Bless the (אֶת־) LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion; who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle. Psalm 103:2-5.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
I want to make your life beautiful, the most beautiful life ever lived and I do this by blessing you with benefits. Benefits are yours, you do not have to beg for them. They come with being in Christ for I have blessed you with every spiritual blessing in Heaven in Christ and made all My magnificent promises “yes” to you in Him. What most people do not realize, and therefore do not take advantage of, is that I have freely given all these benefits to you in Christ, you merely need to receive and take them by faith. My people perish, when they could be thriving and enjoying the best of the land, because of lack of knowledge. They just do not know what they have in Christ so they live as if they did not have it and hence never have faith for it. Instead they beg and plead for what is theirs but NEVER just receive it by faith. This grieves Me.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Hosea 4:6.
But there is another problem, knowledge is easily available in these days for most of the world with internet, radio, and other technological advances that send out My Word 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but many have rejected knowledge for cleverly concocted myths, fables, idols, and philosophies that are all devoid of the truth. These will not set you free and cause you to have a beautiful life.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge. Hosea 6:4.
Many people today are even calling upon the “universe” as if it had power to save or do good. The universe is My creation, I sustain it and it runs according to My laws. It is NOT the lawgiver or the blesser. I make the sun shine and the rain fall on the good and the bad to give you food and benefits but the sun is not your god nor the rain either. But people have worshipped sun gods and rain gods.
Their banquets are accompanied by lyre and harp, by tambourine and flute, and by wine; but they do not pay attention to the deeds of the LORD nor do they consider the work of His hands. Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude is parched with thirst. Therefore hell has enlarged its throat and opened its mouth without measure; and Jerusalem’s splendor, her multitude, her din of revelry and the jubilant within her, descend into it. Isaiah 5:12-14.
This is stupid folly and your life will be like that too, a life of hell on earth. Why would you do that to yourself when you could have Heaven on earth? Listen to Me and become wise.
I will hear what God the LORD will say; for He will speak shalom peace to His people, to His godly ones; but let them not turn back to stupid folly. Psalm 85:8.
For the heart of this people has become dull, With their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes, otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return, and I would heal them. Matthew 13:15; Isaiah 6:10; Acts 28:27.
Seek wisdom and knowledge and that comes from Me, the creator of all things who knows all things, and you find it in only one place: My Word. And you receive what is in the Word only one way: by faith, which works by love.
What is the answer then to the problem of not receiving and taking all the benefits that belong to you in Christ so I can adorn you life with the precious treasures of the Kingdom? YOU MUST BECOME A STUDENT OF MY WORD. For, as Jesus told His disciples, it is My Word that cleanses you, heals you, delivers you from destruction and the pit, gives you eternal life, gives you peace, and gives you joy.
He sent His Word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Psalm 107:20.
He who finds My Words finds life and healing. When you employ My Word it goes to work to achieve the promise in it for which I sent it. You must build your life anew on the foundation of hearing and doing My Word and your house will stand no matter what the world, the flesh and the devil send to take you down. But remember, the wise person builds his house, but the foolish one tears it down with his own hands. Proverbs 14:1.
No amount of torturing yourself with penance, being angry at yourself or others, begging and pleading with Me, fasting, or railing and swearing at Me or others will change you from the old way of thinking that is your default mode of doubt and deceit from Adam’s fall and corruption of the seed. Only My Word will do it. You are born again from above by the imperishable seed of My Word received into your spirit and then you are transformed into thinking and knowing what you have as a new creation in Christ by becoming a student of My Word. And the amount of diligence and attention you apply in this will determine how beautiful and thriving your life will become, whether you will harvest thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold.
Then he added, “Be careful of what you are listening to. Pay close attention to My Word. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given and you will receive even more. To those who listen to My Word and do it, the more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.” Mark 4:24-25.
Being a student of My Word can also be called renewing your mindset by getting to know Me and taking My thoughts as your own. And My thoughts are beautiful. They are pure, good, pleasing, and perfect. And they will make you like that too, which I made you in My image and according to My likeness to be. It is time to return and come with confidence with your High Priest Jesus to My throne of grace and receive mercy (healing mercy, forgiveness mercy, provision mercy) and find grace (My solutions, strength, skill, and divine life) just when your need it. Hebrews 4:15-16.
I have redeemed you in Christ and it has pleased Me to give you the Kingdom. It is time you enjoyed the benefits of Kingdom citizenship as My ambassadors upon the earth.
Bless the (אֶת־) LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy (אֶת־) name. Bless the (אֶת־) LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion; who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle. Psalm 103:1-5.
In our last Life Lesson we studied forgiveness and today, before we move on to healing and redemption, I would like to point our a few more things about forgiveness because you will never open your heart to receive the benefits that follow forgiveness if you have not believed and received the knowledge that in Christ you are forgiven as if you had never sinned before Me and this was not done according to your merits but the eternal sinless blood of Christ, for the life is in the blood. It is the difference between remorse and repentance.
There are those of you who have remorse over sin and thus are putting yourselves under condemnation and not letting yourself receive the joy of My forgiveness, healing, redemption, provision, power, love and renewal. Judas had remorse but Peter repented. Remorse is self-condemnation and regret over wrongful conduct on your part. It has no hope of getting out from under the punishment for that sin. And often, if a person is forgiven of some action but only had remorse over it, they cannot seem to stop themselves from doing it again and again once they have the occasion to do so and feeling deeper and deeper their condemnation.
Judas had remorse and the burden of it was too great, so Satan got him to take his own life to relieve himself of the relentless spirit of remorse that had taken his mind captive. Judas listened to that spirit which he took in as his own thoughts and was deceived into ending his life upon the earth. And My Son said of Judas it would have been better for him never to have been born, which would be a very sad judgment of your life. But it did not have to end that way if Judas had only listened and renewed his mind, that is, changed his thoughts to My thoughts, which are higher than yours but are available to you.
If you recall, when Judas betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane by a kiss, Jesus called him “friend.” Jesus taught that there was no greater love than to lay down your life for your friend and He called His disciples His “friends” for He had shared with them His mission and all that I had told Him. And He had many times shared with His disciples that He would be crucified and die in accordance with the Scriptures as savior of the world. That He would give His life as a ransom for many, that is, for all who would receive it. He was going to pay for all your sins by His death. He told them that He was the promised Messiah the day He asked them who they believed He was. Judas should have lined that up to give him hope and light in that dark place he fell into by his betrayal of Jesus. Jesus was laying down His life for His friend Judas so he could return and be part of the mission to which he had been called by Jesus as one of the twelve for a glorious future. Judas had let Satan enter his heart, but just as he had the freedom to let him enter, he also had the freedom to cast him out and shut that door. Know that if you have let him in with any of his unclean demons.
Judas, to his own demise, did not let his thoughts help him by turning them back to My Words as spoken to him by My Son (and I now speak through My Son for He has shared your humanity) and taking hope for a bright future. And that would have been repentance. A determination to never do that again by the help of My grace and to renew your mindset to My thoughts so you could act with wisdom and the discernment of spirits. You repent, return, rejoice, and I restore all the years the devil stole. And that is the story of the prodigal son and that is the story of salvation for all and not just once but every time sin enters to beguile and deceive you. Your strongest stand is the 4 R response: Repent (confess your sins to Me and seek My help to change your mind to My thoughts), return to Me with joy that you are forgiven and favored, and rejoice in that you are welcome back to My house with total restoration of all you have lost.
Peter, on the other hand, repented, returned, rejoiced, and was restored. And when I restore it is better than what you had before. Peter went on to teach and preach My Word about Jesus fearlessly and never denied Him again. He brought 3,000 people to My Kingdom on Pentecost Sunday and went on to heal, raise from the dead, bring the gentiles into the faith, and finally, when his assignment to feed and tend My sheep was completed, he got his heart’s desire to make good what he had sworn to Jesus at the Last Supper, “No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” Matthew 26:35. And when he saw it was his time to depart and receive his reward with Me in My Kingdom, he still remembered, so I gave him the desire of his heart. But I had forgiven him as if he had never denied Jesus. That was no longer in the record of his life.
Your sins and offenses I remember no more. Hebrews 10:17. Why is that? Jesus took them all, they are no longer yours. It is not your fault because Jesus, your Savior, took all your faults away from you and bore the punishment for them. And that includes your illnesses and pains as well. For which is easier to say, “You are forgiven,” or “You are healed of all your infirmities and pains”? Same result, Jesus took them all, they are no longer yours or anything you should tolerate.
I love you. Never forget all your benefits for they are already yours in Christ. The most important thing you will ever do is take Jesus as your savior and confess Him as Lord. Become a serious and diligent student of My Word. And that is wisdom for it can save your soul.