What good is a Ferrari if it can’t be driven?
What’s the point having so much power and not using it?
Acts 1:8 (NLT)
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem,
throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Don’t just have potential energy, turn it into kinetic energy.
Don’t be a wagon of ammunition, be a rifle. Jesus went around discharging,
doing good and using His power. We must lay hands on the sick and cast out demons.
The more it’s used, the more it’s refilled. Why charge a full battery?
Believe you have power and that you are carrying the power of God,
the same power that rose Jesus Christ from the dead.
John 8:36 (NLT)
“So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free”.
We have to be free to do what we want to do. However,
there is a right kind of freedom.
Revelation 12:1-12 (NLT)
“Then I witnessed in heaven an event of great significance.
I saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet,
and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant,
and she cried out because of her labor pains and the agony of giving birth.
Then I witnessed in heaven another significant event.
I saw a large red dragon with seven heads and ten horns,
with seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept away one-third of the stars in the sky,
and he threw them to the earth. He stood in front of the woman as she was about to give birth,
ready to devour her baby as soon as it was born.
She gave birth to a son who was to rule all nations with an iron rod.
And her child was snatched away from the dragon and was caught up to God and to his throne.
And the woman fled into the wilderness,
where God had prepared a place to care for her for 1,260 days. Then there was war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. And the dragon lost the battle,
and he and his angels were forced out of heaven. This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil,
or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.
Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens,
It has come at last— salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has
been thrown down to earth— the one who accuses them before our God day and night.
And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony.
And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.
Therefore, rejoice, O heavens! And you who live in the heavens, rejoice!
But terror will come on the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you in great anger,
knowing that he has little time”.
Deception is the act of deceiving someone. In Genesis, the devil asked Eve, “Did God really say that?”,
This was for the purpose of misleading Eve. One of the worst things someone can do to you is lie.
In verse 8, we are told that the dragon got sent to earth. He is still spreading lies and deceiving people.
John 8:32 (NLT)
“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”.
If you are not free from the lies of the enemy, then there is no way you can be set free.
Good news!! Jesus is still is the business of setting us free and telling the truth.
John 1:29 (NLT)
“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said,
‘Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Once sin is taken out, joy comes in. Prosperity comes in. Selfishness is a sin.
People think it’s when they keep that they get. That’s another lie of the devil. When you give, you get.
1 Corinthians 10:24 (NLT)
“Don’t be concerned for your own good but for the good of others”.
John 5:1-3, 5-14 (NLT)
“Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days.
Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches.
Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches.
One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him,
“Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said,
“for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up.
Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”
Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” Instantly,
the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!
But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected.
They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath!
The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!” But he replied,
“The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.
The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd.
But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him,
“Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you”.
Jesus didn’t tell the person in the end of the passage to take his medication,
but he told him to sin no more. In addition, Jesus didn’t even ask for a thank you
after healing the person, he just left.
John 8:1-11 (NLT)
“Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple.
A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking,
the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery.
They put her in front of the crowd. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus,
“this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him,
but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer,
so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”
Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one,
beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman.
Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more”.
In this example again, Jesus tells the adulterer to go and sin no more.
John 9:1-25, 35-41 (NLT)
“As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Rabbi,”
his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”
“It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered.
“This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.
We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us.
The night is coming, and then no one can work. But while I am here in the world,
I am the light of the world.” Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva,
and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. He told him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “sent”).
So the man went and washed and came back seeing! His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar asked each other,
“Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” Some said he was, and others said,
“No, he just looks like him!” But the beggar kept saying, “Yes, I am the same one!”
They asked, “Who healed you? What happened?” He told them,
“The man they call Jesus made mud and spread it over my eyes and told me,
‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash yourself.’ So I went and washed, and now I can see!”
“Where is he now?” they asked. “I don’t know,” he replied.
Then they took the man who had been blind to the Pharisees, because it was on the Sabbath that Jesus
had made the mud and healed him. The Pharisees asked the man all about it.
So he told them, “He put the mud over my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see!”
Some of the Pharisees said, “This man Jesus is not from God, for he is working on the Sabbath.”
Others said, “But how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs?”
So there was a deep division of opinion among them.
Then the Pharisees again questioned the man who had been blind and demanded,
“What’s your opinion about this man who healed you?” The man replied,
“I think he must be a prophet.” The Jewish leaders still refused to believe the man had
been blind and could now see, so they called in his parents. They asked them,
“Is this your son? Was he born blind? If so, how can he now see?” His parents replied,
“We know this is our son and that he was born blind, but we don’t know how he can see or who healed him.
Ask him. He is old enough to speak for himself.”
His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders,
who had announced that anyone saying Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue.
That’s why they said, “He is old enough. Ask him.” So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him,
“God should get the glory for this, because we know this man Jesus is a sinner.”
“I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied.
“But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!” When Jesus heard what had happened,
he found the man and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man answered,
“Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.” “You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and he is speaking to you!”
“Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus. Then Jesus told him,
“I entered this world to render judgment—to give sight to the blind and to show those
who think they see that they are blind.” Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked,
“Are you saying we’re blind?” “If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied.
“But you remain guilty because you claim you can see”.
It makes sense that the disciples asked who sinned, as in two cases now Jesus has said go,
and sin so more. For the first person we looked at by the water, Jesus said if you sin again something
worse will happen to you, so the disciples assumed that sinning May lead to unfortunate circumstances.
I pray that God will open our eyes to see. You will never see the need to apologise to
anybody until God opens your eyes. When God opens your eyes, you will run to God,
knowing you need someone to deliver you from yourself. How do you follow the Lord if you can’t see him?
As you repent, you will see more and more, and then you will follow God.
Everyday, God is performing a miracle in your life, and you need to acknowledge it.
The miracle of sight, hearing and sleeping – some people can sleep like a log through a fire alarm!
Then you wake up and say God doesn’t exist? Do you believe God is the one that gives you power?
That gives you energy? Do you worship the one who gives you breath? The one who wakes you up each morning?
Over time, we’ve forgotten about that. People think it’s their alarm that wakes them up,
but the alarm just startles you. It’s God that puts your spirit back in you.
If you sit down and observe, you will see the Lord in the things around you.
In the things that are meant to give you the finest joy will always give you the finest challenges.
For example, relationships. Sometimes your partner can provoke you. In these situations, say nothing. Dont say things you will later regret.