GOD's Next

Many church people profess to have "accepted" Jesus into their lives as Savior and Lord. To me, the proper term is "receive." Nothing is said in the bible about accepting Jesus. One definition of "accepting" on the internet is this: approving of something, or allowing someone to join a group.   When you accept someone or something, there's an overtone of your superiority, dominance or pre-eminence. Like, you're approving a subordinate, so you accept his or her work or report.  Photo above by Keagan Henman on Unsplash . The bible says we "receive" Jesus Christ as everything he claims to be. Not just Savior and Lord. He is God, King, Provider, Defender, Shield, Healer, Ruler, Friend, and many more. Receive connotes humble and grateful receipt of a gift from a superior or someone in authority over you. It's why we're told to "ask and you shall receive" not "you shall accept." We receive Jesus from God the Father...

Jesus told Nicodemus how to get to heaven. BELIEVE. As simple as that. But at the same time, it isn't as simple. Believing must be "in Him." The demons also believe, but they believe like the unbelievers who think they believe but they don't. James told them, "You believe there is one God," and hinted that belief there is one God is not good enough. You have to "believe in him." Photo above by Anna Dziubinska on Unsplash . Whoever It's an open invitation. It's an open challenge. Anyone may try to taste and see that the Lord is good. But as Jesus' wedding banquet parable shows, most people won't. Can you imagine turning down an invitation to a feast? Everybody loves to eat at banquets, and this banquet is open to all---first, to the first invited guests, later to the rest. Even those invited later had to be dragged and compelled to the banquet, illustrating the reluctance of most people (if not all people) to the Lord's invitat...

The Kingdom Wealth Principle and Philippians 4:19 There was a time---a long time---when I misunderstood the connection between giving and blesings and misapplied Philippians 4.19. I thought I could just claim the passage and get God's blessings and riches in heaven, and live happily ever after. God wants to richly bless us, not just spiritually but financially, and wants some of us to get really rich. But we often see these things in the wrongest way possible. Photo above by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash . Remember how Jesus said he would give the keys of the Kingdom to his disciples (not just to Peter), and what we bind and lose on earth will be bound and losed in heaven? It's in the plural form, keys . And one of the keys is releasing wealth. We can command money to be released, just as Jesus told Peter to get money from the mouth of the fish he'd catch. The problem is, the church and some preachers have been misusing and even abusing this key, enriching their denominat...