(2 Corinthians 4:7 KJV) Reflections of Redemption

All honor, glory and praise is due to God the Father, the Creator of all things that consist. It is God who ordered and commanded the light to outshine the darkness. He who is shining in our hearts providing us with illumination, insight, understanding, knowledge of the majesty and glory of Himself, as it is manifested, openly revealed and seen in the face and person of Jesus Christ our Messiah.

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We possess this precious treasure and the divine light of the gospel in earthen vessels that the grandeur and exceeding greatness of the power may be shown to be of God and not of ourselves" (2 Corinthians 4:7 KJV). We are not sufficient of ourselves, but, our sufficiency is of God.

"Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Corinthians 3:6 KJV).

"Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:17-18 KJV).

God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He has increased and multiplied unto us, His favor and peace that is complete well-being, total good and all spiritual prosperity, which liberates us from fear, anxiety, and moral oppositions. He is ever increasing to us the full, personal, precise and accurate knowledge of Himself by Jesus Christ our Lord in whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.

As the riches of His glory unfold to us, we are empowered by His Spirit in our innermost beings and are instructed how to walk and operate in our new nature of which we are partakers. As Christ dwells in our hearts by faith, and by the Word of God, we become stable mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We with consistency continue to build our lives upon the foundation of the Word of life, as we set our houses in order through the transformation process.

According as His divine power has given to us all things, that are requisite and applicable in living the God kind of life, which is called (Zoe) – through our personal relationship with God who has called us by and to His glory and excellence. God sees the end of all that pertains to us, individually and collectively, that the latter glory will indeed be more than the former because He has called us to glory.

The Heavenly Father in His providence has supplied all of our needs, from salvation to eternal life. He looked ahead and saw everything that was ahead of us, and He made plans and provisions, according to the riches of His glory. Every need we have and will ever have has been taken care of. We truly have security and assurance in Jesus Christ. Not the security the world system offers in it’s trumped up benefits plan, or life insurance, which can only be obtained by death. I have never understood, why it is called life insurance and in order for it to be utilized or collected, you or someone else will have to physically die, go figure! It should be called death insurance.

The true life insurance is a guarantee, that God Himself endorsed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, as a result we will travel from life to eternal life. The gift of eternal life is where we will live forever. Sin is not welcome in our presence now or in eternity, because it is not welcome in the presence of the Lord.

Sin has to bow and retreat in God’s presence. There will be no more struggles, trials, sorrows, pain, sickness or death, now, that’s a genuine reflection of what redemption offers. As we follow Jesus as disciples and students which practically apply and implement the disciplinary measures, which the Word of God teaches and the Holy Spirit guides us into. God creates the Logos is us as we avail ourselves to Him; as we allow Him to do new and original things through our lives; the Word of God becomes life in us, thus, reproducing after His kind.

Christ in us the hope of glory. Jesus in us reveals His plans and purposes for our lives, so that we can walk in His ways and be spiritually successful and prosperous. Our work is to yield to the work that God is doing in us through the power of the Holy Spirit, with the understanding that it is God who is at work in us both to will and do of His good pleasure.

God has trustworthily responded to every situation, circumstance and condition we are presently going through; will be faced with or will ever go through. He has responded according to His foreknowledge and omniscience. The thing that we must do, is find out how He responded and come into agreement with Him. We must know that all things are working together for our ultimate good, because we love Him and we have been called according to His divine purpose. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.

God chose us, we didn’t choose Him, based upon this revelation of being chosen by God, do we by faith choose Him, and not the other way around. He has adopted us into His royal family by Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, and the soon coming King! Jesus Christ is true royalty. We must stay mindful to look to Him for direction, on how to live the royal way, yielding daily for our daily portion to better understand, what He wants to do through our lives.

The nature of God is mammoth and very vast. In God, I find a heart so big that the whole world fits into it. We as Christians are partakers of the enormity of God’s heart, and our hearts are enlarged as we make it our daily devotional to dwell in His presence. The love that God has for us is infinite and real. He is worthy of all the praise for His sovereignty alone.

The Holy Spirit has shed his love abroad in our hearts. I find that the borders of my own heart, which once contained self in its narrowness is being enlarged and the borders of my heart are expanding, and the world now fits into it. This is the result of God reproducing Himself in my heart. His nature becomes my nature. His nature supersedes the old nature and all things are become new. Moreover, whether He is allowed to successfully complete this operation is up to each of us, in a personal way. It was the love of God that drew me and it is that same love, that will draw the world to Him.

We need to know how to minister that love to others, how to demonstrate love to all people. Love is what builds a life and makes it successful, it is the foundation laid which helps us to clearly see the nature of God, and I see His limitless love spilling out of His character. His mercy, which expels and triumphs over judgment; that same mercy that King David declared, would follow him all the days of his life and that he would dwell in the presence of the Lord forever (Psalm 23:6). Judgment rejects people mercy receives them with out stretched arms and love embraces them with acceptance. Kindness melts the hearts of people towards changing the course of their deeds, kindness that is pure and holy and the result of a compassionate heart. Gentleness can make the harshest of creatures, docile and tame. Mercy, love, kindness, goodness, purity, holiness, gentleness, patience are all the characteristics of God.

How can I effectively serve God, if I am not in harmony with His nature? I must be conscious of His divine attributes to minister life and not death. Zoe is life that is the result of flowing in the love of God. I will have to be acquainted with His character, because love is the generator that accelerates lives and puts them in complete order. I know that God has called me to love, and to obey loves commands, I am taking my life in Christ personally, knowing that I can only live the life given to me. We are now servants of love, and we serve God by serving love, ministering love to wounded hearts afflicted by sin. What I desire to know is how to be an effective servant of love. Agape love is the missing ingredient in the way the world operates. The love of God is what the world so desperately needs.

The world needs to know that God so loved this world, that He gave His only begotten Son. The hearts of so many in the world are waxing cold, because of sin, and its unlawful grip. A sin of omission is the lack of love. Love is how the redeemed of the Lord say so, and how we reflect God, as we occupy until He returns.

Did you hold somebody’s hand today? Did you try to understand? Did you help someone who is down leave the ground? Then you are giving love. Won’t you try to be a friend today, we can make it all begin,and just a kind word can light a spark in somebody’s heart. You are giving love, it is a royal mandate. May God richly bless you, yes, you reader.

"I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine: he feedth among the lilies" (Song of Solomon 5:2 and 6:1-3 KJV).

HE IS THE LILLY OF THE VALLEY - Even in the dry places and valleys, Jesus is looking for the lilies that grow there. May God's all-powerful love be your closest companion.