He had his family, his possessions. It wasn’t comfortable. He finally decided, “I can’t go any further. I know this isn’t the Promised Land, but it’s good enough.” How many times do we do the same thing? We start off right. We’ve got...

2 SAMUEL 9:7 So David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father’s sake, and will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather; and you shall eat bread at my table continually.”   When the people in the palace heard that King Saul and his son Jonathan had died in battle, they panicked. Fearful that David was coming to seize the throne, and kill all the sons and grandsons of Saul, they ran for their lives. A nurse took Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, and ran. But as she fled, the five-year-old boy fell and became lame in both feet. (2 Samuel 4:4) The poor boy would not have been crippled if they had known that David actually loved Jonathan and Saul, and would have looked after Jonathan’s son because he had made a covenant with Jonathan. (1 Samuel 18:3) In this story, King Saul represents the human race. He is like Adam who sinned against God and forfeited all that God gave to man. He had the position, but not the power anym...

COLOSSIANS  2:13   And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, Let me ask you a question which Jesus asked the Pharisees: “Which is easier, to say [to the paralytic], ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’?” (Luke  5:23 ) In the context of ministering to a paralytic, saying “Your sins are forgiven” is probably easier. Why? Because you don’t need an outward manifestation to prove that his sins are forgiven. But when you tell him, “Rise up and walk,” he must rise up and walk, or you will look very foolish! So that makes saying “Your sins are forgiven” easier than saying “Rise up and walk”. The truth is, what is seemingly more difficult for man in the natural is not so for God. With God, physical healing is clearly “easier” for Him than forgiveness of sins. The latter is the “harder” and greater miracle because it required God to deliver up ...

LUKE  13:11   And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up.   Imagine being bowed over for 18 years. All you would see is the dust on the ground. That was the predicament of the woman in Luke 13. Dust was all her eyes fell on, all the time, everywhere she went, until she became dust-conscious. Thank God she finally saw the beautiful feet of Jesus, who brought her good news and raised her up. Now, dust is the devil’s food. The Bible tells us that God cursed the devil to eat dust all the days of his life. (Genesis  3:14 ) Dust represents death. (Genesis  3:19 ) The devil wants you to be like him—to fall flat on your belly, crawl and eat dust. To eat dust is to feed on your shortcomings and lack, until you constantly feel that there is so much in your life that you need to clean up. You may not be physically bowed over, but like the woman, you become dust-conscious and life...

2 CORINTHIANS 3:6 …for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.   To the Jews, the feast of Pentecost is a celebration of the giving of God’s law. It takes place 50 days after the Passover feast. When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, it was 50 days after they had celebrated their first Passover and come out of slavery in Egypt. But what happened after God gave them the law on the first Pentecost? Three thousand people died! (Exodus 32:28) Contrast this with another Pentecost in the New Testament. In the book of Acts, it says that when Pentecost had fully come, God gave not the law but the Holy Spirit, and what happened? Three thousand people got saved (Acts  2:41 ), which goes to show that “the letter [the law] kills, but the Spirit gives life”! The law, which was “written and engraved on stones”, ministered death. It killed 3,000 people. That is why the apostle Paul calls it “the ministry of death” and “the ministry of condemnation”. (...