2019 OPERATION 18-18 (DAY 21) – COVENANT OF INFINITE GRACE III

The Holy Spirit is the spirit of grace; the Holy Spirit will assist you if you are genuinely born again. The fact that you are born again does not mean you are perfect; Jesus still remains our perfection – the Rock of our perfection. You are a work in progress, you may still be battling with some issues but as you continue to walk with the Lord, as you continue to celebrate Jesus, as you continue to submit to the sovereignty of the will of God as enunciated in his word, as you continue to appropriate the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, transformation will take place in your life. As you do this, you are feeding the spirit man; the spirit man is growing while the carnal nature is becoming weaker and weaker. A time comes when the spirit will take over and the works of the flesh will no longer appeal to you; the adamic nature will no longer have the upper hand in your life.

Are we passive in this? No! You yielded your will, you cooperated with the Holy Spirit, you submitted your will to his will! Whose duty is it to appropriate what he has done? Yours of course! Many times grace is misconstrued to be a licence to just fold your hands; everything has been done for you and you are already in heaven the moment you say the sinners’ prayer. Nothing can be farther from the truth than that! There are fruits that you must bear – fruits of righteousness, fruits of the Holy Spirit. There is progressive sanctification; where you were last year should not be your present location in terms of your walk with God. Faith in Christ is depending completely on what he has done and then the faith of Christ will see you through. There is the faith in Christ and the faith of Christ; that is why Gal. 2:20 says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” This is the departing point and a lot of people make mistakes from there. Study Rom. 11:6-7.

Practical Demonstration of the Grace of God that he shows to each and every one of us on a daily basis

Psa. 103:1-5, “Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

It is your responsibility to bless the Lord. Divine benevolence is supposed to make you fall in love with God in the purest sense of it, it should make you seek his face the more and get you addicted to his presence and ultimately make you a worshiper. It should make you celebrate God the more because the more you celebrate him the more consolidated your relationship with him becomes. Grace is supposed to bring you to the point where you become an authentic worshiper of Jehovah. This is what is no longer emphasized. Today, you have more workers in the Church than worshipers but God is still looking for worshipers.

What true grace should do is to make you fall in love with God and once you get to that point, the idea of substituting that love for anything else will not even cross your mind. God becomes the ‘numero uno’ (the best or most important person or thing) in your life, he becomes your greatest pursuit. You will no longer be a money chaser but a God chaser. Worship is not what you do, worship is who you are! Just as you cannot remove a fish from water and expect it to perform so you cannot perform outside the presence of God because that is your habitat. You will become habitation minded; nobody will tell you not to tell lies anymore; you can’t even try it because if you do, you lose the presence. You cannot commit sin because you know that the only place you can do it is where God cannot see you! So, holiness becomes cheap if you are a worshiper. This is the missing key in today’s Christianity. People are looking for a God to use to get things and not a God to worship. Faith is easy for a worshiper; if you are a person of his presence it is so easy to you to exercise faith.

Grace can be abused, grace can be cut short. Read Heb. 12:14-15, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.” Root of bitterness brings defilement and cuts short the grace. It is possible to fall out of grace. The devil knows this that is why he raises people to annoy you; you can’t stop that from happening but you can stop yourself from falling prey to his antics if you understand what he is trying to do. If you are holding anyone in unforgiveness, please do yourself a favour; forgiveness is not a gift you give to another, it is a gift you give to yourself, so release yourself. Defilement is terrible and I hate it, the devil uses it a lot. So, you don’t know grace if you don’t know holiness; you don’t know the God of grace if you don’t know the God of holiness!

PRAYER-
Dear Heavenly Father, I worship you. Help me never to fall short of your grace. Uproot and utterly destroy any root of bitterness in my heart. Grant me the grace never to hold anyone in unforgiveness. I thank you for grace in Jesus name. Amen.

TO BE CONTINUED…