A Door of Hope

“I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope.”

Hosea 2:15 NLT

Are you among the people who think that when you fail, God leaves you and only returns when you get your act together? Some people think that they must clean up their lives and overcome all their struggles on their own before they can come before the presence of God. Well, I have a simple question for you: Do you clean yourself before you take a bath? Of course not!

In the same way, God wants you to come to Him just as you are, with all your weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, wrong beliefs, hang-ups, and all your bondages, fears, and addictions. He is the bath! You don’t have to try to clean yourself up before you come to Him.

But Pastor Prince, what if the mess I’m in is entirely of my own doing? Can I still just come to God as I am and expect Him to help me?

Yes, even if your trouble is due to your own willfulness or a mistake of your own making, He is still with you. He has never left you, and He never will. He will never forsake you (Heb. 13:5).

You are precious in His eyes. Can you imagine living life with the kind of confidence, assurance, and peace that comes when you are truly anchored in this truth?

Today, even if you find yourself in the Valley of Trouble, know that you will not remain there for long. You will walk through it and not remain or camp there (Ps. 23:4).

God is opening a door of hope in your life today for you to step out of your darkness and into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9). Things are going to get better. The breakthroughs that you have been waiting for are coming your way.

Step through the door of hope and out of your Valley of Trouble today. Jesus is your door of hope!

Believe in His love for you and allow Him to lead you to freedom. In His loving presence, you will find forgiveness, healing, and restoration. He will mend your life and transform you from the inside out.

This devotional is taken from the book 100 Days of Right Believing—Daily Readings from The Power of Right Believing.

Experience His Presence

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust.”

Psalm 91:1–2

My friend, today you can experience God’s presence in your life. Say to yourself, “The Lord is with me and I have His favor, blessings, and protection.”

Sense His shadow covering you. His shadow is a picture of nearness. You are not trying to get into the secret place; you are already there in Christ. In Christ, you can’t get any closer to God.

In the Old Testament, God showed Moses, the great patriarch, only His back parts (Ex. 33:22–23). That’s the old covenant—because of man’s failure, God was always departing and the children of Israel only saw His back.

The picture of the new covenant is God sending His only Son, Jesus Christ. It is the picture of the father running toward the prodigal son in spite of his failures. Under the new covenant, we are seated with our heavenly Father in Christ and we see the smile on His face! That is how close you are to God today.

So even if your feelings tell you that God is a million miles away, learn to trust His Word over your feelings. All you need to do is to utter the words “Father” or “Abba,” and immediately you will sense that He is closer than your own breath.

In the same way, even when you don’t seem to feel His presence, you can trust in Him. Trust doesn’t mean that there will be no butterflies in your stomach. Trust means that even though you have the butterflies, you still act on God’s Word.

Whatever it is you are afraid of doing, do it afraid while keeping your trust in the Lord. There are people who are afraid to leave their house, fly on a plane, pursue a new career, start a new friendship, volunteer in a ministry, visit a care group in church, or even show up for work.

Beloved, don’t let fear rule your life. If you’re thinking of embarking on something, most certainly, be led by the Spirit, seek wise counsel, count the cost, and make responsible decisions in your situation. Just don’t allow the butterflies in your stomach to dictate your life.

When you say to the Lord, “In You I trust,” it doesn’t mean you instantly stop feeling any fear. Trust means choosing to act on God’s Word in spite of the fear.

This devotional is taken from the book The Prayer of Protection Devotional—Daily Strategies for Living Fearlessly in Dangerous Times.

Message from Amir Tsarfati

John 14, “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would’ve told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you….” What’s Jesus saying? I'm going to go and prepare a place for you. What’s the point of going and preparing a place for you if I’m not going to come back and take you? He’s like, Hello?

He says, “I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. That where I am there you may be also.” Where is He? In heaven. We are the ones to change address. Jesus did not say, “Well, in your father’s house there’re many mansions and you are now going to prepare a place for Me. And if you prepare a place for Me, then you will receive Me unto yourself. So where you are, I will also be." He didn’t say that. He said, “I go to prepare a place for you and I will come back to receive you. So where I am there you will also be.” We change addresses, not Him. We are not here to prepare this world for the second coming. The world is going so crazy that at a certain point God will say enough is enough, and He takes us out of here.

I am sure we have all had someone say to us or we’ve said to them, “Don’t worry about it.” But then there is no follow up with the ‘how to” of the instruction. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” The word translated “let” can also be translated as “stop”. He told His disciples to stop letting their hearts be troubled. He then followed with a declaration of His deity when He said, “You believe in God, believe also in Me.” What Jesus was saying was, What you believe about God believe also about Me.

This conversation took place at the Last Supper after Jesus revealed He would be betrayed and that Peter would deny Him three times. He told them to stop letting their hearts be troubled, and that He after He went to prepare a place for them, “I will come again and receive you unto Myself that where I am you may be also.”

The word translated “receive” can also mean "to take away” or “take up.” This was the tool that would allow them to stop letting their hearts be troubled.

Titus 2:11-13
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Jesus told the disciples that He was going to come again and take them up to where He is. Paul said that we ought to be looking for that too, and even described it as the glorious appearing. 

This gives us a very practical tool for dealing with our own difficulties in life. Jesus had told the group of disciples that some painful things were ahead, then immediately pointed their thinking past the moment and into the future. 

Philippians 3:20-21
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

The hard things in life are only temporary. Recognizing this will not lessen the pain of them, but remembering our eagerly awaited future will help us through them. Someday, glorious Christ-like bodies will be ours because we believe in Him. And, someday, He’s coming to take us away to where He is to forever be with Him!   

Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus,

Depend on the Lord for Right Timing

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

Beloved, never forget that “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong . . . but time and chance happen to them all.” God wants you to have the right timing—His timing, and nothing is left to chance because you are God's child.

Psalm 37:23 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD.” You are that “good man” because you are the righteousness of God in Christ.

Now, look at the word “happen.” In the original Hebrew text, it is the word qarah, which means “to encounter, to meet (without pre-arrangement), to chance to be present." In a nutshell, it means “right happening.”

My friend, you can depend on God to cause you to be at the right place at the right time, to have right happenings happen in your life! I am sure that you would agree that being at the right place at the right time is a tremendous blessing. You certainly don’t want to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. That can lead to disastrous results.

But even if you think that you are at the wrong place at the wrong time, such as when you are caught in a traffic jam or when you miss your train, don’t be too agitated. A delay can turn out to be God’s protection from an accident ahead. Sometimes, a delay of just a few seconds can mean the difference between life and death!

In 2001, a brother in my church wrote in to share that his son's office was in the twin towers in New York. On one particular morning, his son’s alarm clock did not go off and he ended up missing his regular train to work and was late arriving at work. Had he been on time that morning, he would have been in his office when the planes plowed into the building during the devastating terrorist attacks on September 11.

In 2003, another brother from my church was in Jakarta, Indonesia, for a business trip. He was staying at the Marriott Hotel and he was in the lobby when a bomb went off just outside the hotel. The bomb tore through the lobby and he saw a body flying past him as the deafening blast reverberated all around him.

After the dust had settled, he found blood spattered on him and debris strewn all around, but amazingly, he was completely unhurt. At the very moment when the bomb exploded, he happened to walk behind a pillar and it protected him from the impact of the blast. Just think what would have happened to him if he had reached that pillar just a few seconds before or after the bomb went off!

No matter how intelligent you are, how fat your savings account is, or how prestigious your family name may be, there is no way you can know beforehand when to position yourself behind a pillar just as a bomb that you are unaware of explodes near you.

Only God can put you at the right place at the right time. It was the Lord who placed this brother behind the pillar at the precise moment. His steps were literally ordered by the Lord. All glory to Him! Jesus is our true pillar of protection!

God’s faithfulness in protecting His beloved by putting them at the right place at the right time was demonstrated even more recently. Two massive explosions rocked Jakarta, Indonesia, again on the morning of July 17, 2009, and this time both the Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton hotels were the targets of terrorist attacks.

A lady from our church was in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton when one of the bombs was detonated in the nearby restaurant where guests were having breakfast. The force of the explosion sent glass shards flying past her, ripping into the flesh of other guests who were standing in front of her. Amazingly, she was completely unharmed!

She shared that she had initially planned to have breakfast at that very restaurant at the time the bomb exploded. That would certainly have put her at the wrong place at the wrong time. If she had done so, she could have been killed by the blast in the restaurant.

However, she shared that the reason she missed her usual breakfast time that morning was that she was caught up in reading a few devotional entries from my Destined to Reign Devotional and spending time with the Lord in her hotel room. The “delay” she experienced in reading my book kept her away from the restaurant and saved her life! Praise Jesus!

My friend, nothing happens by chance—the Lord knows how to place you at the right place and the right time! You can depend on Jesus for right happenings. They all come by His unmerited favor.

In the new covenant of grace, the Bible says that the Lord Himself writes His laws on your heart (Heb. 8:10). He can speak to you and guide you in everything that you do. Allow Him to lead you supernaturally!

This devotional is taken from the book 100 Days of Favor—Daily Readings from Unmerited Favor.

Feed on Christ

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”

John 6:35

In John 11:53, we see an unexpected response toward Jesus when He performed the astounding miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. From that day on, it says the chief priests and the Pharisees plotted to kill Jesus—the One Who opened blind eyes, unstopped deaf ears, cleansed those with leprosy, and raised the dead!

Why? And what does this tell you about what was in their hearts?

In order to be a chief priest or a Pharisee, one needed to be a student of the Word of God from a young age, and to know the Torah from front to back. Yet the religious leaders, who were zealous for the law and knew all about the Torah, were the very people who plotted to kill Jesus.

Now lean in and listen closely to what I am about to say. They had head knowledge but they did not have a heart for the person of Jesus. They had all this Bible knowledge, but they did not have the Author of the Bible in their hearts.

They would constantly quote from the Old Testament to condemn and to crush those who have failed instead of saving them. Remember how they wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery by quoting from the law of Moses, but Jesus saved her by inviting the one who had no sin to cast the first stone.

Beloved, it is possible for people today to accumulate a lot of head knowledge on this theology and that theology, and yet not have any heart knowledge that burns with love and passion for our Lord Jesus Christ. It is possible to enrich your mind or to study about this interpretation and that interpretation of the Scriptures, and still have a heart that is stone-cold when it comes to an intimate and personal relationship with Jesus.

Now don’t misunderstand me—I am not saying that you should not acquire Bible knowledge. I am saying that we need to study the Bible not simply to accumulate head knowledge, but to have a revelation of Jesus. To have a heart of love for Jesus, you must know the Bible.

In fact, true scriptural knowledge about Jesus will lead you to have a heart for Jesus. Don’t be like the Pharisees, who had Bible knowledge, but no love for our Lord Jesus. Don’t miss the Author when you are reading His Word.

When you study the Bible, study to feed on the person of Jesus. Feed on His beauty, His grace, His majesty, and His immense and sacrificial love for you. We read the Word to feed on Christ.

Oh, how I love the phrase, “to feed on Christ.” He is the bread of life and the more you feed on Him in the Word, the more you will be strengthened and nourished with His health, life, and wisdom for every area of your life.

When you see Jesus in the Word, you will know how to esteem and value Him. Jesus becomes real food for your soul and He gives you strength for your service.

Real holiness comes from beholding Jesus. As you behold our Lord, you are transformed from the inside out from glory to glory.

When you value Jesus, your heart’s desire is just to glorify Him in everything that you think, say, and do. When you have a heart for Jesus, everything in your life—whether it is your marriage, your parenting, or your career—will fall into place as you receive His finished work!

This devotional is taken from the book Glorious Grace—100 Daily Readings from Grace Revolution.

How Do You See God?

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

Matthew 7:11

Our enemy the devil is well aware that the moment you learn to receive God’s grace, you will start to reign in life. So he has been working hard to prevent you from receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness.

The devil has been using controversy as a device down through church history to prevent believers from having access to the most powerful truths of God. He has built fences of controversy around healing, prosperity, and grace (calling them heresies) to keep believers from reigning over sickness, poverty, and sin. You can always tell how powerful a truth is by the number of controversies the devil surrounds it with!

Please pay close attention to what I am saying. Not all controversies are based on the truth of God’s Word. We have to test everything against what the Bible says.

Nevertheless, controversy is a tool that the devil uses to prevent God’s people from accessing His truths. The enemy is a crafty liar and deceitful thief, so we have to base what we believe on the Scriptures and test everything against it. If you want to know the truth about God’s grace, study His Word yourself and see what it has to say about grace!

Pastor Prince, are you one of those “prosperity gospel” preachers?

My friend, there is no such thing as a “prosperity gospel.” There is only one gospel in the Bible—the gospel of Jesus Christ.

However, when you believe the gospel of Jesus, which is based entirely on His grace, it will result in health and abundance of provision. In fact, the gospel of Jesus Christ leads to blessings, success, healing, restoration, protection, financial breakthroughs, security, peace, wholeness, and much more!

God blesses you not because you are good, but because He is good. It is based on His faithfulness and goodness toward you. It is not contingent on your performance, but on His undeserved favor.

If it were contingent on how good you are, then it would no longer be grace but the law. It would be deserved favor. This is the difference between the old covenant of law and the new covenant of grace:

Law is deserved favor—When you obey the commandments perfectly, you will be blessed.

Grace is undeserved favor—Jesus obeyed God perfectly, and you will be blessed by believing in Him.

My friend, which covenant are you under today? Law or grace? Deserved favor or undeserved favor? How do you see God—as your Judge or loving Father? If you think that being blessed by God today is dependent on your doing, your ability to keep the law, and your ability to make yourself righteous, I ask you to test your understanding of grace against the Scriptures.

Read today’s scripture again and open your heart to what it says about God and His grace toward you: God is your loving Father in heaven who loves you and has nothing but good gifts for you. He sent His Son to die for you so that you can enjoy every one of these good gifts. Today, receive His abundant grace!

This devotional is taken from the book Reign in Life—90 Powerful Inspirations for Extraordinary Breakthroughs.

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Speak the Word

And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak.

2 Corinthians 4:13

Beloved, it is not enough for you to merely know the Word in your heart. You must say it. That’s when latent power becomes actual power. When our Lord Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, He did not merely think about Scripture. He spoke it out loud.

You can memorize thousands of scriptures but if you don’t learn to say, “It is written,” and release the Word, there will be no power. God’s power is there, but it is all lying dormant inside you.

But when you speak it out, God’s power is unleashed. When you release God’s Word through your mouth, you release God’s power into your situation. Amen!

Fear is not something you can reason or analyze away. Fear is irrational. There are some fears that come into your life and you can think to yourself, Come on, what are the chances of that happening? or It’s so silly to fear this.

But have you noticed that those fears still hang around? We are in a war, my friend, and the only way to defeat fear is to speak the Word of God to whatever fear you have by saying, “It is written.”

It is written—“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).

I want you to memorize that. It’s a powerful verse of Scripture.

Now, I want you to say this out loud: It is written—“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Do you feel the power that comes with saying this aloud?

This is the truth: God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. I don’t care what kind of fears you are battling with—fear of growing old, fear of contracting this or that disease, fear of losing your job, fear of failure. Whatever the fear that has come against you, declare, “It is written.”

What if the fear comes back? Then say it again! Sometimes, I speak Scriptures over my situation in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. Whenever the fear comes back, I speak the Word of God.

If the devil wants a fight, give him one! Give him the sword of the Spirit and he will get the point every time. There are many scriptures you can memorize. Write down the scriptures that cover the areas of your need and arm yourself with them!

This devotional is taken from the book The Prayer of Protection Devotional—Daily Strategies for Living Fearlessly in Dangerous Times.

Do Not Consider Your Own Body

And not being weak in faith, [Abraham] did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

Romans 4:19

What should you do when you continue to be confronted with the symptoms or even when the enemy keeps reminding you of so-and-so who wasn’t healed? Keep on partaking of the holy Communion and thanking the Lord that everything you need for your healing has already been supplied through the cross.

Scripture tells us Christ has already redeemed you from the curse of every sickness and disease (Gal. 3:13). When our Lord Jesus instituted the holy Communion, He took the cup and “gave thanks” (Matt. 26:27). The Greek word for gave thanks is eucharisteo, which means “to express gratitude.”

This is why the holy Communion is also known as the Eucharist. You give thanks for something that is already done, that you have already received. So even if the symptoms are still in your body, you can give thanks and call yourself healed because His Word declares that “by His stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:5).

Don’t try to “get” healing for yourself or your loved one. It is already yours! The enemy has been conquered (Col. 2:15). Jesus has already given you divine health. Always remember this: as a believer, you do not fight for victory; you fight from victory.

My friend, let’s be like Abraham, who was convinced God was able to do what He had promised. Even though Abraham was very advanced in years, he believed God’s promise that He would make him a father of many nations and did not consider his own body or the deadness of his wife Sarah’s womb.

And you know the story: Isaac was born to Abraham when he was already one hundred years old (Gen. 21:5) and when Sarah was about ninety. In the natural, that was impossible as they were both past the natural childbearing age.

But Abraham did not consider the deadness of his own body; he considered God’s promise. Romans 4:20–21 tells us he “did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.”

In the same way, may I encourage you to be like Abraham? Do not consider the symptoms of sickness in your body. Instead, fix your eyes on our Lord Jesus and consider the promise in God’s Word, which declares that by Jesus’ stripes you are already healed. Keep partaking of the Communion in faith, thanking Him that His body was broken so yours might be whole. And as you partake, like the children of Israel, get ready for and keep expecting your physical deliverance.

This devotional is taken from the book The Healing Power of the Holy Communion—A 90-Day Devotional.

Unleash the Power

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

2 Corinthians 5:17–20 NLT

What does preaching the gospel, the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ, do? The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 1:16 that it releases “the power of God” to bring His salvation into your life.

The word “salvation” does not just mean being saved from hell to go to heaven. “Salvation” is the ultra-rich Greek word soteria, which means “deliverance, preservation, safety, salvation.” It covers any area of your life that needs saving so that you can enjoy wholeness and well-being in your body, soul, and spirit.

Now, where do you find this salvation? In the gospel of Christ. Not in the old covenant of law.

It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that unleashes the power of God to save you and make you whole. It is this gospel that brings protection, healing, deliverance, and soundness to every area of your life.

It is no wonder the enemy brings opposition to anyone who preaches the gospel of Christ. He doesn’t want the power of God to come into people’s lives.

By the same token, if you want the well-being and wholeness of God to come into your areas of challenge, then make sure you are hearing the gospel of Christ, which is the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24).

But what is it about the gospel of grace that makes it so powerful? We find the answer in Romans 1:17—“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’”

The gospel is so powerful because in it is the revelation that you have been made righteous by the work of Christ, not by your works. This is the glory of the gospel, the good news that when God looks at a man who has put his faith in what Jesus has done, God sees him perfect, complete, and righteous in Christ. It is knowing this that unleashes the power and salvation of God in all its richness into all areas of our lives.

Notice what the apostle Paul said in Romans 1:17—“The just [or righteous] shall live by faith.” You cannot walk in faith, talk in faith, or live a life of faith when you don’t understand that you have been made righteous by faith.

But once you realize that God is not counting your sins against you because of what Christ has done, peace and joy settle in your heart. Fear flees and hope springs forth. Faith for every blessing Christ purchased for you just erupts in you and activates the power of God to overcome every obstacle in your life!

My friend, whatever you may be struggling with today, come back to the Father’s loving embrace and grace. He loves you.

Receive the good news that you are a new creation in Christ; old things are gone. You have been reconciled to God through Christ’s perfect work at the cross. You are righteous in God’s sight (even when you fail) and are empowered to overcome every failing through His gift of no condemnation.

Let this good news of our Lord Jesus take hold in your heart. And in your every area of challenge, you will begin to experience lasting victory and a multiplication of His grace and peace in your life (2 Pet. 1:2).

This devotional is taken from the book Glorious Grace—100 Daily Readings from Grace Revolution.

Unveiling the Father’s Heart of Grace

“And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.”

Luke 15:20–24

Do you want to see how your heavenly Father responds when you have failed? Then I encourage you to read the entire parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11–32. Better yet, if you are feeling stressed and worried about something, take time to pull away from life’s hustle and bustle and simply meditate on Jesus’ words in this story and let His message to you soak in.

When Jesus shared the story of the prodigal son, all the Jewish people who heard Him would have been familiar with the condemnation and punishment (death by stoning) that the law specified for a stubborn, rebellious son (Deut. 21:18–21). However, instead of the law they were familiar with, Jesus revealed the Father’s heart of grace and forgiveness in the new covenant. Hallelujah!

Did the son sin against his father? Yes, most definitely. But did the father heap guilt and condemnation on his son before he received his son? No, he did not. Did it matter to the father that his son’s intention for returning home was simply because he was hungry? No, it did not.

When the prodigal son “was still a great way off,” his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his son’s neck and kissed him. What a wonderful picture of God’s heart of love!

This is an eyewitness account of what God the Father is like from Jesus Himself! See how He described God’s response to those who have sinned.

How is it that the father saw his son even when he was still a great way off? That’s because the father had been waiting and longing for his son to return. He must have kept his eyes on the horizon daily, hoping that each day would be the day his beloved son returned home.

Beloved, can you see God’s heart of love for you even when you have failed Him? You just have to take one step toward God and your loving Daddy in heaven will run toward you with no condemnation.

He wants to embrace you, kiss you, and lavish you with His love and blessings! He is waiting to clothe you with the robe of righteousness, put the signet ring of authority back in your hands, and shod your feet with the sandals of right standing. He wants to reinstate you, wash you, and throw a party because you came home!

Our God is a God who will run toward you with no condemnation! You can come boldly to God today and experience the intimate love of your heavenly Father in a deep and personal way as never before. I pray that this experience will heal, renew, restore, and transform you in a spectacular way because His love for you is nothing less than spectacular!

This devotional is taken from the book Reign in Life—90 Powerful Inspirations for Extraordinary Breakthroughs.

Message from Amir

The entire book of Romans is pure doctrine and it’s the doctrine of the hope that we must have, of the fact that we must wait with perseverance, of the fact there is coming a day when not only the souls, not only the spirit, our body is going to be redeemed out of this world.

1 Thessalonians 4, “I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.” He said, Guys, even if some of our brothers and sisters died, if they are believers, thank you Lord, because you don’t have that lifestyle of having no hope like so many. He said, “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord.”

When Paul said, “For this, we say to you by the word of the Lord,” Paul basically said, Okay, I’m telling you exactly what God is speaking. Okay? It’s not my opinion, it’s not my theology. Look what God says. He says this. He said, “That we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no mean precede those who are asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of an archangel and with a trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore,” he said, “comfort one another with these words.”

Every day, remind yourself that your citizenship is not here anymore. You have heavenly citizenship. When you die, you don’t die. You go home. Going home where you belong. When somebody dies here, he just falls asleep. And it’s interesting, when your child falls asleep in the living room and you take him all the way to his bedroom, he wakes up in his bedroom. We fall asleep here, we wake up there. Good deal.

And that’s the comfort. We need to comfort one another with these words. Don’t listen to those naysayers. Don’t listen to those... They are scoffers and they’re mockers. The easiest thing to mock in our faith is the rapture. Why? Because it sounds really out of this world. I mean, think about it. We’re gone. But, hey, was the parting of the Red Sea not something else? Why is the rapture your only problem? I mean, wasn’t Jesus taken in the cloud? What about Elijah with all that amazing drama? I mean, what about the Jordan River rolling all the way back and piling water all the way to the sky as a pillar, letting a million, almost a million and a half Israelites cross at the same time? How come you have a problem with the rapture of the church and you can accept all the other things? Isn’t God the God of miracles?

I mean, you want God to just be an ordinary God and just the world to be an ordinary world and things as they always been. This is like putting you to sleep.

While denying the rapture is quite popular today, one of the main arguments made by the rapture deniers is that no one believed or taught it early in church history and only in the last 100 or so years was it popularized.

Not only is this untrue, it is a denial of scripture. The early church fathers, as this group of deniers likes to refer to them, are not the litmus test of whether or not the Bible teaches the rapture. The whole reason for the epistles was that churches were getting things wrong. So a person’s proximity to the time of Jesus is not a valid test for doctrinal accuracy. Biblical consistency is the only way to test doctrine.

Some say the Bible doesn’t use the word rapture. However, if you were reading from the Vulgate, the Latin Bible, you would find the word “rapere” (the source for the word “rapture”) used in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 where it is translated as “caught up” in English Bibles. 

Beyond that, one of the most overlooked passages that confirms the Rapture as sound biblical doctrine, is recorded in John 14 where Jesus said:

John 14:3
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

The Greek word translated as “receive” is paralambanō and it means “to take up or to take away”. It can also mean “to take to join to one’s self”.

There is another famed passage where we find this huge Greek word:

Matthew 24:40-42
Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. 

The word paralambanō, “to take up, to take away, to join with oneself”, is translated in this passage as “taken.” One will be taken up and the other left and this will happen at an unexpected time.

Romans 8:23-24
Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?

Don’t you have to be alive to groan within yourselves and eagerly wait for the redemption of our body? This hope came with our salvation and the object of hope is obviously in the future since hope has no role once something comes to pass.

What does this mean?

1 Corinthians 15:50-52
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Not everyone is going to die, but everyone is going to be changed. The dead in Christ will be changed and Christians alive at the time of the Rapture will be changed into immortal, incorruptible beings. If this is not aligned with the Rapture, what does it mean?

Rapture deniers may abound today and expect to go through the Tribulation, but that is actually what you don’t find in the Bible – Christians facing God’s wrath.

One day we will wake up and it will be the day of the Rapture and every day is a candidate for being that day. So let’s make sure we are living like time is running out and have a desperation for the perishing around us because it seems possible that the trumpet that signals the Rapture may already be pressed against the angel’s lips assigned to blow it.

Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus,

Win the Battle for Your Mind

For as he thinks within himself, so he is.

Proverbs 23:7 NASB

I want you to be aware that as you look to the person of Jesus and cultivate the power of right believing, you’ll experience some battles in your mind that will challenge your beliefs. Be encouraged to know that you don’t have to be afraid of these battles.

Jesus said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Based on God’s Word, right believing is the key that unlocks the treasures of God in your life, giving you access to the fullness of His love, grace, favor, blessings, and forgiveness. Jesus has already paid the price on Calvary’s hill. The hindrance then between you and your victory is your wrong beliefs. The battle has to do with your beliefs.

The enemy knows that if he can control your thought life, he can manipulate your emotions and feelings. For instance, if he can make you entertain thoughts of guilt, failure, and defeat, you will begin to feel lousy about yourself, physically weak, and even depressed.

Our emotions are flags that indicate to us what our thoughts are. Thank God for emotions. They tell us if something is terribly wrong with our thoughts. Many of us are not cognizant when our thinking slides down a slippery slope to fear, doubt, pessimism, and anxiety. However, God has designed us in such a way that we can quickly recognize our thinking through our emotions. Try this: whenever you begin to sense negative emotions, such as fear, worry, guilt, and anger, stop and ask yourself, “What am I thinking?”

Your emotions follow quickly at the heels of your thoughts. If your thoughts are negative, you will naturally produce negative emotions. Conversely, if your thoughts are positive in Christ, you will produce positive emotions.

That is why there is a battle for your mind. The devil wants to keep your thoughts negative so that he can keep you defeated. He is a master of mind games, and he doesn’t play fair.

When he first tempted Adam and Eve in the garden, he made them doubt God’s motives by insinuating that God was deliberately withholding something good from them, when in reality God was protecting them. The devil’s strategy hasn’t changed—he is still using fears, lies, accusations, guilt, and condemnation to ensnare believers today and to make them doubt God’s perfect love, forgiveness, and superabounding grace.

My friend, are there areas you are fearful and anxious about today? Realize that those fears and anxieties indicate the presence of wrong beliefs in your life that God wants you to be freed from. Replace those wrong beliefs with right beliefs based on God’s Word, and you will eradicate those fears and anxieties. Through the power of right believing, you will win the battle for your mind.

This devotional is taken from the book 100 Days of Right Believing—Daily Readings from The Power of Right Believing.

Build Your Faith Upon His Promises

“He shall deliver you in six troubles, yes, in seven no evil shall touch you. In famine He shall redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and you shall not be afraid of destruction when it comes. You shall laugh at destruction and famine.”

Job 5:19–22

I believe the Lord gave me the above portion of scripture to strengthen you. Let’s take a closer look at the first verse: “He shall deliver you in six troubles, yes, in seven no evil shall touch you.”

Now, I have read this verse a number of times before, but the Lord quickened this scripture in me, so let me share this fresh insight with you. I want to specially address those who have been greatly discouraged in the area of protection. Perhaps you have experienced a very difficult or even tragic event, or are going through a very challenging situation right now. Can I encourage you to build your faith upon His promises and not upon your experiences?

The Word of God says that in this world, we will have trouble (John 16:33). The fact that God declares in His Word that He will deliver us from troubles tells us that we will experience troubles. But God wants us to know that the more we hear preaching on Psalm 91, the more we quote it and remind ourselves of the Lord’s protection daily, the more our faith in His protection will grow.

Faith comes from “hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17 NASB). The more we hear, the more we believe! The more we claim and pray the prayer of protection, the more we will walk in its blessings. That is the intention of this book—to saturate you with the hearing and hearing of the Lord’s protection promises for your life until your faith is robust and overflowing.

My friend, deliverance from trouble is fantastic, but there is a promise that is even greater, and that is when you are at that place where “no evil shall touch you.” That’s my prayer for you and your loved ones.

While we live in dangerous times, we have an almighty God who watches over us. May we all increase and have a progressive revelation of the Lord’s protection in these last days. While none of us, myself included, are there yet, we are on a journey of faith, of walking fully in the promises of God’s protection.

Let’s give thanks to the Lord for His deliverance from all our troubles as we continue to believe we will come to the place where no evil will touch our loved ones and us!

This devotional is taken from the book The Prayer of Protection Devotional—Daily Strategies for Living Fearlessly in Dangerous Times.

Blessed to Be a Blessing

I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.

Genesis 12:2

What does it mean to be an heir of the world? Let’s take a look at Abraham’s life to see what the Lord did for him. God’s Word tells us that Abraham did not just become rich. He became very rich.

“Well, Pastor Prince, being an heir of the world refers to spiritual riches.”

Hang on, that is not what my Bible says. According to Genesis 13:2, Abraham was “very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.” Now, if financial blessings are not part of the blessings of the Lord, then are you telling me that the Lord cursed Abraham with wealth?

I am so glad that God defined Abraham's riches very specifically. God must have foreseen a generation of people who would argue that He is against His people experiencing financial success, so He said clearly in His Word that Abraham was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold. Abraham wasn’t just rich spiritually.

Beloved, God is not against you having wealth, but He is definitely against wealth having you.

The Lord blessed Abraham so that he could be a blessing to others. He told Abraham, “I will bless you . . . and you shall be a blessing.” Similarly, He will bless you financially, so that you can be a blessing to others. You cannot be a blessing to those around you—your loved ones, local church, community, and the poor—if you are not blessed by the Lord first.

Now, you already know that finances alone don't make you a success. There are a lot of “poor” people in the world today who have a lot of money. They can have fat bank accounts, but their hearts are empty without the revelation of Jesus’ love for them.

You and I have something from Jesus that is far more superior. The success that we, as new covenant believers, can believe God for is good, holistic success that permeates every aspect of our lives!

What keeps you safe for financial success is when you know that your blessings come by Jesus’ unmerited favor. When you have that revelation, you will no longer be preoccupied with having money because you will be preoccupied with the Lord.

Amazingly, you will realize that the more occupied you are with Jesus, the more money follows after you! Now, why is that? It is simply because when you seek first the kingdom of God, and put Jesus, His righteousness (not your own righteousness), His joy, and His peace as your first priority, God's Word promises you that ALL the material things that you need will be added to you (Matt. 6:33).

The Lord always gives you money with a mission and prosperity with a purpose. He blesses you and when you are blessed, you can be a vessel to bless others.

The gospel of grace can be preached, churches can be built, precious lives can be touched, sinners can be born again, marriages can be restored, and physical bodies can be healed when you send out the Word of Jesus with your financial support.

Don’t love money and use people. Use money to love people. May it be settled in your heart once and for all that it is God’s desire for you to be a financial success and to have more than enough to bless others!

This devotional is taken from the book 100 Days of Favor—Daily Readings from Unmerited Favor.

You Are Qualified

Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1:12–14

Years ago, when I first started preaching, one of my spiritual heroes back then had said, “There’s nothing wrong with God and nothing wrong with His Word. When you don’t receive from God, there’s something wrong with you.” So that’s what I taught my church too. I wanted my people to be healed and whole, and that’s why I taught them a list of reasons they were not receiving their healings, but that list just kept growing.

One day, I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit on the inside of me saying, “Stop disqualifying My people!”

I countered, “But Lord, I am not disqualifying them. I am trying to qualify them for Your healing.”

As I said that, my eyes were opened, and I repented. I cannot qualify anyone for healing, and neither do I need to try. God has already qualified us through the blood of His Son. The Word of God states this so clearly in the verses above.

Today you and I can give thanks to the Father who has qualified us. We are already qualified to partake of every blessing. And not only that, He has already delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. That means the devil no longer has any hold over us. He has no power over us. He has no authority to rob us of our health.

Whatever sin you might have committed, whatever mistakes you might have made, stop disqualifying yourself. Maybe you don’t think you deserve to be healed because of all the junk food you have eaten for years or because you haven’t been exercising. Nothing you can do is so powerful it can wash away the finished work of Christ.

Yes, we should eat healthily and take care of our bodies. But what I am saying is that even if you have made mistakes, you don’t have to disqualify yourself. That’s what grace is about—grace is for the undeserving!

There is nothing wrong with God, nothing wrong with His Word, and definitely nothing wrong with you because Jesus has effectively and perfectly removed all your sins through His blood. He has already qualified you to freely receive His healing. You can boldly declare “Yes” and “Amen” to this promise of God in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). Now receive your healing!

This devotional is taken from the book The Healing Power of the Holy Communion—A 90-Day Devotional.

Personalize God’s Favor in Your Life

Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.

John 13:23

I used to think that among Jesus’ 12 disciples, John was the Lord’s favorite disciple and the one who was the closest to Him because the Bible calls John “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” I was under the impression that John had a special favor with Jesus, and always wondered what made him so special that he stood apart from the other disciples. Don’t you want to be known as the disciple whom Jesus loves? I do!

Then one day, when I was reading God’s Word, the secret of John’s favor dawned on me. The Lord opened my eyes and showed me that the phrase “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is actually found only in John’s own book! Check it out for yourself. You will not find this phrase being used in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. It is found only in the Gospel of John. It is a phrase that John used to describe himself!

Now, what was John doing? He was practicing and personalizing the love that Jesus had for him. We are all God’s favorites, but John knew the secret of accessing Jesus’ unmerited favor for himself. It is your prerogative to see yourself as the disciple whom Jesus loves, and to call yourself that!

When I started to teach that the secret of John’s favor lay in his personalization of God’s love, the people in my church literally stepped into a new dimension of experiencing God’s unmerited favor in their lives. I have seen how some of them really took this revelation and ran with it. Some of them customized the wallpapers of their cell phones to say “The disciple whom Jesus loves,” while others signed off their text messages and emails with the phrase.

As they kept reminding themselves that they are the disciple whom Jesus loves, they began to grow in the consciousness of the Lord’s love for them. At the same time, they began to grow in being favor-conscious! I have piles of praise reports on how our congregation members have been so blessed just by being conscious of Jesus’ favor in their lives. Some of them have been promoted, some have received spectacular increments to their paychecks, and many have won various prizes at company functions and in other contests, including all-expense-paid vacations.

A brother from my church signed up for a certain credit card during a special promotion in which new applicants stood to win a range of prizes. There were probably hundreds of thousands of people who participated in this promotion, but this young man just believed that he was highly favored, and because of that, he would win the top prize.

The day of the draw came and true enough, this young man won the top prize—a stunning black Lamborghini Gallardo! When he wrote to the church to share his testimony, he enclosed a picture of himself smiling from ear to ear, posing with his brand-new Lamborghini.

He said that he knew that he had won the car by the unmerited favor of God, and after he had sold off the car, he brought his tithe to the church, giving all glory and honor to Jesus. The world calls this “luck,” but for the believer, there is no such thing as luck. There is only the unmerited favor of Jesus!

This adapted devotional is taken from the book 100 Days of Favor—Daily Readings from Unmerited Favor.

Message from Amir

Up until Jesus, the prophets were talking about Him, promising His soon coming. We know that Simeon, that old man, was waiting for the consolation of Israel, was patiently waiting for the coming of the Redeemer. People were longing for it, people were hoping for it, people were praying for it. And then He showed up and the last days began, because He’s now fulfilling everything. 

And so the last days started and who are those people that are mocking, doubting, the scoffers? The Bible says in Jude, “These people, these mockers, these people would walk according to their own ungodly lusts.”

1 Peter 2:1-3, “Therefore, laying aside all malice, and all deceit, and hypocrisy, envy, and all evil-speaking as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow, thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”

People who never tasted the graciousness of the Lord, they don’t even know Him, probably. They think they do. They don’t lay aside the malice. They feed on it. They don’t lay aside the deceit. This is their modus operandi. This is the way they operate. They don’t even tell you the truth to your face. They’re hypocrites.

By the way, hypocrites in the Greek is “a mask”. I don’t know if you know that. In the theater world of those days, the masks that they were using during a show were called hypocrites. That’s why hypocrites are people who are putting on themselves something that they’re not. Envy – so much of why they tell you that your hope is not valid, that the promise is not there, it’s because they envy. They look at you, they see people with hope, they see people with great expectation, that expectation that brings forth holiness and righteousness, and they look at their life. It’s envy. Evil speaking, that’s why we as newborn babes, we need to desire the pure milk of the word. I’m not even sure how much they find themselves in the word. We may grow, if indeed we have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

Proverbs 13:1 says, “A wise son heeds his father’s instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.” These people, they’re not even willing to listen to a rebuke. They know better. They know everything. And what is it that they mock you for? They’re saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? Where is it? Show it to me. I don’t believe it.” Interesting. They’re doubting the coming of Christ to His people. They’re basically saying, “Look, yeah, yeah, yeah, He was here. Yeah, He said things. But you have to take things in the right context. Look, ever since our fathers were here and they died, things are the same.”

Things are the same for them maybe. For a newborn Spirit-filled believer, things are not the same. They can never be the same. You saw my testimony. If things were the same, I wouldn’t be alive today. They doubt the coming of Christ to His people. They doubt the literal promise.

What an amazing time to be alive! We are watching ancient prophecies of the Bible, both positive and negative, happening right before our eyes. Israel is a nation again, world attention is on Jerusalem, people are getting saved through dreams and visions of Jesus in countries where the gospel is forbidden, and, sadly, scoffers of the rapture of the church abound.

2 Peter 3:1-6
Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.

It has been said, “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” We have the advantage of looking back and seeing through scripture that the precedent established at flood was God lifting the righteous above His wrath as the world was being judged. Yet, in spite of this clear Biblical precedent, millions of people who say they are Christians scoff at the idea of the rapture of the church. This too is prophecy being fulfilled right before our eyes.

Knowing this, we can come away with two things. We can be frustrated by it, and expectant because of it. The frustrating part is that there doesn’t seem to be much that can be said to convince the rapture deniers since they “willfully forget” what God has done in the past. We can, however, also be expectant because this prophecy is specific to the last days. We know the last days began when Jesus came to the earth, but the phrase is more specific here in that there is an implied capsule of time during which this happens, which is late in church history. We know this because Paul prophesied in 2 Timothy 4 that a time would come when men would not endure (or “put up with”) sound doctrine.

There is much to be concerned about in these last days as we watch the world unravel and become more and more antisemitic and God hating. 

Romans 13:12
The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.

Every day the likelihood of the rapture increases. We don’t know the day nor the hour at which it will happen, but what we do know is if it doesn’t happen today, it’s even more likely tomorrow.

In light of that, let’s make sure we are living all out for the Lord and telling others about Him and His love for the world!

Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus ,

Consent to Be Rescued

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’”

Luke 15:4–6

Do you remember the parable of the lost sheep Jesus told in Luke 15? When the shepherd found the lost sheep, he lifted it up and laid it upon his strong shoulders.

What did the sheep do? Nothing. It just consented to be rescued by the shepherd. Jesus calls this consent on the part of the sheep “repentance”—“there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7).

That is what God invites us to do today—to consent to be protected. He wants us to be on His shoulders, in the safety of Himself as our impenetrable fortress. In this place, no predator can attack His sheep.

On His shoulders, you are highly exalted above all your troubles, above all danger, all attacks, and far above all principalities and powers. Yes, far above Satan, above all the powers of darkness and the snare of the fowler. On His shoulders, you are far above every sickness, disease, and every name that is named. What a great place to be!

And does the Lord do this grudgingly? Absolutely not. The Bible tells us that the shepherd lays the sheep on his shoulders “rejoicing” (Luke 15:5). Our Lord rescues us with great joy in His heart and a big smile on His face.

Beloved, the safest place you can be today is on His shoulders. Jesus is your city of refuge. In your day of trouble, run to Him!

I pray you’ll anchor your heart on the wonderful verse that encapsulates this: “The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him, who shelters him all the day long; and he shall dwell between His shoulders” (Deut. 33:12).

When you make the Lord your refuge and dwelling place, you shall dwell safely in Him and no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling!

This devotional is taken from the book The Prayer of Protection Devotional—Daily Strategies for Living Fearlessly in Dangerous Times.

Your Debt Has Been Overpaid

“I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.”

Isaiah 43:25 NLT

I have some extraordinary, good news for you today! Although you and I owed God a sin debt that we could never pay, Jesus has already paid our debt.

Listen closely, my friend, because of who Jesus is and the value of that one Man, the price that He paid for our sins was an overpayment. All the sinners put together cannot compare with the value of that one Man. He overpaid it so much that we need never have the debt on our conscience ever again!

Let me illustrate what I mean. Imagine that you have borrowed $50,000 from a creditor and as time goes by, you find that you cannot possibly ever pay the money back. Then one day, a friend who is a billionaire hears about your debt and gives $1 million to your creditor to pay off your debt.

Now, what has your friend done? Well, because he loves you, he has overpaid your debt to make sure that you will never feel the debt on your heart ever again, and that your creditor has no more reason to harass you to pay your debt.

This is what Jesus has accomplished for you through His finished work on the cross. His payment has wiped out your entire life’s sins—past, present, and future—once and for all!

Perhaps in the past you were not aware of the fullness of this gospel of grace, but now I have conveyed the good news to you. It’s now up to you to believe the message.

You can respond in disbelief, asking, “Are you sure? I’ve owed this debt for such a long time, and now you’re telling me that it’s all paid up?” Or you can shout, “Hallelujah!” and rejoice over this unmerited gift that has cleared your debt of sin completely!

My friend, because Jesus has already paid your sin debt fully, do you know what you are doing each time you allow that debt to remain on your conscience? Every time you are sin-conscious, you are insulting the payment of our Lord Jesus Christ. You are saying that it is not enough. You are saying that the cross is not enough.

And you know what? You are also insulting the One who received the payment for your sin debt. Each time you try to pay off your sin debt that has already been paid, you are saying that God is not satisfied with Jesus’ payment even though the truth is that He is more than satisfied with Jesus’ overpayment. Jesus is the beloved Son of the living God. How can you say that His sacrifice is not enough?

Does it really matter if you condemn yourself and allow your sin debt to remain on your conscience even after Jesus has overpaid it? Yes, it matters, because apart from dishonoring the work of Jesus on the cross, sin-consciousness makes you avoid God and can produce in you condemnation, sicknesses, diseases, depression, and a cycle of sin!

My friend, Jesus, being the Son of God, has overpaid your entire life’s sins—once and for all! Believe the good news and draw near to your Savior today! The Word of God declares to you that you can have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19).
Today, in the face of whatever you need help with, you can draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having your heart sprinkled from an evil, sin-stained conscience, and receive His tender mercies, grace, and help for all your needs (Heb. 10:22, 4:16).

This devotional is taken from the book Reign in Life—90 Powerful Inspirations for Extraordinary Breakthroughs. Joseph Prince

Come Back to Simplicity

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:3

Several years ago, the Lord began to speak to me about healing in a very strong way. He led me to read a verse I believe articulates clearly His will for us. It was written by the disciple whom Jesus loved, the disciple who was an eyewitness as Jesus went about healing all who came to Him, the disciple who leaned on Jesus’ bosom and knew the heartbeat of His love:

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

—3 John 1:2

What I want you to see is this: John was writing to the well-beloved Gaius, a believer. John knew that Gaius’s soul was already prospering.

If you have invited Jesus into your heart to be your Lord and Savior, then you have received the gift of eternal life and can have full assurance that heaven is your home (Rom. 10:9–11). Whatever challenges you might be faced with on the outside, your soul, which is eternal, has begun prospering.

But it wasn’t enough for John to know Gaius’s soul was prospering. John prayed that Gaius would also “prosper in all things and be in health.” In other words, you can pray for your outward, physical body to be healthy even as your soul is healthy in Christ.

You can be sure God’s will is for you to be healthy because His Word declares it. Since His will is for you to be “in health,” don’t go with human tradition or man’s opinion that says it is sometimes His will for you to be sick.

Don’t let man’s conjectures and theories cause you to believe the lie that maybe God wants you to endure the sickness in your body so you can learn to trust Him more or grow in patience. Because of what Jesus did at Calvary, we can be sure sickness is never from God. Healing is!

Come back to the simplicity of declaring like a child, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” In the same way, how do I know Jesus wants us walking in His health and wholeness? For the Bible tells me so.

This devotional is taken from the book The Healing Power of the Holy Communion—A 90-Day Devotional. Joseph Prince