GOSPEL CORNER : “I WILL ARISE AND GO TO MY FATHER, AND WILL SAY TO HIM, ‘FATHER, I HAVE SINNED AGAINST HEAVEN AND BEFORE YOU.’”LUKE 15:18, NKJV

20/07/23

JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES
Today’s Word

Today’s Scripture
“I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.’”
Luke 15:18, NKJV

Dare to Arise
The prodigal son had taken his father’s inheritance and wasted it all on wild living. When he was finally destitute, feeding hogs, he made a decision that changed the course of his life. He was saying, “Yes, I brought this trouble on myself, but I’m not going to sit around condemned. I’m going to arise and go to my father’s house.”

You may have made poor choices. Perhaps you’re not where you thought you would be in life. The accusing voices are telling you, “You’ve blown it too badly. You’ll never reach your dreams.” No, you are one decision away from seeing God show out in your life. The plan He has for you was not cancelled because you took a detour through the hog pen. Those decisions didn’t disqualify you from His favor. All you have to do is arise, shake off the guilt, and go back to your Father. Start making decisions that honor God. Break away from things that are causing you to compromise. God has amazing things in your future if you dare to arise.

A Prayer for Today
“Father, thank You that Your mercy is bigger than my mistakes. Thank You that You are not holding my past against me. Thank You that I am forgiven. Thank You that I’m redeemed because of what Jesus did on the cross. I’m coming boldly to Your house right now. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

PART TWO:

Today I want to show you the difference between a blessed man and a cursed man. The Bible is amazingly clear on how you can be a cursed man and what a cursed life looks like. God’s Word also shows you a picture of a blessed man and how you can be that man.

Let’s start with how one can be a cursed man. Jeremiah 17:5 tells us that when a man “trusts in man” and not in the Lord, he becomes a cursed man.

A man who “makes flesh his strength” is also cursed. In this context, “flesh” can be paraphrased as “self-effort.” In other words, we can read verse five as “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes self-effort his strength.”

My friend, there are essentially two ways to live this life. The first is for us to depend and trust entirely in the Lord’s unmerited favor, while the other is to depend on our efforts, and strive and struggle for success. We can never bring about good success that comes from God by depending on our self-efforts. No matter how we strive and struggle, we cannot work for our own righteousness or attain our own forgiveness. Any success that we may achieve is only partial success.

On the other hand, God’s kind of success is complete, whole, and permeates into every facet of our lives—spirit, soul and body. God’s Word says, “The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it” (Proverbs 10:22). God never gives us success at the expense of our marriage, families, or health. Like I always say to the business people in my church, don’t use all your health to chase after wealth, only to spend all your wealth later to get your health back!

Health and wholeness in your physical body are part of God’s blessings. If you are constantly under tremendous stress and have regular panic attacks because of the nature of your work, then I would encourage you to take a step back and seek the Lord’s counsel. Stress robs you of health, whereas good success from the Lord causes your youth to be renewed.

When you depend on your efforts, you can struggle for many years and get only a certain measure of success. But when you depend on God’s unmerited favor, you can experience accelerated blessings and promotion that years of striving and struggling can never achieve.

Look at the story of Joseph from Genesis 39. He was nothing but a lowly prisoner. Yet, within an hour of meeting Pharaoh, he was promoted to the highest office in the entire Egyptian empire. Beloved, even if you are down and out (like Joseph was) at this point in your life, the Lord can promote you supernaturally in an instant when you choose to put your eyes on Him!

https://www.josephprince.com/meditate-devo/trust-god-not-man-or-self-effort