The Blood speaks Louder

The benefits of the New Covenant God established with us is made legal by the blood of Jesus.

There is no other way to access them other than through the application of the blood that flowed from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Yesterday at LGC, Eric continued his message from last week, and we saw that the blood speaks louder and louder.  Under the old covenant established through Moses, blood had to be sprinkled seven times on the mercy seat of the ark.

We heard that throughout His Calvary experience, Jesus shed blood seven distinct times, to proclaim a better covenant than Moses’. Eric showed us what these seven flows of blood can mean to us, His children, as we seek to reign in life.  All done by Him, for us, that we can be free.

- From His Brow - in Gethsemane He bore your pain of rejection and betrayal

- From His Back - ‘by His wounds we are healed’. Healing for body, soul and mind is found in His blood

- From His Head - a crown of thorns, a symbol of dominion. Authority is restored, our minds renewed

- From His Face - Jesus was so disfigured, He lost His identity. In His blood, we find ours. He breaks self-loathing and shame

- From His Hands - power and blessing came from His hands. Our hands are empowered and authorised by this blood to bring His Kingdom to earth

- From His Feet - in Genesis, it was prophesied that Satan would bruise Jesus’ heal, but Jesus would crush Satan’s head, Satan has been defeated. We have authority to take territory from the enemy, like Joshua did ‘wherever his feet walked’

- From His Side - His pierced side signalled a truth: no one would take His life form Him. He choose when to die. He is the Lord of life! He was never a victim. Through Him, we are ovecomers

All this comes through His blood which confirms the covenant. We may not be living it all out yet as we would like. But like the Israelites in Egypt at Passover, we choose to apply the blood. Through faith in His Word, declarations and worship, we can see increasing victory in our lives. We will become more and more like Jesus, until we see Him in all His glory.

We commit to see the full impact of this in our church family and the world, demonstrating and encountering His love in increasing measure. The blood speaks louder and louder. Can you hear it?

Defining Success

What do you need in place to guarantee success?

There is no shortage of advice on definitions, keys and strategies to succeed in life.

But this Sunday at LGC, Eric shared with us three keys for success from the life of Gideon. His encounter with the Angel of the Lord, and his subsequent responses and actions, show us how God leads us and prepares us to succeed. All rooted in His Fathers heart of love.

We see three keys from Gideon’s life: 

Fully embrace Gods opinion of you: The Angel called Gideon a mighty warrior. Gideon produced his C.V. to argue against this! But God was doing what His Grace does best - choosing the weak and poor vessel in which His glory can be freely expressed. And seeing us not as we are, but as we will be in Him. This belief is a major building block to success.

Go as far as you can wih the faith you have: Gideon needed lots of encouragement and assurance. He was way out of his comfort zone. But Father God knew this, and graciously helped him. God knows how to help us based on who we are and our past experiences. God never condemns us for our weakness. Weakness does not have to stop our destiny. Rather, He works with our weaknesses.  He’s a good Dad!

Fully embrace the plan God gives you: weakness and inexperience cannot stop our destiny.  Stubbornness and pride can however be a problem. The journey does not always go to plan. God told Gideon to dismiss most of his army because he had too many men! Our hope is not in material things or this world’s resources. Materialism will dull our spiritual edge. The way of Jesus is simple: hear, believe, obey. Only His plan for our lives brings success. 

Gideon found a path through his fear and weakness by applying these keys, to reach his destiny and succeed.  

You were created by God to succeed, to run your God given adventure. Don’t sell yourself short by chasing this world’s lies, or believing your own lies about you and your weaknesses. Let the joy of hearing these words be your motivation: ’Well done, good and faithful servant’.

Restoration

Here is an astounding truth for any follower of Jesus Christ:

However bad things look for you, God’s heart is ALWAYS working for your restoration.

Eric reminded us yesterday from Zechariah 4 that even though God’s people had let him down, had floundered, had forsaken the House of God in favour of building their own homes - He could not write them off. Rather, He told them that by His Grace and His Spirit, He would bring restoration.

One of our enemies arch weapons against us is to turn our minds inwards to see all the problems and difficulties and failures. Yet your Father wants to work for you as you humble yourself before Him:

“This is the Word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty’” Zechariah 4:6

God would oversee and empower the restoration of His purposes in His people. And who would take the credit for it would be clear:

'Who [are] you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain! And he shall bring forth the capstone With shouts of "Grace, grace to it!"’ Zechariah 4:7

By the power of His Spirit and His Grace, He will bring restoration of all the enemy has robbed, and all we have lost through our poor choices.

Living Grace Church has had, in some regards, a tough time recently. Serious attempts have been made to rob us and divert us from our purpose and the promises His Word has brought. Yet in His mercy and by His Spirit, as we gathered together yesterday, God spoke right into our situation.

He reminded us through a prophetic word in tongues that we know the way to go, we know the right path, and we need to walk it: He told us through propehetic encouragement that we should not falter and give in to discouragement: then He taught us through prophetic preaching that we can rely on Him for restoration as we refuse discouragement and lies.

Remember, we are Living Grace, empowered and depending on His Grace alone as we believe for the many thousands He has in our town. We believe and we make this our adventure!

Drawing from the well

Yesterday at LGC, Eric continued his series of ‘Changing your world by changing your words’.

He taught us that faith is the natural environment for the follower of Jesus Christ, and faith is the reliable source, rather than the facts we see or the fake news the enemy peddles.

And as Christians, we employ faith through a resource which can change our world, and the world around us: 

 ‘The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life’ (Proverbs 10:11).

There is a well within each Christian which can bring change, and we draw from it and employ it when we speak. It has great power, even to impact our town. It’s so easy to see the issues and problems around us, but we as Christians choose to bring change through blessing: ‘By the blessings of the upright, the city is exalted’ (Proverbs 11:11).  

These powerful words should also be spoken over ourselves.  One of the greatest hinderences for the church is the Spiritual Inferiority complex so many battle with. It is a curse which stops us fulfilling our destiny. You are significant and have a role in reaching The Many Thousands in this town.

A poor self image is bad; a false self image is worse. Like the Israelites, looking at the promised land, and saying ‘We are like grasshoppers’. Yet God had told them that they were the head and not the tail! They had a false self image.

We are always in trouble when we allow the world, the flesh or the devil to tell us who we are!

We must stop focusing on our condition, and instead focus on our position!  We should pray like Elisha prayed for his servant, that God would open our eyes to see what He is doing rather than seeing things from only our natural viewpoint.

Then we can begin to see change in us and around us, as we use our words to change our world.

Eric's message is available on our website here at http://livinggrace.org.uk/audio