Christ Alone

Romans 10 : 1 – 4, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. NKJV

Only Jesus Christ can offer the world true salvation. When Jesus died upon the cross at Calvary, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. The writer of Hebrews tells us that we have a High Priest, Jesus, who has gone before us and poured out His blood on the mercy seat in heaven. Now we can enter that holy place through faith and find help in times of trouble. Consequently, what does all this mean for the person who places their faith in Christ? Our salvation is complete in Christ! We don’t have to sacrifice animals and believe in Christ. We don’t have to add works of the flesh and have faith in Christ. When we accept Jesus, the Father accepts us freely and pardoned.

Does this mean that we are perfect when Christ enters our hearts? No, it doesn’t. Now that we have received Christ, we must become Christ-like. The church of Galatia was filled with Jews, who had come to faith in Christ. However, soon after they believed, they were tricked by unbelieving Jews to add the works of the law to what Christ had done for them. We all struggle with feelings of inadequacy and insecurity in our souls, even after we come to faith in Jesus. This is why we’re told in Romans and Hebrews that the JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.  

Now that you’re in Christ, you must continue to walk by faith, even though your salvation is complete in Christ. As we obey by faith, we are then transformed from being carnally minded people into becoming spiritually minded Christians. Even though we are saved in Christ, we haven’t been made perfect in love. Let’s look at this process in a different light.

When a baby is born and begins its new life, the parents soon realize that their bundle of joy has many demands that must be taken care of by them. As you and I begin our new life in Christ, we also discover that there are many needs, which can cause us to look outside our obedience to God in order to obtain them. Paul tells us in Galatians 3 : 1 that we are to obey the truth. As Christians, we obey the truth by adhering to the doctrines and commands found in the Word of God and by obeying the leading of the Holy Spirit. As we obey the truth and leave the religion of works behind, the Father can change our hearts and mature us to become His sons and daughters.  

Does this mean we won’t have any more challenges as believers? No it doesn’t. Even so, through the knowledge of the truth, we will learn how to go to God and trust Him to bring us successfully through all of life’s problems and situations. Christ teaches us to rely on our heavenly Father… not on our own abilities. This is true faith.

Worshiping God with My Whole Heart,
Pastor Asa Dockery  

Do Christians Have To Sin?

Romans 6 : 1 – 4, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. NKJV

Romans 6 : 11 – 13: Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. NKJV

What does it mean to be a disciple of the teachings of Christ? Does it mean that we have salvation, and we’re just waiting on the return of Jesus to take us out of this body of sin? Paul taught Timothy on the importance of rightly dividing the Word of God so that, as a minister, he wouldn't be put to shame.

Anyone can twist the Word to fit just about any belief out there in the world. If someone should alter the Word of God to accommodate a lifestyle that isn’t consistent with the entire gospel of Christ, then it ceases being truth and has no power to save a soul or change a person’s heart.

Paul didn’t mince words when it came to establishing the principles that God, through Christ, has set in His Word for the believer. Our old sin nature that was given to us by the sins of Adam cannot inherit the promise of eternal life. Therefore, God had to offer up a spotless Lamb to pay the price for man’s sin debt so that we can be bought (or ransomed) from the rule of Satan over mankind’s soul.

When Jesus died on the cross, He stripped principalities and powers of their authority and made an open spectacle of them through the cross. He descended into hell and took back the keys of authority over hell and the grave. Now that Christ has ascended into heaven and shown Himself as the Lamb and the High Priest to the Father, we all have been given the opportunity to leave the domination of sin and die to our flesh nature and live a holy and righteous life before God.

Since Christ has died for all humans and redeemed us all from the curse of the law of sin and death, we no longer have to live our lives in bondage to Satan or sin. The key to living free from the sin nature, or the Adamic nature, is to surrender our hearts to Christ and make Him our Lord and Savior. If this is true, and the Word declares to us that it is, then why do so many Christians choose to live in sin and not walk in righteousness and holiness?

The answer is found in Romans 6 : 11 – 13: Likewise, you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. As long as we choose to walk by faith in obedience to the voice of God and the Word of God, we won’t fulfill the lusts of the flesh. If we die to our flesh through obedience to God’s divine will, we will no longer be ruled by sin through the lusts of our flesh nature. So if we die to the flesh nature, we won’t sin. The flesh nature gives place for sin to rule our hearts and ultimately, our lives. However, this does not have to occur in a believer’s life.  

As Christ’s disciples, we must not live this new life according to the old lusts of the carnal or flesh nature. We must submit to God, resist the Devil, and he will flee from us, just as he did with Jesus, who was submitted to God in the wilderness. If you find that today’s word demands more than you’re able to offer, then today can be the first day of the rest of your walk.

Begin practicing your faith by obeying God and allowing Him to set you free from any habit, addiction, or relationships that might be holding you in bondage to the flesh nature. As you obey daily and seek God with your whole heart, He will do the work of setting you free from the old man and renewing you to become the person in Christ that He ordained from the foundation of the world. You can do it, and these devotions can help you succeed. Now place one foot in front of the other and begin to walk out your salvation through faith. You can do all things through Christ, who strengthens you.

Walking It Out by Faith,
Pastor Asa Dockery

Your Enemy Has Been Defeated

Revelation 12 : 10 – 12, Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. NKJV

Do you still fight voices of accusation, even as a Christian? Does guilt have a stronghold on your mind to the point where you will draw back from seeking God or obeying Him in your walk? Anything that comes against a believer with the intentions of pulling them away from God is a lie of the enemy. If you hear a condemning voice in your mind or have a person in your life that beats you down and causes you to grow weary in serving God or in doing well, then know that it is an attack of Satan.

If the questions and the descriptions that I have written sound like my computer is in your living room, then God is speaking a word through me to you. If you struggle with any of the aforementioned items, you must first submit to God in prayer and resist the Devil’s strategies that have been formed against you. As a Christian, you must know and understand that you don’t derive your identity from your actions or your weaknesses, but from Christ. So when attacks of the enemy strike don’t try to dig deeper in you, but rather dig deeper in Christ.

You’re not the source of your righteousness; Christ is, and that is why we must go to the Rock of our salvation, run into the Refuge in times of conflict and find peace for our weary souls. As you train yourself to begin to recognize an attack as being just that, and you can stop giving completely over to its suggestions or its condemnation, then you have begun to overcome Satan’s arsenal. The next step is to remember to “run to the Rock” or get your focus off the voices or storm and look to Jesus. He will empower you with His righteousness and show you how to respond properly to your attacker(s).

In today’s passages, you will notice that after the accuser of the brethren was cast down, the Kingdom of God and the power of Christ was released. You see; you’re in a battle, and you must remember not to take the conflict personally. This battle isn’t over you or your righteousness, but over your faith in Jesus’ blood and righteousness. Satan wants to make it about you; you are to remind your accuser it’s all about Jesus.

Once you arrive at the place in your faith walk where you’re gaining understanding to overcome the lies and assaults, then you will begin to experience the power of Christ (confidence) in your heart. The Lord will begin to restore your focus on your future in Him and off of your past in sin. The Devil is a liar, but we must grow to the place where we no longer receive his lies as the “gospel truth.”

You must exercise the gifts that God has given you as a believer, and one of those gifts is discernment. If something or someone speaks out something that seems to fit you, but causes you to begin to pull back away from God’s will or His presence, then know that you need to discern this as being a voice of the accuser.

Let the Lord fight this one. Jesus forewarned us that in this world, we would have tribulations. Nevertheless, He went on to say that we were to be of good cheer because He has already overcome this world. We’re in Him and not of the world; therefore, we have also overcome.  If God wants to correct us, He can do it. He doesn’t need Satan to tell us what is wrong. Amen? I thought so!

You Belong to God,
Pastor Asa Dockery

Speak No Evil

John 1 : 10 – 14, He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. NKJV

When God is ready to carry out His will in the earth, He sends His Word to execute it. God created man to co-labor with Him and to fulfill His purpose in the earth. We know this because of the words that God spoke over mankind in Genesis 1:26 – 28. Man chose to rebel against God in order to please "self." Consequently, God had to replace His perfect will for man with His intended will by sending the Word in the form of flesh to destroy the bondage of sin over those He would call out to serve Him and fulfill His purpose in the earth.

Since the fall of man, God has had to work against the will of man in order to restore the authority of His Kingdom on earth. Instead of Adam being obedient to the heavenly calling on his life, he gave way to the will of man or flesh, which produced sin and rebellion in the hearts of all mankind. Originally, God wanted man to walk in agreement with Him and in dominion over the earth. If man had obeyed, they would have fulfilled all that God had spoken over them in Genesis 1. God is at work now, not only to fulfill His original will, but to save those who are called to carry out His " divine will" from the will of man or the will of flesh.  

Occasionally, when God calls someone to begin the work of fulfilling His purpose in their life, they begin to speak the will of man (or the will of flesh) and not God’s will. When we respond to the calling of God on our lives by spewing out words of doubt and unbelief, it forces the Lord to begin shutting up the mouth of unbelief so that He can open the womb of faith.  

John the Baptist was the forerunner of Christ. He was called by the Lord to bear witness of the Christ and to preach the gospel and call sinners to repentance. John was a mighty miracle of God. John’s mother, Elizabeth was beyond the years of child bearing, yet God had caused her to become pregnant. In other words, God had opened her dead womb by faith to bring forth the voice of John in the earth.

Whenever his father, Zacharias, heard about God’s plan, unbelief began to speak through his mouth, and God had to shut that voice down. Zacharias wasn’t allowed to speak until his son was born. There were three miracles that took place before God’s plan could be fulfilled through John the Baptist. God had to open Elizabeth’s womb, shut Zacharias’ mouth, and bring forth the new life of John. Elizabeth was six months pregnant before she knew for certain that her baby was alive. The birth of this prophet of God was by faith, and unbelief could have no part in his arrival.

Why do you suppose Elizabeth had to wait six months before God would confirm that her baby was alive, even though it was God’s will that John be born? Look back at the mouth and doubt of Zacharias. His words had influence over this pregnancy, or God wouldn’t have shut him up from speaking. Elizabeth had to live in anxiousness for six months because of the words of her husband… until the day that Mary greeted her with good news.

When Mary cried out to Elizabeth, the faith of Mary, who had conceived the Christ without a man, caused John to leap in Elizabeth’s womb and be filled with the Holy Spirit. The will of flesh and of man had been abolished through the faith of a woman who had heard the voice of God.

Be careful what you allow to come out your mouth or who you give heed to when you share what God has planned for your life. The will of man and of flesh has to be abolished through our unwavering faith in what God has shown us or has spoken to us in our prayer time. The promise of God in your life isn’t dead. However, it may be dormant and waiting for faith to speak the Word of life over it. The promise lives, and it lives in those who place their faith in Christ and obey God’s will.

Blessed with God’s Will and Purpose,
Pastor Asa Dockery

Breaking The Barriers

Ephesians 3 : 20 – 21, Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. NKJV

WITH GOD, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. Are you born again? Do you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in your heart? Can God be in your heart and not be with you? Throughout the Old Testament, we read where God was with Israel. However, they limited the Holy One of Israel with their unbelief. God lives in our hearts, and God is with us. You may be wondering why I have belabored these points in my opening comments. It is to show Christians that, as a Christian, our greatest battle has already been won. The sin that once owned us and was a stumbling block that kept us alienated from the life of God has been abolished through the power of Christ. Now that God is with us, we can do all things through Christ, which gives us strength. NO LIMITATIONS!

God has promised us that He would withhold no good thing from those who walk uprightly before Him. This requires that you and I walk in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. As we walk by faith, we gather the confidence that God is, indeed, with us because our carnal mind is being destroyed. The carnal mind is dominated by thoughts of condemnation and guilt, which tend to isolate the believer from experiencing the presence of God. When we feel separated from God’s presence, it will greatly diminish our confidence to believe God to carry out His Word on our behalf. Consequently, our lack of confidence will give place to discouragement and unbelief.

Today, you may be facing what looks like impossible situations in the physical as well in the spirit. However, you don’t have to struggle with a lack of confidence and assume that you’re always going to have to live with limitations that seem to hold you back in your walk. The Apostle John tells us in his epistle, if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our heart.  

God lives in your heart through the Holy Spirit, so God is with you. If you don’t have the confidence that God is with you, and you tend to assume that things are never going to change for the better, then you must step out in faith and ignore your feelings. Feelings will deceive us into believing that the Lord isn’t with us, and if we fall prey to the feelings of our flesh nature, we will begin to believe that God isn’t with us when, in reality, He is.

If we believe anything that is contrary to God’s Word, we are acting in unbelief. If you’re faced with situations that seem to be insurmountable, then align your heart with God’s promises from His Word in obedience and watch the power of God destroy the weaknesses of the flesh.  

Once you overcome the feelings and step out in faith, you will realize that God was with you all along. However, Satan was preventing you from knowing it through the veil of your flesh nature. Go beyond the veil, enter into the Holy Place, and see the salvation of the Lord today. This is your day to seize what God has promised, but Satan has been prevented from occurring in your life and on your behalf. All things are possible to those who believe.

Believing God for Your Breakthrough,
Pastor Asa Dockery

Count It All Joy

Galatians 6 : 7 – 10, Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. NKJV

I have found that walking by faith and believing God for a promise to be fulfilled in my life isn’t hard until Satan sticks his nose in my business, then faith becomes a struggle. The Apostle James tells us to count it all joy when we fall into various trials. Let me preface this passage with these thoughts: Have you ever had the Lord make a promise to you, and you got excited with anticipation of the fulfillment of that blessing or increase in your life? Only to discover that shortly after you experienced the goodness of the Lord, it seemed as though the bottom just seemed to fall out of your life. Things that worked well for you may have even stopped working altogether. You no longer had normal problems; instead, they quickly escalated into weird and unexplainable coincidences or happenings.

It’s one thing for a believer to have a bad day, but when we have a bad day when we were expecting a blessing from heaven, it tends to cause us to become disillusioned and disappointed. Now, I will remind you what James tells us to do when faced with various trials. We are to count it all joy and wait on God’s promise to be fulfilled because we know that God can’t lie.

Therefore, we wait on God while exercising great patience. We’re taught that we should have joy when we meet with disappointment and discouragement instead of breakthrough. We should feel joy, not because we’re not human (now that we’re a Christian), but because we know that God is faithful, and this is a test to see if we will remain faithful even though it appears God has abandoned us.
The promises of God aren’t given to people who walk in unbelief. Instead, they are granted to those who are found to have faith in God when it appears as though God has forgotten what He has promised. If this process sounds strange or new to you as a believer, then allow me to give you a couple of examples before you begin your day that will encourage you to hang on and not give up on God.

In genesis 1 : 28, God promised Adam and Eve that they would have dominion over the earth, over the animals, and that they would also replenish the earth. After this time of prophecy and blessing, God put them in the Garden of Eden to test their hearts. Would they hold on to the promises of God and obey His voice in the interim or would they grow weary while waiting on God and disobey? We see that God tested their hearts by placing them where they had to decide, which, in turn, would determine if He could bless them.

Unfortunately, they made the wrong choice and lost the blessing of God.
In Exodus, God made a promise to Israel that He would give them a land flowing with milk and honey. Shortly after Israel was delivered from the land of bondage, they found themselves in the wilderness having to depend on God for food and water. The wilderness was nothing like the promise they had heard about while they were in Egypt. When the people realized that God had brought them to the wilderness and not the Promise Land, they begin to rebel because they didn’t count it joy. They allowed discouragement and disappointment to cause them to harden their hearts to the voice of God in unbelief. Since they chose to walk in unbelief, God couldn’t bless them with the Promised Land.

God speaks through Moses in Deuteronomy 8 and tells the children of Israel why He had brought them through the wilderness. It was the same reason that He placed Adam and Eve in the garden and why He tests our hearts after we receive a promise. He allowed them to hunger to see if they would keep His commandments  and to see what was in their hearts. When we expect God to fulfill His Word, but He tarries the fulfillment of it, and we go into a decline instead, we must be careful to guard our hearts so that we don’t allow unbelief to fill our hearts.  

If you will read James 1:12, you will discover that James is no longer talking about trials. He says, “Blessed is the man or woman who endures temptations.” Why did he change his focus from trials to temptations? While Adam and Eve waited on the unfolding of God’s promises, Satan came and tempted Eve. While Israel waited on God to fulfill His promise, Satan tempted them with unbelief, and they entered into that temptation. While Jesus waited on the provision of the Father after forty days of fasting, Satan tempted Him; however, Jesus was submitted to God completely.  

Yes, you and I will have to face some serious and burdensome trials while we wait on the faithfulness of God. In the meantime, we must be careful to guard our hearts against weariness, and we must encourage ourselves until the promise comes. Have you gone through so much hardship and discouragement that you have either given up or are about to give up on God’s faithfulness? Allow these truths to begin to get down into your heart and spirit and stir up your faith to keep on obeying and believing.  Who knows? This might be the breakthrough word that takes you over, and into the very promise that you were about to believe couldn’t be inherited. In your patience, possess you, your soul.

Waiting on the Faithfulness of God,
Pastor Asa Dockery

Higher

Proverbs 25 : 2, It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. NKJV

In Isaiah 55, God told Isaiah to prophecy to His people; He wanted them to know that their ways were not His ways, and neither were their thoughts God’s thoughts. He went on to tell His rebellious people that His ways and thoughts were higher than theirs. It’s not that God doesn’t ever want us to know His divine wisdom and plan. However, here, He wanted to awaken His people to the sin that had blinded them; they were walking in their own will and not God’s. If God didn’t want us to know His wisdom, His plans, and experience His life, He wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of giving us the written Word or His Spirit.

God desires His people to seek His face and to learn His ways. We’re told in Hebrews 11,  that if we will seek God, He will reward us for our diligence in seeking after Him. The Word of God tells us that the Lord knows our thoughts from a far, and He also knows what we have need of before we ask it of Him. It’s difficult for the human mind to comprehend that God is so vast and loving, and that He can know our very thoughts and have intimate knowledge of each person’s needs. How is it that He knows so much about us, but we know very little about Him? Throughout the Word of God, God invites mankind to get acquainted with Him and to come to the saving knowledge of His Son.  

Since mankind wrestles with the fallout from sin and feels unworthy, many people easily buy into the lie that they are unworthy to communicate with the God of creation. However, through the blood of Jesus, we have been made worthy to know the Father and to share our hearts with Him. Jesus has made it possible for all who believe in Him as the Christ to come before the Father and to be transformed in our minds. According to Philippians 2, we can now have the same mind(set) that Christ has and know the thoughts and the ways of God so that we might live in the way that pleases Him. It’s God’s good pleasure for us to know Him so that He can bless us. After all, we are the children of God.

Jesus tells us in John 10 that His sheep know His voice and another, they won’t follow. If we can know and recognize God’s voice, then we can also communicate with the Lord and come to know Him just as He knows us. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13 that we are to know even as we are known. This is the completion or the goal of God for His people… that we might know Him as the true God and Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son. You can know the ways of God, and you can think the thoughts of God today. Seek the Lord with your whole heart, and you will find Him.

1 Corinthians 2 : 12 – 16, Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words, which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ. NKJV

Discovering Who I Really Am in Christ,
Pastor Asa Dockery