GOD’S MERCY IS A GIFT

Matthew 23:23 “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”

MATTHEW 23:23

God’s mercy to the believer is revealed by God taking away the misery of sin’s consequences through the New Covenant of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Mercy is not something merited or earned, but a gift, as the apostle Paul states, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to HIS MERCY He saved us” (Ti. 3:5).

Paul speaks of the heavenly Father as “The Father of mercies.” The word father is used many times in scripture as an originator or as a source of something. For example, the devil is called the father of lies (Jn. 8:44), i.e. he is the author and originator of lying. Likewise, our heavenly Father is the author, originator, and source of all mercy. Each time that mankind cried out in faith, God’s mercy reached out and met their need.

God is said to be rich in mercy because of His great love wherewith he loved us (Eph. 2:4), and to have a throne called grace whereby we may come and obtain mercy. God wasn’t motivated to save us through pity or a sense of obligation as our Creator. He was motivated solely by love. God loves us.

Mark 7:2, “And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands, they found fault.”

MARK 7:1-7

Man looks on the outward appearance (this is what the scribes and Pharisees were concerned with), but the Lord looks on the heart (1 Sam. 16:7). Jesus looked on men’s hearts. The Old Testament laws concerning washing served a secondary purpose of hygiene, but as stated in Colossians 2:16-17 and Hebrews 9:1,9-10, their real purpose was to shadow or illustrate spiritual truth.

Defiled food may hurt our bodies, but it cannot reach our spirits (Jn. 3:6).

The scribes and Pharisees missed the principle of spiritual purity taught by the Old Testament ordinances and became obsessed with strict adherence to their rituals. While they relentlessly enforced the laws dealing with the physical realm, they had become completely corrupt in the spiritual realm.

“The law is not of faith.” When combined with Romans 14:23 which says, “…whatsoever is not of faith is sin,” this statement must have been near blasphemy to the legalistic Jews, just as it is to legalistic Christians today. It is sin for the New Testament believer to try to relate to God by attempting to keep the Old Testament law. The law itself is not sin (Rom. 7:7). But it is sin to try to use the law for justification with God. This was never the purpose of the law.

Under the law a person got what he deserved. Under faith, the New Testament believer receives grace because of what Jesus did for him. Any departure from faith, especially a departure back to the Old Testament law, voids the work of Christ (Gal. 2:21) and is the worst sin of all. Only faith in Jesus Christ has the key that unlocks the door to the law’s harsh imprisonment of guilt and condemnation. With a great price He has purchased your freedom. Walk in it today and enjoy His Life.

Written by: Andrew Wommack

Mark 6:12, “And they went out, and preached that men should repent.”

MARK 6:7-12

“Repent” comes from the Greek word, “metanoeo,” and literally means to have another mind. Repentance is a necessary part of salvation. Repentance may include Godly sorrow, but sorrow does not always include repentance.

Repentance is simply a change of mind accompanied by corresponding actions. There is a Godly type of sorrow and an ungodly type of sorrow. Godly sorrow leads to repentance. Ungodly sorrow, or the sorrow of this world, just kills.

Our culture has rejected all “negative” emotions. But God gave us the capacity for these negative emotions, and there is a proper use of them. Ecclesiastes 7:3 says, “Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.” People should feel bad about sin. There should be sorrow over our failures. However, this sorrow should lead to repentance. Then, when forgiveness is received, our sorrow should be cast upon the Lord (Isa. 53:4).

The Lord’s statements to His disciples, the night before His crucifixion, caused them sorrow (Mt. 26:21-22; Jn. 16:6). If they would have let that sorrow lead them to repentance, then they wouldn’t have denied the Lord. Peter’s sorrow after his denial of Jesus changed him and, certainly, he never regretted the tears he cried.

The sorrow experienced by those who do not turn to God produces only death. They grieve over their situation because they don’t turn to God (that’s repentance). Christians should only have sorrow until they repent. Once repentance has come, we need to appropriate the forgiveness and cleansing that are already ours through Christ. Godly sorrow that produces repentance leaves us with no regrets. The positive change that our sorrows led us to, changes our attitude towards the things that caused us sorrow. Let the negatives in your life become positives through Jesus.

Written by:ndrew Wommack

TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN

Matthew 12:43, “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.”

MATTHEW 12:43-45

Most often, verses 43-45 are used to teach about demon possession and deliverance from evil spirits. Jesus made it clear that getting rid of an unclean spirit is only a part of deliverance. You must also fill the place that was previously occupied by the demonic spirit with the presence and power of God as protection. If a person is cleansed from an evil spirit but left “empty,” the spirit will return with even more spirits and the individual will be much worse off. Simply being empty of the devil, but not full of God, is a very dangerous and short-lived condition. True deliverance is not only getting freed, but also staying free.

In context, these verses refer to Jesus’ rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees and His statement about the men of Nineveh and the queen of the south condemning them at the judgment. One of the laws of God concerning accountability is being dealt with here. As stated in Luke 12:48, “…For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required…” The people of Jesus’ day who rejected His message will be held more accountable at the judgment than the men of Nineveh or the Queen of Sheba, because Jesus’ witness and person was so much greater than either Jonah or Solomon. Just as a man who receives miraculous deliverance from an evil spirit becomes more accountable and will end up in even worse condition if he doesn’t walk in that accountability, so the people of Jesus’ generation were accountable for more than any other generation had ever been. A person would be better off to keep just one evil spirit than to be set free, not fill himself with God, and wind up with eight demonic spirits, seven of which were more wicked than the first. The scribes and Pharisees would have been better off to have never had Jesus bring the kingdom of God unto them than to reject such an offer. He has given you much, what will you do with it?

Written by : Andrew Wommack

ONLY THE HUNGRY ARE FED

Matthew 5:6, “Blessed [are] they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

MATTHEW 5:1-9

In the natural world, people eat even when they aren’t hungry. Many of us can prove that by turning sideways and looking at ourselves in the mirror. But in the spiritual realm, only those who are hungry can get fed. One of the worst things that can happen to us is spiritual complacency.

Being hungry for the things of God is one of the best things that can happen to us. Most people don’t feel that way. They would rather have the feeling of being full. But Jesus promised us that fullness would follow hunger. No hunger, no fullness.

Therefore, what many people hate is actually a sign of spiritual health. Longing for more of God is a healthy sign. No one hungers for God on their own. That is not the nature of man. No man hungers for God unless the Spirit of God is drawing him (Jn. 6:44).

Hungering for God doesn’t cause God to move in our lives, but it is a sign that God is already at work in us. We should praise God for spiritual hunger and be encouraged. He doesn’t make us hungry and then let us starve. He does so in order to fill us with His blessings and love. We need a hunger that will never be satisfied until the marriage supper of the Lamb.

SETTLING OUR DOUBTS

John 1:46, “And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.”

Nathanael suffered from a skepticism that afflicts many people today.

However, it is to his credit that he came to the Lord and gave Him a chance to prove who He was.

We can only speculate what it was that Jesus saw Nathanael doing under that fig tree (v. 50), but it is very clear that it was something that proved beyond a doubt that Jesus was the Christ.

Jesus didn’t rebuke Nathanael for his doubts, instead he removed them. The Lord has an answer for every doubt that we have. We need to be without guile before the Lord as Nathanael was (v. 47) and come to Him when we are plagued with doubts instead of running from Him or avoiding Him.

Jesus knows our frame. He remembers that we are but dust (Ps. 103:14). It is not a sin to doubt, but it becomes sin if we harbor those doubts. We should do as Nathanael did and bring our doubts to the Lord. Let’s allow Him to deal with them.

GOD LOOKS FOR AVAILABILITY

The Old Testament passage being quoted is from( Lev. 12:6-8). There the Lord commanded a lamb and a young pigeon or a turtledove as the prescribed sacrifice. If the woman was unable to offer a lamb, then two young pigeons or two turtledoves were acceptable. Mary would not have offered the lesser offering if it had been in her power to provide the lamb.

This reveals that Joseph and Mary were not well off financially, yet the Lord chose them to be the earthly parents of His only begotten Son.

The Lord doesn’t choose the way man chooses. Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart (1 Sam. 16:7).

Mary and Joseph were chosen when they were without: without fame, without position, without money. God entrusted the most precious gift He had to a couple who would surely have been overlooked if men had been conducting the search.

God isn’t looking for ability, but rather availability. D. L. Moody once heard a preacher say, “The world has never seen what God can do with one man who is totally yielded to Him.” In response, D. L. said, “By the grace of God, I’ll be that man.” This uneducated man went on to shake three continents for God.

God will choose you too, if you’ll make yourself available to Him (1 Cor. 1:26-28).

SUPERNATURAL FAITH

There is a human faith and a supernatural, God-kind of faith. Human faith is based on physical things that we can see, taste, hear, smell, or feel. God’s kind of faith believes independently of physical circumstances. To receive God’s gift of salvation, we have to use the supernatural, God-kind of faith which isn’t limited by our five senses. This is because, to be saved, we must believe for things that we can’t see or feel. We haven’t seen God or the devil. We haven’t seen Heaven or Hell. Yet we have to believe that these things exist. Human faith can’t believe what it can’t see.

Man is so destitute that he can’t even believe the gospel on his own. To receive God’s gift of salvation, we have to receive the supernatural, God-kind of faith first. Where does this faith come from? How do we get it?

Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” God’s Word contains His faith. As we hear the Word of God about salvation, We receive God’s faith so that we can believe the good news of our salvation. We actually use God’s faith to get saved.

This God-kind of faith doesn’t leave us after our born-again experience.

God’s faith becomes a fruit of the Spirit which is in our hearts. We never lose this supernatural faith. We just have to renew our minds to God’s faith which is in us, and then learn how to use it.

Written by: Andrew Wommack

JESUS FREED US FROM SIN

What happened to Barabbas is a picture of what happens when a person is born again. Barabbas was guilty; Jesus was innocent. Yet Jesus suffered the death that Barabbas should have experienced, and Barabbas went free.

Likewise, we were all guilty (Rom. 3:23) and condemned to death (Rom. 6:23), yet Jesus suffered our punishment so that we may go free (2 Cor. 5:21). Just as Barabbas didn’t ask for this substitution, so “God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

Barabbas was freed, but he had to choose whether or not to accept this new start and remain free, or go back to his old ways and come under the judgment of Rome again. Likewise, we have all been freed through the substitutionary death of Jesus, but we have to choose whether to accept our freedom by putting faith in Jesus or to reject it, by denying Him.

Our death to sin and resurrection to life with Christ, is already a reality in our spirits but will only become a physical reality when we know and believe it. In the same way that Jesus died unto sin once, and death no longer has dominion over Him, the person who recognizes their death with Christ unto sin, will not allow sin to rule over him anymore. Any Christian who is struggling with sin has not recognized that they are dead unto sin.

Written by: Andrew Wommack

WORKS DON’T SAVE

Mark 11:16 “And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.”

MARK 11:16

Only Mark points out that Jesus would not suffer anyone to carry any vessel through the temple. No explanation is offered by Mark as to why Jesus would not allow this. It is probable that Jesus wanted His Father’s house to be dedicated completely to prayer and the ministry of God. Also, as with the Sabbath, work symbolizes our own effort, and our own effort will always fall short of what God demands for salvation. Therefore, anything that resembled work was inappropriate in the house of God.

What are “works of the law?” Any rule, command or law that a person observes in an attempt to be accepted in right standing with God is a “work of the law.” In other words, “works of the law” are a righteousness produced by one’s self, a righteousness belonging to one’s self, offered to God as a means of meeting God’s standard for acceptance.

It takes a radical revelation of the gospel of grace to abandon faith in the works of the law. God’s standard of righteousness is the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD alone. God has designed salvation in such a way as to eliminate any boasting from man. If salvation was by works either partially or wholly, then man could boast. But grace and faith eliminate man’s boasting altogether. Faith towards God and what He has done through Christ Jesus is the only means of receiving His free gift of salvation. Salvation by grace brings praise and glory to God. If we could save ourselves, either partially or wholly, we would take the credit for it. But that is not the case. All the glory goes to God

written by: Andrew Wommack