The Glory that Shall be Revealed 2
Today’s Audio Version here: bit.ly/aud2059 Romans 8:20-21 (NET) For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God who subjected it – in hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. Henry observed how Caleb literally spoke to things and they responded. He saw how one evening, it was raining very heavily, and Caleb needed to go out. He saw how Caleb spoke to the rain and it stopped in response to what Caleb said. There was a time they were traveling together in his car, and they ran into a BIG porthole. After that, there was a terrible noise in the right-back wheel of the car. They knew they needed to stop and find a mechanic, or the car would stop them. But Caleb simply spoke to the wheel and it immediately stopped making that noise till today. Henry always wondered why things responded to Caleb’s words. He later realized that it was because Caleb understood that he was an Ambassador of gospel and creation responds to the gospel and its true ambassadors. After the fall of man, God placed a curse on the earth for man’s sake. But actually, that curse affected all creation (Genesis 3:17). Man became terribly downgraded because of the fall, and God had to also downgrade creation for man’s sake. A downgraded man could only survive in a downgraded creation and habitat. But God did this in the hope that one day, after the redemption of man, creation will be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of His children. Creation was downgraded because Man was downgraded through Sin. When the sons of God enter their glory through the resurrection, creation too will be liberated. That’s why Jesus didn’t mince words when he said that the gospel was to every creature, or to all creation (see Mark 16:15). Jesus could have said ‘preach the gospel to everyone’, but He said preach the gospel to every creature. The words He actually used in Mark 16 alluded to creation, not just human beings. You see, the effect of the gospel will bring creation out of the curse of decay, not just human beings alone. And by the Holy Spirit (who enables us to walk in the first fruits of the power of the age to come) we can control creation just as Jesus did. Go into today giving thanks for the privilege to be a partaker of God’s glorious gospel. Pray: Heavenly Father, please empower me to be an agent of your gospel everywhere I go. Help me to be faithful to the end, in Jesus name. Amen. -Abraham Damilola Arigi Yearly Plan: II Kings 6-10 (In Devotional Audio) Want to be saved? Click here: streamglobe.org/33 Get sermons here: streamglobe.org/34 Streamglobe is interdenominational. Kindly share this Devotional with your contacts and let’s touch lives together. To start getting Streamglobe Devotional Text & Audio on your WhatsApp, join our WhatsApp Group Here: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Kxt6sSpywLe5Q7nRxK4z0p Visit our website: streamglobe.org http://listen.streamglobe.org/Devotional%20Audio%202059.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download ()Subscribe: RSS
DEALING WITH ENVY 1
James 4:2-3 (NIV) 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. Tinuke and Adenike were best friends in the university. But after school, it appeared that Tinuke started progressing much faster than Adenike. Tinuke got a very good high paying job, but Adenike didn’t. Tinuke got engaged and married, but Adenike remained single. Adenike became troubled because it appeared that God no longer answered her prayers. She started asking the Lord why. The Lord mercifully revealed to her that since they graduated, she could not pray without having Tinuke in mind. She was envious of Tinuke, and her prayers always started from that point of envy and covetousness. She did not know that this envy was greatly hindering her progress and prosperity. You see, when there is envy or covetousness in the heart of a believer, it pollutes his motives and hinders him from receiving from the Lord because God does not answer His children’s prayers that stream from fleshly motives. God is a good father; He does not reward bad behavior. When a person truly trusts in God and knows that everything he will ever receive comes from the Lord, such a person will not be envious of his neighbor’s progress. We can learn from today’s Bible verse that one way to ensure that God does not answer your prayer is praying from a standpoint of envy or covetousness. Envy causes hatred, and those who hate their brothers are considered to be murderers in the kingdom of God. Go into today asking the Lord to help you purify your motives and pray acceptably. -SD Abraham Yearly Bible Reading: Psalms 27-29 (In Devotional Audio) Streamglobe is Nondenominational. Kindly share with your contacts and let’s touch lives together. Whatsapp: +2348034420524 visit our website☞ www.streamglobe.org Source: Devotional http://listen.streamglobe.org/Devotional%20Audio%201574.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:33 — 3.1MB)Subscribe: RSS
God’s Grace & God’s Law
By Dr. Ebele UzorPeters The key to understanding how grace and the law relates is simple: the law cannot be fulfilled by being under the law. It is fulfilled and surpassed, by being under grace. If I want to travel, I have to lock up my house, and it is a very big house. I have to check the gas cooker, disconnect appliances from every socket. I have to put off every switch, shut every window, and close every door. It usually takes me about an hour to do all this And on my trip, I’d be searching through my mind to see if I left anything undone. Most times, I remember a tiny window I didn’t shut and just pray some rodent or serpent does not climb in during the two or three weeks I’m gone. When I get back, I check through every room to make sure all is well, before relaxing. I travel a lot, and this is my routine. It’s extra stressful and imperfect, but I’m used to it. That’s like being under the law. One day, a friend tells me about these modern security systems that monitor your house especially when you’re gone, with CCTV and all. Now when I travel; after I’m done packing, I shut down the whole house by pressing one button on the remote. All windows, all appliances, and all doors are shut down with just one click; and when I get back, I simply sit down over a cup of orange juice, and go through the computer generated analysis of the cctv footage. All my struggle to do this and that has ended, yet I am achieving the same thing even more perfectly. That’s like being under grace. Grace means God does for me what I could never do for myself. The law means I try to do everything myself and fail, grace means I allow something or someone who does it far better, to do it for me So the law means struggle, and grace means surrender. If I check from room to room after installing the modern security system, that’s trying to be justified by my works, and making the grace of Christ of none effect I have to rely on a remote. I have to give up my old method of locking up for the new system. I have to give up my house to this new system and trust that it is secure even though I haven’t checked it myself. I begin to experience grace by surrendering what I was struggling with (the old man). If I don’t want to struggle, so I reject the law; and I refuse to surrender, that is not grace. My house will be burgled. If I’m tired of struggling with the law and facing the condemnation the law brings, but I do not surrender my life to Christ and present myself to God; even though I have rejected the law, yet I am not under grace I have simply entered into lawlessness. Grace is not lawlessness; Grace is the in-working of the capacity for the purpose of the law to be fulfilled. . Another illustration (meaning the story above is an illustration,) is that before I got my modern security system, I never asked my steward to lock up the house because that was even more stressful. I’d have to explain everything to him and he still won’t totally get it; so when I had to travel, I’d give him a leave, and do the thing myself. However, with my son, I don’t need to bother. I don’t have to say much; He knows exactly what to do. Where I’d have had to give my steward 53 separate instructions so that he does not forget anything; I just told my son…I’m travelling in three days, I don’t know if you could come give papa a helping hand. If he could take a break from school, I usually just said to him “Lock up the house, don’t forget the attic”. That’s all. That’s grace. But my steward had to write all the 53 things down and go about with the list one by one….check this, check that, disconnect this, fold that up and put it up there. …it was more stress. Among those 53 things was the very same “Lock up the house, and all the windows in the attic”. The other 52 simply had to be added because he does not really know me and how I operate. That’s the law. Likewise the 613 laws of Moses contain the greatest commandments “Love the Lord your God with all your heart”, and “Love your neighbor as yourself”, but until Christ came, 611 other laws had to be used to explain those 2….because there was NO real CAPACITY TO LOVE God, generally speaking. But when the Son of God came and renewed our hearts, we understood that on those 2 laws hang not only all the 613 laws, but also the prophets. He put in our hearts the capacity to love with the love of God. It is by this capacity to love that grace delivers from being under the law, sets aside all the extra laws used to explain the intent of the law, sets aside that righteousness which comes by keeping the law; but powerfully upholds the law, by fulfilling it in us. That is, the righteouness of faith (that righteousness which is by faith in Jesus Christ) fully satisfies the righteous requirements of the law and makes it unnecessary to try to attain to those requirements by keeping the law through your own effort. . Galatians 3:21 Well then, is there a conflict between God’s law and God’s promises? Absolutely not! If the law could have given us new life, we could have been made right with God by obeying it. Galatians 3:22 But the Scriptures have declared that we are all prisoners of sin, so the only way to receive God’s promise is to believe in Jesus