“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” John 15:14

God spoke to me today about the significance of enmity in a relationship with Jesus. 

Enmity is defined as the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something. 

The enmity of Jesus is about sin and it hinders your friendship with Him. 

Jesus said the greatest expression of love is to lay down your life for your friends. 

Jesus sacrificed His life so you can become His friend.

To become a friend of Jesus you must do whatever He commands. You have to agree to live for Him above all else and respond with obedience to His instructions. 

As a disciple you lose ownership of your life and belong to Jesus to do with you as He pleases.

Jesus does not regard the Christ follower as a servant because a servant just does the work instructed by his master without knowing his master’s life or purposes. 

Jesus shares His life with His friends and discloses everything He has learned from His Father. 

This happens through the Holy Spirit who is sealed in all believers. He fills you with the attributes of Jesus and teaches you the values of Christ.

The criteria for a good friend is someone you can trust implicitly. 

Your friendship with Jesus must be built on unwavering faith and trust in His promises.

Jesus promises He will never leave you or forsake you.

Jesus promises He will be a fortress of protection for you.

Jesus promises to give you an abundant life which you can never achieve on your own.

Jesus promises to give you supernatural strength, wisdom, and joy.

Jesus promises to protect you from evil but you must walk with Him anchored to the Holy Spirit.

Your friendship with Jesus must be built on vigilant prayer seeking His will for your life.

Jesus asks you to reach out to Him for your every need. Jesus promises to be your helper and provide for your every need.

Jesus gives you ability to stand blameless before God by confessing your sins and living in the blood of Jesus.

The friendship of Jesus is walking through life filled with the unconditional love and resurrected power of Christ.

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Romans 8:13

We all have vulnerabilities that can easily lead us astray from God and cause misery and destruction.

You and I were born with an inner condition to live for self and defy the ways of God. This condition will never leave you while living on earth.

We live in a world where you are constantly bombarded with false impressions every day of our life. They come from people in your life, through your mobile or laptop device, on television and radio and in social media. 

We are constantly tempted with immorality, debauchery and greed for money and the luxurious life. 

It is almost impossible to find the truths and glory of God in this upside down world. 

It is inevitable that we all will lapse into sin at different times in our lives. 

This happens because we choose to satisfy the flesh and turn away from the guidance and protection of the Spirit of Christ. 

How do you get entangled into illicit behavior?

What happens is Satan entices you with a temptation and you choose to entertain this in your mind. Then desire for the temptation is conceived and sin is born in your heart.

The sin will eventually be lived out and can easily lead to an addiction or compulsive behavior. 

Here are some tools to help you stay on track with God:

Start each day with prayer and commit your works to God. Ask God for wisdom and protection. 

Invite the Holy Spirit to have authority over your thoughts, words and decision making. 

Listen to the voice of God and respond with obedience to His instructions.

Spend a few minutes each day reading the Bible. 

Ask God to search your heart and reveal anything not pleasing to Him.

Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and flee immediately from the enticements coming from Satan.

If doubts or confusion arise during the day take a time out and seek God for wisdom.

“When my heart is overwhelmed;
lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Psalm 61:2

There are times when the burdens of life are impossible to deal with and there is no place to find peace.

Every Christ follower will go through this at some point in time. 

Ask God to lead you to the rock that is higher than all of your troubles. This rock is above the earth. 

Jesus is the rock of comfort and peace. 

Come to the supernatural dwelling place of Christ. There are no troubles or distress where God lives. 

Jesus is the rock that overcomes all things and can never be shaken.

You will find the rock by abandoning yourself to Jesus and asking Him to fill you with His presence.

Cast your burdens on the shoulders of Jesus. Give them to Him and you will feel free and become renewed with the strength of Jesus.

Pray to God for wisdom and listen for His voice. 

God makes promises to His people. Listen to the promises God is personally speaking to you and meditate on them day and night believing they will come to you.

God keeps His Word. This is your hope and confidence in overcoming your burdens. 

The promises of God are best described in Psalm 12.

The words of the Lord are pure words. They are like silver refined in a furnace of earth, purified seven times, you shall keep them O Lord, you shall preserve them from this generation forever.

You will never experience any trial in life that Jesus has not dealt with and conquered. He is the Rock of all ages!

For many will come in My name, saying, “I am the Christ, and will deceive many.” Matthew 25:4

Last night God spoke to me about the mistaken identity concerning Christ Jesus. 

He told me believers have to accept Jesus at face value. You cannot filter the truths of God to satisfy your expectations. 

Many believers and leaders in the Body of Christ define Jesus in a manner to make Him appealing but they leave out His complete personality.

Jesus is controversial, unpredictable and outspoken.

Jesus is radical at times and does not think or act like you. He is not motivated by human logic.

Jesus bears the wrath of God over sin. You are accountable to Him for your every action. 

Jesus is very jealous and His jealousy is like a consuming fire. He wants all you and will not tolerate sharing you with other gods or idols. 

The Old Testament God is the same as the New Testament God. The character of God never changes. Think about Jesus as created in the perfect image of God.  

The hypocrisy of Christianity is teaching a stereotyped view of Jesus and denying the reality of the character of God.

Jesus is a God of retribution. He blesses and He curses. 

Jesus can strike down a human being or destroy a nation in a moment. 

The Old Testament is filled with the richness of God working through all kinds of people in difficult situations. You witness the brazen nature of God which at times seems cruel and harsh. 

We are living in a time of apostasy in the Body of Christ. The decay is widespread and touches all believers. We have deprecated the person of Jesus Christ. 

The judgments of God are spreading all over the world. This has been caused by our desultory attitude towards God. We don’t take Him seriously.

Jesus wants you to accept Him for who He is without compromise. Your hope is to live in the blood of Christ confessing your sins and with an open heart to the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was before Abraham. He is a complete picture of God from the very beginning of creation. 

Come to Jesus with trembling fear and respect. Seek out His will with a vigilant attitude.

Jesus can do for you what you can never do for yourself!

“And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” Revelation 5:6

Jesus is ubiquitous which means He is omnipresent. He sees everything in your life and around the globe. Nothing is hidden from Him. And, He knows you better than you know yourself.

This supernatural vision comes from the seven Spirits of God. They are the eyes of Jesus and they go everywhere.

Jesus also dispatches powerful angels to look over you and protect you from evil.

Most importantly for a believer, Jesus lives inside you in the essence of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is omniscient and knows every detail of your past, present and future.

Jesus has established a powerful safety net to protect you from evil. He offers a strong refuge that does not exist in the world. This refuge cannot be penetrated by evil forces.

Unfortunately, most believers do not fully draw upon this safety net. They rely on their own wisdom and get tangled up in their own issues forgetting about the eyes of Jesus. 

God is committed to helping you but you must seek Him out through prayer and listen for His voice.

Begin each day with a prayer committing your works to God and ask the Holy Spirit to give you supernatural wisdom and protection. 

Take God seriously. He wants to be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your pathway.

 

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8

Last night God told me to create a narrative dealing with the subject “Walk in the Spirit as I am in the Spirit”. 

Jesus told me that He is analogous with the Holy Spirit and this is how you can interact directly with Him. 

Jesus lives in Heaven. He is not approachable to you in person.

If you want a relationship with the Living Christ you have to be born of the Spirit. The Spirit lives in all believers and gives you the ability to live with Jesus.

The wind (Holy Spirit) blows where it wishes and you can hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. You are like a boat floating in the sea under the control of the wind and the waves. 

As a believer you are sealed with the Holy Spirit and He will take you where He desires. The Holy Spirit compares spiritual life to the spiritual reality of Christ. 

The deception of Christianity is the belief you must find Jesus through religion. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You are born again when you make a declaration to live for Jesus above all else. This causes you to be born of the Spirit and Water.

The Spirit begins the work of transforming you into a new creature in Christ Jesus and the Water makes you clean in the eyes of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is the gateway to living with Jesus. Invite the Holy Spirit to have authority over your life and you will see Jesus every day of your life. 

“The Father and I are one” John 10:30

The passion of Jesus is to live in perfect oneness and obedience to His Father.

The character of Jesus is built on unconditional love. He is motivated to save souls and set believers free from the bondage of sin.

He is an intercessor for the Body of Christ. The work of the Cross is eternal and never ending.

Jesus is engaged in a war between light and darkness. This war is ongoing and will not end until Jesus comes back to claim His church. 

Jesus conducts this warfare through powerful angels and the Holy Spirit laboring through Christ followers. The goal is to bring down strongholds and set believers free to live with God.

The passion of Jesus is for believers to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Jesus wants you to worship Him in Spirit and Truth. 

Jesus wants all of you and is not willing to share you with other gods or idols. 

Jesus asks you to listen for His voice and respond with obedience to His instructions.

Jesus requires you to walk by faith believing in His promises.

To love in a manner like Jesus you must treat others with respect and esteem them above yourself.

The passion of Christ for you today is to commit your works to God and pray for His thoughts to be established within you. 

Jesus desires for you to invite the Holy Spirit to have authority over your thoughts and decision making. 

Jesus lives in you and desires to share His supernatural attributes with you. Ask Jesus to fill you with strength, wisdom, protection and the joy of the Lord. 

The Christ follower is a fountain of Living Water touching those living in darkness.

“Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” Ephesians 4:13

The role of Christ is to build a church where we all are united by faith in the promises of God. 

We do not live by what we see with our eyes but by what God is doing in the invisible.

The Holy Spirit teaches believers the knowledge of God and how to walk in oneness with Jesus. 

The gift of salvation is the work of God to transform you into the perfect likeness of Jesus. 

We are an imperfect people operating with the perfect stature of Christ. We are measured by Jesus against His standards of virtue.

The goal is to be spiritually mature believers rooted in the truths of God. We do not accept any doctrine contrary to the Word of God or attempts to distort the truth through deceit and lies.

We stand firm on the Word of Christ sharing the Living Water with the love of Christ.

We grow up united in Christ in all things and walk with Him by faith. 

Jesus is the head over all and we are His emissaries to those living in darkness. 

“Not my will but Yours be done” Luke 22:42

Walking with Jesus is life changing. You cannot stay in your comfort zone. 

Salvation is the work of God to transform you into the likeness of Jesus. Change is inevitable and never ending.

The world you and I live in is depraved, filled with temptations and false teaching abounds in the Body of Christ. 

The challenge today is to ask Jesus what He wants to change in your life. It might be something small like drink less coffee or it might be about letting go of something you cherish.

Make the transaction with Jesus by yielding your will to His will.

Leave your emotions out of the conversation. They will betray you and cause you to eventually slip back into what God wants to change in your life. 

God knows you better than you know yourself. He is omniscient and sees every detail of your future. So when God asks you to change it is for your protection and well being.

God wants you to respond with obedience to His voice. This is how He measures you and separates the wheat from the chaff.

“How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me” Psalm 13:1

King David had a powerful anointing over his life but at times he felt totally closed down and distant from God.

There will be times in your spiritual journey when God will be silent and seem aloof.

Jesus is teaching you that He does not want you to interact with Him by divine inspiration. This is an attempt to worship (or seek) a transfigured life with Jesus.

There will be transfigured moments in your life but they are few and far between and are determined by God.

The goal is to live in oneness with Jesus by faith. 

Your salvation is about integrating God into the ordinary moments of life.

We live with Jesus by prayer, meditating on His Word and listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit. Then we have to let God be God and go about life with the confidence He lives inside us.

Don’t live for supernatural experiences with God. They are the exception not the normal in dealing with God.

The Holy Spirit teaches you the values of Christ in every day life. This is where you will find Jesus today!

David found God while hiding in a cave terrified he was going to be killed.

You have to live with God by faith not through your emotions or spiritual experiences. 

Today commit your works to God and invite the Holy Spirit to have authority over all of your actions. Then you can walk confidently with God even if He seems distant.

If you take a misstep the Holy Spirit will correct you. He lives in you!

Dwelling with the Living Christ is built on the spiritual principle it is not what you see with your eyes but what you cannot see.

Jesus lives so you can live!