The ironies of prayer are evident: God knows our need, yet we must ask; God is ready to answer, yet we must patiently persist. It was continuous knocking that gave the widow victory over the unjust judge. God promises that He will answer prayer if we do not waver when our faith is tried. Perseverance proves that we have no alternative, that we depend on Him whole-heartedly.
It is very common to see persons racking their ingenuity to find excuses for their sins. Some are pleading inability to do any better than they do. Others plead their peculiar circumstances, and others still their dependence on the Spirit of God. In short, there is scarcely any plea to which a proud heart can resort to evade the force of truth, which is not resorted to by many, to appease their consciences, and get away from breaking down their hearts before the Lord.
Surely we confess secret sins or sins committed only against God and known to him only to God. But sins against our fellow men must be confessed to them. And refusing or neglecting to do so is to cover sin, in which case we are expressly informed that we shall not prosper. Many people seem to be afraid to confess their sin or to have others confess, lest their institution is injured thereby. But on the other hand, The Lord knows them that are his and who have departed from evil.
The Lord God is sovereign, who does according to his will and in the Scripture, there has been no one, who is able to resist the will of God (Rom 9:19). Thus every word of the Lord is established and none of the word that goes forth from His mouth; shall return to him void, But it shall accomplish what God pleases, and it shall prosper in the thing for which God sent it (Isaiah 55:11).
There are sins that the Lord hates because they grieve the Spirit of God. Those sins might be seen as little things in the eyes of men or a normal daily scenario but God sees them as an abomination.
In love, there is no fear and as well no evil speaking. Love in the heart of Christians leads to unity among brethren. God looks at the heart. Your thoughts and the secret movements of your mind, lie open before him. The words and actions of man are no otherwise pleasing or offensive in his sight than as they are the expression of what passes within a man. All your silent and most secret musings, are as well distinctly observed, and marked, and pondered by the Holy Spirit. He weighs every thought of your heart in his balance.
Whatever appears as an opposition to the working of the Spirit in the life of man is seen as striving with the Spirit. The flesh and the carnal lifestyle are in opposition to the Spirit and thus strives with the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:17).
The Holy Spirit is a moral agent, and consequently, he has the susceptibilities and feelings of a moral being, and must therefore be grieved with whatever is naturally grievous to a moral being.
Easter is the time we remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus died and He rose from the dead. He commissioned his disciples to preach the gospel. The same Jesus Christ has all authority in heaven and on the earth. By the name of Jesus Christ, miracles happen today.
We shall live to possess our possession. Healing and health are for the children of God today. We can lay claim boldly to this redemptive grace, not with uncertainty, but with the confidence of faith and prayer to get healed and remain healthy all the days of our lives. Now we are redeemed, purchased, bought back again to be God’s peculiar possession.
The Scriptures thought us that “after we believe” we are, or maybe, sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, and that this sealing is the earnest of our salvation. Ephesians 1:13, 14: “In whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.” This sealing, this earnest of our inheritance, is that which renders our salvation sure.