THE WATERFALL OF GRACE

Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events-in detail-many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter—no errors.  The acid test for identifying a prophet of God is recorded by Moses in Deuteronomy 18:21-22. According to this Bible passage (and others), God's prophets, as distinct from Satan's spokesmen, are 100 percent accurate in their predictions. There is no room for error.  As economy does not permit an explanation of all the Biblical prophecies that have been fulfilled, what follows in a discussion of a few that exemplify the high degree of specificity, the range of projection, and/or the "supernature" of the predicted events. Readers are encouraged to select others, as well, and to carefully examine their historicity. click here to explore these fulfilled prophesies:  http://www.re...

Isaiah 53:4  4 Surely He has borne our griefs [sicknesses] and carried our sorrows [pains]…  While waiting for the manifestation of their healing, some people find it hard to believe that Jesus really took their sicknesses and pains, just as He took their sin and shame. If you are one of them, don’t feel condemned. Your Father in heaven understands. That is why He put the word “surely” there when He said, “Surely, My Son has borne your sicknesses and carried your pains.” Once, my daughter Jessica was crying all night because she was not feeling well. She had been sick for a few days. In my study, I took out my Bible and the Lord led me to Isaiah 53:4 where it says, “Surely He has borne…” Now, I know the original Hebrew here and it says, “Surely He has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains.” So I said, “Surely, He has borne Jessica’s sickness…” But it was like the verse was just not real to me. Her cries seemed more real. Then, all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit ope...

 ROMANS 3:24 NLT  24 Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. Righteousness is right standing, or good standing with God. It does not mean human "perfection." You are righteous because God says you are. You may wonder about Romans 3:10 which says no one is righteous. Yes, it does say that, but it is quoting an Old Testament passage to prove that both Jews and Gentiles were guilty before God and needed salvation. It immediately goes on to say in the next few verses (see verses 22 and 24) that now we can be righteous through faith in Jesus Christ.  2 CORINTHIANS 5:19a,21 NLT 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.  TITUS 3:5 NLT 5 he saved us, not because of t...

ROMANS 5:17  17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.  The New Testament reveals the good news that God offers righteousness as a free gift to everyone who receives the Lord Jesus Christ. Righteousness means right-wise-ness, or being right. So righteousness is right standing, or good standing with God. Righteousness is a GIFT from God -- not something you can earn or achieve. God simply declares that you are innocent, as far as He is concerned, because you believe in Jesus. You are righteous if Jesus is your Lord. In fact, Jesus is your righteousness. So, you are really as righteous as God is -- because He IS your righteousness. As a believer in Jesus, you will never be more righteous -- no matter what you do.  1 CORINTHIANS 1:30 NIV 30 It is because of him that you...

Romans 1:16 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes…  If you have been to motivational seminars, you would probably have heard the speakers say, “If you follow these five steps, then you will come to a place of financial increase.” They would probably have told you also that if you don’t succeed, it is because you did not follow the steps correctly or diligently. Thank God that the gospel or good news does not work like that!  The minute you hear or read the good news, and you believe and receive it, His Word goes forth to sozo (the Greek word for “save”) you, making you whole in every way, “for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes”.  What is the good news? It is that God loves us so much that He gave us His Son to take our beating so that we can have His blessings without having to work for them. Right now, as you are reading this devotional, listening to a pr...

Mark 5:28 28 For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.” With a crowd thronging Him, Jesus was touched by a lot of people that day (Mark 5:31), but only the touch of one woman drew a response from Him. And her touch sparked off instant healing in her body, releasing her from a sickness that had plagued her for 12 years.  Do you want to know how to touch God and receive the miracle you need? When the woman heard that Jesus was coming by her village, she said to herself, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.” On her way to see Jesus, she probably told herself many times, “If I touch His clothes, I will be healed. I will be made whole.” We don’t know how long she had been saying that to herself, but she was convinced that Jesus would heal her.  If you are sick, convince yourself that Jesus is your healer and that by His stripes you are healed. You don’t need to convince God. He is not the one who needs to be persuaded beca...

Faith in God and His Word operates on the same principles as faith in anything else. Faith comes from the information you receive. Information can come to you through any of your five senses, or from your spirit. When you decide to accept any information as worthy of being acted upon, it becomes part of your belief system. That is how you get faith. (Remember that, in the New Testament, faith is the noun form and believe is the verb form of the same word.)  Each one of us chooses whether we will believe something, based on our evaluation of the evidence presented to us. No one was born with beliefs. Every belief you now have was acquired as a decision you made at some point in your life. You decided to believe what you now believe. Since every belief you have came as a result of a decision you made, every belief can also be changed by another decision. But because faith is always based on some evidence, we must have evidence that convinces us before we can change any belie...

HEBREWS 3:1; 4:14 NKJ 1 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, 14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  HEBREWS 10:23 NKJ 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.  Your confession is what you say. You should persistently continue speaking in faith, agreeing with what God has said, regardless of circumstances. If it never seemed like it was not working, there would be no need to hold fast, or hang on, to a confession of faith. Some people are surprised when they act on God's Word and it does not immediately come to pass. But there is abundant evidence in Scripture showing that is normal. God never promised that everything would happen instantly. The time period involved gives us opportunity to walk in faith and please God....

 Song of Solomon 4:7 7 You are all fair, my love, and there is no spot in you.  Sometimes, when we don’t receive our healing, breakthrough, restoration or miracle child, we can’t help but think that something is wrong with us. We tell ourselves, “Nothing’s wrong with God, nothing’s wrong with the Word, so something must be wrong with me!” My friend, if you think that your miracle depends on you, then you are on shaky ground.  In the old covenant, we see this “it’s all up to me” demand put on man. God’s part was to bless His people, but only if they played their part by obeying all of His laws. If they didn't do their part, not only would they not be blessed, but the curse would also come on them. Most of the time, they ended up under the curse because they just could not keep all of God’s laws. So God found fault with that covenant because though He wanted to bless man, man’s sins made it difficult for Him to do so.  Man himself was the weak lin...

PROVERBS 11:3 NLT  3 Honesty guides good people; dishonesty destroys treacherous people.  God keeps His Word (Titus 1:2), and as His children we are to be like Him (Ephesians 5:1). God is dependable so His people should be dependable. Christians should be known as people of honesty.  PROVERBS 12:22 NLT  22 The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in those who tell the truth.  Keeping our word should be a priority. Our reputation should be more important to us than our feelings, our finances, or our comfort. We should be like those mentioned in Psalm 15:4 who "keep their promises even when it hurts." People should be able to depend on us. Will we do what we said we would do, even if it costs us? Or will we only do what benefits us? It is really a question of whether we will be selfish or whether we will walk in love. But there is also another important reason to keep our word -- so our faith will work as it should.  MARK 11:23 NKJ 23 "For a...

Hebrews 4:10–11 10… he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. 11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest...  A baby learns to sit first before he starts to stand and walk. The Christian life also begins with sitting. God “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. (Ephesians 2:6) How well we walk after that depends on how well we sit and rest in the finished work of Christ.  The promised land was a land of rest where God promised His people “large and beautiful cities which you did not build, houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant”. (Deuteronomy 6:10–11)  But for 40 years, God’s people wandered in the wilderness because they refused to believe that God had given them a land where everything had been prepared — the work was finished. They could not believe that God...

 JOHN 16:33  33 "I told you these things so that you can have peace in me. In this world you will have trouble. But be brave! I have defeated the world!"  Jesus never promised us that everything would be perfect here on earth. He recognized that we would encounter trouble. But His instructions were to be of good cheer -- not to let it get us down. As we encounter difficulties in life, it will help us to remember the big picture. First, God is our Father and has a wonderful eternal plan for us. We are His children and He loves us. Second, this time is but a training period for our future life with God. We are supposed to be learning to trust God and to obey Him. So, every problem we ever face is an opportunity to walk in faith and please God.  Every problem is an opportunity to overcome with God's help. How can we expect to receive the blessings promised to the overcomer if we never have anything to overcome? What is the answer when we seem overwhelmed with ...

Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.  You are probably a responsible person who is concerned about providing well for your family — making sure that there is food on the table, money for the children’s needs, comfort and education, and so on. What does God have to say to us about these legitimate concerns? According to Matthew 6:31, He tells us, “Do not worry.” Now, He is not saying that we don’t need all these things because in the same portion of scripture He says, “For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” (Matthew 6:32) So God cares about us having these things. He wants us to have all these things. In fact, He wants all these things added to us. And He tells us that the way these things are added to us is by us seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Therefore, our number one priority every day is to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. It is no...

 MATTHEW 9:24 KJV  He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn.  Do others think you are crazy for being a follower of Jesus? Do they think you are too extreme for believing the Bible literally? Well, don't feel lonely. Jesus faced the same type of problems. As we see in Matthew 9:24, sometimes people derided Jesus. They did not just laugh at Him -- they laughed Him to scorn. They made a big deal out of it. It is the same today. When we believe what Jesus said, there may be times when others think we are crazy. They may laugh at us. They may even mock us for believing God's Word. That is nothing new. But why should you let it affect you? Often we are too concerned about what other people think. After all, they are not our Judge. Nor are they our Provider. But God is, and we should care what He thinks. That was the stance that Jesus took. We must remember that we are not in a popularity contest. Yes, to some...

Hebrews 10:12, 14, KJV  12 But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God... 14 For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.  God sees you with no flaw, spot or imperfection, so honor His Word and the finished work of His Son by saying, “Amen!” Don’t doubt your perfection in Christ. To see yourself as being far from perfect is not modesty, but a failure to understand the perfect sacrifice that Jesus has made for you. The Bible tells us, “For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified”.  Did you get that? You have not only been sanctified, that is, made holy, but by the same offering of His body, you have been perfected. You are both holy and perfect in God’s eyes! Your sins have been purged perfectly. Today, Jesus is seated at His Father’s right hand not because He is the Son of God (although that is true), but because His work of purging your sins is com...

Does God desire a company of people who will obey the ten commandments, give ten percent of all their income to Him, and faithfully attend worship services each week? NO! That was the Old Covenant.  If God was happy with what was happening then, He would have never instituted a New Covenant. If that was all God desired, He could have stayed with the Old Covenant. Why bother with Jesus dying to bring in a New Covenant? God said the New Covenant is NOT like the Old Covenant.  JEREMIAH 31:32 NET 32 It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them," says the LORD.  The Old Covenant was primarily dependent on human effort. The New Covenant is dependent on what God has done through Jesus Christ. That is why the Old Covenant was weak. Humans are fallible, but God is not. God does not change, but His covenants do change. God wants...

Acts 16:25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.   Why would hardened criminals listen so intently to two off pitch disciples singing songs to their God? It is because they cannot figure out why those two could sing songs to God from a pool of their own blood after being savagely beaten by the authorities for crimes they did not commit. Sometimes our greatest opportunities to share the Good News of Christ come when we sing songs to God in our darkest hours of suffering and pain. When the spotlights are on and everything in life is going well for you, God will use your life and your joy to convince some. But when thrust into the darkness of a prison cell and all the props of your life are kicked out from under you...how will you respond?  This long avoided place of joblessness, terminal illness, marital struggles, or addiction could be your greatest moment to point the world to somethi...

John 8:11 11… “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” When Jesus was on earth, a woman caught in the act of adultery was brought before Him by the scribes and Pharisees, the religious mafia of His day. They tried to trap Him by posing a question that was difficult to answer: “Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?” (John 8:5) Jesus answered, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” (John 8:7) The scribes and Pharisees began to leave one by one till none of them were left. The people in the crowd who wanted to condemn the woman could not. But Jesus, the only one in the crowd who truly had the power to condemn her, would not.  He then asked her, “Woman… Has no one condemned you?” (John 8:10) He spoke such words of grace to her because He loved her. Also, by asking her the question, He was giving her a chance to speak words of no condemnation to herself — “No one [condemns me], Lord.” (John...

JOHN 16:12-13 NKJ 12 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.  "Into all truth" in verse thirteen is translated "into the full truth" or "to the complete truth" in other Bible translations. At the very end of His earthly ministry, Jesus told His disciples there were many things He still needed to teach them. Then Jesus told them the Holy Spirit would guide them into a full and complete understanding of the truth after He left.  It took me a long time to understand this. But I finally realized that because Jesus ministered under the Old Covenant, He was not able to communicate everything we need to know about the New Covenant during His earthly ministry. Only after His death and resurrection, which brought in ...

Romans 8:32  32He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?  When we go through a trial, we tend to ask ourselves, “Does God really love me? How come I don’t seem to see it?” When that happens, it is time to bring in the cross, for God’s love for you is displayed forever at the cross. God gave up His Son to suffer and die on the cross for you. Jesus was pierced in seven places for you — in His head by the crown of thorns, His two hands and feet by the nails, and His side and heart by the spear of a Roman soldier.  Jesus wore the crown of thorns on His head so that you can have a sound mind free from fears, guilt, depression, anxieties and stress. When Jesus first showed His nail-pierced hands to His disciples, He said to them, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19–20)  He wanted them to know that peace is found in His finished work, typified by His pierced hands. The more you see Hi...

Faith is what you believe. (In the Bible, faith is the noun form and believe is the verb form of the same word.) Faith (a belief) is always a decision, based on some evidence, resulting in some action. Faith in God is a choice to believe what God says is true. It is accepting God's Word as evidence worthy of acting upon. Faith in God and His Word operates on the same principles as faith in anything else. There are no special rules. It is all a matter of what you believe. All humans operate on a belief system. As we go through life we are constantly being presented with information which is evidence that we must evaluate and judge. Whenever we choose to accept the evidence presented to us as sufficient to accept as truth, then that belief is added to our belief system.  Unless and until we are presented with new evidence that causes us to decide to believe differently about a subject, we keep the same belief. Then as we go through life, we always act (often sub- conscious...

Ruth 2:2 So Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field, and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”  Do you look at yourself and see only lack in the natural? Do you say, “I don’t have a good education”, “I am poor”, “I am too old” or “I am a divorcee”? I have good news for you. As a blood-bought believer and child of God, you have the supernatural favor of God!  In the Bible, Ruth was a poor Moabite widow who went with her mother-in-law to live in Bethlehem, a Jewish town where the inhabitants considered Moabites outcasts. But she did not wallow in self-pity and moan about being a poor widow of the wrong race in the wrong place. Instead, she believed that God would favor her and she declared, “I will find favor in the field that I glean from.”  In the natural, Ruth had everything going against her. But because she trusted in the favor of God, she not only became the wife of B...

John 10:10  10… I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.  When you are not enjoying abundant life, you will feel as if life is full of toil. In your heart, life is meaningless and empty. You feel like someone “grasping for the wind”. (Ecclesiastes 2:11)  It seems as if nothing you do adds up to much. The Bible calls this life “under the sun”. (Ecclesiastes 2:11) Someone who lives life under the sun may or may not know God, but God is either forgotten or not the center of things in his life.  His thoughts are earthly and he does things to gratify his flesh. In the end, he finds life depressing and unfulfilled. Life under the sun is full of despair. But this is not so with someone who lives life above the sun with God. For life with Him is filled with joy and pleasures at His right hand. (Psalm 16:11) Life is abundantly full and good just as Jesus promised — “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have ...

1 CORINTHIANS 13:9 NLT 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!  I don't know one single person on earth I agree with completely on every single thing they believe. That does not make me right, or make them wrong. It just means that we are all in a process of learning, so of necessity we are not all at the same place in our thinking.  There are some who know more than I do about a subject, and there are some who know less than I do about that subject. I should not fight or argue with those who know less about a subject than I do. Neither should I be proud because of my knowledge. For everything I have learned, I have been taught. I was not born with superior knowledge.  And you may find, as I have from time to time, that I thought I had knowledge of a subject, only to find out later that I was wrong. In order to keep learning, I need to stay open to what others have to say. I need to tr...

God Loves You      ROMANS 8:39 NLT  39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below -- indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.  You may find it difficult to believe -- but it's true -- God loves you. His love for you is not based on your appearance or your performance -- but on the fact that you are His creation -- His child. Just as a good parent loves their children, so God loves His children -- and even more so.  You will not be able to make God stop loving you, no matter what you do or don't do. You can displease Him, you can disappoint Him, you can anger Him -- but you can't make Him stop loving you. What are the practical consequences of God loving you? First, it means you can trust Him. No one who truly loves you will mistreat you. Second, it means God is doing all He can to help you and bless you.  "Then why am I not more blessed, if God w...

Deuteronomy 28:4  4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your body…  The Bible records that Jesus’ spit healed a blind man (Mark 8:23–25), Peter’s shadow healed the sick (Acts 5:15), and handkerchiefs and aprons from Paul’s body drove out evil spirits and diseases. (Acts 19:11–12) This tells us that what comes forth from our bodies can be so blessed that it brings about blessings and miracles to others.  Indeed, God said, “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body…” He was not just referring to your children, or He would have simply said, “Blessed shall be your children.” No, God meant that everything that proceeds from your body will be blessed. All that is of and from your body will be of top-notch quality! This includes your health. So even if your doctor has said that you have a particular medical condition in your body, just believe that God calls your health, the fruit of your body, blessed. And expect to walk continuously in divine health! God calls your thinking a...

Ephesians 3:19 19… know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. If you were to thank God for something today, what would it be? For me, it would be thanking God for giving me Jesus. For when I see Jesus on the cross, I see the love of God overcoming everything for me. It causes me to say, “Thank you, Jesus! I love you, Jesus! I worship you, Jesus! Bless you, Jesus! Hallelujah!” And as we worship and celebrate the love of Jesus in our lives, we will find ourselves changed, and we will see the mighty power of God displayed for us and through us.  This was the case in the life of David. His personal times of worship, of being absorbed in God’s love for him, changed him from a mere shepherd boy to a lion killer, bear killer, giant killer and finally, a king over Israel. Now, no one on earth, no matter how strong he is, let alone a youth, can come against a lion and prize open its mouth to snatch back his sheep which th...

1 Corinthians 11:24 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”  Have you ever taken a close look at the Matzah bread that the Jews eat during their Passover meal? The bread, which is unleavened, is pierced with rows of little holes forming stripes. It is also slightly burnt. Many churches today use this bread for the Holy Communion. Do you know why the bread is pierced, striped and burnt? My friend, the bread that you hold in your hands when you partake of the Lord’s Supper speaks of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ when He bore our sins and sicknesses on the cross.  Like the bread, He was pierced in His brow by the crown of thorns as well as in His hands and feet by the nails. He was also pierced in His side by a soldier’s spear. The prophet Isaiah says, “He was pierced for our transgressions…” (Isaiah 53:5, NIV) Like the bread, He was scourged on His back until His fles...