Devo. Rom.8:31-39

“If God be for us, who can be against us?” The answer is found in that He went the ultimate length to show His love and commitment, He sent the One and Only Son to die on the cross for our sins. The ultimate price was paid for our freedom. There is NOTHING God would not do for those whom God has chosen! Therefore, with God sitting as Judge and Jury, no one can bring anything against us to lose our salvation. Nothing from the past, present, future, or supernatural! Nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even us. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Is Jesus your Lord or just someone you admire? It makes a difference.21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’-Mt.7:21-23. A lot of people will miss heaven by six inches. The relationship God seeks is a heart relationship, not head knowledge or good-works based. Do you know Him? True believers know Jesus as Lord, and such are more than conquerors!

Life of Expectancy

If you are trying to live for Jesus, then live a life of expectancy. That is---live expecting things to attempt to disrupt your walk on the narrow road. Expect free alcohol to show up on your door if you’re trying to quit; expect your spouse to say exactly what you don’t need to hear (“push your buttons”) if you’re working on that relationship; expect a friend to come over and share gossip disguised as a “prayer request” if you struggle with gossip; expect a pop-up button to appear if you battle with computer temptations; expect Satan to use exactly what it would take to drag you away from your renewed commitment to Christ. Don’t get angry with people. Use your spiritual eyes. If what is happening draws you away from the narrow road or causes disunity in the church, then you have just exposed one of Satan’s schemes. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. --Eph.6:10-12 ---Take a step back. Thank the Lord for showing you the real enemy in action. This is why we say “pray hard”.

Squeeze the Packet

Jesus sweat drops of blood, then he went to the cross and gave his all as a sacrifice meeting the righteous demands of the law. He left nothing to chance. And he left nothing undone. He died that we might have life. His resurrection proved that he was indeed the Way, the Truth and the Life. For our part, as believers we are to “live our life for him who died for us and rose again.” We should indeed give our all for he is worthy. ---We should squeeze out every bit of life that we can to bring glory to his name. Most of us have taken a small packet of ketchup, duck sauce or some kind of condiment to add flavor to our food. We have learned to manage to get the most out of those little packets. We open it and squeeze it until empty. But then we squeeze all the corners until we have gotten every little bit out. We know how to squeeze the corners. So too should we squeeze what little time we have here to glorify our Lord and Savior. The day is coming in which we will see him face to face. We have limited time here to bring glory to his great name. So squeeze every little bit out of this life my friends to make him known.

THE Conspiracy

I do not believe in conspiracies (well, just one), and I refuse to get into name-calling. I do not believe that evil little-men are behind the scenes pulling the strings that effect our economy and world movement. However, I do believe that some powerful things are happening behind the scenes that allow things that most men would not tolerate. There is a force; rather there are forces behind the scenes that have power over the air waves (the media and so forth) that are not of this world. This isn’t a guess. It is written. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.-Eph.6:12. The world that we live in is dark due to sin. This world does not want to hear it, but it is the truth. Consequences and trouble are traced back to sin. Heck, people can trace their own personal troubles back to sin (sex before marriage leads to STD’s, unplanned births, and the poverty that comes with that; marital affairs disrupt families and cause economic hardships on all sides; gluttony causes health problems; worry and stress cause and accentuate health problems; gossip ruins relationships; on and on sin leaves a path of sorrow, destruction and death.). All of this would leave the world left in sheer hopelessness, if it were simply a situation that had evolved. As one listens to the Nightly Spin that the media calls News, the listener would feel that the world is spinning out of control. Frankly, that is what the cosmic powers of this world want all to believe. Perhaps then, people will grab or gravitate to one of the “answers” or “false religions” and cling to that. It is at this point, I introduce the only conspiracy that I believe in. While man has spent most of his time screwing up the world. And while, the fallen angels have done their best to create a chaotic climate. God is Sovereign. He is in control. There are no evil little-men pulling the puppet strings unless God allows it for His good purpose. Try as he may, man can not destroy God’s earth. He already has a plan for a new heaven and a new earth. I am not making this up. I did not have to crack some secret code. It is written. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.-Rev.21:1. Man is blinded from simple truth, because of the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” However, none of that is the conspiracy that I speak of. The conspiracy is a conspiracy by God, and it is the conspiracy of grace. You see, man is hell-bent on destroying this world and one another in the midst of it. God, on the other hand, has a redemption and resurrection plan. It has personal and global implications. For God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.-Rom.5:8. Jesus died for the ungodly. He died for us before we tried to get better. We were lost and hopeless, and God (the only One that could) did something about it. For by grace are you saved through faith.-Eph.2:8. For God has done this. It is what is prophesied all through the Old Testament Scriptures from Genesis 3:15 to passages like Psalm 22 where we read in verse 31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.- The “it” is what Jesus did on the cross. He paid man’s debt of sin on the cross, because man could not pay it. It is a conspiracy (prophecy) woven all through Scripture that One man (against all odds), Christ Jesus lived up to. He is the epic hero! He traded in his righteousness for our sin. It was a plot from God the Father to use God the Son like this. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.-2Cor.5:21. God deals with man’s sin so that man can have new life. There is hope for the hopeless. There are testimonies of men and women that have resurrected from the pains and consequences of sin in their lives, because they have a new personal relationship with this Jesus. People have made comebacks from bad life choices as they have trusted in Jesus, and lived as new creatures in Christ.---One of my favorite stories is of a man who was a product of a twenty dollar bill (his mother was a prostitute). She gave the child over to a couple who raised him and introduced him to Jesus Christ. Today this man is a very gifted speaker and lives a great life in the hope of Christ. He went from hopeless to a new life.---  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.-2Cor.5:17. All along God had a plan for your life. This world and it’s crazy laws cannot touch you, if you’re living above it. It’s a conspiracy of grace, because the world can’t stop God from offering this great salvation to the world. It is a conspiracy of grace, because we are not getting what we deserve. For the wages of sin is death. Pause. We know two things here. We all know that we have sinned. And we all know that sin leads to death. Consequently, if we get what is coming to us, it isn’t good. Continue. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. -Rom.6:23. Our salvation is a gift from God, thus it is nothing we can earn. We cannot do enough good works to right what our sin has wronged in our relationship with the Creator of the Universe (the Author of the Bible). It is a gift. It is by grace that we are saved. It stems from the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross that was planned long ago by God to cover our sin, and redeem His beautiful Creation. He does all this for His glory! He alone is worthy of our worship. ---Oh it is a conspiracy being fulfilled right before our eyes. ---So, don’t give evil little-men the credit. God’s got this. As a follower of Jesus do your part in leading people to the Light. Jesus called for his followers to be “salt and light.” Don’t get caught up in the hoopla. There is only one conspiracy. It is the conspiracy of grace. Perhaps you are hopeless and caught up in this world. You need the path out. Jesus is that path. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me.”-Jn.14:6. His life was public. He didn’t run or hide anywhere. When his captors came, he didn’t run. Because it was part of his conspiracy of grace. He was born to die. He was crucified in public for all to see. His death was testified to. More importantly, the resurrected Jesus was witnessed by many eye-witnesses. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time...-1Cor.15:3-6a. ---Jump on the band wagon. Seek out Christ while he can still be found. Call on Jesus to be your Lord and Savior and never have a worry in the world. Jesus says, “Don’t worry.” Worry is exactly what conspiracy theorist advance. Take the high road. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.-Mt.6:33.-Jesus said.