Promise Claiming to Proclaim the Glory of God

To proclaim the favourable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance and retribution of our God, to comfort all who mourn. Isaiah 61 v 2 The year of jubilee or the seventh year was in Jewish law and custom, the year of favour when the debts are cancelled and the mortage is lifted on land, the slaves were set free. The Lord Jesus was likewise declaring at the start of His public ministry that all people are set free from the mortgage of their souls, set free from the claims of satan on their lives and eternity. It was also the day of judgement for the Prince of Peace, Jesus was crushing the enemy's head under His heel as promised in the third chapter of Genesis. Jesus was also announcing the release of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter to comfort, assure, give hope, encourage all who believed in the truth- for Jesus is the very personification of truth. Instead of mourning, we can now rejoice in the Lord, again and again. He has anointed us with the spirit of joy and clothed us with the garment of praise. The crown of emotions, or the topmost emotion or feeling is joy. The Lord has anointed us - it implies that He has enabled us by the pouring of His spirit upon. The oil of joy is a metaphor referring to the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the chief source of our joy, for He has clothed us with salvation. He has declared us free from any charge or accusation that the enemy can bring against us. We,as the children of God, now have the power to decree or proclaim the Lord's favour upon other people. We have the power or right to bless people. Every day of our lives we need to walk in the grace or favour of the Lord. We do not need luck for the Lord's favour surrounds us. His love and kindness is better than life, sweeter than honey, more precious than gold. To proclaim is short for promise -claim. We taste the goodness of God, the power of God, the wisdom of God, the grace of Jesus, the comfort and encouragement of the Holy Spirit by claiming the promises of God contained in His word. Jesus, being the Yes and Amen to all God's promises, the Lord Amen or the One who fulfills all the promises of the Lord God is the One who stands as Guarantor of the new covenant promises.

Faith and Faithfulness

The king ended by saying, "But for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and kill them in my presence." Luke 19 v 27 In this parable of Jesus, we see that there are people who follow Him who lack in faithfulness and do not invest their lives well to serve His purpose and there are people who lack faith and refuse to serve Him. Unlike the story of talents where each servant was given a different number of talents of gold to invest, in this parable all ten servants are given ten minas or a hundred days of wages to keep. The lessons conveyed by the parable is that we should be faithful to the Lord in using whatever He has given us to magnify His name in and through our lives. Faith is needed in non believers in order to serve God while faithfulness is needed in believers to serve God. For all those who are not trusting God and His word, they should weigh all that they are and have in one hand and all that the kingdom of God offers in the other. It is worthwhile to exchange all that one has and is in order to obtain all that God has promised. For the former we cannot keep forever while what the Lord promises we have forever. Christ is the king who does not rule over terrritory but over the hearts and minds of people. The extent to which we submit our thoughts, desires, emotions to the Lord, to that extent we are ruled by Him. The more we yield to Him, the more He increases our yield. Faith and faithfulness are two sides of the same coin. One is not complete without the other. Once we surrender our lives to Jesus, we need to be increasingly and consistently faithful. The servant who did not invest the minna he got from the king did not know the true nature of the king. He disbelieved him, did not want to take any risk and hence, buried the minna so that he can return it to him on his coming back. But the king did not count this as faithfulness. He counted it as a lack of trust and obedience. He counted as faithfulness the actions of the other servant who invested the minna and gave him a ten fold increase on his coming back. Hence, the latter was made a ruler of ten cities. The people who serve Him faithfully are rewarded. The people who rebel and refuse to believe or serve Him lose eternal life.

Faith More Precious than Precious Metals

But Peter said, "Silver and gold I do not have; but what I do have I give to you: In the name (authority, power) of Jesus CHrist the Nazarene- (begin now to) walk and go on walking!" Acts 3 v 6 Faith is more precious than gold and silver or even platinum for these precious but dead metals cannot cure the incurable, cannot give us what money or gold cannot buy -the love of God manifested in Christ Jesus. The crippled beggar never imagined that he would be delivered of his inability to walk which had afflicted him from birth. He only expected a few coins, even just nickel coins not even gold or silver. Peter had neither gold, silver or nickel coins with him that he could give. But he knew he had something more precious than all things that matters more than material riches. He exercised his faith to cause a great miracle to happen at the gate called Beautiful of the temple. The life of the nameless beggar which was miserable and ugly all the years of his life. He had to be set down every day at the gate of the temple to beg for alms, hoping worshippers of God will be charitable to him. But what Peter said and did turned his life into a beautiful life. Our ugly and miserable lives where we are merely begging God for something small and physical to meet our daily needs is transformed into a beautiful life when we receive the gift of faith in Jesus Christ. Just as the beggar who received healing not just of his crippled legs but of his entire being for he was healed of his inner blindness and ignorance of God, the Creator and Redeemer, the Healer and Deliverer, we receive the gift of faith. Faith in Jesus, in His authority as Author of our faith and Finisher of our Lives, meeting us at the point of our greatest need- the need to know and experience the love of God, is the Beautiful gate, the portal to a life of transformation, of significance, of power, of influence. Due to the faith imparted to us, we are no longer seekers of lucre, of gold and silver but we are seekers, worshippers of God revealed in and through Jesus Christ. Our faith is not crippled as it was from our birth but we are now enabled to walk by grace with God. We can walk and keep walking in the footsteps of Jesus, imparting the gift of faith, of healing and deliverance of all we encounter in our lives. We exercise power and authority like Peter did in the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene.

The Favourable Time

UV 4260/10000 The Favourable Time Or Kairos Time But when ( in God's plan) the proper time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the (regulations of the ) Law. Galatians 4 v 4 The Greek concept of time distinguishes between physical or quantitative time measured in seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months, years or Chronos and Kairos or Quality or deep time, spiritual time measured in moments of reverence, wonder, joy, awe, thanksgiving, realization, victory, experiences of life, revelations.. Kairos is the time of God's favour. The time God considers the opportune moment to do or reveal something. It is the hour appointed for God to manifest Himself in human affairs. From the human perspective it is the most precious and memorable moments in our days, the memorable ones, the peaceful ones, the joyful ones, the turning points of our lives, the defining and refining moments of our lives. The birth of Jesus on earth altered the course of history of the world and of the nations as it did the lives of millions of individuals right through history. The birth of Jesus by faith in our hearts alters our individual destinies and enables us to experience the kairos dimensions of time,the miracle moments which transcend time, the laws and rules of nature. God with us, or Emmanuel alters our concept of time from chronos to kairos, for now time and space constraints do not hold us back from anything, nothing is impossible though everything that happens cannot be predicted or expected. When God is present in us and with us, all our time is potentially changed to kairos or significant time. The relentless march of time marked by the hands of the clock or watch is not stopped but the actions and events to fulfil God's purpose for man on earth and in heaven is speeded up, not on the fast track but on the right track. God being infinite and not confined by space or time transforms our lives into a series of kairos moments stretching into the timeless, boundless, everlasting, eternal realms. Scripture records that God stopped the sun in its tracks when God's power was invoked by Moses in the war of Israel against some enemies resisting their advance to Canaan, the Promised Land. The journey of the earth around the sun is what produces chronos or quantity time. Our God encounters are our "kairos" moments when our strenght and access to resources are enabled by His grace to overcome physical and other limitations. Even the birth of Jesus is under the law of Moses. So much so, the child of God begotten of a woman, Mary is even subjected to the tradition of circumcision as required by Jewish law. But thereafter, the law of Moses steps back to allow full play of grace. Our lives after we are born again by faith in Jesus moves from the shadow of limitations to the shadow or presence of the Almighty. We move from the want or lack of physical strength, resources, abilities, time to an area of abundance. If we are in sync with God, we are in alignment with His perfect and pleasing will, our lives will be a series of kairos moments.