Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Discipleship TODAY Ep 2 Deny Yourself Fasting



There is only one way to have salvation
and that is the way of DISCIPLESHIP, following Jesus Christ. There is
only one way that we can follow Jesus Christ and that is to be LED by
the Holy Spirit. Most believers do not have the Holy Spirit, they do
not know what discipleship is all about. it will COST you to follow
Jesus Christ. The COST is very high and Jesus said that if we WISH to
follow Him we must DENY OURSELVES, PICK UP OUR cross and FOLLOW Him.
Most believers do not know what that means and I want to explain that
today.
We read in Luke chapter 9 "23And
He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come
after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and
follow Me. 24“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose
it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will
save it. 25“For what is a man profited if he gains the whole
world, and loses or forfeits himself? 26“For whoever is
ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him
when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and
of the holy angels."
We have to DENY OURSELVES. What does it
mean to DENY YOURSELF?
It means to REPENT, REPENT, TURN AWAY,
DISREGARD and REFRAIN from satisfying our own DESIRES, NEEDS,
PLEASURES, ASPIRATIONS and PLANS. You ABANDON your own desires, that
which you LIKE. You give it up and then you have to go after Jesus
Christ.
Jesus said that you have to PICK UP
YOUR CROSS. what is that CROSS?
The cross is the COMMANDMENTS of
Jesus Christ, His WORDS, that which He spoke. That was also recorded
in the gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Those are the words of
eternal life and we have to OBEY them if we want to have eternal
life. Before we can follow Jesus Christ we have to obey those words.
That is the CROSS, because as soon as you start obeying the words of
Jesus, if you REPENT, turn away from sin, turn away from the things
of the world and live according to the words of Jesus then you will
be REJECTED. You will be PERSECUTED, you will be SLANDERED, you will
be EX-COMMUNICATED. The world will REJECT you, family will reject
you, you might lose your job, you might lose your spouse. Your
children might reject you, you will end up ALONE. And if you keep on
obeying Jesus, doing as He commanded, you will end up alone,
carrying your cross.
Obeying the words of Jesus Christ and
doing as he commanded , that is the cross that we will bear. If we
disregard His words and disobey Him then we are not suitable for His
kingdom, we cannot follow Him.
Many refuse to be baptized in water
because if they are baptized in water people will reject them. They
rather treasure the acceptance of people than the acceptance of God
and therefor they cannot follow Jesus. They are not willing to pick
up their cross every day and follow Jesus Christ in spite of
rejection, in spite of difficulty, in spite of persecution. They
don't want the cross. They are not willing to give up the things of
the world , they are not willing to bear the cross. If we make up our
mind to follow Jesus Christ and we deny ourselves, we OBEY His words,
REPENT and are baptized in water then only can we follow Him BUT we
can only follow Jesus Christ if we are LED by the Holy Spirit. If we
do not have the Holy Spirit we cannot follow Jesus Christ. You cannot
follow Jesus from reading the Bible. You cannot follow Him form being
religious, going to church, being in fellowship with other
Christians. You have to be in fellowship with Jesus Christ. You need
to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and then follow the guidance of the
Holy Spirit every day. You have to stay with Jesus , stay tuned in,
listen to the Holy Spirit and He will teach and guide you. He will
send you, He will use you. Jesus has called each and every one of us
for a purpose in His kingdom and the only way that we can fulfill
that purpose is if we are led by the Holy Spirit every day.
There is no TIME OUT. You cannot stop
following Jesus Christ for a day or two and then go back. You have to
follow Him every day until the very end. That is the road of
discipleship.
The apostle Paul wrote in Romans
chapter 8:14 "Those who are being led by the Spirit of God, they
are the sons of God," the children of God. If we are not led by
the Spirit of God then we are not the children of God, we are not the
sons of God.
We can only follow Jesus Christ if we
have His Spirit and if we LISTEN, FOLLOW and OBEY Him. We have to
make SPACE for His Spirit. That is why we have to DENY ourselves, we
have to deny ourselves our own plans, deny ourselves watching TV,
playing sports, doing the things that the world do and OPEN our
hearts for Jesus, invite Him in, WAIT on Him, SEEK Him, PRAY and ask
Him to FILL us with His Spirit so that we can be in FELLOWSHIP, in
RELATIONSHIP with Him and that we can follow Him, and DO His will.
Many people say they have been asking
for the baptism in the Holy Spirit and they are not receiving it. It
is because they are not seeking. It is because they are not SERIOUS.
We have to EARNESTLY SEEK the infilling with the Holy Spirit even if
it means that you have got to FAST and PRAY and WAIT on the Lord to
FILL you.
Many believers do not know what the
purpose is of fasting.
After our Lord Jesus was baptized by
John the Baptist, He was led into the desert by the Holy Spirit,
where He fasted for forty days, He was without food and after that
the devil came and tempted Him but He overcame satan.
The purpose of FASTING, going without
food for some time, to pray is do deprive yourself of sensual and
physical pleasures and to focus on Jesus. As the physical is weakened
the spiritual inner man that is normally suppressed and smothered is
allowed to surface and you become spiritually awake, your spirit is
released and becomes open to the Holy Spirit. While you are fasting
you have to get your focus on Jesus Christ and PRAY because as your
body is weakened and your spirit becomes awakened you will be
attacked by evil spirits also, by demons, like Jesus was attacked by
the devil. You have to keep your mind and your spirit focused on
Jesus Christ and OPEN yourself to Him. You have to fight off the evil
spirits.
The first three days you will become
hungry and you will want to eat. After three days the hunger pains
will leave you and you will be able to stay without food much easier,
but keep on using water. It is possible to fast on water for forty
days as Jesus Christ did. And after that the devil tempted Him but
He overcame satan. He was filled with the Holy Spirit and then His
ministry started.
If we follow Jesus Christ we need to be
filled with the Holy Spirit and the POWER of God. We need to to be
RECEPTIVE to the Holy Spirit. We need to KNOW His VOICE and FOLLOW
Him. If we have not received the Holy Spirit and we have not learned
to HEAR His VOICE, to LISTEN, to OBEY, to FOLLOW then we cannot
follow Jesus Christ.
We need to be FILLED with the HOLY
SPIRIT. We have to overcome our own flesh, we have to overcome the
attacks of the devil.
That is why most Christians cannot stop
sinning. They have never FOUGHT the devil and overcome. They are
still battling with sin and they are not led by the Holy Spirit
because they do not have the Spirit of Christ IN them. We have to be
FILLED with the Holy Spirit, we have to be taught by the Holy Spirit
and led by the Holy Spirit to do the works of God, to fulfill the
task for which Jesus Christ has called us and if we do not have the
Holy Spirit and do not submit ourselves to Him daily, pick up our
cross and follow Jesus Christ, PRAY, LISTEN, OBEY and DO what He
commands us to do then we are NOT suitable for the kingdom of heaven,
we are not useful, we cannot bear fruit for the kingdom of God if we
are not LED by the Spirit of God. We cannot go out on our own and
work for God. We can only work for the kingdom of God if we are led
by the Spirit of God, if we FOLLOW and OBEY Jesus Christ every day.
Very few Christians follow Jesus
Christ. Very few are disciples because most Christians have never
received the Holy Spirit and even those who did receive the Holy
Spirit do not follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
It is through our relationship with
Jesus Christ, being LED by the Holy Spirit every day, that we gain
WISDOM and UNDERSTANDING, that He TEACHES us and GUIDES us and we
become part of His kingdom because we SERVE Him.
Jesus Christ requires DISCIPLESHIP.
There is no other way to follow Him but to be a DISCIPLE who is LED
by the Holy Spirit.
Have you become a DISCIPLE of Jesus
Christ?


May Jesus bless you.

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