If Jesus has changed your life, victory is not only possible, it is the reality of your life!   When we turn from living a life independently of God and ask Him to take away all our sin in Jesus Christ, He takes all our sin away and nails it to the cross in Christ.  Our old self dies the death of the cross.  The penalty of our sin is paid.  We are forgiven completely.  Not only that, God makes us new.  He makes us righteous…  As righteous as He Himself is.  The Bible says it this way:  “For He (God) made Him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  God placed all of our sins on His beloved Son and Jesus became sin for us, in our place.  He took our punishment on Himself and He bore the full weight of the wrath of God and separation from the Father.  And God makes us totally righteous through what Jesus did on the cross and through His resurrection.

The core of who are in transformed into a righteous, holy, blameless being.  Our old self was crucified with Christ and Christ’s life now lives through us.  But God put this new creation, who is us, into earthly bodies.  He sealed us with His Holy Spirit and set us apart for Himself.  We are holy and blameless, completely rigtheous beings sealed by God Himself.

We live in our earthly tents, our bodies.  Our bodies have not yet been changed or transformed by God.  They remain corrupted by sin.  This is what the Bible calls the Flesh.  Our flesh is corrupt and cannot please God.  So why did God not destroy the Flesh and put us into a heavenly body?  Why did He put the new creation, who is us, into a body that is corrupt?  He did this so that the surpassing power might be from God and not from us.  We have to rely on God, because He alone is our life.  He is the life of the new creation.  He is our life.  Apart from Him we can do nothing.

When God sealed us with the Holy Spirit, God also circumcised us away from our flesh, that the body of sin might be done away with.  God did not leave us to be controlled or dominated by sin.  Sin dwells in our bodies, the flesh.  But sin no longer dwells in us. We are set free from the power of sin and it no longer has power over us.  We are sealed in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are freed from sin and now are slaves to righteousness.  We are righteous and we will live righteous lives on earth, even inside our earthly bodies.

So why do we not live like this then, if God has set us free from sin? Why do we struggle with temptation and a pull toward sin?  Why do we give into sin?  The answer lies in our understanding:  what we believe.  Who do you believe you are?  In many circles today, a common belief is that we have two natures:  a sinful nature and a new creation nature.  The idea is that we have a  civil war going on inside of us.  In this belief, because of this war inside of us, we have no victory and will not have victory until we die and are free from this body of death.  Is this what you believe?

So are we are war with ourselves at the core of who we are?  The Bible says no.  We have been made completely new.  The old us has been crucified with Christ.  Our old self is dead.  We are alive in Christ.  So why do we struggle?

In Romans 7:17-18, the author gives us the answer to the question, where does sin live?  Does it live in us, the new creation?  Does it live in a sinful nature that is still alive?  Or is it in the flesh, our body?”But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.  For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) nothing good dwells…”

What is the author saying? Where does sin  dwell?  In my flesh.  So who is sinning?  He says, it is no longer I who do it?  Who is I?  The new creation, made totally righteous and holy in Christ.    The author is saying something totally radical and totally freeing and shows the awesome reality of what God has done through Jesus.  We are forgiven.  Yes.   We are saved from God’s wrath and the consequence of being cast away from God forever.  Yes.  We are made totally new and free from the power of sin.  Yes.  And now we know that we cannot sin.  It is impossible for a totally righteous being to sin.  Wow!  Take that in for a moment.  It is impossible for a totally righteous being to sin….  And you are that being.  You are totally righteous in Christ Jesus.  It is impossible for you to sin.

So what happens then?  Why does it appear that we sin.  We obey the flesh.  Is the flesh us?  No.  We are sealed in Christ.  We are circumcised from the body of death, the flesh.  We are cut away from the flesh.  The flesh does not have dominion over us.  It is not our boss.  We do not have to do what it says.  But the flesh wants to exert itself. It wars against our mind and it lusts against the Spirit of God inside of us.  It rises up and plants thoughts into our minds, longings, worries, lies, lusts.  It speaks to us using “I” and we believe that it is us.  But think about this for a minute.  Can a righteous being have an evil thought?  A covetous thought?  A murderous thought?  A hateful or vindictive thought?  No, it’s not possible and you are that being.  You are righteous.  So where does the thought come from?  From the flesh.  It is not from YOU.

In Romans 6 tells us that we have died with Christ.  He who died has been freed from sin.  Sin is no longer our master.  Therefore we are to consider, to believe, to tell ourselves the truth, that we are dead to sin but alive to God in Christ.  So we tell ourselves the truth.  We agree with what God tells us in His Word that we are new creations.   The old is gone.  The new has come.  We are alive with God in Christ.  We are righteous, holy, blameless and free from the power of sin.  So we believe the truth and tell ourselves the truth.  “I am holy and righteous.  I am totally accepted by God.  I am free from the power of sin.  My flesh is not ME!   I do not have to obey it. “

Then Romans 6:12 tells to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies that we should obey its lusts.  Whose lusts?  Sin’s lusts.  Where is sin living?  In our mortal bodies.  So what are we to do about it?  We are not to let it reign.  How do we do that?  We tell ourselves the truth and we present our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness.  We yield our bodies to Him:  Our eyes, our ears, our mouths, our arms, legs, everything.  We consider that our flesh is dead, crucified in Christ.  It does not have the power to reign over us any longer.  Christ has set us free.  If He has set us free, we are free indeed.  What an awesome reality of the children of God.

Jesus is our life.  He lives through us.  He has given us everything we need for life and godliness to live in this world and be a light for Him in dark places.  He works in us to will and to do for His good pleasure.  We are in Him.  He is in us.  And His life lives through us.  It is no longer we who live, but it is Christ who lives through us.  He lives, yet we live, yet not us, Him.  He works through us and we rest from our work in Him.  We live in the righteousness of God and His righteousness is expressed through us moment by moment as we walk in this truth.  He is our life.  He is our victory.  He has done it all.  He changed us by His amazing power and made us new creations.  He set us free from sin’s power and cut us away from the flesh, so that sin could not reign any longer.  We become His message to the world of His grace and love for mankind and His awesome power to take enslaved people and set them free.  Wow!!!  This is surely wonderful news!!!  What an awesome God we love!!!

Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

How Lord?  How do I come to you?  I have tried. I read my Bible, Lord.  I pray to you and tell you all my needs. But I still thirst. I’m not holy enough, is that it, Lord?? I’ve tried to be holy, Lord.  I’ve tried to do Your work. I’ve asked your to cleanse my wicked heart.

Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.” I strove and I worked, trying to work out my salvation.   But the thirst grew.  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.  My soul cried out in agony. How long, Lord?  When will you return to me?

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” Had I missed the point?  I had built a clay pot with the work of my own hands and asked God to fill that pot.  But my pot would not hold water, it leaked and was cracked.  I have tried to do the right things.  I even led prayer meetings, I told people about You, Lord.  I was hospitable and served water in Your name. Was it possible that I had missed the whole point?

My soul grew faint. My eye sight dimmed and my life ebbed away.  I said, what’s the use.  I have done all I can.  I can do no more.  I give up, Lord.  It would be better to die than to live without You.

Then, out of the desert, He brought me, to a Well that flowed with Living Water.  He opened my ears so I could hear His voice calling me, as if He were saying:  “Come, my child.  Come and drink. I have loved you with an everlasting Love. But you missed the point.  You thought you could earn my love.  You thought there was something good about you and you took My glory to yourself. I am the Master Painter, child.  You are My work of art.  You did not paint this masterpiece.  You are My creation.  Do you see?

“When you first believed in Me, I transformed you.  I made you New. I filled you with my Holy Spirit and sealed you.  Nothing will separate you from My Love.  When you were unlovely and there was nothing attractive in your at all, when you were dead in your sins, I washed your sin completely away and I cancelled the debt you owed Me.  I made you Pure and Holy, without blemish.  I gave you My Righteousness.  I gave you freedom over the power of sin.  You are mine, child.  Yet, you would not fully believe.  I saved you and you said, “No, Lord.  I’m not holy, really.  I don’t feel holy.  I need to work at it.”  When I gave you abilities and skills, you thought in your heart, “Oh, I am good at this.  What a great person I am.”  No, child, you were not thirsty enough yet.  You are not to the end of yourself yet.
“So I let you wander and search and try in your own power and strength.  When you strength grew weary, I sustained you, but I did not fill you up because you were not yet empty of yourself.  I will not give My glory to another, child.  You can do nothing apart from Me.   I never left you, but you had a lesson to learn that you would only learn through pain, through what you needed to suffer. I discipline those I love.”

“Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

“Come and drink, My child, whom I love with an everlasting love.  Come and drink.  Come and feast on My Word and I will fill you with My Holy Spirit once again.  Fountains of living water will spring up inside you and I will refresh your Soul.  You are Holy and Righteous in My sight because I re-made you when you believed in Me. It is not of yourself.  It is My gift.  There is nothing you can do to make yourself anymore acceptable or holy or righteous or pure than I already made you when you first believed in Me.  Rest in Me.  Cease striving.  The work I now have for you is to believe in My Son, the One I sent to take away the sins of the world.  Believe, child.  Believe.”

My soul is overwhelmed with Joy, Lord.  You are filling me with Living Water so I will not thirst anymore.  You opened my ears to Your Word and are giving me understanding. You touched my eyes so I could see the truth of Your gospel, the truth of what You did for me, the moment I believed.  I am righteous and accepted.  I am holy and pure.  I am clean and washed with the water of Your Word.

When you believed the old you was crucified with Christ on the cross.  That means that the old you died.  It is no longer alive.  The old you is gone — forever gone.  In it’s place, God made you His new creation, a wonderful masterpiece of His grace and love.  You are the new creation.  What this means is that the old nature — the old you — which was a slave to sin is dead.  Since the old you died, you are no longer a slave to sin.  You died to sin with Christ once for all.  Sin is no longer your master.  Sin used to be your master before you belonged to Christ and you lived in sin. Everything you did was in sin. But your old self died and your new life is hidden in Christ.  You are free from the power of sin. Totally free. Now you are a slave to righteousness.  You are totally, completely righteous, pure and free.

Okay, you might ask, then why do I not feel that way?  Why do I still seem to do the wrong thing and sin against God? Why do I struggle to be good?  Good questions, aren’t they.  Before I answer, I have another question for you –  Who do you think you are?  Are you still a sinner or are you a new creation?  Be honest.  How do you really see yourself?  What you believe is shaping how you live.

As you read the following verses, ask God to give you understanding.  Take a moment and try to figure out what that verse if really saying about you.

Romans 6: 5 – 7 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,  knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.

You have been united together in the likeness of Christ’s death.  You actually died with Christ.  Look what it says:  that our old man was crucified with Him.  Your old man– the old you— died;  it was crucified with Christ.   The moment you believed in Jesus and gave Him your life by faith, He killed the old you. Your old self was nailed to the cross with Him.  Why did your old man need to die? It needed to die because there was no way for the old you to live a righteous life.  Your old self had to die so that sin would be done away with — so you would  no longer be a slave to sin.  You died with Christ when you believed and you are now free from the power of sin.  Sin is no longer your master because he who died has been freed from sin.  Now look at this next verse:

Romans 6:8-14  Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,  knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.  For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.  And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present ourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

The old you died with Christ, and now the new you lives with Him.  Jesus died on the cross and He was raised from the dead.  Death is no longer His master.  He died to sin forever for all, and the life He now lives He lives to God.

You do too.  You are alive and new and your life is meant to be lived for God who raised you to new life.  You are a new creation, made totally righteous and holy and pure.  The old is gone.  The new has come.  That is the truth you must now walk in.  That’s the first step to living the life of victory that you long to live:  Know the truth about who you are in Christ.

The second step is to Believe the truth.  You must believe it. Begin to tell yourself the truth about who you really are.  Your feelings may not match up with it, but it doesn’t matter.  Your feelings have been programmed by sin and will fall in line with the new you in time. You must believe the truth about who you really are. If your feelings tell you that you are not holy or pure or that you really were not crucified with Christ, does that make the truth about you a lie?  Think about that. No.   Is God’s word lying about who you are?  No.  The truth is the truth no matter how you feel.  So speak aloud to yourself and you who you are. Tell yourself the truth: “I am a new creation.  The old me is dead and gone.  I am completely new, completely holy, completely, totally righteous, pure, and accepted by God.  There is nothing I can do to make myself for holy, or righteous, or pure, or accepted than I already am.  God has done it all.  I am free from the power of sin and I no longer have to sin.”

The third step is to begin to act like what you believe is true because it is true whether you feel like it is or not.  You begin to live out of the new creation you are. You speak out of the new creation you are.  When you speak of yourself using “I” you are talking as the new you, the new creation that you are. The old man is gone, dead.  As you begin to tell yourself the truth moment by moment, you move forward allowing God to live His life through you. You do not have obey sin anymore.  You do not have to give your body over to sin anymore.  Now you give your body to God  — your whole body with all its member, it’s parts.  You confess with your mouth that you are alive from the dead and that you are dead to sin.  You live to God. Sin is not your master anymore because Jesus died to set you free. If He could not give you freedom, then He died in vain!

The fourth step is a bi-product of walking in the truth of who you really are.Your feelings will begin to follow as you practice walking in the truth.

If what I have written is hard for you to grasp, don’t worry.  These truths are spiritual truths.  They are understood with the help of the Holy Spirit who is in you.  You are sealed in Him.  He will open you eyes to the truth. Ask Him.  Ask Him to give you understanding and wisdom.  He will do it.  In fact, He will give it in abundance without holding anything back if you ask and don’t doubt that He’ll do it.  He promised to do it.  He will do it!  All you have to do is ask Him!

If we think that we are the least bit good before we give our lives to God, let’s ask ourselves a few questions.  First, how righteous do you think God is?  Is He totally righteous?  Yes,  100% righteous.  Nothing bad in him at all.  God is also 100% love and 100% just.  He is totally completely good.  Okay, now consider this next question?  How righteous are you?

Be honest.  What do you think?  Remember God is 100% righteous and Satan is 0% righteous.  Where do you fall on the scale of 0 – 100%?  Pause and think about it.

Okay, let me ask you some questions:  To be 100% righteous, you would need to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind totally perfectly all your life.  How have you done with that?

To be 75% righteous you need to have loved your neighbor as yourself for your whole life perfectly, never hurt anyone or did anything wrong to anyone else your entire life.  How have you done with that?

To be 50% righteous, you would need to have never said anything wrong in your life, never lied, never swore.  Have you done that?

Okay, to be 25% righteous, you would need to have managed  your time, your money, and resources without wasting anything ever in your life, never wasted time or money.  Have you done that perfectly?

So if you are honest with yourself,  how righteous are you really?  Would you say 0%?  Join the totality of humanity.  We all fall short.

Think about a glass of water.  The glass is half full of water.  the other half is filled with deadly poison.  Would you drink that water? Why or why not?  What about if the glass were 98% water and only 2% deadly poison?  Would you drink it?  Wouldn’t the whole class be made poisonous if even only a tiny bit of poison were added?  You wouldn’t drink it, would you?

We are like that glass.  If we sin only a tiny bit, say only 1% of the time what happens to us? We are a 100% being.  How sinful do we become?  Totally sinful?  God views us this way.  He is totally righteous and totally love and totally just.  He cannot allow us to come into his presence because we are 0% righteous.  There is nothing good in us at all. God created us to glorify Him, to trust Him and honor Him with our lives.  But we are not able to do that. There is nothing good in us at all.

Think of a blank, perfectly clean piece of paper. What is the purpose of that piece of paper?  To write on or draw on.   Now say, I’m a 100%  being and I only use a perfect things.  Now that paper gets scribbled all over.  Can I use that paper for my purposes?  No, I cannot.  So what do I have to do with it?  I crumple it up and I throw it away in the trash.  We are that piece of paper, scribbled on by sin. God has to throw us away.  This is what hell is.  It is like a trash can, where people whose lives are totally worthless to God must be thrown out.  God made us to glorify Him and we cannot, so we are thrown away.   God is totally Love, but he is also totally Just.  He loves us.  But He has a dilemma, if God could have a dilemma.  This dilemma is that He loves us, but in his Justice He must punish us for sin.  The law says that the penalty of sin is death.

Think about a court room.  I am the judge and I have a friend named Ravi.  Think of someone in your family who really love.  Maybe you have a son or daughter, a sister or brother or mom or dad.  You cherish that person.  Now Ravi sneeks into your house and brutally kills and rapes  that person.  How do you feel about that?  Now you come to my court room and Ravi, of course, is there too.  I look over at Ravi and I say, “Ravi, you are my friend and I love you. I am going to let you off for this crime because I love you so much.”  What would you think about that?  Has justice been served?  What do you think should happen to Ravi for justice to be fulfilled?

Now this is God’s dilemma.  He loves you, but you are 0% righteous, 100% sinful.  The penalty of sin is death.  The just thing to happen to you is to die.  But He loves you.  Is there a way for you to be saved?

The Bible says that God made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin, to be sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.   think about that for a moment.  Did Jesus ever sin?  No, he knew no sin, that means he never sinned.  If he never sinned, how righteous is he?  Totally 100% righteous.  Just like God.  So God took Jesus and he made him SIN.  God placed 100% of your sins on His beloved Son, Jesus, and Jesus became SIN.  So what does that mean? Think about it.  Stay with me here.   How righteous was Jesus at that moment?  He cried out on the cross, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me!!”  That was a cry from hell.  How righteous was he?  0% righteous!  He became sin.  He was separated from God.  Because he was sin, he had to die.  So God allowed unrighteous men to nail His son to a Roman cross.

The law says the penalty of sin is death.  So Jesus had to die.  He was buried in a tomb for 3 days and 3 nights.  He was totally dead.  What the law did not say, however, was that God could not raise Jesus from the dead!!  So on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead!  The penalty of sin was death and that penalty was served.  Sin was dealt with.  And Jesus rose from the dead, fully alive!  How righteous was he now?  100% righteous!  So God is 100% righteous. Jesus is 100% righteous.

2 Cor. 5:21 says that He (God) made He (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (Jesus).  How righteous is God?  100%  So how righteous does God make us in Christ?  100%.  When we turn to Jesus and believe in Him, asking Him to take our sin away, God makes us into a completely righteous being, just like Himself.  We become the righteousness of God in Christ.  Pause and think about that for a moment….   Awesome!!

So how do you receive this amazing gift that God did for you through His son?  You turn from your sin.  You ask God to take all your sin away through His son Jesus.  You ask Him to forgive your sin and make you totally new.  You receive the gift of God by faith, by believing.  The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  You need to make a verbal confession, declaration.  God does not do written contracts with His people.  He makes a verbal promise and He accepts our verbal promise, that’s by we confess with our mouths.  And we believe in our hearts.  What does that mean?  Think about a chair by the dining table. Do you believe that that chair can hold you?  Did you say yes?  The Bible never talks about believing in that sense.  The only chair that we can really believe in is the one that we are currently sitting on.  We know that the chair we are sitting on will hold us because we are sitting on it with our full weight.  This is what Believe means.  You must put your whole weight on the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead and turn to your life over to him.  Does that make sense?

If you have not made this type of commitment to Lord Jesus, you can do it now.  You can read this prayer, but you must mean it in your heart.  “Lord Jesus, I admit I am totally worthless to you and that I am a totally a sinner. I am 0% righteous, 0% good. I am sorry for my sin. I turn from my sin and I turn to You.  I ask you to take away my sins and nail them to the cross with You.  I confess that you are Lord of my life.  You are the ruler now, not me.  I believe that you took my sins away when you died on the cross.  You rose from the dead and made me alive with you.    Thank you for saving me and making me totally righteous.  Amen.”

If you just read that prayer and you meant it in your heart before God, then you are saved!  You are saved from the wrath of God that was poured out on you because of sin.  You are saved through the blood of Jesus the Christ, the anointed one of God.  It is a gift from God.  There was nothing you could ever do to save yourself.  There was no way you could ever work for this gift. It is totally free to those who believe.  Welcome to the family of God!

You are now a new creation!  The old you  is gone.  The old you has been crucified with Lord Jesus and no longer lives.  The new you is alive.  You are totally 100% righteous.  Totally 100% Holy and totally 100% pure.  There is nothing you can do to make yourself more righteous, holy or pure.  It’s done.  It’s completed.  You are sealed by the Holy Spirit of God that He has given you the moment you believed in His son Jesus Christ.

If you have given your life to Lord Jesus, but have not experienced victory in Him, have continued to struggle with sin, shame and powerlessness to change, then look for the next posts. Learn who are you really in Christ and what He has done for You?

Romans 1:9, Romans 3:10,11, Romans 5:9, Romans 10:9,  2 Cor. 5:21

The life of a Yeshu Bhakta is not without struggle. In fact, Yeshu said, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”  He will bring us through.  The key is to hang on to Him. “Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths,” the poet cried, “guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long.”   All day long!  He didn’t place his hope in God only part time.  He hoped in God all day long and waited for God to teach him and guide him in truth.  Maybe we miss a crucial step sometimes.  While we hope for God’s deliverance, we don’t really want to wait on Him to teach us and guide us in truth.  We want it quicker than that, more instant, like cup of noodles or instant maggi.  We miss the mark with this kind of hope in God.  Is that really hope at all?

God is trying to show us each day that we can do nothing apart from Him.  We come to Him in the morning, but often somewhere throughout the day do we turn our eyes away from God and back to ourselves and our circumstance?  Then struggles come and we are surprised and wonder why we’re having difficulty responding the Prabhu Yeshu.  God wants us to walk in victory and to love each other.  And, harder still, to love our enemies.  But there is no way we can do that on our own.  He wants us to learn from Him and listen to Him. He will fight for us. He will deal with our enemies in His own way and own time.  He alone can set us free. The poet says, “My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my feet from the snare.” I love that!  He will release our feet from the snare!  Are your feet ensnared? He is our deliverer!   Him alone!!

One disciple wrote in a letter to the believers in Ancient Greece, “Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  Who is the real enemy of our souls?  People?  No, they are flesh and blood, aren’t they?  The real enemy is what is behind the people and the institutions:  The spiritual forces of evil.  Satan, the liar, deceiver, murderer.   Our enemy waging a war against us in the heavenly realms.  Our battle is spiritual and can only be won when we align ourselves with God.  If God is for us, who can be against us??

Yeshu Bhaktas in India and other parts of the world are experiencing physical attacks, outward attacks.  For others of us, our battles are internal: mental, emotional, relational, very personal.  The enemy of our souls hates God.  And he hates us because we belong to God.  He desires to destroy us, whether outwardly through persecution, or inwardly in our minds and hearts. But can he??  Prabhu Yeshu’s disciple wrote what we need to remember, “Greater is He who is us, than he who is in the world?”  Who is in us, if we have given our lives to God through Satguru Yeshu?  Satguru Yeshu is!  Who is in the world?  The deceiver, the Evil One.  While we live on this earth we will have struggles. Can the evil one win this battle and destroy us while we live?  No way!  If we humble ourselves before our Lord, and resist the enemy of our souls, Satan will have to flee.  He will run away.  He cannot stand against our Lord.  We must keep our eyes on our Lord, keeping filling our minds with His word, and obey what he tells us, then we will have victory.   What has God been teaching you lately?  Is your mind filled with is Word?   Are you eyes on Him, or on yourself and circumstances.  Satguru Yeshu has overcome the world.  He is greater than he who is in the world.  And He, Lord Yeshu, is in us, if we belong to him!  “Praise the Lord for he has heard my cry for mercy. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trust in him. and I am helped.”

Psalm 28, John 16, Ephesians 6, Psalm 25, I John 4

The songwriter cried out to God: “I will shout for joy and sing your praises,
for you have ransomed me.

You have ransomed me!  There was a death warrant on my head. The penalty of my sin was death. What a great sinner I was, Lord.  I was unclean and could not come to you. I was not welcome into Your presence.  Yet, you paid the price, the ransom, to set me free.  You took my penalty on Yourself, and gave the life of your Son, Lord Jesus, in my place! You loved me when I was dirty and broken.  You loved me even before I knew you.  You loved me since the foundation of the earth.  Yes, before I ever did anything at all, You loved me. Lord, my heart is overflowing with your love and Joy!

Our joy comes only from You, Lord.  You alone.

How do you respond?  Do you want to retaliate or hurt them in return?   Do you try to shut them out of your life, not wanting to see them, avoiding a place where they might show up, refusing to talk with them.  I know I have responded in these ways at times.  Is this God’s response?  

Talking with his followers and the crowds that surrounded him, Satguru Yeshu said, “To you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies!  Do good to those who hate you.  Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.”  Whoa! What a tall order! Is it really possible to love our enemies in this way?  Or those who hurt us or even hate us?  It must be, or God himself is a liar, isn’t he?  Satguru Yeshu commanded us!  It must be possible to do it! 

Who were these enemies Lord Yeshu was talking about? In His days on earth, Israel was occupied by the Romans.  The Romans often had oppressed and treated the Jews harshly and without justice.  Even today, I’m sure we all know of places where oppression and hatred are rampant:  certain countries, cities, workplaces, neighborhoods, even in some of our own families.  So, how should we respond when we are hurt?

The first place I might begin is at the throne of God in prayer, pouring out my heart to God with the pain, hurt and anger I’m feeling.  I can pray for an opportunity to do good to those who hurt me and the willingness to follow Lord Yeshu’s command.  I can pray for those who injured me, pray God’s blessing on them and a change of heart in their lives. What will happen if I begin to do what God asks of me?  One thing I’ve seen God do in my life is change and begin to heal my heart, when I’m willing to follow my Guru’s teaching.  

What about if I choose to hang onto my anger and not do what Lord Yeshu said?  I build a prison for myself of unforgiveness, anger, mistrust, and vengeance, and my heart becomes hard and unloving.  My hard heart affects all my life, all my relationships until I allow God to break through and free me through Satguru Yeshu.  Does my hard heart affect the one who hurt me?  No.  That person may not even know or care what type of agony I am going through.  That person has their own issues to deal with.  My issues are in my heart and I will not be free until I allow God to free me and help me obey his commands. I have been on both sides of this and I can tell you from my experience that God’s way, although hard at the time, even excruciatingly hard, is considerably easier than allowing hurt and anger to destroy your life for years on end.

God, help us not hang on to our pain but to give it to You, and allow You to make something beautiful out of our lives, even out of our pain. Help us not accept less than what you have for us, to be crippled by hate, mistrust, and vengeance because we have been so badly hurt.  Help us to cling to you, doing what our Satguru taught us to do when we are hurt.  Give us your strength and courage to follow your teaching, Lord!

Mt. 5, Lk. 6

We cry out, even shout out, like this Poet:  ”Oh, that God would listen to me!  When I was in deep trouble, I searched for the Lord.  All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven, but my soul was not comforted.  I think of God, and I moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help.”

Have you felt like that?  Have you had times in your life where nothing seemed to go right?  Where your life was somehow seriously altered (an accident, illness, death, a drastic move?) and you had no idea how to deal with it or what to do?  You didn’t know where to turn or who to talk to?  Your mind and heart were in turmoil and you cried out with agony? I have.  

I’m convinced that God is not afraid to allow difficult things to happen in our lives.  He is not afraid to allow suffering.  God did not even spare his own son from such agony, pain and sorrow!  Satguru Yeshu said, “Unless a grain of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone.  But its death will produce many new kernels ….  Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, ‘Father save me from this hour?’  But this is the very reason I came?  Father bring glory to your name.”  What was his hour?  What did God expect of him?  To be humiliated, spit upon, crucified with nails driven through his hands, and to die a criminal’s death even though he did nothing wrong.  Did he cry out and turn from the path that God had before him.  A path of excruciating pain?  Or did he ask for God’s greatest good be revealed as he walked the path laid out before him?

And we are walking in the path of His Son, Satguru Yeshu, Jesus!  We will have pain and difficulty. Not all the time.  But sometimes, definitely.  What should we do?  Where do we turn for help?

In his last moment of despair the poet cried,”This is my fate; the Most High has turned his hand against me.”  Then his mind turns a corner and looks in the direction of hope. “But then I remember all you have done, O Lord; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago. They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works.”  

Have you seen God answer your prayers in the past?  I have. Have you seen him meet your needs? I have, over and over again! Have you heard and read about the greatness, the compassion, the love of God toward his followers and even the entire world? Every time I read his Word, I read about his compassion and miraculous things he has done.  But when I’m in the midst of a really hard time, a time that I don’t understand, I forget!  I forget! I fail to see the way and I’m overwhelmed with my pain.  Is God there with me?  Yes, He is there.  He will bring me through. So where I focus my mind becomes very important, doesn’t it?  God is teaching me that I need to focus on what I know to be true about Him and cling to Him because He is good and will bring me through this darkness to a brighter day if I trust Him.

This is what we need to think about. This is what we need to remember.   God will bring us through. He will not laugh at our suffering, or turn his back on us.  He will meet us where we are and lead us to greener pastures.  He will restore our souls.

Psalm 77; John 12; Psalm 23

I came that men may have life
And have it abundantly.

A devotee said:
Lord Yeshu, though you were in the form of God,
You did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped;
But emptied yourself, taking the form of a servant,
Being born in the likeness of men.

The Lord said:
I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
I came to give my life as a ransom for many.
My body is given for you
My blood is poured out for many
for the forgiveness of sins.

Prophets and apostles said:
Behold, the unblemished lamb of God,
Who takes away the sin of the world!
We have a high priest,
Holy, blameless, unstained,
He appeared once for all at the end of the age
To put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Death came into the world through sin,
And so death spread to all men
Because all men sinned.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned everyone to his own way;
And the Father God has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
For our sake Father God made him to be sin,
Who knew no sin, so that in him
We might become the righteousness of God.
Sadguru Yeshu loved us and gave himself up for us;
He offered himself once to bear the sins of many.
He was numbered with the transgressors;
Yet he bore the sins of many, 
And made intercession for the transgressors.

The Lord Yeshu said:
Unless a grain of what falls into the earth and dies,
It remains alone,
But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
I, when I am lifted up from the earth,
Will draw all men to myself.

The devotees said:
In him we have redemption through his blood,
The forgiveness of our sins,
According to the riches of his grace,
which he lavished upon us.
 

from Shri Krist Gita, by Dhanjibhai Fakirbhai

Master, who sinned, this man or his parents, That he was born blind?

It was not that this man sinner, or his parents,

But that the works of God might be made seen in him.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Go wash; So he went and washed and come back seeing.

– Shri Krist Gita