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...

True Repentance and the Freedom of Truth This is why it's an "unseen" Gospel, although everyone in church can simply open their bibles and read it. Information is easy to have, but not revelation. Revelation is when you hear God speak His Word straight from His mouth and receive the grace to obey it. Revelation radically transforms, and repentance must precede revelation. Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash .  Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings. [Proverbs 1.22-23]  I thought I had revelation in my early years of ministry in 1980. I taught and preached in church equipped with the study tools provided by man and his study systems. In 1999, the Lord showed me all I had was head knowledge---things taught me by church men and thinkers, not by God. And He stressed how I needed to genuinely repent to start getting His supernatural revelation. Repentance is more than a ritual, more than a word uttered in pr...

Since 1980 when I was born again in my college days, I've always wondered what the real work of God is. With so many church denominations and ministries doing a lot of busy-Martha moves here and there, and sometimes ending up competing against each other, you step back and cannot but wonder what's really going on. Are we continuing what Jesus started or are we inventing our own?  Photo above by 2H Media on Unsplash . Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians 15:58 —“give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord”—is not a call to busyness in church programs, but to a deeper, spiritual ministry rooted in Christ Himself. One that transforms people radically as a genuine spiritual new born in Christ. “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 18] When Jesus defined the real “work of God” in John 6:29 as bel...

Birds love to frolic on our front porch in the early morning, have fun there and sing. Jesus once explained how God wants exactly that life for humans, too. Anyway, I like watching birds, being enthralled by their melodious chirps, while I sip coffee and have my quiet time or get inspiration for my blog. I think they believe they have a rightful share of my porch, and it seems they see me as a fellow bird 🙌. They use my porch confidently while I'm there sitting quietly. A rightful share. Photo by David Clode on Unsplash . Birds Show God's Design for Daily Life We ought to learn from birds. That's what Jesus said. And HE meant it. His parables are not just idle stories to entertain his audience. They tell us what God wants for us and help us see how Kingdom principles should easily work in ordinary daily life. In fact, they're so easy we doubt if they'd really work in real life, or if they're just idle stories. So we play safe and confine his parables to sermo...

First off, this is not about some lucrative marketing or sales venture, though the principle can help lots with business started from scratch. Firstly, I'm talking about Kingdom business. God often starts his ventures with "zero capital." With the nation of Israel, he started with nothing. I mean, he called Abram from North Mesopotamia or Ur, sent him off with practically nothing and made him trek through no-man's land--bare desert and wilderness--exposing him vulnerably there. Initial zero capital. You may opt to see it this way, if you want the principle applied to your situation--God can start you off in an actual business undertaking from scratch. You just have to learn the principle like some business people I know who apply concepts in the bible to their businesses, and find them actually working. One believer started his now very profitable online business with a free blog. 😃 Photo by Liam Pozz on Unsplash . You know how challenging God's zero-capital pri...