Be united and Rejoice in the Lord ( Everyday Emmanuel)

Philippians 4:1,4-7

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

If anyone were to ask me what is God's most concerned of, the answer is His church. The unity of the church, the love among brethren and the strength gathered for evangelism. Even though there are many problems,a lot of challenges and weaknesses in the church but Paul still love the church very much but Jesus bought it with great price. Because of this Truth, Paul finds joy in the church. How do you view your church and brethren? We must see them with a thanksgiving heart more than their weakness. Because without them, there won't be God's church, without them we won't know how to grow in love since through love needs to undergo test.

In areas that we are unhappy about the church or brethren, we must learn to find God in it- His love, help and forgiveness. 

Paul pleaded the church that no matter what the circumstances is we must rely on God to rejoice always. If we are in pain now, I urge to to rely on God to rejoice. You do not rejoice through hypnotizing yourself or fake it. A rejoicing heart must come through relying on God. You must know how to rely on God. After knowing the Truth, we must think through and make decisions through the Truth in all things. Do not let it remain as a head knowledge and rely on your flesh. Do not focus on your problems, the Truth tells us that firstly, no matter what our circumstances are, our God is a living God. He is always with His children and there are no goodness that comes apart from Him.Regardless of the circumstances, God's help and guidance will also be present. Paul wrote this while he was in prison, even in such hardships he still managed to rejoice.
After knowing the Truth, we must seek His will in our circumstances. God is a living God and He will definitely help you. We must seek Him then obey, keep seeking and obeying. Do not let temptations, worries and hatred remain in your heart. Once you obeyed what He wants you to do, God will definitely tell you what is the next step.
However, if you depend on your flesh you will not have peace at this moment and you also won't be able to know what to do next.
In all situation, we must pray, seek and give thanks. In other words, through prayers we know His perfect will and give thanks to Him for revealing His will. When you communicate with God this way, the Holy Spirit will strengthened us, teach us and guide us. Then we will experience the peace from Him that transcends all understandings. When we know how to pray and seek His perfect will, one day we will be able to get out of our problems.
Everyday Emmanuel (23/12/13)

How to Eliminate the Spirit of Accusation ? ( Everyday Emmanuel)

Holy Spirit lives in those who believes in Christ Jesus. If we have the heart to seek God, Holy Spirit will definitely instruct us what we should do. But why do we sometimes fall into the state of accusation?

The accusing spirit cause us to lose to our freedom, gives us a slave mindset and feel oppressed. 

Romans 8: 15

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, " Abba, Father."

2 Corinthians 3:17 

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

We are living in the visible world but at the same time there is also the spiritual realm. We get accused because in the spiritual realm, the accuser influences our spirit. If we live by His will and make God as the center of our focus then we will not get accused so easily.

How can a person get into a state of accusation? 

1. He has sinned. So, Satan will keep bringing his sin before God and keep accusing him. 

2. Because of self righteous and do not live in Jesus's righteousness. Therefore, he loses his grace.

3. When someone commits a small sin, he didn't cleanse himself immediately but let the sins accumulate in him then slowly he loses his strength to fight sin. 

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 

When man is accused, they feel that they didn't do what they should do but kept doing what they shouldn't do. Or they feel that they did not obey God's therefore God do not love them anymore. In short, their spirit has lost the covenant and love of God and do not believe His promises. Their thoughts are all about what they have done wrong, their relationship with God is broken so they are unable to come before God. But actually all these are not in line with the Truth. 

Of course, no one who likes to stay in such state. God Himself is more concerned of seeing us being set free from such state. 

In order to eliminate the spirit of accusation, we must

1) Use the blood of Christ, only through it we can restore the spirit of sonship

There are some sins that we might not be able to overcome  immediately but we need a willingly heart that will turn to God, so do not hardened your heart before God and ask God for a broken and contrite heart. 

When we repent before God, the accusing spirit will leave us. Satan can no longer accuse us.

2) God's truth must be exalted in our hearts- this means that God's words must be sovereign in our hearts

We cannot add or remove anything in the gospel. If we hold onto our feelings, inabilities, limitations, problems more than the word of God, then it will prevent us from relying on God completely. 

Therefore we need to confirm the Truth in our hearts until it can overcome all the obstructions that prevent us from going to God. 

3) After knowing His will, we must acknowledge it because it is the answer from God

If after praying we still do not have peace, it could be because what we pray for is different from what God wants to reveal to us. Even so, do not stop going to God but instead remain humble and pray for a right direction. 

4) Lastly, obey God and stop remaining in the accused state. 

Keep examining the state of our spirit and be sensitive to the convictions of the Holy Spirit. The convictions will be more obvious after we have understood and accept the Truth ( His covenant). Then be humble in obeying God and receive strength from Him through submission. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8owt_FbTQgg

How to develop sweet relationship with God ( Everyday Emmanuel)

God is with His children everyday. And this is the relationship that will lasts forever. Even thought all of our conditions and timetables are different but as long as we are willing to draw near to God, He will draw close to us too. So, the purpose of our lives is to establish such a relationship.

John 6:51,56

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.

The cross actually restores our relationship with the Father.

John 15:5,12

" I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

The verse shows that God is with us and is also talking about relationships.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

Jesus asked his disciples to love one another and this is also a form of relationship.

1. Our Father is most concerned of relationships

So, Satan likes to attack our relationships, cause us to forget about the relationship hence unable to receive love from God. Man became afraid of God, fear of getting bad luck and disciplines and have slave mentality. Slowly, it will be hard for man to not look down on himself and became unable to accept the love of God. Man to man's relationships will also be broken. God came to find us first and died on the cross for us , so after believing in Him, our relationships are restored.

2. After reconciliation with God through Jesus, we must restore the relationship.

How to restore this relationship? Through prayers- confirmation prayer. In prayer, we must restore our relationship with God, man and ourselves. We are all blessed. When we have to deal with a difficult situation, we must remember that our Father will not abandon us like orphans. When we encounter a problem or in our weaknesses, we must look back into the Bible that said God still love the prostitute and the adulterous woman.

So, we must not look down on ourselves. God loves all the sheep that belongs to Him. If when we pray, we discover things that are not in line with the Truth of us as the child of God, we must quickly remove it. For instance, if you fear God , it is the wrong spirit or when you have done something wrong and is afraid to face God, feel accused and worried when we didn't pray because we fear having bad luck or when we keep looking at outcomes, we will be afraid of failures, if we are not diligent enough in serving, we are afraid that God will not bless us.

We must be sure that out of the love of God, when we have done something wrong, He will discipline us but His anger will not last and He will definitely forgive us. If we did not pray, God will use whatever situation to prompt us into prayer, so it is never about having bad luck.

The relationship we have with God is all about love and there's no fear. When we have restored our relationship with Him, then through His love, our relationship with men will also be reconciled. The main content of prayer is to build His kingdom, benefit His people,glorify and testify for Him. With this in our prayer, there's no need to fear.

3. Lastly, we must develop this relationship.

The best time to do so is during trials,tribulations and weaknesses. Trials and attacks happen because our relationship with God is too important. In temptations, we must realize that it is not real and temporary only. We must keep in mind that being able to fill with God's words will enable us to triumph over our situation. Being away from God is scarier than committing sin, therefore we must confess our sins and asked to be cleanse by Him. When we judge and get angry at others, at the same time we must know that actually we are also weak in many areas. Since God can forgive us, why can't we forgive others of their sins?

Therefore, we must treat every trial as an experience from God and He has a perfect answers for us in it. Whenever situation we are in, we must first come before His throne of mercy, reassure our relationship, discover His will and believe that the problem is already solved by Him and we will see our fruits.

Prayer is not a duty but rather it is for us to find out His perfect will. We will not be happy just merely getting our problems solved, but true joy comes from knowing His answers.

How To Overcome Your Great Difficulties ( Everyday Emmanuel)

In our Christian lives,we often encounter some difficulties for example, we feel like a failure, timid, disobedient, weak, have many problems so how then can we build His kingdom and benefit His people

with such conditions? These thoughts make us feel helpless and stop us from moving forward with God and make us. This happens because we are still focus on not being able to do what we should be doing. Paul who was greatly used by God also have similar experience. 

Romans 7 :18 

For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 

Romans 7: 24

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death. 

So then, I myself in my mind am slave to God's law, but my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Paul has understood the greatest mystery of the cross.

Romans 8:1

Therefore, there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We must learn to receive the unmovable love and covenant from Jesus so that we can have a heart that is not accused, not afraid of failure and without pressure or stress. Then with this heart we can rely on the Holy Spirit to carry out God's good works.

1. We must ask ourselves, why are we always unable the great difficulties?

We must understand that our hearts have been receiving insinuation. For example, what I am doing now is not God's will so I will not receive His blessings,  I do not have any abilities to do what God wants me to do or feel that the situation we are in is extraordinarily unpleasant and its not that easy to be solved. These insinuation cause us to worry and unable to concentrate in our daily lives. Slowly, we will lose our sight on the covenant and love and start to react according to feelings. The deceiving thoughts will make us hide from God and men. 

2. It is only through Holy Spirit that will help us overcome the difficulties

Then how to rely on Holy Spirit. We must always remember that all great difficulties do not come from the situation we are in but rather its from our heart because we have not receive answers. Answers come from making a covenant with God. The covenant and love from Jesus is never changing. No matter how difficult a situation may be, God's word will not fade away. When we seek Him through His covenant , we will definitely know His will. 

Directional will: All our conditions,problems and  past are for the Kingdom. Without any problems we won't be able to understand His salvation for us and to testify for Him. 

Perfect timetable: Some trials require time and process in order to mature our faith and He is preparing something better for us. So do not be disheartened. 

God's will in our condition:  Sometimes we experience things that are unpleasant so that it drives us into prayer. 

After we make covenant with God in such manner, and discover His will in everything then we will be able to overcome the difficulties we have.

3. All things are possible through the Holy Spirit

How? We must hold on to his love and the 4 Gospelization and make it our perspective everyday in order for us to die to ourselves. The death and resurrection of Christ has show us the power of the cross. In Jesus, there are no difficulties. No matter how difficult a situation is, we must learn from the Holy Spirit to not be accused. Learn the perfect will of God in our everyday living.

Everyday Emmanuel (2/12/13)