Priority Letters: What will you do with
them?
As stated before, when you become born again or literally,
“born from above” by asking Jesus to come into your heart and by believing and
confessing that Jesus is Lord, you become a joint heir with Jesus. You may say, but how does that have any
effect at all on my life? The Bible says
He actually becomes your elder brother. Think about it. You are now part of his family, and you are an
heir with Him to all the promises that God has made to Jesus. As you take time
to read the Bible, where you will learn what rightly belongs to you as part of
the family of God, see it not as just a “good” book, but as “Priority Letters” to
you which hold information you need to move forward daily in life with lots of wisdom
and insight as to how to apply and appropriate the words and truths into your own
life. See these “Priority Letters” as
personally written to you and this will help your ability to believe God wants
to do so much for you and through you.
Because of a lack of understanding of how deep God’s love is
for them, many have lived far beneath the privileges God has established in his
Word. As discussed previously, many have allowed “stuff” to accumulate in their
lives instead of the knowledge of the love of God and his plans for their
future.
If Jesus, our Savior, said, “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full,” John 10:10 (NIV) shouldn’t that be what we base our faith and trust in rather than what life has dealt many of us, or what others may have said to us or about us?
The New Century Bible says it this way: “A thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but I came to give life—life in all its fullness.” John 10:10 (New Century)
It has been stated that people have three identities:
- Who
people say we are;
- Who they
become because of what they accept as the truth concerning what people
have said, or
- Who they
are based on who Christ says they are….
A fresh experience with God’s love and taking time to get release from preconceived ideas, hurts and others’ opinions that have been stored in your soul can connect you to the identity Christ paid for you to have. You, yes, you have so much in store when you accept the truth about how much you are loved! Jesus said “a full life” was His goal for you! Could this be the season for you to win your own personal “super-bowl” by running toward the goal Jesus set for you?
To be more specific as to what Jesus was saying when He said His desire for you was a full or abundant life, some of the meanings from the Greek language that this Scripture came from will give a more complete picture of what Jesus was saying: Jesus came so you could have “advantage,” “have what is above and over, superadded,” “have what is superior and advantageous,” “experience life in a more superabundant way,” and “experience the exceedingly and out of measure.”
These are not my words, they are the words of Jesus himself describing the gift He came to earth for you to receive and subsequently experience on an ongoing basis while you are here on earth, let alone thinking about the magnificence of eternity in Heaven!
The way God has set up for you to experience this is according to the following Scripture:
“This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” I Timothy 2: 3 & 4 (NIV)
If we need to “come into a knowledge of the truth,” could there be many untruths or lies we need to get rid of?” The answer is unequivocally yes!
The work of salvation covers every area of life and to receive the fullness of it, you have to pursue His truths and act on them in the here and now! When we become born again, our spirits are reconnected to God but our souls have to be renewed day by day to fulfill what God has planned for us. Getting “rid” of untruths opens the door wide for knowledge of the truth to come in! He desires you to know you have a safe place in Him. He is concerned that you experience the feeling of well-being and care knowing you are loved by your Heavenly Father.
The world is a confusing place and the Bible says in the latter days people will lose consideration for each other because of pressures all around but, He has promised a Covenant of love that cannot be altered and the more you learn of His love the more you will experience His higher purpose for you, which, He states, is health, prosperity and well-being…not what you may have experienced or are experiencing today.
He even wants to reward you for seeking Him because it gives Him such pleasure to see you living in and experiencing his blessings!
I pray that this book will help you experience the blessings God has in store for you and that it will help you understand the “great exchange” you need to make on a daily basis to incorporate and experience God’s promises and truths in your life as opposed to thought patterns you are currently living by.
Did you know God is an equal opportunity God?
“And without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)
Think about it. Are you an “anyone?” Would you be willing to be one who earnestly seeks Him? To experience all of the rewards he speaks of, you have to seek him for yourself. No matter what anyone tries to tell you, it is God who says He wants to reward you; it is not based on man’s opinion of you or who likes you or doesn’t. It is a God loves you awareness! He says, “You must realize He exists” and that He has you on His mind for a purpose. If you have depended only on others’ perception of God, whether it be a spiritual leader, family member, friend, associate, etc., you may have missed out on a lot of things already. It is never too late to begin believing for yourself that He exists and that He wants to reward your faith in earnestly seeking Him and learning about His promises. Again, re-evaluate daily who and what you have been basing your faith in to see if it warrants your continued focus!
You have a major choice: Act on man’s opinions or God’s opinions! Which will you choose?
The issues most of us have are that we have put more confidence in man and his opinions than
We have in what God has said about us and who He is! Again, it is very empowering to realize God
has a reward for those that take time to get to know Him for who He really is
and commit to applying His promises in their daily lives so that they can experience
more in their life which will also allow them to experience a more full life
and be in a position to help others.
Think about this: You are deemed a person of value by God! It pleases God when you realize how much you are deemed valuable to Him.
You can learn how much you are cared for through the word of God which is Good News and by someone telling you truths they have learned and experienced from the word.
The Scriptures tell us how faith to believe comes: “So faith comes from hearing the Good News when someone tells them about Christ.” Romans 10:17 (New Century)
Think about your life right now. How much of the word of God do you hear on a consistent basis?
How much have you heard over your lifetime?
Now, take time to think of how many words from “man” you hear on a regular basis and how much you have heard over your lifetime.
Which one is now having the greatest influence over your life?
Psalms 1, for instance, tells us how blessed we will be when we seek His counsel and meditate on His words instead of sitting around listening to the ungodly or those that are scornful or not properly connected to God. His promise to us is that “if” we stay focused on Him and His words and ways of doing things, whatever we would put our hand to would prosper in its season and appointed time. He says that we would be “like” trees planted by rivers of water that would produce fruit in its season.
It is important to realize that just as plants and trees, etc., have different seasons for producing green leaves and fruit, seeds of faith-filled words and God’s determined seasons all come into play. It is then, through faith and patience you see results. This means, of course, you need to be actively seeking His wisdom for you and not sitting passively and accepting what the “world” has to say (negative seed) about you and your circumstances. A case in point is what we see and hear on television, the internet, radio broadcasts, what is written in newsprint, and, of course conversations we hear from people in general. These can very easily usurp time and often provide information that is misleading and not faith-filled but more often than not fear-filled. If you are tired of being overwhelmed and/or underwhelmed, decide to focus on what will bring God’s best into your life. Here is how you begin:
“But seek for (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom, and His righteousness [His way of doing and being right], and then all these things taken together will be given you besides.” Matthew 6:33 (Amp)
This “adding” comes as a result of your faith being activated and exercised with confidence in how much He loves and cares for you. Also, when He speaks of “meditating” in the Book of Psalms 1, this word actually means “to speak out over and over.” That is how you activate God’s word in your life which will open the door to abundant life! You find out what God has to say about you and then you talk about it!
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