Grace Revolution: Experience the Power to Live Above Defeat (21 page)
Read Grace Revolution: Experience the Power to Live Above Defeat Online
Authors: Joseph Prince
Tags: #Religion / Christian Life / Personal Growth, #RELIGION / Christian Life / Spiritual Growth, #Religion / Christian Life / Inspirational
Did you know that it was on Mount Zion in Jerusalem that the church was born? When the day of Pentecost had fully come, the Spirit of God came like a rushing mighty wind, and filled the 120 disciples in the Upper Room (see Acts 2:2–4). The Spirit of God could not wait to inhabit the believers who had been justified by the blood of Jesus.
Can you imagine God living inside you? How much closer can you get to God? You are so near, you are of one spirit with God (see 1 Cor. 6:17) because our Lord Jesus first came near and gave His life for you. That is what the finished work of our Lord Jesus has accomplished for you!
Let me say this again: the grace revolution is a revolution of relationship. The testimonies my ministry constantly receives have, besides various amazing breakthroughs, one constant: people are falling deeply in love with Jesus. Intimacy with God is being restored. Religion has become relationship. “Have to”s have become “want to”s. People are experiencing new life and an intimacy with God they never had before. Those who were once far off have drawn near to God, and in that place of nearness, their needs are more than met.
The grace revolution is a revolution of relationship.
My dear reader, this can be your reality, your ending to the struggles and dryness you are facing right now. It all begins when you value the person of Jesus and what He has accomplished for you to experience closeness with God.
What happens when you stay in this place of nearness to God?
You dwell in the place of abundance, in the land of Goshen.
Goshen
literally means “drawing near”
2
to God. In the Old Testament story of Joseph, when the land was in famine, Joseph said to his brothers, “Hurry and go up to my father, and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph: “God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not tarry. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and
you shall be near to me
, you and your children, your children’s children, your flocks and your herds, and all that you have.
There I will provide for you
, lest you and your household, and all that you have, come to poverty; for there are still five years of famine”’” (Gen. 45:9–11, emphasis mine).
My friend, the world we live in today is fraught with famine, economic uncertainty, corruption, and all kinds of evil and tragedies. People are more afraid than ever to travel by air or sea. Many people are living stressed, anxious lives just due to the chaos they see all around them. As Scripture says, the world will get darker, and it is (see Isa. 60:2).
But in the midst of all this darkness and uncertainty, I want you to know that there is a Goshen you and your family can take refuge in. It’s a blessed place where God says, “You shall be
near
to me, you and your children, and your children’s children. There
I will provide for you
!”
In the midst of darkness and uncertainty, there is a blessed place where God says, “You shall be
near
to me,
you and your children, and your children’s children.
There
I will provide for you
!”
That’s what the grace revolution does for you. It is a revolution of restored relationship. It brings you near to God. To be established on Mount Zion is to have an intimacy with God you never dreamed
possible. And in that intimacy, barrenness gives way to fruitfulness. Lack is replaced by abundance. Sadness and sickness with joy and life. Fear with love. Confusion and insecurity with peace and assurance. Defeat with victory. Breakdowns with breakthroughs. And aimlessness with divine destiny!
The grace revolution brings you near to God.
Adeline from the United Kingdom wrote to me with her praise report that bears out what I have just discussed. She shares,
When I came across your broadcast almost two years ago, I was at the end of myself and as you’ve said, I was both “wandering” and “wondering” what had happened to my relationship with the Lord.
I was serving in church but I felt spiritually dry and I was getting weary and tired. My marriage wasn’t doing well. In fact, my relatives were advising me to get out of the relationship because they were concerned about how my children were being affected by the tensions and strains in our marriage.
It was my husband who first saw your broadcast on television and told me about you. Out of curiosity, I watched and I thank God that I did because before that, I’d cried out to God and told Him that I could not live the way I was living anymore. God heard my cries and He has answered me way above what I’d asked or imagined!
Law demands but grace supplies, supplies, and supplies! As I watched and I listened, I fell in love with Jesus all over again. How can I not when Jesus is being unveiled every time the Word is taught? I feel like a sheep that has been led to feed in fresh green pastures, and to rest and drink beside still and restful waters.
For the first time since I came to know Jesus when I was eleven years old, I am experiencing “prosperity” like I’ve never seen before. Firstly, He caused my soul to prosper. Then, like a ripple effect, my marriage began to prosper because instead of calling time-out, I fell in love with my husband all over again. The feeling was mutual as my husband had also been impacted by the message of grace that he was hearing, and our marriage got born again!
Even my children are being blessed when they listen to your messages and they now enjoy a peace at home that was not there before. My six-year-old would even quote you on Romans 6:14, saying that “sin shall not have dominion over us because we are not married to Mr. Law but Mr. Grace!”
Serving the Lord in church has also taken on a different dimension because I now serve out of and because of the abundance of His grace. Because of the revelation I’ve received of who I am in Christ, I am also better able to perform my duties as a nurse to care for patients with critical conditions instead of dreading them. I now want to care for them because I am in a position to make a difference to their condition.
It’s been an AMAZING time, discovering what grace is! God truly gives us restful increase and this has been a year of unceasing fruitfulness for me and my family. It’s the gospel of grace, and God is using you to bring His love, His abundant life to His body.
I can’t have enough of this gospel, for this good news that is SO GOOD that it can’t be anything but true. All whom I have shared with are encouraged to hear His Word through your ministry and are experiencing a gospel revolution. Thank you, Pastor Prince! GOD IS GOOD!
Hearing the message of grace brought Adeline to the land of Goshen, where she “fell in love with Jesus all over again” and had her marriage restored. Out of that intimacy with God, she also experienced restful increase and unceasing fruitfulness for herself and her family as His grace just kept supplying their every need. She is also now a carrier of His spirit of grace and love in her work as a nurse, and is making a tangible difference in the lives of her patients. Praise the Lord!
Beloved, how do you stay planted on Zion and in the place of nearness and intimacy with the Lord? It is by being established in your righteous standing in Christ Jesus. Our Lord Jesus died on the cross and rose again on the third day to give us an everlasting righteousness that is anchored by faith in Him (see Rom. 4:5). Now that is the gospel of Jesus Christ!
How do you stay planted on Zion and in the place of nearness and intimacy with the Lord? It is by being established in your righteous standing in Christ Jesus.
Please understand that I have nothing against the Ten Commandments. I just have a problem with those who are saying that you need to keep the Ten Commandments in order to be made righteous, because by that standard, no one can! No man can keep the Ten Commandments perfectly inwardly and outwardly. And according to Scripture, if you break just one law, you are guilty of breaking the whole law (see James 2:10). The Ten Commandments are holy, just, and good, but they cannot make you holy, just, and good! We can’t be justified by the law. We can be justified only by faith in the Lord Jesus.
Name me one person who has been made righteous by the Ten Commandments. Even the person who is vehemently telling you that you are made right in your relationship with the Lord by keeping the Ten Commandments has failed to do so and will continue to fail in thought, word, and deed. Read what the apostle Paul said in Galatians closely:
We know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.
—Galatians 2:16
NLT
Read the last line again: “For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.” Now is the apostle Paul against God’s law and against the Ten Commandments? Of course not!
In the same way, we are in favor of the law for the reason for which God gave the law. God gave the law to bring man to the end of himself
and to begin to see a need for the saving grace of a Savior. No man can be justified and made righteous by the law.
Righteousness under law is earned by works, righteousness under grace is received by faith through grace. You are made righteous today by your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The moment you received Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior you were made eternally righteous without any works.
But Pastor Prince, how can I be made righteous without any works?
That’s why, my dear reader, it is a grace revolution! Jesus has overthrown the system where man had to earn God’s righteousness, and put us under one where God provides His very own righteousness through His Son. Grace is the undeserved, unearned, and unmerited favor of God. You received everlasting righteousness from God as a free gift by faith through grace the second you believed in our Lord Jesus.
Jesus has overthrown the system where man had to earn God’s righteousness, and put us under one where God provides His very own righteousness through His Son.
Under law, righteousness is a work. Under grace, righteousness is a free gift apart from works. Salvation, righteousness, and eternal life are all priceless. Man can never perform enough good works to merit, earn, and deserve them. They had to be given by God as a gift! And boy did He give. He gave up His beloved Son on the cross, so that you and I today can be called the sons and daughters of God.
As a son or daughter in God’s family, you can enjoy intimate fellowship with God, Who is your heavenly Father. What the law could not do—make us children of God—God did by sending His Son, Jesus Christ. He wanted us close to Him, so close that He can dwell in us and we in Him. It is all about intimacy and relationship.
The law given from Mount Sinai put a great chasm of separation and distance between God and us. It drew a line in the sand, a line that man could not cross in his efforts to draw close to God. But that division has been broken because of Jesus. The chasm has been bridged. His sacrifice has torn the veil separating us from God.
Jesus is the reason we can cross from Mount Sinai to Mount Zion. Now we can draw near to the Father, to His throne of grace, with boldness and confidence. Jew or Gentile, because of the blood of Christ, we have both been brought near to God (see Eph. 2:17–18).
Jesus is the reason we can draw near to the Father, to His throne of grace, with boldness and confidence.
My dear friend, today you can have the intimacy you’ve always longed for with God. You can enjoy fruitfulness instead of dead works when you live in the realm of His love for you, and not out of a sense of religious obligation. If you’ve been beaten down by negative circumstances, a long-term condition, or an addiction you can’t seem to break, you can be a prisoner of hope and receive His gift of righteousness afresh to reign over it (see Zech. 9:12, Rom. 5:17).
You can have a fresh start in your career even when you have seen your dreams shattered, because you know that in the place of nearness, God loves you, hears you, and will restore to you. You can live free of fear, terror, and oppression as you become more and more established in His righteousness day by day (Isa. 54:14). I pray that as you grow in your revelation of how Jesus has brought you to a place of closeness with God, you will walk in liberty. May you have victory over everything that is holding you back from fulfilling all that our Father has in store for your blessed future in Him.
HAVING A HEART FOR JESUS
B
ethany was one place that our Lord Jesus loved to frequent. He was very comfortable in Bethany, where He could be among His closest friends, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Bethany was a home away from home for our Lord. There His friends loved Him, honored Him, and truly valued His presence. On His part, He cherished their company dearly, and always felt comfortable and relaxed with them. It was also in Bethany that our Lord ascended into heaven (see Luke 24:50–51).
Six days before He gave Himself up to be crucified, He gathered His friends together in Bethany, which was about two miles away from Jerusalem. They had prepared a feast in His honor, but their reunion was overshadowed by the looming Passover, which was less than a week away. His friends understood to some degree what the Lord intended to do, and their hearts were heavy because they cared deeply for Him.
As our Lord Jesus was eating, Mary brought out a jar of spikenard, a very costly fragrant oil. So costly, in fact, that it was worth a whole year’s wages. But it wasn’t the hours she had toiled to earn the oil that Mary thought about as she cradled the jar in her hands.
It was Jesus. It was her Lord.
She had come prepared to worship Jesus and her heart overflowed
with a love that could not be expressed in words as she drew near to Him. Gratitude and adoration welled up inside her as she knelt quietly beside Him. Not sparing a drop of her exquisite tribute, she anointed the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair. And the entire house was filled with the opulent fragrance of her worship of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Upon witnessing this lavish and extravagant gesture, one of Jesus’ disciples, Judas Iscariot, lashed out indignantly. In sharp criticism of Mary, he demanded, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” (John 12:1–5).
Did you notice that with only one glance at the jar of precious spikenard, Judas was able to come up with a precise evaluation of its commercial worth? This man had an acumen for business and knew instantly that this perfume was worth three hundred denarii. The sad reality is this: Judas could tell the value of the oil straightaway, but he couldn’t see the value of our Lord Jesus.