He will never leave us nor forsake us

When we accept Christ into our lives, we become children of the Most High God. God is pleased with us. As God has brought us into His kingdom, He has promised that He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). We should therefore count our blessings and be thankful for what we have in our lives. We may look at ourselves and see our lack, but the truth of the matter is that somewhere in the world out there, there is someone who has less than us but has peace in his heart because he does not covet what he does not have and he is contented with what he has. I am not saying that we should all be passive and have no ambition in our lives. What I am saying is that we should be thankful for what we have been blessed with and bless others by using the gifts that God has blessed us with. If we keep looking at "I", "I" and "I", it becomes nothing more than "I-dolatry". When we realise God's sufficiency for our needs, we become content. People who are materialistic are often telling the world by their actions that God is unable to take care of them or that He is not able to take care of them the way that they want. Why do some people love money? They do it because they want what money can buy them. They do not have faith that God can give them what they want. Is anything too difficult for the Lord? Money is intrinsically not evil but the love of money is. We use money but we should not let money become our god.

When Jesus was tied to the scourging post, He was so badly scourged that it was impossible to look at Him and not feel repulse. When Jesus hung on the Cross, a darkness covered covered all over the land at about noon time and at about 3 pm, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”, which means “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:45-46). For the first time in his life, Jesus did not refer to God as "Father" because He knew that God had turned His back on Jesus. God is a just God and sin has to be punished. God took all our sins and diseases, placed them on the body of Christ and Jesus became so hideous looking (from carrying the weight of our sins and our sicknesses and diseases) that God could not look at Him because God is pure and cannot look at wickedness (Habakkuk 1:13). God turned His back on Jesus at the Cross and punished Jesus as our substitute so that today, God will never turn His back on us. He is always with us and He will always carry us on His shoulders and protect us in the shadow of His almighty wings.

On the night that Jesus was betrayed, when Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane, He was under so much agony, suffering and stress that He sweat blood. He prayed to His Father to let the cup pass from Him if it was possible but reaffirmed His desire to do God's will by saying, "Yet not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39). Jesus came to do the will of God. For God so loved the world and wanted to save us from our sins that He sent His only begotten Son to die for us at the Cross (John 3:16). Jesus knew that He came to die for us. There have been books written where the author talks about the "murder of Jesus". My friend, Jesus was not murdered. He willingly lay down His life for us. Did Jesus have the power to go back to heaven that night and escape all this suffering that He was going to go through? Of course He did. However, He knew that His Father loved him because He lay down His life that He may take it again (John 10:17). Knowing what was to take place the next day, He nevertheless chose to take our sins and sicknesses upon Himself and be punished by God as our substitute. His agony was worse than death because He paid for all sins of the world by becoming separated from God. Jesus, who was sinless, took all our sins upon Himself to save us from suffering and separation. His work at the Cross has been finished. All our sins have been remitted and Jesus has paid the price for our health and healing. If we ignore what Jesus has done for us at the Cross, we are insulting the greatest gift that God has given us.

God's greatest glory is in Redemption and not Creation. When Jesus took all our sicknesses, diseases and sins upon Himself at the Cross and gave Himself up as an offering to God, it was such a sweet-smelling aroma to God (Ephesians 5:2). We love because God first loved us. As such, we have to learn to walk in love, as Christ loved us. This is not just showing love to our loved ones. As much of a challenge as it can be, we should also show love to our enemies. It is not for us to judge them or condemn them for their evil ways - that is between them and God. There are many testimonies all over the world of how people who used to persecute others have now given their lives to the Lord because of the love of Christ that they have received from those around them, including the people that they have persecuted. Is this something that will come easily to us to carry out? Not likely because our human nature is to want to "get back" at the person who has attacked us. The next time that someone says something hurtful to you, instead of retorting, turn away and praise the Lord that He loves you and His love is more important to you than being "one up" against the person who has hurt you. It is not easy and I can tell you from personal experience that when I have "let go" and stopped reacting to the hurtful comments or attacks, these comments or attacks do not necessarily stop and often, it gets worse because that person thinks that he has won. The greatest injustice is when I can no longer tolerate this nonsense and I complain about this person to someone else, for some strange reason, I am perceived as persecuting that person instead! It made my blood boil because I was the victim! For the longest time, I asked the Lord how can this be because I thought that if I "let go and let God", the person who has been persecuting me will somehow stop doing it. The Lord has since shown me that words can only hurt me if I allow them to. Now I say to myself, "I am going to ignore the hurtful and sarcastic remarks from him. That is between him and God. As for me, I thank the Lord that He loves me and He is pleased with me. I trust the Lord to take me out of this battle victoriously. I expect good things to happen to me because the Lord loves me.".

Because of what Jesus has done for us at the Cross, God's face will always shine upon us. God will always be gracious to us. He will lift His countenance upon us and give us peace (Numbers 6:25-26). God will never leave us nor forsake us. When we offer such blessings to others, it will not only help the one receiving it but it will also demonstrate love and encourage others. Our redemption has been completed and God will never punish us because He had already punished all our past, present and future sins on the body of Jesus at the Cross. It would be an injustice if God, having already punished Jesus as our substitute, were to punish us again. Knowing that Jesus has done it all does not make us want to jump for joy and rush out to sin again. Instead, it will make us humbled at the price that God paid for our eternal salvation and feel so blessed and loved that we will want to love and bless others. Will we make mistakes from time to time inadvertently? Sure we will, because we live in a fallen world, and if this happens we know that we have already been forgiven and we need not feel condemned. But anyone who believes the work of the Cross will not want to knowingly commit sin ever again.

Condemnation kills. It is the root of all our stress, health problems and any other problems in our lives. The devil knows this, which is why he will always try to put doubt in our minds. The mind is a battlefield. Whenever you have thoughts that do not come in line with the Word of God, rebuke those thoughts in the name of Jesus. I find that it helps if I were to say out loud the Word of God or start singing praises to the Lord and after a while, the negative thoughts go away. Will those thoughts come back again? They will because the devil will not relent, which is why it is a constant struggle to keep our minds and our eyes on the Cross. But do not lose heart nor faith because He will give us the strength to fight this battle. All we need to do is to believe. There is nothing that we do that can make Him love us more and there is nothing wrong that we do that will make Him love us any less. Lord, there is none like you. I want to praise You everyday for the wonders of Your mighty love. You are my Shepherd, my Comfort, my Healer, my Refuge and my Strength.

Jesus came as a light into the world. If we believe in Him, we will not abide in the darkness (John 12:46). Have you noticed that often when you wake up in the morning, the first thought that comes to your mind is what went wrong the day before? Do not allow such thoughts to fill your mind. When you wake up, give thanks to the Lord that it is a good day to be alive and that He will make the day go smoothly for you. Give praises to the Lord that you are a child of God and He is pleased with you. If you need healing, say out loud that the healing power of God is working in you right now and every day, you are getting better and better. When you do this, you are actually speaking in agreement with God's Word. Where two or more on earth shall agree on anything, it shall be done by the Father in heaven. Even if you do not have anyone to speak in faith in agreement with you, speak to the Lord and agree with His Word. Jesus said that if we have faith and do not doubt, our faith can move mountains (Matthew 21:21-22). This is so because nothing is impossible for the Lord. With man, sometimes things are impossible but with God, everything is possible. Nothing is too difficult for the Lord. We should bear in mind that we should not ask God to grant requests that would hurt us or others or that would violate His nature or will. For our petitions to be fulfilled, our requests have to be in line with His Word. This is why when we have a prayer need, one of the ways is to find scriptural verses on this issue and use those verses in our prayer. The stronger our belief, the more likely our prayers will be in line with God's Word and God is more than happy to answer them. A simple way to pray would be, "Father, Your Word says [....]. I believe Your Word and I claim it. I ask that You bring it to pass in my life. I thank You for granting my prayers because You love me. I know that my miracle has taken place and I await the manifestation of my miracle. Thank You, Abba Father. I love You and I worship You. In the name of Jesus, Amen.".

In this life, there will be trials and challenges. If we undergo a difficult period, look to the Cross and trust the Lord to guide us through because He has overcome the world (John 16:33). We will not be alone because Jesus does not abandon us to our struggles. The ultimate victory was already won at the Cross and we can therefore claim the peace of Christ in our most difficult times. Sometimes, the Holy Spirit guides us to do nothing other than to pray and believe and when we do this, things just fall into place and our miracle comes to pass. Sometimes, the Holy Spirit guides us to take certain course of action (for example, to change the way we are carry out a certain project) in order to lead us to our breakthrough. Many people think that their breakthrough came about because they, of their own effort, thought of the solution. In actual fact, it was the Lord who planted the solution in their minds and gently guided them to carry it out. There was a situation where a person put in a lot of effort to persuade a group of people to take a certain course of action but despite several attempts, the group was adamant that they wanted to handle matters another way. It seemed to be headed for a disaster. However, certain world events just happened to occur at that time and when this person met the group shortly after the world events occurred, with little persuasion, the group agreed to his course of action. He subsequently claimed personal credit for making the group change their mind. I pray that one day, the scales will fall off his eyes and he can see that it was the Lord who engineered the change in the course of action.

Even though we may go though challenges and difficulties in our lives, we should not be fearful because the Lord is with us (Psalm 23:4). Jesus does not take a holiday! He is always at the right hand of the Father, making intercessions for us. Whatever we petition to the Lord, if we believe that He answers our prayers, it will come to pass. The Lord loves us and He wants us to lead victorious lives. He will walk with us through death's dark valley and bring us safely to the other side.

Do you therefore call Jesus your Lord and Saviour? Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13). Do you see Jesus as more than just a teacher or a wise man? He is our Redeemer, our Saviour and our Healer.

God is our refuge and our strength (Psalm 46:1). He will save us. He is our refuge even in the face of total destruction. He is our eternal refuge and will provide strength to us in any circumstance. When you are drowning, you do not want a God who tells you, "My child, let this be a lesson for you. I am letting you drown for your own good so that you can learn how to swim.". You want a God who stretches out His hand and saves you from the choppy waters. When we are caught in the midst of a storm in our lives, turn to the Lord and He will calm the storm and make the waves still (Psalm 107:29). All He asks of us is to believe. Our Christian walk is not about a list of dos and don'ts. There is nothing for us to do except to believe. It is so simple and yet many of us have difficulty doing this because we are of little faith. However, take comfort because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. The more of the Word we hear, the more the faith rises up in us and will give us the strength to believe that whatever we petition of Him, He will answer.

What a friend we have in Jesus! Although He is our Lord and Master, He does not call us His "servants". He calls us His "friends" and He makes known to us all things that He heard from His Father (John 15:15). Jesus did not come to give us a religion. He came to give us a relationship with God. He wants us to feel the freedom to refer to God as "Abba", which means "Daddy". Which father will not want to give the best to his child? In the same way, God wants to give us the best. If He did not withhold from us His precious Son, how much more good things will He give us through Jesus?

God loves us when we go to Him. Ask and it will be given to us. Seek and we will find. Knock and the door will be opened to us. So let us keep asking, seeking and knocking (Luke 11:9). God wants His children to be hungry for His Son, His Word and His blessings. When we draw from Jesus, instead of depleting Him, we refresh Him. Have you ever noticed that when you minister to a friend in need, instead of feeling worn out when you are done, you feel even more alive than ever?

God loves us so much that He sent His Son to be our friend and to sacrifice His life for us. Which of us loves our friends so much that we will willingly lay down our lives to be punished for our friends' wrongdoings? Jesus sees us as His friends and He willingly lay down His life for us (John 15:13). With one perfect sacrifice, Jesus has carried out God's will. God will never forsake us nor leave us. Believe and receive our healing, our salvation and our miracles. Thank You, Jesus that You will always be with me.