Receive As You Hear The Good News

Romans 1:16
16For 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 well, prosperous and whole, “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 preacher or hearing a sermon CD, as you hear God’s Word, His power is released into your situation, working things out for you and turning your situation around for your good.

In Acts 14:8–10, we see Paul preaching the good news in Lystra. A man who was crippled from birth was listening to Paul. Paul, seeing that he had faith to be healed, said, “Stand up straight on your feet!” And the man leaped and walked! He heard the good news, believed it and was healed.

At a leadership conference in Oslo, Norway, where I was speaking, a pastor there shared how a well-respected businessman was healed while listening to one of my sermon tapes. This man was deaf in one ear. And when he was listening to the teaching on the tape, his deaf ear popped open without anyone laying hands on him or praying for him! He was just listening to the good news when his ear opened. Now, that is what I call the power of God unto his salvation, sozo-ing him, making his hearing whole!

My friend, these miracles happen not because we follow some kind of formula faithfully, but because we hear the good news preached and believe it!

Don't Put Your Faith In Diets And Exercise

Psalm 118:8
8It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.

A lot of people think that the way to get health is to watch what they eat. For example, many people say that the Mediterranean diet is a very healthy one. I agree, generally. But do you know that the people Jesus healed were on a Mediterranean diet? They did not eat pork and prawns, for example, because they were Jews and these things are not kosher for them.

I know that you want to walk in divine health. But God does not want your focus to be on food — what to eat, what not to eat — or even exercise — how to exercise, when to exercise. All these are natural means which people of the world trust in. It is better to trust in the Lord and His finished work, than to put your confidence in the latest man-made diet plans and exercise regimes.

At the cross, Jesus took your sicknesses and carried your pains, and by His stripes you were healed. (Isaiah 53:4–5) The Bible even tells us how to escape sickness and premature death — by discerning the Lord’s body when we partake of the Lord’s Supper. (1 Corinthians 11:29–30) But instead of focusing on these truths, many of us prefer to focus on dieting and exercising!

Now, I am not against eating well or exercising. I myself exercise and I do watch what I eat. For example, I don’t like to eat oily stuff because it makes me feel uncomfortable. And when I have to preach, I do my best not to eat foods that make me burp!

But I eat generally healthy stuff not because I trust dieting to make me healthy. I exercise not because I trust exercising to make me healthy. No, I trust the finished work of Christ to make me healthy. I eat well because I like to feel good and I exercise because I enjoy the rush, the sweat!

God wants you to be free when it comes to eating and exercising. Don’t make laws for eating and exercising, and then trust these laws to give you “divine” health. Trust in the finished work of Christ. Discern His body when you partake of the Holy Communion. And just enjoy your food and workout!

A Way Of Escape

Psalm 23:5
5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.

The table is set. The bread and wine are there, and Jesus says to you, “Come, My child, partake.” But you tell Him, “Lord, I am unworthy!” You are also afraid to come because you have been taught that if you partake in your “unworthy” state, you will come under God’s fiery judgment!

My friend, you are as worthy as worthy can be because Jesus has washed you whiter than snow and qualified you with His own blood! The most humble thing you can do now is to acknowledge His perfect sacrifice and accept His invitation with gladness.

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul tells the church how to partake of the Lord’s Supper so that they will not drink judgment to themselves. The word “judgment” in verses 29 and 34 is krima in the Greek, which means “divine sentence”. In the context of this passage, it refers to sickness.

But when was this divine sentence of sickness passed? It was passed when Adam sinned. (Genesis 3:19) When he sinned, death entered the world (Genesis 2:17), and man would grow old and weak, fall sick and die.

So it is not that God is passing sentences of sickness on people today. How can that be when Jesus said, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:17) God is not in the business of condemning but saving! And the Greek word sozo for “saved” also means to preserve, heal and make whole.

God does not want you to suffer the divine sentence of sickness that is already in the world, so He has given you a way of escape, paid for by the blood of His Son. He wants you to be healthy and whole, without the diseases of the world, and He has made this possible for you through the Holy Communion.

So don’t be robbed of this tremendous blessing any longer because of erroneous teachings that put fear in your heart. Come boldly to the Lord’s Table today and receive afresh His health, strength, wholeness and life!

He Is Willing, Be Healed!

Matthew 8:3
3Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.”…

Do you know that it is God’s will for you to be healed? In fact, Jesus always healed the sick who came to Him. The blind, lame, maimed, mute, deaf and demon-possessed — He healed them all. (Matthew 8:16)

The Bible says that he who has seen Jesus has seen the Father. (John 14:9) You want to see what God is like? Look at Jesus! He never gave sickness to anybody. When the leper came to Him, He didn’t say, “Tough luck, I don’t like your face. By the way, receive Aids as well!” Instead, He told the leper, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

Unfortunately, there are Christians who say, “It is God’s will for me to be sick. God has some purpose, some mysterious purpose for my situation. It is all part of His divine plan and we shall all know in the sweet by and by, the reason why!” But these same people go to their doctors to get well. They take their medication and rest. Why do they do that if they really believe that God wants them sick? Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Come on, what makes perfect sense is this: God wants you well. God wants you whole. God’s will is for you to be healed! In fact, He is so willing that He took all your sicknesses and diseases upon His own body so that you don’t have to suffer them today!

He allowed Himself to be beaten and scourged, so that by His scourging — by His stripes — you are healed! (Isaiah 53:5) Since He has already suffered the pain on your behalf, why should you suffer it today?

So my friend, if you are sick, know that God did not give you the disease. Read every healing miracle that Jesus did in the gospels and see how He is the Lord who heals you. (Exodus 15:26) Hear His gracious words, “I am willing, be healed,” and know that they are as much for you today as they were for the leper!

All That Jesus Is Before God, You Are

2 Corinthians 5:21
21For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

When an Israelite brings an animal as his sin offering, he lays his hand on it before killing it. (Leviticus 4:1–4) By laying his hand on the sin offering, his sins are transferred to the innocent animal. The animal dies for his sins and he goes free.

In contrast, with the burnt offering, when the Israelite lays his hand on the animal (Leviticus 1:3–4), the beauty, worthiness and acceptance of the unblemished animal is transferred to him. God accepts the perfection of the animal sacrifice on his behalf to make atonement for him. Because God accepts the unblemished burnt offering, he now has right standing before God.

Do you know that the two offerings speak of Jesus one offering of Himself when He hung on the cross? He is both our sin offering and burnt offering — “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us [as our sin offering], that we might become the righteousness of God in Him [as our burnt offering]”. Just by His one sacrifice, your sins were transferred to Him, and His righteousness was transferred to you, the moment you put your faith in Him. That is the grace of God towards you!

As our sin offering, He offered Himself once and for all. (Romans 6:10) The sin offering was never a daily offering because God does not want His people to be sin-conscious. However, the burnt offering was both a morning and evening sacrifice (2 Chronicles 13:11) because God wants His people to be righteous-conscious.

Likewise, God wants you to lay claim daily on Jesus as your burnt offering and say, “Father, I thank You that Jesus is my burnt offering. All that Jesus is before You — His righteousness, excellence, beauty and perfection — is transferred to me. Jesus has Your unclouded favour, so I enjoy Your unclouded favour in my life. Jesus is the righteousness of God, so I am the righteousness of God in Christ. As He is before You, so am I.”

Because Jesus became your burnt offering, what He is to the Father today, you are! That is what it means to be in Christ!

God Wants Your Household Saved

Acts 16:31
31So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

When God got you saved, He didn’t just have you in mind — He had your whole family in mind! That is why His Word says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Now, this does not mean that once you believe on Jesus, your family members are automatically saved. What it means is that you have opened a big door for God to move into your family’s life and to touch every member of your family.

So don’t worry about your unsaved dialect-speaking grandparents. God knows how to reach out to them. I have a relative who speaks only Cantonese. She can’t go to church because she is very old and her legs are weak. But Jesus appeared to her in a vision and spoke to her in pure Cantonese. She never met Jesus, but knew it was Him and understood what He said to her. After that encounter, those who have visited her have been amazed by her knowledge of Jesus.

Even up to the very last moment, God will reach out to your unsaved family members. This happened to my late maternal grandfather who used to make fun of me being a Christian. On his deathbed, he was gasping for air and was in great discomfort. He couldn’t die peacefully. My mother, who was with him, told him, “Dad, just say, ‘God, forgive me.’ Call on Jesus.” My grandfather remained hardened even towards the end and he was in great pain. But at the very last moment, he cried out, “Jesus, forgive me!”

You see, my grandfather had no time to pray the sinner’s prayer. But God says that “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”. (Acts 2:21) Jesus will find every excuse to save a person. My mother said that after my grandfather called out to Jesus, she saw the peace of God come upon his face, and he passed away peacefully.

God’s desire is for your entire household to be saved. Right now, your family may be giving you a hard time, but because you are a Christian, a big door has been opened for your Daddy God in heaven to touch them!

The Sure Symbol Of God's Love

Romans 5:8
8But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Imagine this scenario: Your car tyre blows and you are late for work. At the office, you find out that someone else got the promotion you had been hoping for. Then, you receive a call from home, informing you that your mother fell and fractured her hip bone. Before long, you hear a voice telling you, “If God loves you so much, how come all these things are happening to you?”

Perhaps you are asking the same question today and wondering if God really loves you. Well, I want you to know that you must never judge God’s love for you based on your circumstances. No, look at the cross instead! The cross is the sure symbol of God’s love for you. It is at the cross that “God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.

A teenager learnt that the cross indeed spoke of how much God loves her. At one point in her life, she was contemplating suicide as the only way out of her loveless, messed-up life. She had intended to take some pills with a lethal dose of alcohol. She was all ready to die when she started clicking aimlessly on some MP3 songs on the Internet. And of all the songs that were on her screen, she picked a beautiful song written by one of our church musicians.

The lyrics of the song, sung by one of our church vocalists, spoke of being held by God’s love and being treasured in His sight. It touched the teenager. Sensing that an awesome God with His amazing love was reaching out to her, she abandoned her plan to kill herself. Not long after that, she found our church and met the person who had sung the song. She eventually came to know how much God loves her and how He has demonstrated His love for her through the cross.

Beloved, when you look at your life and find yourself wondering if God really loves you, look at the cross and see God’s outstretched arms. It will remind you of how much He loves you!

Be Numbered Among The Undevourable

1 Peter 5:8
8Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

The devil cannot just walk right up to you and rob you of your health, peace or family. He cannot just come into your life to enforce disease and destruction.

If the devil can do that, then he does not have to walk about “seeking whom he may devour”. He only has to walk straight up to the one he wants to devour and devour him! But since the Bible says that he goes about seeking whom he may devour, the truth then is that there are people whom the devil cannot devour.

You see, the devil goes about like a roaring lion trying to stir fear in people with his roars. But the people who are not devourable are those who refuse to be intimidated by his roars because they know that the true Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:5), has already come and destroyed him who had the power of death. (Hebrews 2:14) They know that the devil cannot do anything to them because the Lion of Judah resides in them, and that He is greater than the devil who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

The Lion of Judah is in you. He has given you rights, privileges, authority and power. He has redeemed you with His blood. Therefore, everything about you and your life is redeemed by His blood. If you are fearful about losing your job, cover your job with the blood of Jesus. If you are worried about your children’s safety in these days of terrorist attacks, plead the blood of Jesus over them. If you have received a bad report from the doctor, apply the blood over yourself.

Whatever you have covered with the blood of Jesus, God says, “Protected! Redeemed!” And the devil flees when he sees the blood. And when he flees, he takes with him sicknesses, diseases, pains, sufferings, destruction and loss.

Once the devil knows that you know who you are in Christ and what you have in Him, his days of intimidating you are over, and you are numbered among the undevourable!

Let God Love You Instead

1 John 4:10
10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

“You have to love God more! You must have more passion for God!”

You have probably heard that before and maybe even tried your best to love God, only to fail miserably.

But what is the true definition of love? Let the Bible define it for us: “… this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us…” Yes, it is not about our love for Him, but His love for us!

“Pastor Prince, the Bible says that you must love God with all your heart, soul and strength!”

Yes, that is true according to the law (Deuteronomy 6:5), and even Jesus taught that as the great commandment when He walked on earth. (Matthew 22:37) But that was before He died on the cross. At the cross, He became the very fulfilment of this law for us when He loved us with all His heart, soul and strength — He laid down His body and life on the cross for us.

Today, we are no longer under the law but under grace. And grace tells us that God loves us, not that we love God. That is why, after the cross, the great commandment was never quoted to remind us to love God because we will love Him when we see how much He loves us — while we were still sinners, Christ died for us! (Romans 5:8)

Beloved, God has seen you trying your best to love Him. And because He loves you, He wants you to sit down and be still, and let Him love you instead. He wants to love you with all that He is and all that He has. He loves you unconditionally regardless of who you are or what you have done because His love is not dependent on you but Him. He will never stop loving you.

So let God love you today. Don’t worry about loving Him. The more of His love you receive, the more you will fall in love with Him!

You Matter To God!

John 10:33… he calls his own sheep by name…

Do you sometimes feel like you are just a face in a crowd or a number in a system? You are identified by your identity card number or passport number. Even when you see the doctor, you are called by your queue number. If you feel depersonalised and dehumanised, that is exactly how the devil wants you to feel — that you do not matter much to anyone, especially to God.

But you do matter to God! He calls you by name. He knows what you are going through and where you are hurting. He sees you and cares for you, just as He cared for the people when He first walked on earth.

On one occasion, Jesus crossed all the way to the other side of the lake, even defying the devil’s attempt to drown Him (Luke 8:22–39), because a man who was demonised was calling out to Him for help. Jesus heard him and crossed an entire lake just to go to him. My friend, Jesus came a long way from heaven to come to you. You certainly matter to Him!

Even now, if you have problems in your life, Jesus sees you and He will not pass you by. He will do for you what He did for the woman at Samaria. There was a shorter route from Judea to Galilee, but the Bible said, “He needed to go through Samaria.” (John 4:4) Jesus purposely took a longer route because He wanted to stop by Samaria to speak to the woman who had been searching for things to satisfy her in her life. Now, Jesus has come to offer you the more abundant life too. (John 10:10)

In Luke 5:12–13, Jesus touched the leper and healed him. Although He could heal from afar, which He did for the 10 lepers in Luke 17:12–14, Jesus chose to heal this leper by touching him. The leper had been dehumanised, after being cut off from society for such a long time. Jesus’ personal touch gave him more than a new lease in life — it made him whole.

In the same way, Jesus has a personal love for you because you matter to Him. He calls you by name, sees beyond your every fault and wants to meet your every need!

What Is On Your Heart?

Hebrews 8:10
10“… I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts…”

“Pastor, I don’t know what I want to do?”

“What is on your heart?”

“I would love to work among children.”

“Then work among children!”

“But I am waiting on the Lord to show me.”

“Well, He has given you the desire, so go and work among children!”

“But the desire comes from my heart, Pastor Prince.”

You see, many of us have been taught that we cannot trust our hearts. We quote verses like “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked…” (Jeremiah 17:9), not knowing that Jeremiah was referring to the man who had not received Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. But once you are saved, you have a brand new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), and you can trust the promptings of your heart because God dwells in you and He leads you from within. And don’t worry because His promptings will never contradict His Word. It will lead you to good success.

Often, you find that when you follow your inner promptings, it is actually God who put those desires in your mind and wrote them on your heart. I remember years ago when I approached one of our church leaders and told him, “I really think that you are called to become a full-time pastor.” It turned out to be a confirmation of what he already knew on the inside. You see, God was already leading him from within. And today, he is one of our full-time pastors.

If you enjoy something and desire to do it, then go for it! Go with the flow. God Himself says that He will guide us from within. Let’s not doubt Him. And don’t worry about the outcome. Leave the results to God. Your part is just to follow the flow. God’s part is to work in you both the willingness and the performance of it! (Philippians 2:13)

Jesus said that when you believe in Him, out of your heart will flow rivers of living water. (John 7:38) Follow the flow and you will come alive. You will bring forth fruit, and not wither and die. Whatever you do will prosper!

Blessed Wherever You Are

Deuteronomy 28:3
3“Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.

You may have heard of people who think that to have better “luck”, they have to move to a new home, work for a certain company or even migrate to another country.

The truth is that it is not the place that gets you the blessings, but whether God’s blessings are on you. And for you, child of God, you are already blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:20) He has paid for your blessings with His blood. So the blessing is not on the land but on the man!

It was in the city of Jerusalem that Jesus was whipped, cursed and spat on. And it was outside the city on Calvary’s hill that He was pierced and crucified. That is why you are blessed in the city as well as outside in the country! In fact, you are blessed regardless of the location.

Perhaps you work in a non-Christian company and your boss doesn’t quite like you. In fact, he sometimes mistreats you. But God can still bless you in spite of your boss. You get blessed because you believe God for it. It has nothing to do with your boss or the company.

And when you get blessed with a fast promotion or fat bonus, some friends may ask you to recommend them to your boss. They think that it is your boss or the company that is blessing you, not the Lord.

“But Pastor Prince, I don’t see the blessings.”

If you don’t see the blessings, check what you have been believing and saying. Have you been complaining and blaming everyone and everything around you — your parents, race, gender, environment and government — for your lack of blessings? You need to believe and confess that you are blessed because of Jesus’ finished work on the cross, not because you are of a certain race or work in a certain company.

My friend, it does not matter where you work or live, what colour your skin is or what you do for a living. If God blesses you, you are blessed! And it is all because of Jesus. So say to yourself, “I am blessed wherever I am — blessed in the city, blessed in the country!”

Taught By God Himself

Hebrews 8:11
11“None of them shall teach his neighbour, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.

As a parent or someone serving in Sunday school, you may think that the children under your care are too young to know the Lord. And you wonder if you are wasting your time reading Bible stories to them or singing hymns over them.

Or you may have been buying Mandarin and Hokkien sermon CDs for your dialect-speaking parents or grandparents, and you wonder if the Bible teachings are too difficult for them to understand.

My friend, don’t underestimate the Holy Spirit. Many elderly folks in our Mandarin and Hokkien services, who first heard about Jesus through the recorded messages given to them by their children, are now born again and attending church regularly. And they are so full of Jesus that they cannot stop talking about Him to their relatives and friends.

Even for a young child like my daughter Jessica, when she was one year old, she would spontaneously raise her hands whenever she heard Christian songs, but not non-Christian ones. My wife Wendy and I had never taught her how to recognise Christian songs. The only explanation we have is that Jessica was taught by the Lord Himself. (Isaiah 54:13)

When Jessica turned two, she surprised us again. Wendy was tucking her in bed one night when Jessica looked at her and said, “Jesus died for Jessica because Jesus loves Jessica.” No one taught her to say that. But I remember looking at her before and by faith saying, “You know, darling, Jesus died for Jessica.” She just looked at me and I did not know whether she understood me. I just believed that the Holy Spirit is a better teacher than me.

So don’t limit the Holy Spirit by saying things like, “The children are too young… My grandparents are not well educated… My atheistic friend won’t be interested…” Just send God’s Word into their lives by faith, and trust the Holy Spirit to do the teaching and impartation. For God says that no one has to teach anyone to know the Lord because all shall know Him, from the least, including little children, to the greatest!

Count On God's Forgiveness

Hebrews 8:12
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

Don’t be conscious of your sins. Be conscious instead of Jesus and His finished work. The Lamb of God has taken away all your sins at the cross, so count on the fact that you are a forgiven child of God.

No matter what has happened or what you have done, God wants you to know that because of His Son’s finished work, He will be merciful to your unrighteousness, and your sins and lawless deeds He will remember no more.

That is why you should not be conscious of your sins. In fact, when you are sin-conscious, the devil brings in condemnation, and the more you receive it and condemn yourself, the more you will find yourself unable to get out of your sins.

I was told by a pastor friend that when a lady, who had face cancer, asked for prayer for healing, the Lord revealed to him that it was self-hatred that was keeping her from receiving healing. She could not forgive herself and was full of self-condemnation.

When she realised her problem, she counted on the fact that God was merciful to her unrighteousness and that she was already forgiven. She received the love of God. Then, right before the pastor’s eyes, her whole face changed — she was healed!

Something happens when you believe that you are forgiven. That is why God says to you, “I want you to believe that all your sins I will remember no more. I want you to believe that you are My child enjoying My mercy and that you can always count on My forgiveness.”

“But I know that I will sin again. What then, when I sin, Pastor Prince?”

Well, just remember that that sin has already been paid for by Jesus on the cross. You have been forgiven! And the more you count on the fact that you have forgiveness and that there is no condemnation, the more you will have the strength to “go and sin no more”! (John 8:11)

Blessed Is Everything That Comes Forth From You

Deuteronomy 28:4
4Blessed 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 miracles and blessings 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 the produce of 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 in divine health for the rest of your life!

God calls your thinking ability, the fruit of your body, blessed too. You will impress your teachers and schoolmates in school with your mental prowess, or your superiors and colleagues at work with your innovative ideas and solutions. Your mental faculties will be of quality par excellence!

If you are married, you will enjoy a truly blessed marriage and a fulfilling sex life with your spouse. A secular song that laments, “I can’t get no satisfaction…” will never be true for you because God calls your marital relationship (including the sex part of it), the fruit of your body, blessed!

If you are a parent, God calls your children, the fruit of your body, blessed. This means that they are special, having exceptional qualities. So the child you are taking care of is not just a child. You are holding a champion in your hands. He will grow up to be a general in God’s kingdom!

Beloved, because Jesus has paid the price — His body was beaten, scourged and pierced for you, all these blessings are yours. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body!

Covered, Protected, Delivered

Exodus 13:21
21And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night.

When the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, God led them by going before them in a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.

By day, God spread the pillar of cloud as a covering over His people in the desert to prevent the scorching sun from striking them down. The people were shaded and kept cool. Today, you are also under His covering. He will not allow you to be struck down (Psalm 121:3–8), nor be oppressed by the “heat” of the day. (Isaiah 54:14)

At night, when the desert became dark and cold, God gave His people the pillar of fire to light the way for them, as well as keep them warm and safe. Today, as you walk with God, you will not be overwhelmed by the cold, dark places in life because God’s Word says, “You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.” (1 Thessalonians 5:5) You will not fear the terror by night or the pestilence that walks in darkness because God will deliver you from them all. (Psalm 91:5–6)

Like the children of Israel, who only needed to look up, and keep their eyes on the cloud and the fire, all you need to do today is look up and keep your eyes on Jesus. When you need His direction for a situation, look to Jesus who has the words of eternal life. (John 6:68) When you see symptoms of sickness in your body, look to Jesus who has borne away every disease and physical affliction. (Matthew 8:17)

When the children of Israel were bitten by serpents in the desert, God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole — a picture of Christ judged on the cross. (John 3:14) Those who looked at the brazen serpent instead of their wounds were healed. (Numbers 21:9) He who looks to Him lives!

Beloved, look to Jesus. He is your covering, protection and deliverance!

Prayers That Proclaim

Luke 13:12
12But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.”

When you have a need, do you pray or do you plead? Do you begin your prayers with words like, “Please God, please! God, I beg you to have mercy!”

Prayers that plead and beg imply that you believe that your heavenly Father is not willing to do it. Yet, He is far more gracious and willing to give to you than you are willing to ask, think or imagine. (Ephesians 3:20) He desires above all things that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers. (3 John 1:2)

In fact, long before you have a need, He has already met that need. Long before you knew you needed a Saviour, He sent His Son to be your Saviour. This is your God! He is a good God. So when you beg God for something, you are actually saying that God needs to be persuaded strongly before He will move. Yet, God is not like that.

Jesus knew the heart of the Father. When He saw the woman bound with a spirit of infirmity, He did not pray, “Oh Father! She has been suffering for 18 long years! I beseech You, Father, have mercy on her. Please, please heal her!” No, when Jesus saw her, He immediately proclaimed, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity”, because He knew the heart of the Father. He knew the Father wanted her delivered from her crippling condition.

At the end of a church service, I don’t stand and pray, “Oh God, bless Your people. Oh God, do keep them. Oh God, be ever so gracious to them!” Instead, I will proclaim, “The Lord bless you. The Lord keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you!”

So when you pray, you proclaim your healing, protection and provision because you know His heart of love towards you. And when you declare it, God sanctions it. When you declare it, God establishes it!

Redeemed From Every Type Of Sickness

Galatians 3:13
13Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),

The One who cleansed lepers, opened blind eyes and made the lame to walk took your sins, sicknesses and every curse when He hung on Calvary’s tree. The curses that were meant for you because of your sins fell on Him instead. He was cursed in your place to redeem you from every curse that comes as a result of breaking God’s laws.

What are these curses? They are listed in Deuteronomy 28. It is a long and detailed list. Don’t get frightened when you read the curses, but rejoice because Christ has redeemed you from every single one of them, including those on sicknesses!

Are you stricken with tuberculosis, fever or inflammation? (Deuteronomy 28:22) Christ has redeemed you from every one of these conditions!

Do you have painful boils, tumours or an itch which doctors say cannot be healed? (Deuteronomy 28:27) Christ has redeemed you from every one of these conditions!

Perhaps yours is a serious and prolonged sickness. (Deuteronomy 28:59) It doesn’t matter — Christ has redeemed you from every prolonged sickness!

“Well, Pastor Prince, you have covered tuberculosis, fever, itch… but what about my disease? It is not covered in Deuteronomy 28. Did Jesus forget my disease?”

No, His work is perfect! Look at Deuteronomy 28:61: “Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed.” That covers everything. So if Christ has redeemed you from this curse, then He has redeemed you from every type of sickness! I don’t care what new type of sickness the world discovers — Christ has redeemed us from every type of sickness!

Now, if you have a particular sickness, say, “This (name the sickness) is part of the curse of the law. But Galatians 3:13 says that Christ has redeemed me from the curse of the law. Therefore, I have been redeemed from (name the sickness)!” Believe and confess that every day, and as surely as Jesus took every curse of sickness, your healing will manifest!

Power From His Body To Yours

Matthew 26:26
26… “Take, eat; this is My body.”

Can you imagine the Lord sick, nursing a cold or fever while He walked on earth? No, our Lord Jesus was never sick! He was vibrant, full of life and full of health. When He told His disciples, “Take, eat; this is My body”, they could practically visualise what it meant because they had lived and walked with this Man. They had seen people without hands, without feet, made whole when they touched His body. (Matthew 15:31)

Even His clothes were soaked with His health! A woman who had a bleeding condition for 12 years — no doctor could cure her — was healed immediately when she touched the hem of His garment. If the hem of His garment was soaked with His health, vibrancy, energy and divine radiance, how much more His body!

You know, some of the most encouraging verses in the gospels are these: “And as many as touched Him were made well” (Mark 6:56), for “power went out from Him and healed them all”. (Luke 6:19) I love those verses! That is our Jesus!

The Bible says that they put sick people along the streets, and Jesus walked around and touched them and healed them. (Mark 6:56) Now, you see movie stars doing this: They run here and there, they slap their fans’ hands, but nobody gets healed. Wherever Jesus walked, whoever He touched, He healed. Picture this: A trail of people. Those in front of Jesus are lying down, but those behind Him whom He has touched are leaping with joy and following Him! That is how Jesus healed the sick.

So that night, when He said, “Take, eat; this is My body”, as He broke the bread and gave it to His disciples to eat, they knew what it meant. They were probably thinking, “We are going to ingest His health into our bodies! Hallelujah!”

That is what you must believe when you partake of the Holy Communion. It is not just a ritual or symbolic act. No, you must believe that He is the true bread from heaven who took your cancer, diabetes and heart disease, so that you can have His supernatural health! And when you eat of His flesh with this revelation, you will have life in abundance and the health of the Lord!

God Helps The Helpless

Psalm 63:7
7Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.

I have had people tell me, “Pastor Prince, please pray for me. I can’t see a way out of the mess I am in. I know this whole thing is my fault. Right now, I don’t even know whether God will hear my prayers.”

If you think about it, a whole lot of our troubles are of our own making. But it is when we deserve the punishment and not the blessing that we can receive grace — the undeserved favour and unmerited help of God!

When we stop trying to be deserving of God’s help, we find God more than willing to be our saviour. But when we continue to try to work things out, we are our own saviours. God will say, “Save yourself because I can’t help you when you don’t need My help.”

You might be thinking, “But Pastor Prince, don’t you know, God helps those who help themselves?”

Contrary to popular belief, this saying that “God helps those who help themselves” is not in the Bible! God does not help those who help themselves. God helps those who are helpless and dependant on Him. He helps those who look to Him as their only source of help for their problem.

If you say, “My problem is that I am so weak.” God says, “That is not a problem. I am your strength.”

If you say, “Lord, my face is the problem. I am ugly.” God says, “My face will shine on yours. I am your glory.”

If you say, “Lord, I am the problem. I am a nobody.” God says, “I will make you a somebody.”

Unfortunately, many of us are still trying to help ourselves, thinking that for certain matters, we don’t really need God. But God says, “Without Me, you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) Do we really believe that? Or do we believe that without Him, we still can do some things to help ourselves?

Only when we realise that we can do nothing, and are nothing in and of ourselves, can we do all things through Christ who strengthens us! (Philippians 4:13) Then, we will see the undeserved, unmerited help and favour of God deliver us from every evil!

Don't Look To Your Faith, Look To Jesus

Hebrews 12:2
2looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith...

If you are sick, you must know that you are already healed because of the finished work of Christ. Don’t ask, “Do I have enough faith to be healed? Do I have the right kind of faith to be healed? What if I am lacking in faith?” You are focusing on yourself and your faith, instead of Christ and His finished work.

You should be asking, “Did Jesus really take away this sickness? If He did, He must have done a perfect work.” In other words, fix your eyes on Jesus and His perfect work.

AB Simpson, who lived in the 19th century, wrote an article entitled, Himself. In it, he mentioned his exhausted nervous system, and broken down heart which could have proved fatal any time for him. So he sought the Lord for healing. God showed him Matthew 8:17, which says that Jesus Himself “took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses”.

AB Simpson said that though he believed that Jesus had borne away his sickness, he saw many hindrances which stood between him and his healing. He started removing them one by one until he saw that what stood between him and his healing was actually his preoccupation with his faith! He believed that if only he had the “right” kind of faith, he would receive his healing instantly.

He eventually came to the realisation that he had to remove that last hindrance — his focusing on his faith — and just rest in the finished work of Christ. That revelation marked his complete recovery from his heart condition.

When you ask yourself, “Do I have enough faith?” you have already put faith as a hindrance between you and Jesus’ finished work. The more you focus on your faith, the more faith slips away. But if you focus on the finished work of Christ and see God’s grace towards you, God sees that as faith! Without realising it, faith is there in your heart to believe that you will not die of what Christ has already borne away for you completely, and you will see your miracle manifest!

'I Am Who I Am'

Exodus 3:14
14And God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”…

Whatever your challenge is today, whether it is physical, emotional, financial or marital, the great I Am declares to you: “I am to you what you need Me to be.”

Do you need healing? He says, “I am the Lord who heals you. (Exodus 15:26) And as you believe Me, you will see your healing manifest thirty-fold, sixty-fold and a hundredfold.”

Are you groping in the dark, not knowing what to do? He says, “I am the light of the world. (John 8:12) When you walk in Me, you will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Are you looking for a way out of a bad situation? He says, “I am your deliverer. I will reach down from on high, take hold of you and draw you out of the deep waters.” (Psalm 18:2,16)

Are you wondering if there is more to life than merely existing from day to day? He says, “I am the resurrection and the life. (John 11:25) I came to give you life. And where there is life, there cannot be death. You will have life and life more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

Are you fearful of what is ahead of you? He says, “I am the good shepherd (John 10:11), who leads you to pastures of tender, green grass and waters of rest. You will not suffer lack.” (Psalm 23:1–3)

Are you confused by the opinions and reports of man? He says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. (Revelation 1:11) I have the final word in your life. The doctors do not have the final word. The experts do not have the final word. I have the first word and the last word in your situation.”

My friend, do not be fearful of the problems you face. The great I Am declares to you, “Fear not! For I am to you what you need Me to be!”

Right Believing Produces Right Living

Luke 19:8
8Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”

Zacchaeus was a tax collector. He was despised because he was a deceitful man, cheating people of their money and resorting to false accusations to get what he wanted.

One day, Jesus visited him. The Bible makes no mention of Jesus rebuking him for his dishonest lifestyle the whole time they were together. Instead, Jesus showed him grace and honour by spending time with him. Before long, Zacchaeus stood up and declared to Jesus that he would restore fourfold to anyone he had taken from illegally, and would even give half of his goods to the poor. (Luke 19:8)

A moment with Jesus completely changed Zacchaeus’ heart. A moment with Grace in person — without accusations, condemnation or judgment — caused such an inward transformation that in a short time, Zacchaeus was doing outwardly what was right and in a measure no man would have expected of him!

Many people want to live right. Their concern with right living makes them focus on themselves and the things they struggle with. But it is right believing that produces right living. If you are trying to break free from an addiction that has bound you for many years, believe that Jesus loves you so much that at the cross, He paid the price for you to be completely free from any addiction. Believe that by His stripes, you are healed and delivered.

One member in our church had a smoking addiction. But each time he lit up, he would believe that God was not judging or condemning him, and that he was still the righteousness of God in Christ. One day, he woke up impressed by the Spirit that that day would mark the start of a smoke-free life. Expecting to be assaulted by the usual cravings to smoke, he prayed this throughout the day: “Thank You, Jesus, for by Your stripes, I am healed.” Before he knew it, that day passed without him lighting up or suffering any withdrawal pangs! And since then, he has been totally free of this addiction.

Today, if you want to experience right living, find out what Christ has done for you and what you have in Him — and believe it!

Righteousness Is Not Right Doing But Right Being

Romans 4:5
5But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,

What do you think righteousness is about? Something you do or something you are? Right doing or right being?

The Bible tells us that after Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross, God imputes righteousness not to those who strive to obey the law (Galatians 2:16), but to anyone who simply believes in His Son. Because Christ took our sins and gave us His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21), the moment we believe in Him, God treats us as righteous apart from our works or obedience. (Romans 4:5–8) This is new-covenant righteousness — a righteousness that comes by faith and not works.
You are not righteous because of how morally upright you are. You are not righteous because you exercise self-control. You are not righteous because you read 10 chapters of the Bible daily. You are not righteous because you feel righteous. But you are the very righteousness of God in Christ solely because the sacrifice of Jesus made you so. When you believe this, your faith is accounted for righteousness.

And this is what God wants you to use your faith for. If you are righteous by your deeds, you don’t need faith. You also don’t need faith to know that you are sinful. But you need faith to believe and declare that you are the righteousness of God in Christ, in the midst of your struggles with temptation and sin.

For example, when you feel lousy because you have just shouted at your wife, God wants you to exercise faith to see yourself still righteous and believe that He is saying to you, “Because of your faith in My Son, you are righteous in My eyes.”

But the devil will remind you of your foul temper and question your integrity: “How dare you say, ‘I am righteous’ when you just did that!”

It takes faith then to tell the devil, “Listen, devil, I am not righteous because of what I have done or not done. I am righteous only because of the blood and finished work of Jesus at the cross. So stop accusing me because I am righteous in Christ. Now, get off my case and leave in Jesus’ name!”

Beat The Odds With The Favour Of God!

Ruth 2:2
2So 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 favour.” 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 favour 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 favour her and she declared, “I will find favour in the field I glean.”

In the natural, Ruth had everything going against her. But because she trusted in the favour of God, she not only became the wife of Bethlehem’s richest man when Boaz married her, she also became the great-grandmother of David and had her name included in the genealogy of Jesus Christ even though she was not a Jewess! That is what God’s supernatural favour did for her. That is the kind of blessing God’s supernatural favour can give you.

A church member shared how, due to unforeseen circumstances, she was late for a job interview. But she confessed God’s favour on her before the interview and miraculously, the interviewers shortlisted her for a second interview.

There were about 40 applicants with the right experience. And though she lacked the relevant experience, by the favour of God, she got the job which came with better pay and a car allowance which fully subsidised her car loan. Her new company was even willing to pay for her petrol and handphone expenses — all because she believed and confessed that she had the favour of God!

Do not look at what you do not have in the natural and see lack. Trust in the favour of God and you will see blessings your natural abilities cannot bring in!

Receive By Grace Through Faith

Galatians 3:5
5Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? —

Imagine that you are at a healing service. An alcoholic walks into the church reeking of alcohol. He sits behind the pianist, a nice elderly lady who has been serving in the church for 50 years. Both of them are suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. The healing power of God is present. In an instant, the alcoholic, who has never been in church before, gets healed. The pianist does not.

If this were a true account, many people would be confused. They would be asking, “Shouldn’t God heal this nice, old lady who has been serving Him faithfully all these years, and not that debauched drunkard?” People who think this way believe that God only heals the deserving.

But that is not how God works. God looks at faith, not works. His power is made manifest in those who trust Him instead of their good behaviour. So if we go back to the above example, God wants to heal both the alcoholic and the nice elderly pianist. All they need to do is to receive by grace or unmerited favour through faith.

You see, we cannot earn the blessings of God. We receive them by believing God’s love and grace towards us. If we receive the greatest blessing — salvation — by simply believing that Jesus did it all for us and not by working for it, what makes us think that the other lesser blessings can be obtained by works?

So if my daughter Jessica falls sick, I don’t go to the Father and say, “Father, heal my daughter because I am Pastor Joseph Prince and I preach healing to the people.” No, I go to Him by the blood of Jesus and say, “Father, I thank You that 2,000 years ago, Jesus bore Jessica’s sickness in His body. On that basis alone and by Your grace, I pronounce her healed in Jesus’ name.”

When you simply believe that you receive your blessings by Jesus’ finished work and by His grace alone, you will receive your blessings!

Point To Jesus Your Qualification

1 Corinthians 1:30
30But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God — and righteousness and sanctification and redemption —

When the devil accuses us of having done wrong and tells us that we don’t deserve God’s blessings, what should we do? Well, the Lord showed me one day what we are to do. We are to point everything back to Jesus, who qualifies us for all of God’s blessings.

When the devil says, “You are not righteous enough,” you say, “Look at Jesus. He is my righteousness!”

When the devil says, “You are not holy enough,” you say, “Look at Jesus. He is my sanctification!”

When the devil says, “You don’t deserve to be healed,” you say, “Look at Jesus. By His stripes, I am healed!”

When the devil says, “You don’t qualify for the blessing,” you say, “Look at Jesus. He is my qualification!”

Each time you point everything back to Jesus, the devil has nothing to say because Jesus qualifies you for all of God’s blessings. In and of yourself, you do not qualify. Without Christ, there is nothing good in you which can qualify you.

But with Christ, your disqualification becomes your qualification for the undeserved, unearned and unmerited blessings of God. And because God puts your life in Christ (Colossians 3:3), who is the all-deserving one, you become all-deserving. Because you are in Christ, you are qualified.

Jesus qualifies you because He died for you and gave you a blood-bought right to every blessing of God. You have a blood-bought right to a life full of meaning, purpose and abundance. You have a blood-bought right to walk in divine health all the days of your life. You have a blood-bought right to prosperity even when the economy is bad. You have a blood-bought right to preferential treatment because God favours you. You have a blood-bought right to the good life!

My friend, you have a right to all these blessings not because you are good, but because Jesus shed His blood and qualified you to have them. So don’t let the devil or anyone tell you that you can’t expect to walk in the blessings of God!

Choose Not To Worry

Matthew 6:27
27Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

Many Christians are familiar with Jesus’ rhetorical question, “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” But not many of us actually let it get into our hearts and allow the love of God to free us from our habit of worrying.

The truth is, no amount of worrying can lengthen your life or add anything to your physical person. Instead, worrying robs you of sleep, health and many good years. In fact, it is only when you are worry-free that God’s anointing flows freely in you, strengthening, healing, restoring and adding to you.

A church member, after undergoing a mammogram, found lumps in her breast. Upon receiving the doctor’s report, she immediately wrote this down on the report: “Jesus is my healer. I receive my healing. I am healed. I rest in God completely.”

She was due to go back to the clinic on the same day in the late afternoon for a biopsy to see if the lumps were malignant. Her sister-in-law, who was having lunch with her that day, witnessed her cheerful and worry-free attitude while she was eating her lunch.

Back at the doctor’s clinic, this precious sister sat among other ladies who were also there for their biopsies. They looked very worried, so she started sharing Jesus with them and prayed for some of them. When her turn came to do an ultrasound scan, the doctor was puzzled — her scan showed no evidence of any lumps!

She went back to consult the doctor who had first discovered the lumps. Stunned, both doctors conducted their own investigation to see if a mistake had been made. They returned to her only to say, “It is a miracle!”

My friend, when you worry, you are actually believing that the devil has the power to make inroads into your life that God cannot protect you from. But when you refuse to worry, you are putting faith in God. You have more confidence in God’s love and power working for you than in the devil’s ability to harm you! When you refuse to worry but choose to rest in the finished work of Christ, you will see the manifestation of your blessing. You will see your miracle.

God Wants You Cross-Conscious

1 Corinthians 2:2
2For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Corinthian church, said that he determined to know nothing among them except “Jesus Christ and Him crucified”. In other words, Paul, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, had his mind full of Jesus and His finished work.

Beloved, God wants your mind full of the cross of Jesus. He wants you cross-conscious. But what does it mean to be cross-conscious?

To be cross-conscious is to see Jesus, who loves you so much that He willingly died for you on the cross. To be cross-conscious is to look to Jesus, who offered His own body to be punished, so that your body can be free from all punishment.

To be cross-conscious is to fix your eyes on Jesus, who has provided for your deliverance and victory at the cross. At the cross, all your enemies were vanquished. All your diseases were destroyed. Your poverty was removed at the cross. Your sins were wiped out at the cross.

When the Israelites tasted bitterness in the waters of Mara, God showed Moses a tree, which he cast into the waters, making them sweet. (Exodus 15:23–26) The tree represents the cross, which turned the bitter waters sweet. Today, Calvary’s tree has turned your bitter situations sweet. Because of the cross, you can expect to see the bitter situations in your life made sweet!

When the Israelites were bitten by serpents in the wilderness, God told Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole. The pole represents the cross and bronze speaks of judgment. Those who beheld the serpent on the pole lived because they saw their problem — the deadly serpent — nailed and put to death on the cross. (Numbers 21:6–9)

Today, you will not die but live too when you see all your sins judged at the cross, and with that, all your sicknesses, diseases, pains, failures and defeats! At the cross, all that is deadly in your life has been removed!

You Are Complete In Christ

Colossians 2:10
10and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

When you look at yourself, what do you see? Do you see someone who is imperfect and lacking in many areas, or someone who is whole and complete in Christ?

There are believers who see themselves as incomplete. This is because they are conscious of their lack and imperfections. They say, “There are so many things imperfect about me! How can I be complete if there are so many things I am lacking in?” They see their weaknesses, condemn themselves and feel inferior to others.

The good news is that God does not see the way man sees. Man sees the flesh. God sees the spirit. He sees us already complete in Christ. In spite of our imperfections, He sees us as new creations, partakers of His divine nature and more than conquerors over our imperfections. And He wants us to see ourselves the way He sees us.

Know that what we think we need or are lacking in, whether it is godly character traits or physical health, we already have in Christ.

I used to think that I had to ask God to make me more patient, until I realised one day that Jesus is my patience. Since then, I no longer ask God to make me wiser either, because Jesus is my wisdom. (1 Corinthians 1:30) I am not waiting to receive more healing because Jesus is my complete healing at this moment. And I am not yearning for peace and rest one day because Jesus is my peace and rest today. Right now, I have everything. There is no lack or defect because I stand complete in Christ.

My friend, you are not going to be complete in Christ — you are already complete in Christ! And what remains for you is to walk daily in that completeness by believing that it is true and confessing that what you need right now, Jesus is to you. He is your complete forgiveness, complete righteousness, complete favour and complete protection.

So don’t focus on the lack you see in your life. Focus, instead, on how, in Christ, you are complete in everything at this moment! And instead of weaknesses, lack and imperfections, you will see His strength, wholeness, soundness and completeness showing up through you!