The Gift of Life

Christ the Gift of Life

Life is a gift that every man and woman desires to have, we all need life. However the question is how do we ensure that we live this life fully. Christ said to his disciples " I came that you may have life and life in abundance.

There are few questions I want to pose to you as a challenge and for you to think about what is Life. What is life, how do we live this life? have you find your purpose in life? Why are you living?
Christ makes it clear to his disciples that the enemy comes only to steal, destroy and kill. However He comes that we may have life. Therefore, who is your life? In whom do you live? The scriptures says in Him we live and move and have our being.

I want to present to you the most precious gift of life, the man Jesus Christ. He is the only gift that God gave out of love to humanity. He is the source of life, He is the author, the giver of life and above all He is LIFE himself. If any person wants to know the purpose of a particular thing or object, he/she must consult the creator of that thing to know and understand the purpose why he created that object. Therefore, every person can find his/her purpose in the creator of life.

The life we have in God is real and tangible through the power of the Holy spirit, Christ says the Words I speak to you they are life and spirit. Now, the Word of God in itself is LIFE. If you have the word of God you have LIFE, you have the gift of Life. Allow God to be in control of your life through the power of the Holy Spirit who He has given us to comfort, counsel and teach us and to remind us of the truth.

Life in abundance is ONLY found in Christ Jesus, this the truth that all people need to know. He is the giver of life, the source of life and all things exist because He is. Successful life is not being rich with lots of billion dollars of money in your name. Successful life is living your life to the maximum and fulfilling the purpose that God has created you for. If you miss that one, chances are you be wealthy with money yet live a sorrowful and depressed life.

Matthew 20: 28
John 5:26
John 5: 39
John 5: 40
John 6: 40
John 6: 47
John 6: 63

God has given us the precious gift of all, that is the life we are living and ABOVE everything else he gave us the very source of LIFE Christ Jesus.

Stay blessed.

Haggai Napo
is a Pastor at Langa Christian Church, however
hecstill works in his profession as a Librarian in
Guguletu, Cape Town South Africa.
email: napohaggai@gmail.com
mobile: 0718812206

The Active and Powerful Word

The Active and Powerful Word

In my last Teaching Letter (which you can read online if you missed it), we began exploring the comprehensive authority of the Word of God. We learned from Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16–17 that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” If you want to be complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work, the source of it all is Scripture.

We also examined Jesus’ relationship to the Word—both spoken and written—and found Him to both completely support and fulfill the authority of the Scripture.

Throughout all of this, we saw that God established His Holy Spirit as His means of directing the writing and implementation of His Word. I concluded with an illustration from John of the fact that the Holy Spirit always glorifies Jesus. If you ever are confronted by spiritual manifestations that do not glorify Jesus, but give glory in some other direction, you can be sure that it is not the Holy Spirit. The supreme ministry of the Holy Spirit is to reveal and to glorify Jesus.

What Can the Word Do?
In Hebrews 4 we get an analysis of the nature of the Word of God:

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. v. 12 NKJ

 The Word of God is not dead—it is not just black marks on white paper. It is alive, and wherever it comes it brings life. It is more powerful than all the lies with which Satan has filled the world.

The Bible also reveals that man is a triune being (spirit, soul and body) created in the likeness of a triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The only way we can learn to distinguish between the soul and the spirit is by the Word of God. It is the only instrument that is sharp enough to penetrate and separate what is soulish from what is spiritual. In 1 Corinthians 2 Paul says that the soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are spiritually discerned (v. 14).

The Word can also divide between the joints and the marrow. This speaks of the remarkable penetration of the Word—it goes deeper than any surgeon’s scalpel or psychiatrist’s probing can penetrate. It is the only tool that takes us right into the very depths of human personality.

Somebody once told me, “When you’re reading your Bible, your Bible is also reading you.” That is so vivid to me because when I started to read the Bible, I was simply a professional philosopher. But as I went on reading I began to feel different about myself—my self-conceit, my pride, my arrogance and my intellectual assurance all began to wilt before the Scripture. And yet, I didn’t believe it at the time—but the Word was still doing its work.

You Must Receive

In 1 Thessalonians Paul is writing to believers who had responded in a wonderful way to the gospel. For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. v. 13 NKJ

What the Bible will do in us depends in part on how we receive it. When we receive the Word from God, we have access to something truly remarkable.

His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. 2 Peter 1:3–4 NKJ

That is an amazing statement! God’s divine, omnipotent power has already given to us everything we are ever going to need! New Age philosophy essentially teaches that you can become a god. That is obviously false for one basic reason: God is uncreated; we are created. The created can never become uncreated. It is a deception. But we can become partakers of the nature of God as we receive and apply the promises in His Word. It is the key to our success. It is the most precious gift that God has ever given us.


Special Effects
Paul said to the Thessalonians that God’s Word works effectively in you because you believe it. So I want to look at eight effects that God’s Word can have in your life.

1. God’s Word produces faith.
During World War II, I was in the hospital for an entire year in the deserts of North Africa with a skin disease that the doctors couldn’t cure. I was a new Christian and I kept saying to myself, “I know if I had faith God would heal me.” But the next thing I always said was, “But I don’t have faith.”
Then one day Romans 10:17 jumped off the page: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” If you don’t have faith, you can get it. You don’t need to stay without it.
In the time of the New Testament, the majority of the people who could read would read out loud, even if they were by themselves. There is benefit in reading out loud because even when you hear yourself read, faith comes.

2. God’s Word is the seed of the new birth.
It is by His Word that we are actually brought into His family. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever. 1 Peter 1:22–23 NKJ
The “incorruptible seed” is God’s Word received into the heart by faith, producing the new birth. The nature of a seed determines the nature of the life that comes from it. If you plant an apple seed, you don’t get an orange tree. The Word of God is incorruptible and the life it produces is incorruptible—it’s divine, holy, eternal.


3. God’s Word is spiritual nourishment.
Once you have been born again, you need nourishment. God’s Word has provided suitable nourishment for spiritual growth. When you are a spiritual infant you need milk:
...as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby. 1 Peter 2:2 NKJ
Many of us could testify that when we were first born again the one thing we wanted to do was read the Bible. We were born healthy infants with a healthy appetite for the one thing that could really nourish us. As we grow, we need more solid food. In Hebrews 5 the writer is telling Jewish people—who had knowledge of the Scripture from their background—what some of us may need to hear: that because of all you know, you should be doing better than you are.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. vv. 12–14 NKJ
To mature you need to apply the Word of God. You need to use it to recognize the forces that you are dealing with. If you don’t live actively by the Word of God, you will never be able to take more than milk. Solid food is for those who have practiced, exercised, and applied the Word diligently and regularly in their lives.


4. God’s Word brings mental illumination.
In Psalm 119, the psalmist is speaking to God and he says: 

The entrance of Your words gives light: it gives understanding to the simple. v. 130 NKJ
The entrance of God’s Word into our minds and into our hearts gives light. It is different from education. Education is not light; you can be educated and be totally in the dark. You may be seeking education, but are
you also finding wisdom? They are not the same. Education is useful, but it is not light.

5. God’s Word provides physical healing.
I say this out of my own personal experience.
Fools, because of their transgression,
And because of their iniquities, were afflicted.
Their soul abhorred all manner of food,
And they drew near to the gates of death.
Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble,
And He saved them out of their distresses.
He sent His word and healed them,
And delivered them from their destructions. Psalm 107:17–20 NKJ
These people were at the point of death, and it suddenly occurred to them it might help to pray. And God “saved them out of their distresses.”
Notice three things that God does when He sends His Word: 
He saves, He heals and He delivers. The three great acts of God’s mercy—saving from sin, healing from sickness and delivering from demon power—He accomplishes primarily through His Word.

My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Proverbs 4:20–22 NKJ

I had been in the hospital in North Africa for about seven months when I discovered Romans 10:17:
“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” I began to look through the Scripture again with a new hope. But I had a problem. I read promise after promise about healing, but I thought, “That only means He heals my soul. He’s not really interested in my body—that’s just corrupt, it’s going to die anyhow.” But when I got to Proverbs 4:20–22, I couldn’t get around it. God says His words are “life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh.” Not even a philosopher can make “flesh” mean anything but flesh.

Then I looked in the margin, and the alternative reading for “health” was “medicine.” I thought, “How do people take their medicine?” The answer often is: three times daily, after meals. Over a period of a few months, I took God’s Word as my medicine three times daily after every meal, and it gave me complete and permanent healing in one of the most unhealthy climates in the world!

6. God’s Word is the key to victory over sin and Satan.
Many of our young people today question whether it is possible to lead a pure life. Most of their educators will tell them it isn’t. But the Bible says it is.
How can a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed according to Your Word....
Your word I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You. Psalm 119:9, 11 NKJ

I thank God that when I worked amongst African young people, I saw those words fulfilled time and time again. They were made pure and they led clean lives because they gave heed to the Word of God.

7. God’s Word cleanses us. 
It makes us holy and acceptable to Him.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. Ephesians 5:25–27 NKJ
Husbands, that is not a suggestion; it is a command! How will Jesus provide Himself with a bride who is holy and without blemish? Through the washing of water by the Word of God.

8. The Word of God sanctifies us; it cleanses us.
By the blood of Jesus’ sacrifice He redeems us, but by the water of His Word He cleanses and sanctifies us. We need both. We are redeemed by the blood that we might be cleansed by the Word.
God’s Word is a spiritual mirror. When you look into it, it doesn’t show your physical appearance, but what you are really like inside.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. James 1:23–25 NKJ

When you look in a mirror and see something wrong, the sensible thing to do is tend to it. If your hair is out of order, you brush it. James says you need to do that when you look in the mirror of the Word of God. You need to see your spiritual self in it and act on whatever it shows you that you need to do.

If, when God’s mirror first reveals to us the truth of our own sin, we immediately act upon this revelation—repent, believe, and obey the gospel—then the next time we look into the mirror, we no longer see our old sinful nature. Instead we see ourselves as God now sees us in Christ: forgiven, cleansed, justified—a new creation. We are made to understand that a glorious miracle has taken place.

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.Let all that you do be done with love.

Yours in the Master’s service,(October 2003)
Derek Prince
http://www.derekprince.org

Derek Prince (1915 - 2003) was born in India of British parents. Educated as a scholar of Greek and Latin at Eton College and Cambridge University, England, he held a Fellowship in Ancient and Modern Philosophy at King’s College. He also studied several modern languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic, at Cambridge University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

While serving with the British army in World War II, he began to study the Bible and experienced a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ. Out of this encounter he formed two conclusions: first, that Jesus Christ is alive; second, that the Bible is a true, relevant, up-to-date book. These conclusions altered the whole course of his life, which he then devoted to studying and teaching the Bible.
Derek's main gift of explaining the Bible and its teaching in a clear and simple way has helped build a foundation of faith in millions of lives. His non-denominational, non-sectarian approach has made his teaching equally relevant and helpful to people from all racial and religious backgrounds.
He is the author of over 50 books, 600 audio and 100 video teachings, many of which have been translated and published in more than 100 languages. His daily radio broadcast is translated into Arabic, Chinese (Amoy, Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghaiese, Swatow), Croatian, German, Malagasy, Mongolian, Russian, Samoan, Spanish and Tongan. The radio program continues to touch lives around the world.
Derek Prince Ministries persists in reaching out to believers in over 140 countries with Derek's teachings, fulfilling the mandate to keep on "until Jesus returns." This is effected through the outreaches of more than 30 Derek Prince offices around the world, including primary work in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. For current information about these and other worldwide locations, click on the WORLD tab above.

— ♦ — 

On September 24, 2003, Derek died in his sleep at his home in Jerusalem of heart failure following a prolonged period of declining health.
To read the full letter regarding Derek's passing, please click here.

The Human Personality: spirit, soul and body. Prt2

Spiritual or Soulish?

In my previous artical I analyzed the three elements that make up total human personality: spirit, soul and body. In this letter I will continue with the same theme, but I will focus on one particular issue: the relationship between man’s spirit and his soul.

The spirit of man comes directly from God and relates directly to God. In the original pattern of creation, there was a descending relationship. God moved upon man’s spirit; his spirit moved upon his soul; and his soul directed his body. Through man’s rebellion, however, his spirit was set aside and his soul took over control. As a result, unregenerate man is controlled by the three functions of his soul: the will, the intellect and the emotions.

When God reconciles man to Himself, His purpose is to restore the original order, by which He once again relates directly to man’s spirit; man’s spirit in turn moves upon his soul; and man’s soul moves upon his body. This explains the words of David in Psalm 103:1: Bless the LORD, O my soul. Through faith David’s spirit had been reunited with God and was eager to worship Him. So his spirit stirred up his soul to move upon his vocal organs to utter the appropriate words of worship.

So long as man remains in submission to God and his soul remains in submission to his spirit, man functions in harmony with God and with himself. But if at any time man reasserts his rebellion against God, his soul is no longer in submission to his spirit and the inner harmony is broken. This means that there is constant tension between the spirit and the soul.

The Greek of the New Testament has a special adjective, formed directly from the word for soul, psuche, which describes action initiated by the soul. The adjective is psuchikos. The natural way to render this in English would be soulish, but unfortunately English has not produced such a word.

Consequently, English translations of the New Testament have used a variety of different words: natural1, sensual1, worldly2, unspiritual3, worldly-minded3, without the spirit4, and a phrase, to follow their natural instinct4. English readers, who cannot get behind the translations, therefore have no way of knowing that these seven different words or phrases all translate one and the same Greek word.

Throughout the rest of this letter, I will use the word soulish. This will emphasize the tension in the New Testament between that which is spiritual and that which is soulish.
In 1 Corinthians 15:44–46 Paul uses this word three times to point out the difference
between our present body, which is natural (soulish) and our resurrection body, which will be spiritual. A soulish body is one upon which the spirit has to move through the soul. A spiritual body would be one in which the spirit moves directly upon the body, without having to work through the soul.

The cherubs, which are described in Ezekiel chapter 1, apparently have spiritual bodies. Each one went straight forward; they went wherever the spirit wanted to go (verse 12). Again, where the spirit wanted to go, they went, because there the spirit went (verse 20).

Apparently that is the type of body that believers will have after resurrection. No longer
will our spirit have to urge our soul to direct our body to make the appropriate response.
Our body will directly respond to the decision of our spirit. We will be like Ezekiel’s cherubs:
we will go directly, without turning, wherever our spirit wills to go. What glorious
liberty!

There are three other passages in the New Testament where the opposition between the spiritual and the soulish is more clearly expressed. In 1 Corinthians 2:14–15 Paul says:

But the natural [soulish] man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.

For the understanding of spiritual things, the soul is dependent upon the spirit. If it is out of harmony with the spirit, the realm of spiritual truth is closed to it. How important it is, therefore, that we approach truth with the right attitude—our soul submitted to our spirit and our spirit in union with God.

In his epistle Jude speaks about people in the church who are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts. . . . sensual [soulish] persons, who cause divisions, not having the [Holy] Spirit (Jude 16, 19).

When the soul of a Christian is not submitted through his spirit to God, he becomes a channel through which every kind of carnality and divisiveness can infiltrate the church. This is the true, underlying cause of divisions in the Body of Christ.

In James 3:15 the apostle speaks about a form of wisdom which does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual [soulish], demonic. James depicts a downward slide in three successive stages: from the earthly to the soulish to the demonic.

When Christians become earthly they lose the vision of eternity. They cannot see beyond the things of this life: success, pleasure, wealth, physical health. They are only interested in what their faith will do for them in this life!

Concerning such people Paul says: If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable (1 Corinthians 15:19). Christians like that often consider themselves prosperous and successful. God considers them pitiable.

After the earthly, the next stage is soulish. To be soulish is to be egocentric, self-centered. For such people, the Christian faith is a way to get what they want out of life. They suppose that godliness is a means of gain (1 Timothy 6:5).

The soulish opens the way for the demonic. This is one main way in which demons infiltrate the church. The question is often asked: Do Christians ever need deliverance from demons? The words of James provide a clear answer. This downward slide from the earthly to the soulish to the demonic exposes both individual believers and whole congregations to the activities of demons.

In many places today the church is an ungodly mixture. No clear line is drawn between the spiritual and the soulish, and therefore there is no barrier to the demonic. Genuine manifestations of the Holy Spirit are interspersed with manifestations that are clearly demonic. As a result, many sincere believers are confused and bewildered.

To protect ourselves we must cultivate scriptural discernment. We must learn to distinguish between what is truly spiritual and what is soulish. There is only one instrument that is sharp enough to do this: the Word of God.

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

Further on, in Hebrews 5:14, the writer states two conditions which we must fulfill in order to exercise this kind of discernment:

But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use [practice] have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

The first condition is that we must regularly feed on solid spiritual food through the study of the whole Bible. The second condition is that we must regularly practice discernment.We must be continually alert, recognizing the spiritual forces that we encounter in every situation. Discernment should be as much a part of our Christian life as prayer.

Finally, let us obey the exhortation of Paul in 1 Corinthians 16:13–14:

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.Let all that you do be done with love.
Yours in the Master’s service,

Derek Prince
CLICK HERE for more Derek Prince resources


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German Psychiatrist’s Discovery
Dear Mr. Prince:
Never in my life has this happened to me before: Stunned
by the “news” of your broadcast tape “What Is Man?” While
listening to your lecture, I saw for the first time in my Christian
life the “spiritual Hans” of me somehow elevated as if on
a chair and looking down onto the “soulish Hans” whose
monument-like appearance seemed to crumble away.
Regenerated, this spiritual part of me, the “spiritual Hans,”
has survived ever since I listened to your lecture—fueled by
the Holy Spirit—about 5 weeks ago. The “soulish Hans” of
me—in particular its intellectual and emotional areas—must
be dragged to the cross.
Throughout my life I have been on the outlook for some
clear and whole presentation of God’s Word.
You will understand that this change in my life—this being
again a “triune” human being—is about to revolutionize
even my profession. And for the first time in my life—now 45
years old—I see some good reason in having become a psychiatrist.
H.P.,