THE WATERFALL OF GRACE

GENESIS 8:22  "As long as the earth endures, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."   Planting seeds. Then harvesting the crop. As long as the earth exists, this is the way things work on earth. This is true in the spiritual realm as well as in the physical realm. The Bible teaches that our words and our actions are the seeds we plant, that produce a harvest in our life. If we are merciful to others, we will be treated with mercy. If we show love and respect, others will show love and respect to us. If we speak words of faith and blessing, good things will increase in our lives. But if we continually speak fear, doubt, and trouble, life will not go well for us. GALATIANS 6:7 NIV 7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The world has a saying based on this principle, "what goes around, comes around." We reap what we sow. Using modern terms, we harvest what we plant. And the...

1 TIMOTHY 6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.  Too many people have the idea that if something is God's will for them to have that it will just automatically happen without any effort or involvement on their part. Not so! We have to cooperate with God. We must believe what He says. We must resist doubt and fear. To walk in the fullness of blessing God desires for us, we must fight the good fight of faith. Israel was our example. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:11  These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. They had to fight the giants in the land to possess what God said was already theirs. The promised land belonged to them already because God had given it to them. But it was still inhabited by others (including giants), who had to be driven out ...

GENESIS 3:1 NKJ 1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"  The original temptation, still being used by the devil to keep people away from the blessings of God today, is to doubt that God's Word is truth and that God desires the best for us . The devil's false idea is that God is holding out on us, keeping back something good that would make our life better and more enjoyable. But God is not withholding anything good from us. When He gave us Jesus He gave us everything. Now it is our responsibility to learn how to receive what He has given us and use it for the glory of God and the good of mankind. God's way is actually the very best for us. God's will for you is actually what you would also choose for yourself if you had all the information God has. Just like a good parent, God does try to pro...

MATTHEW 16:6,12 Then Jesus said to them,6 "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." 12 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.   Why did Jesus warn His disciples to beware of the Pharisees? What did they do wrong? (An entire chapter of the Bible (Matthew 23) is Jesus' teaching against the Pharisees.) The Pharisees were conservative, faithful "church" members. They accepted the Bible as the written Word of God. They paid tithes. They believed in miracles (at least in days past). They wouldn't dream of stealing, committing adultery, or such things. You would like living next to a Pharisee as they were model citizens. But instead of having a living relationship with God, the Pharisees took the Word of God and made just another dead religion out of it. The Pharisee way of thinking is: keep up appearances. "It doesn'...

MALACHI 3: 8-10 8  “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. 9  You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation. Tithe means tenth. So tithing is giving ten percent to God. In Malachi 3:9 God told Israel they were under a curse. It was because of their disobedience. Their covenant with God required them to obey the Law of God, which included tithing, in order to enjoy God's blessings and be free from the curse. But we live today under a New Covenant which does not have the same requirements. Our covenant is a better covenant established on better promises (Hebrews 8:6). The New Covenant is between God and Jesus of Nazareth, so it does not depend on the obedience of anyone else. We are included in this wonderful covenant only by receiving Jesus and thus being in union with Him. The Bible refers to this as being "in Christ." If you are "in Christ,...

Romans 3:21-26 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood-to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished- he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.  This is one of the greatest "But now..." passages in the Bible! We focus on the bad news that it is impossible for us to do anything to earn a right standing with God. We have all missed the mark and...

 1 JOHN 4:8  The person who doesn't love doesn't know God, because God is love. Wouldn't it be nice to live where every one loved and was loved with a perfect love? A place where there was no selfishness, where everyone put the interests of others before their own interests. The good news is that there is such a place! It is where Jesus is Lord. It is the Kingdom of God, which could also be called the Kingdom of love, because God is love. Everyone is invited. All are welcome. There is room for everyone. There is just one problem. If you are allowed in -- while still a selfish being -- you would ruin it for others. So you can't enter until you are changed, made right, made into a person of love, a person who is not selfish. "But all humans are born selfish! We can't help it! It is who we are."  JOHN 3:3  Jesus replied to Nicodemus, "I can guarantee this truth: No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Yes, hum...