Archive for November, 2008
Rodney Howard Browne | What an Incredible Quality of Love
Posted by: | Comments
See what [an incredible] quality of love the Father has given (shown, bestowed on) us, that we should [be permitted to] be named and called and counted the children of God! And so we are! The reason that the world does not know (recognize, acknowledge) us is that it does not know (recognize, acknowledge) Him. 2 Beloved, we are [even here and] now God’s children; it is not yet disclosed (made clear) what we shall be [hereafter], but we know that when He comes and is manifested, we shall [as God's children] resemble and be like Him, for we shall see Him just as He [really] is. 3 And everyone who has this hope [resting] on Him cleanses (purifies) himself just as He is pure (chaste, undefiled, guiltless). 1 John 3:1-3 AMP
God has bestowed an incredible amount of love on us in making us His very own children. No other religion of man can make the same claims. Every other religion requires do’s and don’t’s. They have a long list of things you can and can’t do, and even if you fulfill all the requirements (which is impossible any way), you have no idea if you will actually make heaven and miss hell and damnation! The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only message that truly offers a guarantee! Since the Gospel offers heaven based on faith and not works, God made it very, very simple for every person on the planet to become His very own child and spend eternity in His wonderful presence.
He loved us so much that He did it all – He did all the hard work and left nothing up to us, except believing and receiving – so that we can be assured of eternal life, eternal peace, and eternal joy!
Wait and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing]. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for what does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness [the profuseness of spiritual joy]. 3 Incline your ear [submit and consent to the divine will] and come to Me; hear, and your soul will revive; and I will make an everlasting covenant or league with you, even the sure mercy (kindness, goodwill, and compassion) promised to David. Isaiah 55:1-3 AMP
Even if we owned the whole world with a gold fence around it, we could not pay for one drop of God’s priceless mercy or one drop of the priceless blood of Jesus. He loves us so much that He freely offers His priceless blood, grace, mercy, and forgiveness to every person, no matter how bad they are and no matter how awful their sin. The only way to access this gracious, free gift is by humbling your heart and surrendering your life to the Lord. The way – the only way – that the blessing comes to you is by self-surrender, as it is only by self-surrender that you are able to accept the blessing!
Unfortunately, for some people, this is too high a price to pay. They will do anything else, but do not ask them to surrender their life to the will of the Father. Many people are outwardly religious – some of them ridiculously so – but they will not submit their heart to the Lord. Of course, there are many people who do not know that this is all that God requires of them, as they have never heard the Gospel and their eyes are blinded by the devil, but there are others who have heard and yet find it too difficult to do. You would think that people would be thrilled to know that they no longer have to fulfill a long list of difficult and uncomfortable, sometime tortuous requirements, in order to be guaranteed eternal life, but strangely they would rather suffer and feel like they DID something to pay for their salvation or their reward.
This is not humility – it is false humility – pride dressed up like humility. True humility embraces the free gift. True humility is bold to say, “Yes, I am the righteousness of God in Christ,” knowing all along on the inside that HE paid the price and that we are completely undeserving!
Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it]. Hebrews 4:16 AMP
Because of God’s grace, you can come boldly into the presence of God to ask for what it is that you need. Because you have surrendered to Him and allowed Him to wash and cleanse and change you, you are unashamed to enter into His presence. Because you have a revelation of how much He loves you and how much He has done for you and how much He has promised you, you are not afraid to come straight to Him and ask Him personally for what you need!
Rodney Howard Browne | Believe that You Will See
Posted by: | Comments
[What, what would have become of me] had I not believed that I would see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living! 14 Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord. Psalms 27:13-14 AMP
David wrote most of his Psalms before he became king — many of them were written in the middle of the toughest times of his life. David had been anointed king, but Saul was still on the throne. Saul, to whom he had been nothing but loyal, had gone crazy and was trying to kill him, but David, out of respect for God and the king, would not touch a hair on the king’s head.
David had not done anything wrong and yet he was forced to live in caves and run for his life. It must have been extremely difficult for him: mentally, physically, emotionally and in every way. The only thing that got him through everything was his faith in God and his relationship with God.
You could say that David was an optimist – he hoped in God, he believed that God was good, and he believed that he would see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living! David had a promise from God and he believed and expected that God would keep His promise. You have to be a person of faith to be an optimist and David had faith in God.
In order to have faith in God, you have to first know what He has promised and then, secondly, you have to believe that He is faithful to keep his promises. If you have faith, then you are not impatient. All the time you are waiting, you are hoping for and expecting the Lord, you are brave and of good courage and your heart is stout and enduring.
If you have faith, no matter what you are going through right now, you have a confidence that God is coming through for you and that He will not be late. Even if you have lost something, if you have faith, no matter what you have lost, or what the devil has stolen from you, you have confidence that God will restore it to you.
Because of faith also Sarah herself received physical power to conceive a child, even when she was long past the age for it, because she considered [God] Who had given her the promise to be reliable and trustworthy and true to His word. 12 So from one man, though he was physically as good as dead, there have sprung descendants whose number is as the stars of heaven and as countless as the innumerable sands on the seashore. Hebrews 11:11-12 AMP
Sarah was not old woman when she married Abraham, but she had been married for many years now and all this time she had been barren and had never borne a child. Now she was old and well beyond her childbearing years. However, God had made a promise to Sarah that she would bring forth a son in her old age and she believed this promise. She believed that God was reliable and trustworthy and true to His word. Because she believed, she herself received the physical power to conceive a child, even though she was long past the age for it.
[For Abraham, human reason for] hope being gone, hoped in faith that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been promised, So [numberless] shall your descendants be. 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered the [utter] impotence of his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or [when he considered] the barrenness of Sarah’s [deadened] womb. 20 No unbelief or distrust made him waver (doubtingly question) concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong and was empowered by faith as he gave praise and glory to God, 21 Fully satisfied and assured that God was able and mighty to keep His word and to do what He had promised. Romans 4:18-21 AMP
Abraham had no human reason to hope so he put his hope in God. He had faith that he would become the father of many nations, as he had been promised. Even when he looked at his own 100 year-old, impotent body and at the barrenness of Sarah’s womb, he did not weaken in faith. Because he kept his eyes on God’s promise and not on his situation, he did not waver and doubt. His faith grew stronger and stronger until he saw the manifestation of the promise — his precious son Isaac.
David said, “what would have become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living!” David knew that if he had given up hope, if he had believed that God had let him down, and if he had believed what the devil and his circumstances were telling him, that his life would have been destroyed and he never would have fulfilled the call and the plan of God for his life. Yes, God had made him a promise, but it was his confidence in God’s Word that brought him out of his difficulties into the blessing. Because Abraham and Sarah believed that they would see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living, God’s promise to them came true. Their descendants number as the stars of heaven and are as countless as the innumerable sense of the seashore.
God is a good God and He has good things planned for you. Study God’s Word, find out what He has promised you, believe those promises, believe that you will see the Lord’s goodness here on earth, not just in heaven, and when you look back on your life you will be able to say, just like David, “I am so glad that I believed in God and that I trusted Him, because without Him I would never have made it. He has always come through for me!”
Rodney Howard Browne | Delivered Daily by the Power
Posted by: | Comments
Therefore since we are justified (acquitted, declared righteous, and given a right standing with God) through faith, let us [grasp the fact that we] have [the peace of reconciliation to hold and to enjoy] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed one).
2 Through Him also we have [our] access (entrance, introduction) by faith into this grace (state of God’s favor) in which we [firmly and safely] stand. And let us rejoice and exult in our hope of experiencing and enjoying the glory of God. Romans 5:1-2 AMP
While we were yet in weakness [powerless to help ourselves], at the fitting time Christ died for (in behalf of) the ungodly.
7 Now it is an extraordinary thing for one to give his life even for an upright man, though perhaps for a noble and lovable and generous benefactor someone might even dare to die.
8 But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed one) died for us. Romans 5:6-8 AMP
Because we were born into sin, there was nothing we could do to save ourselves from the penalty of sin – which is death. We were powerless to help ourselves. Sin made of us an enemy of God. When Jesus died, He did not die for His friends, He died for His enemies – the ungodly – in order to make them His friends. Jesus came to save us from our own sin, acquit us of all wrongdoing and give us an entrance into the presence of God by His own blood, which was shed for every man, woman, boy and girl. Rodney Howard Browne teaches that we are justified by grace through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. The fact that Jesus died for us when we were still sinners proves how much God loves all mankind.
Therefore, since we are now justified (acquitted, made righteous, and brought into right relationship with God) by Christ’s blood, how much more [certain is it that] we shall be saved by Him from the indignation and wrath of God. Romans 5:9 AMP
Jesus has delivered us from death and from judgment. He brought into a right relationship with God and we can have confidence that He will save us from the indignation and wrath of God that the unsaved will experience when they die.
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more [certain], now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved (daily delivered from sin’s dominion) through His [resurrection] life. Romans 5:10 AMP
If God brought us from the place of being His enemy to being His friend and His child, then how much more certain is it that we shall be delivered daily from sin’s dominion in our life through His resurrection life? If you will give the Holy Spirit access to your life, the same resurrection life that saved you will now keep you. The same resurrection life that made you a new creature – made your Spirit brand new – will continue to work in your mind and body every day, delivering you from the power and control of sin.
Not only so, but we also rejoice and exultingly glory in God [in His love and perfection] through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have now received and enjoy [our] reconciliation. Romans 5:11 AMP
If you are a Christian, who is truly washed in the blood of the Lamb,
and who has a revelation of everything Jesus has done for you, you would be loving your life right now, and really enjoying your relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You would be rejoicing and exultingly glorying in God’s love and perfection in your life.
Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man, and death as the result of sin, so death spread to all men, [no one being able to stop it or to escape its power] because all men sinned.
13[To be sure] sin was in the world before ever the Law was given, but sin is not charged to men’s account where there is no law [to transgress].
14 Yet death held sway from Adam to Moses [the Lawgiver], even over those who did not themselves transgress [a positive command] as Adam did. Adam was a type (prefigure) of the one Who was to come [in reverse, the former destructive, the Latter saving].
15 But God’s free gift is not at all to be compared to the trespass [His grace is out of all proportion to the fall of man]. For if many died through one man’s falling away (his lapse, his offense), much more profusely did God’s grace and the free gift [that comes] through the undeserved favor of the one Man Jesus Christ abound and overflow to and for [the benefit of] many. Romans 5:12-15 AMP
Sin came into the world through one man – Adam – and death came as the result of sin. Death spread to all men, because all men sinned. No one was able to stop it or to escape its power. Even so, God’s grace, that restores man, is so much more profuse than the sin that destroys man. Grace is more powerful than any power of sin. Sin is powerless before God’s grace. Sin cannot prevent God’s grace and His resurrection power from reaching and transforming all those who will receive it!
Rodney Howard Browne | Love Fulfills the Law
Posted by: | Comments
8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:8-10 NKJV
Under the Old Covenant, God’s people spent all their time trying to fulfill the law. Of course, they never managed to keep the law one hundred percent of the time and that was the whole point of the law: to give them a standard to live by, to make them aware that they were incapable in their own power of living up to that standard, that they needed a Savior and to point them toward Jesus Himself as Savior and Lord.
17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Matthew 5:17-18 NKJV
Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it and to deliver us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13). Out of His own mouth He gave us a new standard to live by.
34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:34-40 KJV
He did not tell us that we do not have to obey God’s commands once we are born anew from above, but He did give us an easier way to obey the commands of God—walk in the love of God. Romans 5:5 NIV says that, “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.” Our righteousness, as believers, had nothing to do with what we have done, but with what Jesus did for us. We are washed in His blood, saved sanctified and redeemed! Now, with the help of the Holy Spirit we walk out our righteousness in obedience to God’s Word. It is love that fulfills the law and it is God’s love in us that enables us to keep God’s law and obey it. We do not obey God’s commands because we are afraid of Him, but because we love Him. Because we love Him, we also love our neighbor as He has commanded us to.
If you love God, you will keep the Ten Commandments. If you love God, you will put Him first in all things. You will not worship any other god or any other earthly thing, like money or possessions. If you love God, you will not take His Name in vain. You will take time to honor Him and to spend time in His presence. If you love God you will honor and respect your parents. Even if they were not perfect, the love of God in your heart will forgive them and begin to appreciate them and see them as valuable and precious. When you forgive them, you will not repeat their mistakes and where there are generational curses, they will lose all their power over you. As far as God is concerned, all curses are broken on the day you are born-again. You activate this power of God in your life in this area by walking in the love of God.
If you love God and your neighbor, you will not murder your neighbor—either in your thoughts, with your mouth or with your hands. If you love God and your neighbor, you will not commit adultery. You will honor the other person by not allowing the lusts of your flesh to triumph. You will not do anything that dishonors your neighbor and their current or future spouse. If you love God and your neighbor, you will not steal—you will not take something that belongs to your neighbor. You will work with your hands and earn your living honestly and you will give to the Lord and your neighbor according to the blessing of the Lord on your life.
If you love God and your neighbor, you will not lie about your neighbor nor accuse them falsely. You will always tell the truth. If you love God and your neighbor, you will not covet your neighbor’s possessions. You will not be jealous or envious. Instead, you will be blessed by the fact that your neighbor is blessed and you will sow your own seed and you will expect God for a harvest of blessing to come to your life in due season. When you love God and your neighbor, you are sowing seed for blessings to come back to you, good-measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over!
When you walk in love towards your neighbor, you have fulfilled the law.
Rodney Howard Browne | Recognize the Savior
Posted by: | Comments
Rodney Howard Browne teaches on our Savior
25 And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. 26 And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 27 And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law, 28 Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, 29 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: 30 For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, 31 Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; 32 A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. 33 And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. 34 And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; 35 (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. 36 And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; 37 And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. 38 And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. 39 And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth. 40 And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him. Luke 2:25-40 KJV
It is easy for most people to look back today at the life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and recognize and worship Him for who He is – the spotless Lamb of God – but when He was just a baby it was not so easy. When He grew up and walked and talked among them – it was not so easy. He looked like them and they thought that He was one of them. It is true that He was a man – but He was definitely not just a man! He was God in the body of a man, come to heal all those who were oppressed of the devil and sent to die for all men, to reconcile them to the Father.
People have a tendency to form set opinions and ideas of how things are and how they should be and then get stuck in a rut of ignorance and arrogance – they are not open to anything that is different from the way that they have decided that it is. We must realize that we are not perfect, we don’t know everything and we have a lot to learn. We should keep our heart open and humble, and then perhaps we will actually be able to receive from the Spirit of God and we will be able to adapt ourselves to Him, instead of expecting Him to change to suit us!
The Pharisees, at the time of Jesus, were arrogant, opinionated, and loved having the respect and admiration of the people. They thought that their knowledge and position made them better than anyone else. They refused to accept Jesus or to listen to Him even though they could not deny the anointing of God on His life and the power of God that flowed through His life. It was the ordinary, humble people, who did not think more highly of themselves than they ought, who recognized Jesus as a Man of God. Even then, many of them, who worshipped Him and looked to Him to heal them and provide for them, turned their back on Him in His hour of persecution.
Even though God had revealed to his people that the Messiah was coming, they all had their own opinion on Who He was and what He would do and many of them weren’t open to receive the One whom God had sent. Thank God for men and women like Simeon and Anna, who were wise enough and humble enough to recognize the Messiah when He arrived. Thank God for the shepherds who believed the angel, and the wise men who followed the star, looking for the One who had been born to save the world.
We must open our eyes and see that God is moving in the earth today and Jesus is still doing miracles today. We must be wise enough to recognize His hand and to receive His work in our life. The first thing we must do is to recognize Him as the Savior of all mankind and accept Him as our personal Lord and Savior. Then we must recognize and receive Him as our Healer, our Deliverer, and our Provider. We must expect miracles and the supernatural. We must keep a humble heart and be open to all that He has for us. Let us recognize Him this Christmas season and let us honor Him by inviting Him to have His way in our hearts and our lives.