Who Are You in Love With?

Dearest Saints, I received this caption from a dear Brother in the Lord several years ago and I still remember strongly of what it says. It puts into perspective what is really important in life. Are we putting too much emphasis on our worldly cares, accumulating possessions that we won't be able to take with us? Are we investing so much in our present life that we are forfeiting much of our eternal inheritance? We do this by our lack of acknowledgement of Him each day, not putting Him first each day, not being rich towards Him by our lack of fellowship with Him during the day or taking His Word lightly. Is it caring about what we should be inheriting in this world by the cares and concerns that take our minds off of God? I never get tired of reading this story that should speak volumes and cause us to question our motives. I would like to acknowledge and give thanks to Oyerinde Thomas Agunloye who sent this by email to my address several years ago. When we are about to step from this temporal world into eternity, I hope, pray and believe we will have no regrets whom we loved the most. There was a rich king, who once had four wives. He loved his fourth wife the most and adorned her with riches and all the pleasures of the world. He also loved his third wife and was always showing her off to his subjects and everyone but, he always feared that one day she would leave him. His second wife was kind and considerate and his trusted confidant, the king equally gave her some measure of attention. Wife number one was devoted and loyal and loved the king very much, more than the others. Unfortunately he paid no attention to her. One day the king fell ill and knew his time was up. He began to think of his life and feared being alone when he dies, so one day he asked his fourth wife: “I have loved you the most, endowed you with the finest clothing and cared for you. Now that I am dying, I know you will follow me and keep me company”. No way! The fourth wife replied I love you but not that much! And walked away without another word. The sad king then turned to his third wife: “I have loved you all my life, now that I am dying, will you follow me and keep me company?” “ No! never screamed the king’s wife. Life is good! When you die, I will re-marry and start where you left off”. The king summing up his fading breath then asked the second wife.” I have always turned to you for help and you have always been there for me. When I die, will you follow me and keep me company?” “I am sorry, I cant help you out this time!” At most, I can help with your funeral”. Then a voice called out to the king in his sadness: “I will stay with you and follow no matter where you go.” The king looked up and there was his first wife. She was so skinny and undernourished. Greatly grieved, the king said: “you! Why? I don’t deserve you, I should have taken better care of you when I had the chance.” In truth, we all have four wives in our lives. Our fourth wife is our BODY. No matter how much time and effort we lavish in making it look good, it will leave us when we die. Our third wife is our POSSESSIONS, STATUS, QUALIFICATIONS OR WEALTH. When we die, it will all go to others. Our second wife is our FAMILY, FRIENDS OR LOVED ONES. No matter how much they have been there for us, the furthest they can stay by us is up to the grave. And our first wife is our SOUL, often neglected in pursuit of wealth, power and pleasures of life. However, our soul is the only being that will follow us wherever we go. Think about this! Ask yourself where is your SOUL following you to? What are you feeding your soul with? Are you so much in love with your looks, your car, your job, your bank account, all at the expense of the owner of your life. Feed your SOUL today with the bread of life, JESUS and put your SOUL on the pathway to heaven. Will you consider buying my books in support of HelpingCopeThroughHope mission work in Zambia? You may go to my link below to observe. In the Matchless Name of Jesus Richard Associate Director Answers2Prayer http://sites.google.com/site/greatestbuilderforourlife http://www.answers2prayer.org/ www.helpingcopewithhope.blogspot.com What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom 8:31)

He Took My Punishment Upon Himself

Dear Saints, I was watching Joseph Prince this past week and I see myself as a visual learner in many ways. I know that the Word tells us that He took upon our sins of Whom He was sacrificed in our place (1 Pet 2:24). But just watching a short cartoon clipping He had the congregation watch had a profound impact on me. It was taking what I call "head knowledge"and becoming a powerful "revelation knowledge". It was simply a man bringing in a pure spotless sheep to the High Priest to sacrifice for his sins. When the man brought forth the sheep to the High Priest, the Priest closely examined the sheep to make sure it did not have any blemishes or spot on it in order to make the offer acceptable in order to pardon this mans sins. The cartoon continued to show that once the sheep was considered clean and acceptable to sacrifice, the blackness of sins from the man was seeing being transferred from him to the sheep and the sheep taking on this punishment in the mans place. The sheep was then slaughtered and made for a burnt offering. This is the same wonderful description of Jesus (who is considered the Lamb of God) John 1:29. We as His Children (when we accepted and invited Him to be our Lord) come before Him to confess our sins, I placed myself in this mans place and saw the stain of all my sins be transferred upon Jesus who chose to take my sins away upon Himself and was sacrificed in my place. When the sheep was burnt, it reminded me of what was mentioned about Christ when He descended to the place of the dead for 3 days and took our sins and burned them away also (Acts 2:27; 1 Cor 15:4). Just that thought from seeing that short cartoon clipping was like a wonderful deep revelation of how awesome His love and His sacrifice that is by far the greatest gift the world could never offer what He has freely given us. We have the greatest Hope when we can just come to Him and invite Him to be our Lord and Saviour. We have the greatest gift over those who simply choose not to be humble to invite Him to be their Lord and Saviour. If we don't consider this most important step, we need to understand that we can never be "good enough" to ever make it in to Heaven. Otherwise, His sacrifice for us means absolutely nothing!! Why would anyone not want to invite Him to be our Lord when He has done beyond what any man could ever do for us and this type of love could never be compared to any love this world could ever offer? Just watching that short cartoon clipping that is just over one minute long says so much more than many of the large volume of books ever published. This is an illustration that not only did all of our sins get transferred to that spotless lamb (Jesus), but His Righteousness has now been transferred from Him to us which is why He tells us that we are now the Righteousness of Christ (Rom 3:25). He who knew no sin (did no sin) became sin by being punished as though He sinned on our behalf and took my (and all the worlds punishment upon Himself (2 Cor 5:21). His awesome mercy is the punishment He took in our place and equally, His awesome Grace is that unmerited favor of giving us His Righteousness to be eternally blessed in place of the eternal punishment which we deserved by our sins. The only way we could ever be righteous is when we repent and believe what He did for you and I personally. When we repent, we do Him the most injustice by hanging on to guilt and shame when He has taken this from us when we come to Him. Why do we feel we need to punish ourselves any more when He did this in our place once and for all? His sacrifice means nothing unless we believe and receive. His sacrifice only benefits us when we receive it by faith when He takes our sins and transfers His Righteousness to us. We can only believe because it can't be done any other way. The link below is a caption of this broadcast and the cartoon clipping starts around 22 minutes into the half hour program and is only just over a minute long. But what a message in such a short time!! It makes me realize how ashamed I am when I fail to simply ask, believe and receive His total divine love and forgiveness for me and think that I need to be justified by continuing to feel guilty when I didn't have to. And when He hung on the cross, He took every one of our curses from us (Gal 3:13). But again, this does us no good unless we ask Him to remove the curses from us and believe He took them from us and receive His blessings in place for us (Eph 1:3). These curses include generational curses and the curses of our forefathers which the people had been a product of as mentioned in Lamentations 5:7. This is why that if we expect to receive anything from God, it has to be received by faith by believing it as He transfers His Righteousness to us. Otherwise, all He has ever accomplished for us only does good to those who believe which is when I believe He is able to transfer everything that He has ever accomplished for us when we believe and receive it. We literally block the blessings of God in our lives when we fail to accept His sacrifice and simply receive His awesome gifts to us. I hope you will watch this program and see how the message brings such hope and healing as it does for me. May it bless you as you 'receive it'. http://www.josephprince.org/Resources_Current_Broadcast.asp?active=resources Will you consider buying my books in support of HelpingCopeThroughHope mission work in Zambia? You may go to my link below to observe. In the Matchless Name of Jesus Richard Associate Director Answers2Prayer http://sites.google.com/site/greatestbuilderforourlife http://www.answers2prayer.org/