Imagine that you are at a healing service. An alcoholic walks into the church reeking of alcohol. He sits behind the pianist, a nice elderly lady who has been serving in the church for 50 years. Both of them are suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. The healing power of God is present. In an instant, the alcoholic, who has never been in church before, gets healed. The pianist does not.

Most people, on hearing stories like this, would get upset and confused. They might ask, “Shouldn’t God heal this nice, old lady who has been serving Him faithfully all these years, and not that debauched drunkard?” You see, many people still believe that God heals only the deserving.

But that is not how God works. God looks at faith, not works. His power is made manifest in those who trust His goodness instead of their good behavior. So if we go back to the above example, God wants to heal both the alcoholic and the nice elderly pianist. All they need to do is to receive by grace, or unmerited favor, through faith.

You see, we cannot earn the blessings of God. We receive them by believing God’s love and grace toward us. If we receive the greatest blessing—salvation—by simply believing that Jesus did it all for us and not by working for it, what makes us think that the other lesser blessings can be obtained by our works?

So if my daughter Jessica falls sick, I don’t go to the Father and say, “Father, heal my daughter because I am Pastor Joseph Prince and I preach healing to the people.” No, I go to Him by the blood of Jesus and say, “Father, I thank You that 2,000 years ago, Jesus bore Jessica’s sickness in His body. On that basis alone and by Your grace, I pronounce her healed in Jesus’ name.”

When you simply believe that you receive your blessings based on Jesus’ finished work and by His grace alone, you will receive your blessings!

Credit: Joseph Prince Ministries

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The verse says that the grace of God was upon Jesus. The Bible also says that where sin abounds, grace abounds much more (see Romans 5:20). And when you put the two together, you may find yourself asking, “If the grace of God was upon Jesus, does it mean that He sinned?”

No, Jesus did not sin (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). So there must be another explanation as to why God’s grace was upon Jesus. There must be another explanation as to why someone can abound in God’s grace even when he has not sinned.

Let’s look at the word “grace” when it is first mentioned in the Bible. Genesis 6:8 says that “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Noah’s name means “rest.” So the verse is telling us that rest found grace. In other words, when you rest, you find grace!

So grace was upon Jesus because His life was a life of rest and trust in His Father. He said, “The Son can do nothing of Himself. He can do only what He sees His Father doing” (John 5:19).

Likewise, grace comes upon you when you rest and trust God. If you have a wayward child, stop nagging at him and trust God to handle the problem. Say, “Jesus, I commit this boy into Your hands. I cannot control him. You can.” If you have a persistent pain in your body, bring it to the Lord. Say, “Jesus, I hand all my worries about this pain to You. You work on the pain.”

“Pastor Prince, what if nothing happens?”

Honestly, if after you have given the matter to Jesus and nothing happens, what can you do? If Jesus Himself can’t do anything about it, do you think you can? But praise God, once the problem is handed over to Jesus, He can and will do a perfect work of taking care of it for you!

So live a life of rest. Have this attitude and tell the Lord, “I can do nothing of myself. I just rest in You Lord and I trust You.” Beloved, what you will see is the grace of God upon you in every situation of your life!

Credit: Joseph Prince Ministries

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Perhaps you have heard people say of others: “Oh, if only you had seen my husband in the early years of our marriage. He had such an explosive temper that I used to seek shelter in my mother’s house!”

“No one would have ever guessed that she had such a promiscuous past.”

“As a young boy, he would always lie through his teeth and not even bat an eyelid!”

Man looks at you and remembers what you were like in the past. But when God looks at you through the new covenant, He declares, “I will be merciful to your unrighteousness, and your sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

He states it plainly in His Word as if to assure us: “When you come to Me, don’t think that I am thinking about your sins. Don’t think that every time I look at you, I am reminded of your sins. Not only am I not keeping a record, but I am also not mindful of your failures and shortcomings. I am telling you that I will remember your sins no more, never again!”

God can say that all our sins He remembers no more because there was a time when He remembered them and punished every one of them—in the body of His Son at the cross. He punished every single one of them until Jesus cried out, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). That is why today, God can justly say, “Your sins I will remember no more.”

We all know that we sin from time to time. But the good news is that all our sins have already been dealt with at the cross. They have been washed away by Jesus’ blood. Now, when we come into God’s presence, He sees us without our sins. So beloved, forget your past failures. Believe that God remembers your sins no more and be the righteous man that you already are in Christ!

Credit: Joseph Prince Ministries

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