Life Class Day 23

*Matthew 12:33

"Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit."

Every seed holds the promise of tomorrow. Tomorrow is the future. Every seed holds the promise of the future. Your words hold the promise of your future. The life you are living now is the result of the words you spoke in the past.

-Tom Brown

When Satan leaves a person's life, the evil that was in their life also leaves.

This is truly a miracle - when we are free from unrighteousness, God replaces our old life with a good life; this good life is Jesus Christ.

If you are a tree of Christ & your life is His, the fruit you bear should be the fruit of integrity, righteousness & truth.

It is by our fruit that we can determine what kind of tree we are.

Going to church does not guarantee our salvation; we attend the church because we are new trees that bear good fruit - we have been changed & now long to express heartfelt worship & gratitude toward God in His house.

The life of the Father in you is demonstrated in the kind of the fruit you bear.

Our lives need to be a reflection of the Word of God.

*Matthew 12:34-35

You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.

What is in your heart is expressed through your words.

When a person complains, their fruit is bad; when a person grumbles, their fruit is bad; when a person uses curse words; their fruit is bad. When they speak negatively, their fruit is bad; when they doubt & question everything, their fruit is bad.

When a person is full of God, their words are always full of faith, hope & optimism. They speak words that lead to success & that encourage those who have fallen.

They do not allow their words to be influenced by circumstances & they always speak in accordance with what the Word of God say.

Your life needs to reflect Christ - He should be present not only in your actions, but in every part of your life.

Your attitudes, your thoughts & your words need to line up with the Word, attitudes & & thoughts of God.

Every Christian should pay attention to their lifestyle so that they can be a conqueror.

It is essential that every believer lives a life of repentance, faith, prayer & fasting.

REPENTANCE:

Sin gives the enemy the legal rights to our lives. We cannot defeat him if our lives belong to him.

Repentance is a genuine & visible change.

You show repentance when you stop doing what you used to do.

FAITH:

Faith is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

*Galatians 5:22

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

Through faith, we can relate to God & without faith, it is impossible to please Him.

*Hebrews 11:6

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

It is important to feed our faith through daily contact with the Word of God.

*Romans 10:17

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.

PRAYER:

Prayer is the channel God established to communicate with His children.

In prayer, we can express our feelings, desires & requests.

We can receive both direction & consolation, & we can conquer every blessing we need in the spiritual realm through prayer.

*Matthew 21:22

"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."

FASTING:

Fasting allows us to supernaturally move the hand of God so that we can conquer the impossible.

Throughout the Bible, we find many examples of how fasting can activate the spiritual realm in our favor.

We therefore need to make fasting one of our spiritual habits.

*Matthew 6:16-18

"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

It means going without food for a set period of time with a defined spiritual purpose. Think about a situation in which you need to see breakthrough & fast with that very purpose in mind.

Depending on your physical condition & your daily activities, you can fast until midday, until 6pm or all day. Do this for 3 days.

During 3 days, invest the time you would have spent eating into reading the Bible & praying for the specific needs you have.

REMEMBER:

TO BE A CONQUEROR, I NEED TO BE A TREE THAT BEARS GOOD FRUIT.

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Life Class Day 22

*Mark 16:17-18

And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.

These were the instructions the Lord Jesus gave to His disciples before ascending into heaven. One of the things He told them was that they should cast out demons in His name.

Whether we like it or not, the entire human race is part of a spiritual battle, & it is our responsibility as Christians to fight in it.

That is why Jesus told us to cast out demons before He spoke about healing the sick.

Going unnoticed while he persuades people to see sin as something insignificant or innocent is one of our enemy's greatest deceptions.

His goal is that people would see sin as some sort of game.

Without drawing any attention to himself, he attempts to entangle people in sin until they end up trapped, with no way out.

The enemy does not want us to understand or perceive what he is doing as he plots out the destruction of people's lives.

The enemy is a spiritual being created by God. He used to be a cherub who led worship in the heavenly kingdom - he was highly respected in heaven because of his authority & his life of holiness.

But he was the first creature to allow pride to enter his heart & in his arrogance, he wanted to overthrow God so that he could exercise cruel control over everything. However, his greatest ambition resulted in frustration & defeat.

As he was not able to achieve his goal, he lost all his privileges, expelled from the kingdom of heaven & became a hidden enemy of God's work.

He has made it his primary goal to remove God from the hearts of men & obstruct their minds so that the message of salvation will neither be preached nor accepted in the world.

When people sin, the enemy acquires a legal right over their lives so that he can afflict them as he sees fit. He employs a military strategy to achieve this.

Under his authority, there are rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world & spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

*Ephesians 6:12

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

These spiritual beings of varying rank & power follow the orders of the adversary whose main aim on earth is to completely destroy man.

It is important for every believer to understand that the enemy fights with all his might to divert people from the right path.

*John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

There is a war that constantly rages in the spiritual realm. Whether we like it or not, you & I are part of that war.

From today on, decide to see through spiritual eyes; be a person who sees sin as God sees it, not as something insignificant.

Remember that it is through sin that the enemy obtains authority to torment our lives.

Yet we know that Jesus came to the world to destroy the works of the devil.

Given that the sin had given the devil authority over our lives, Jesus removed our sin so that He could set us free.

*Colossians 2:14-15

Having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

When we receive the forgiveness of our sins, the enemy stops having authority over our lives & we are finally free from oppression.

Not only sis Jesus take away our sin, He also defeated all our enemies.

It is important to understand that the battle was not a close call; Jesus won an overwhelming & eternal victory.

*Revelation 12:11

They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

*Luke 10:19

I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.

REMEMBER:

JESUS HAS ALREADY TRIUMPHED OVER OUR ENEMY ON THE CROSS OF CALVARY.

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Life Class Day 21

*1 Corinthians 15:42-44

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

What happens in the natural also takes place in the spiritual.

Fruit has to emerge from inside the seed; but to allow this to happen, the seed needs to be deposited in the ground, so that ti can be broken & die.

Your life is like a seed that is deposited in the hands of the Lord as a living offering, holy & pleasing to the Lord.

God begins to work with you in the deepest parts of your heart, until you experienced complete detachment from your carnal nature. That is when you see things from another point of view.

*1 Corinthians 15:40

There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.

We can compare this to the fact that there are also different types of believers: spiritual believers & earthly "believers".

Earthly believers may well go to church, but have not had a genuine experience of God. Spiritual believers are guided by the Holy Spirit, while earthly believers are directed by their own opinions.

The former walk by faith while the latter walk by logic.

A heavenly person always reflects the image of Jesus.

One of the ways in which the devil works is by presenting with what is contrary to the plan of God for their lives.

However, God clothes every true believer with a new nature when they are born again into a new life - a nature that is completely different from that of their old life.

Abraham: He went from being a father without any children to being a father of many nations.

*Genesis 17:3-5

Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram ; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations."

Jacob: Though once a deceiver, he became a prince with God.

*Genesis 32:27-28

The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome."

Moses: He was such a violent person that he killed a man, but he went on to become the most humble man on earth.

*Numbers 12:3

(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)

Job: Once a person full of fears, he learned to place all his trust in God.

*Job 13:15

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face.

Hannah: She was barren, but God made her the mother of Samuel - one of the greatest prophets in the Bible.

*1 Samuel 1:20

So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, "Because I asked the Lord for him."

David: God made this simple shepherd the king over all Israel. He was a man after God's own heart.

*1 Samuel 13:14

"But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord's command."

*Acts 13:22

After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.'

Oral Roberts was a pioneer in the use of media for the sake of the gospel. He founded both the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association & the Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma.

His ministry became famous because of the way in which the Holy Spirit moved through healings & miracles.

Many people may have said many things about him, but what really mattered to him was what God said.

*Isaiah 55:9

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

I decided to believe God's thoughts about me & go for something higher than what others had planned for me. The results have been miraculous!

-Oral Roberts

When we believe in the promises of God, extraordinary things can happen.

He met God through a very difficult situation indeed.

God did heal him & he became one of the men most used by God in his time. He learned to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.

The new birth produces a nature of faith in us. It was seed of faith that produces healing in his life.

The Holy Spirit spoke to my heart that tells that use my hidden gifts to serve the Lord & to glorify Him. He placed new dreams in my life: share the Gospel through pictures, writings & vision of dreams, to have a complete 12 disciples, a job to bless others, etc.

REMEMBER:

NEW BIRTH ALLOWS US TO HEAR THE VOICE OF GOD, WHICH CHANGES EVERYTHING.

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Life Class Day 20

*John 3:8

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Birth is the beginning of life; to be born again is to begin anew, as those who had been living amiss or to little purpose.

We need a new nature, new principles, new affections & new aims.

By our first birth, we are corrupt, shaped in sin & iniquity; we need to become new creations.

This new birth comes from heaven. A major change takes place by the power of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the sinner - this means that something happens inside us & in our favor, something that would be impossible to bring about ourselves.

The wind blows wherever it pleases & God directs it. The Spirit dispenses His influences where & when, on whom & in what measure & degree He pleases.

*1 Corinthians 15:45

So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

Paul was speaking about the nature that must die in us & the nature that needs to come to life in our old nature's place.

When Jesus rose from the grave, He was given the right to give life to all who believe in Him.

Given that His Spirit gave us life & He is the One who lives in us, we too have His power to release life through the Word of God. We are called to be like Him in this world.

Just as a child picks up habits & expressions from their parents, we also acquire the nature of our heavenly Father, Jesus & the Holy Spirit.

*1 Corinthians 15:49

And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

*Matthew 26:73

After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, "Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away."

*Acts 9:4

He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

Jesus was identifying Himself with those who had decided to serve Him & who were being persecuted.

*1 Corinthians 15:53-54

For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

The process of sanctification is made possible when we understand the power of the cross, because it is through the cross that the Lord has given us complete victory over our human nature.

When we are able to die to the flesh & truly feel what Jesus felt on the cross, we will be able to live a renewed life.

God has given us the victory over death because His life absorbs the power of death, first spiritually & then physically.

*John 3:5-8

Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Being born again means that you are no longer the one directing your own life & you depend completely on the direction of the Holy Spirit instead. I will continue to pray to the Lord & will continue to read His Word & to listen to the Holy Spirit.

REMEMBER:

THE SPIRIT GIVES BIRTH TO SPIRIT.

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Life Class Day 19

When we are born again, [...] the Spirit of holiness is planted us as a Seed.

-Joyce Meyer

It is not always easy to fully comprehend how the new birth works.

*Luke 1:34-35

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

We are made one with the Holy Spirit when we decide to become one with God.

He is a complete gentleman & will never force things; He will not enter a person's life uninvited.

It will only act in accordance with our faith in the Word of God.

By means of the simple act of believing in the Scriptures & desiring their fulfillment in us, the Holy Spirit will come upon us & give birth to a new, holy nature in us.

This means He will give us the legal right to become children of God.

*John 3:8

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Sometimes the wind is strong like a hurricane, laying the waste to everything in its path; at other times, the wind is calm & gentle.

It is the same with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, strong emotions accompany salvation; at other times, the person does not even realize at what point their new birth took place.

Being born again means we receive a new life as soon as we accept Christ in our hearts as our personal Lord & Savior.

*John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

When we are born again, the Holy Spirit sows the life of Christ in us; this seed grows & develops, becoming progressively evident in our lives.

The new birth carries the seal of the Holy Spirit, meaning it cannot be invalidated or revoked.

*2 Corinthians 1:22

Set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

God Himself seals every new believer with His Spirit, guaranteeing them eternal life & a heavenly inheritance, which we attain when we go to be with the Father.

We must therefore avoid grieving the Holy Spirit.

*Ephesians 4:30

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

When we are born into a new life in Christ, we receive the seal of the Holy Spirit.

As a result, our priorities change & everything in life takes on new meaning.

We should make it our goal to daily maintain a passion for holiness so that the Holy Spirit can clothe us with power.

I have heard testimonies from my cell leader, talking about her experiences being born again. & I can see how she was transformed by God through the Holy Spirit.

REMEMBER:

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE ONE WHO GIVES US NEW BIRTH.

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Life Class Day 18

*John 12:24

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

*James 1:18

He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

God has left the door open so that all who so desire can be born into a spiritual life.

New birth implies letting go of our nature affected by sin so that our spirit can flourish in the kingdom of heaven.

*Ezekiel 36:26-27

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

We cannot have 2 hearts at the same time; no one can pour part of their heart out before God & another part toward sin.

Anyone who is with God hates sin, & anyone who enjoys sinning does not follow God. The Lord promises us a new heart & a new spirit.

When we receive these, God remove our hard heart & rebellious spirit. The spirit we receive is the Spirit of God HImself.

*1 Corinthians 3:16

Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?

The Spirit of God is the One who helps us understand the Scriptures, who gives us the strength to obey them & who prepares the atmosphere so that His promises can be fulfilled.

When God creates a new heart in us, He also gives us a genuine love for the Word of God - not only to read it, but also to put it into practice.

I consider it a lost day when I haven't had a good time over the Word of God. Friends often say, "I have so much to do, so many people to see, I cannot find time for Scripture study."

Perhaps there are not many who have more than to do than I. For more than half a century I have never known one day when I had not more than business than I could get through. For 4 years, I have had annually about 30,000 letters, & most of these have passed through my own hands.

Then, as pastor of a church with 1200 believers, great has been my care. Besides, I have had charge of 5 immense orphanages; also, at my publishing depot, the printing & circulating of millions of tracts, books & Bibles; but I have always made it a rule never to begin work until I have had a good season with God & His Word. The blessing I have received has been wonderful.

-George Muller

This insight into life helps us understand his triumphs in the faith & his ministerial fruit.

As believers, it is important that we allow the Word of God to penetrate to the very depths of our being.

It is His Word that will guide us, change us & help us in all our needs.

The Word also removes the desire we used to have to do the things we used to do.

*Psalm 90:12

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

To die means to shed off all our negative things in our lives.

I need to die anything that is negative & not allowing me to move forward in my life, like all my bad attitudes, unfortunate things, etc.

Commit to letting go of the things God is asking you to leave behind.

I commit to the Lord that I will make sure that my heart & spirit is pure & protected from all evil things. I also promise to let go all my negative things & leave them behind.

REMEMBER:

GOD HAS GIVEN ME A NEW HEART.

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