I mentioned in my last blog that we are told in the bible that we are blessed if we tremble at God’s Word. Well, here is something that should make us all tremble: according to Jesus it is possible to have an anointed gifting or ministry but be lost. Being able to say “Lord did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons” is no proof that heaven is our true home here or in eternity to come. If God could use Caiaphas who was in a large part culpable for the crucifixion of Christ to deliver a true prophetic word, well that should make us tremble too and should warn us against placing any security in how the Lord may use us for His purposes.

There is one sign that we have received the grace of God in truth: Are we living more and more the way God wants His children to live? Is that the direction of our lives however slow or fast the progress, despite any falls? Ministry, the fact that God may be blessing a gift,  is no proof I am in a right relationship with God.

I hope what we are seeking is not simply the anointing the Spirit upon a gift, but the non-grieved   presence of the abiding Spirit in our lives. It is Sons and Daughters who by grace through faith have come  into a right relationship with the Father that belong to the family of God forever.

Grace does not mean I can do what I want. It means realising that by the love of God and by virtue of the fact that because of that love His sheer white hot and just wrath and anger against my sin was poured upon His Son at Calvary,  my sins are not being counted against me and I am being given what is not my own; a place in God’s family and Kingdom and a power to say “no” to ungodliness. Forgiveness is such a holy thing to respond correctly to that the bible says of God, “There is forgiveness with Thee; therefore Thou art feared.”

Please don’t separate the presence of God attending your gift and working through you from your character attracting His pleasure child of God. Don’t rest in the fact that God may be using you and thereby put yourself into the same company as Caiaphas at worst or Balaam’s donkey at the very best. God, according to  the Old Testament, can even call heathen kings and emperors like Cyrus of Persia His “Anointed” and use them to  bless and help His people just as the New Testament and Jesus make clear He can do with those who are eternally lost.

If it was in my power, which it isn’t, then I would want everyone of you who reads this blog to be or to become today a citizen of the Kingdom of heaven, a Son or a Daughter who belongs in God’s  house and family for now and forever. You may be part of a church and have a ministry that is recognised by the church  and for which people thank God, but are you a child of God? “Come to the Father through Jesus the Son” while there is still time. Tomorrow belongs to no man or woman. None of us know whether we will have another day on this earth beyond today or even a moment beyond the present moment. So then, today if you are hearing God speaking to you in any way through this inadequately expressed blog, I appeal to you by the grace of God, don’t harden your heart. I cannot imagine how anyone can put their head on a pillow, shut their eyes and sleep each night who is not rightly related to the God before whom each of us could be called to appear and give account at any moment…

You may be reading this and not be a Christian yet. Hopefully you know someone  who is and they can tell you now to become the real and genuine born again thing: if you don’t know how to go about becoming a Christian, ask them! 

God Bless

Kenny

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