He was schooled in the law. He knew the law In fact, he boasted later that as far as the keeping of the law was concerned he was blameless He stuck to every part of the law. He was a Pharisee and They boasted in the law and in their ability to live by the law And then Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and it all changed Paul experienced something brand new that the Lord never given him But Paul still struggled With what had been born and bred into him That he needed to obey the laws of God and so Paul started out his spiritual life with great zeal Thinking that he should please God By keeping the law and he discovered something That he never realized before and he describes it to us in the book of Romans where he's explaining these things and in Romans chapter 7 Paul describes his Experience as he tried to live by the law He said I tried to do the things I knew were right to do But I kept finding myself doing the things I didn't want to do the things that I hated the sin Kept coming into my life Yeah, I tried as hard as I could to live by the law and obey God's laws, but I kept finding myself breaking those laws And he cries out in despair woe is me who will deliver me from this body of death Paul discovered That the principle of living by the law Actually didn't bring blessing at all It brought conflict and strife took away peace and Mess everything up today believers Are still trying to do the same thing They're still trying to live by the laws of God they come to Jesus and in faith reach out and receive his grace, which is his Undeserved favor the scripture always compares law and grace law is something that you are Benefited if you obey the laws and do them grace is where you get a benefit that you don't deserve It was given to you freely Though you actually didn't deserve to get it at all because you broke God's law God's grace still blesses you and believers today Are meant to be living under God's grace Now we have an enemy You know who he is He was originally Lucifer the son of the morning one of the archangels in heaven We call him Satan or the devil Satan wants you to live by the law Now I want you to let that sink in Satan wants you at all costs to make every effort you can To obey the laws of God you say but now hang on.

I thought I thought Satan wanted me to sin Exactly. That's why Satan wants you to obey the law You see Satan knows that nobody in this world can keep God's laws Nobody is able to maintain it he knows that sooner or later you will break God's law and you will sin and the curse is going to come into Your life and he doesn't want you to experience blessing. He wants you to experience a curse You see again why I came with the viewpoint that curses come from Satan But hang on it's God That is cursing us in a sense because we broke his law See, that's why grace has done away with the law Satan wants you to come under a curse Satan wants you to fail and break God's laws and sin because the moment you've done that he then comes to remind you He's known as the accuser of the brethren Satan comes to remind you you call yourself a Christian You thought you were so spiritual, but what about that sin you committed there? What about that that happened there? What about those words you spoke? What about those actions that you did that violate the law of God Satan knows the law back to front and tell you Satan will throw the law at you and remind you of the law and give it to you in detail He will remind you of exactly what your obligations are Under the law and when he does and accuses you Immediately puts a barrier between you and the Lord You're afraid to approach God because you failed him and instead of coming in Grace to receive the blessings that the Lord has for you What happens? Come under the curse Of the law if you are trying to live your spiritual life and earn your way to heaven By being a good little Christian I can tell you one Thing about you that I know without getting spiritual revelation You struggle with sin You find yourself failing all the time you find yourself feeling unworthy all the time You struggle like Paul did in Romans 7 you say oh, I'm so trying to serve the Lord But I keep falling I keep stumbling Some preachers love to major on this and every Sunday To make themselves look good.

They call the people forward to come and Rededicate their lives to the Lord or if you like you get saved again. They preach the law Instead of preaching the grace of God and because of that so many believers today are caught in a syndrome a principle of law Now because this world system was set up by Satan Satan has set the world up that we automatically think in terms of the law because he wants us to Try and live by the law because he knows we cannot and we will fail and we will break the law and we will sin And then he's got us God's grace Offers us an ability to be Not to do God never tells us what to do under the new covenant It tells us what to be And the first prime Commandment is this Says me 1 Peter 1 16 because it is written you be holy Well, I am holy Are you holy? Well, how do you judge yourself as being holy? Or not. Holy you say well, I I sin Now I want you to notice God did not say you must do holy things.

He didn't say do holy things He said be Holy holiness is a state of being Righteousness is a state of relationship with God But nothing to do with your performance your activities or what you do It is a position that was bought for you on the cross of Calvary and you enter into By faith through grace and it becomes yours. It's a gift of God Not something you earn the scripture tells us that when Jesus died and rose and ascended into heaven Spiritually we ascended with him and Paul says God has lifted us up to get the with him To be seated in heavenly places with him. So spiritually you are seated now with Jesus on the throne of heaven Or how can God allow that you've got sin in your life, let me give you the bad news You've got sin in your life And again, I don't need revelation are you human Male female Created as a human being then I can tell you right now You have sin in your life because you were born with the very nature of sin that drives you to disobey God and break his laws and to sin all the time under the Old Covenant The law was given To keep people for a season until God could provide the way of salvation through Calvary through the blood of Jesus The law was temporary Was never meant to be there permanently God tells us now in me You're already seated in heaven and he tells us to rest Not in what we do or can do but to rest in what he has Done and he promises that if you do that You will never ever be condemned Scripture says there's therefore now no condemnation to anyone who is in us Jesus But you know, it's built into us To do something I Can't just take it and sit there and Be I've got to do is a saying in this world goes like this God helps those who help themselves Some people think it comes from the Bible, but it doesn't So if I want God's help I've got to make an effort first it's built into us Even people who do not know God and don't believe in him have these moral principles Built into them.

We have an obligation to work at it to improve ourselves to do something to earn was in this world You get nothing for Nothing, you know that saying don't you in this world if you want to reap you have to first so Other religions call it the law of karma, but you so you will reap You must earn the right To God's blessings it's rooted in us. It's been bred into us. It's been programmed into us By who not by God About this world system and Unfortunately the church today and so many preachers are still operating from the world System and are still promoting and preaching this same lie If it's going to be it's up to me Nice little saying If what's going to be each person Approaches this in a different way You've got different temperaments and each temperament actually has a different kind of Motivation in this we've got the analytical temperament, which is a total Perfectionist the analytical feels that if I'm going to do something, I've got to do it, right? They'll often boast as Christians and say God wants the best from us So we can't just do it any old way.

We got to do it Perfect and so they are continually striving to make themselves better Because they never satisfied With where they're at. They're driven to continually improve amiable temperament Wants to help the whole world Every person they meet is a potential someone who needs help The amiable feels they have to be kind and helpful They carry other people's burdens. They're driven all the time to always be Helping somebody doing something expressive temperaments are driven to perform They feel they have to keep going always aiming for a new goal for a new targets pressing on Never satisfied Drivers are driven to work Continually, they cannot sit and do nothing If I'm going to accomplish something in this world, I've got to work at it.

I've got to strive. I've got to push Now when we take those Motivations and we mix them with our spiritual life and how we serve the Lord You know what it does to us? It pushes us into the law Not the same kind of law that God gave where he said thou shalt and thou shalt not But you see the Lord doesn't just speak of Commandments that are broken the law speaks about work effort deeds And the scripture says by the works of the law nobody will ever be justified in God's sight and so we compare faith and works faith Looks to God and receives works Try to perform to do something To change our circumstances to make our life better and what you don't realize is that the moment you get into self effort You're back under the law Now what happens when you get under the law? Times when you fail It's time to you succeed, but there's times when you fail and what happens when you fail you feel guilty You feel condemned You feel discouraged and in the end what is the result? the curse of the law The curse of the law the moment you try and live your spiritual life by what you do Sooner or later You're going to experience the curse of the law. It's like swimming While you're swimming and moving your body Or treading water You're keeping above water and you're not drowning At the moment you stop You begin to sink This world has been set up in such a way to keep you swimming to keep you treading water To keep you fighting for your life He translated that into your spiritual life.

You do the same thing I've got to keep my salvation. I've got to keep the blessing of God I've got to hold on to what I've got so far because if I don't I'm going to lose it If I don't keep doing something I'm not going to experience the blessing of God because God helps those who help themselves. I'm gonna get in there I'm gonna do the best I can I'm gonna work hard until God begins To bless me You know what happens eventually you become overwhelmed with the pressures of life and with the problems that come against you and Eventually you stop swimming And you start sinking Now if you're approaching from a law Point of view that's always gonna happen If you're looking from God's point of view Scripture says underneath Are the everlasting arms When you begin to sink These arms are there to lift you up To stop you from drowning Sometimes Sometimes the Lord waits For us to get to the place Where we give up It's a known fact that lifesavers Very often have to either wait for a drowning person to become totally exhausted and will stop struggling Or they have to go in and actually knock them out Before they can rescue them Because they're struggling they'll grab hold of the lifesaver and drown him along with them That's the way we are always striving always feeling I've got to do something I've got to do something see life Causes us to do that Why because this world system is controlled by the Prince of Darkness and his hordes not by God We've grown up in that we are full of it It has to come a time you let it Go When you stop striving And only when you come to that place Does the curse of the law? Stop operating in your life only then will you begin to experience instead of curses the blessings of God Now God does everything through faith and grace Ephesians 2 8 9 and 10 says this for by grace you have been saved by means of faith and this does not come from you It's a present from God It does not come as a result of your efforts So that nobody can boast or take credit for it By grace you have been saved Edward saved in the Greek sozo Involves everything You could ever need What is I? It doesn't only mean salvation from hell.

It doesn't only mean salvation from sin It means provision healing Victory over bad habits and bondage in your life if there's anything right now that you desire If there's any blessing you want from the Lord That is available under that broad term of Salvation Ultimately it means getting back to what Adam and Eve had this God gave them everything That you could ever want They were living lives of blessing Now you may have come to the Lord and accept that him as your Savior. You may Refer to yourself as I'm saved But I want to tell you something Whatever you experience in this life Every problem and difficulty that you experience in this life makes you a candidate again for salvation Every one of us at one time or another sooner or later Needs a Savior Save you from what? Save me from poverty save me from sickness to save me from loneliness Save me from depression Save me from fear You name it The Savior is there and Jesus paid the price on Calvary to give you everything What you need? I Will you accept that the Lord is your Savior the Holy Spirit came to live inside of you and he's always there Even if you do not feel it He wants to make Jesus live his life afresh In and through you he's going to help you to be settled and calm inside Take away all that Restlessness You know that the spiritual life Always starts with you sitting down It always starts with the rest Scripture says in Genesis that after God had done all the creation on The seventh day he rested Now man was created when on the sixth day So the seventh day Was Adam's first day in this world So, what did Adam do on his first day in this world Nothing He rested because God said this is a day arrest Now there's a lot of people who think we're still bound by the Sabbath by the Jewish law We're not allowed to work on the Sabbath day His entire denomination that have based everything on that one Commandments, but you see in under the New Covenant What was literal in the old has become spiritual in the new the Lord wants you to enter into a spiritual Sabbath Because Jesus already done the work and went on Calvary. He said it is finished.

It's done It's over The work was finished When you come to him you enter into his rest your spiritual life does not begin with action it begins with sitting and resting Now God wants you to have He wants you to be happy He wants you to enjoy the life that he created for you and He's ready to make it all happen If you're living within the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us on nine qualities that are given to us and these qualities all help us to come to a place of settledness and security They allow us to just be Without having to do that's whole study on its own. I've got a whole seminar that I covered on it You can go and read them in Galatians chapter 5. I Just want to mention this first three because they're the most important the first one is love that was not a feeling Love is a powerful force like light it will pierce and dispel The darkness and when you let that flow out of you, then you get very strong feelings Love is released through action You can't switch your feelings on and off but the Holy Spirit inside of you will release that kind of love The second fruit of the Holy Spirit is joy Now joy again is not a feeling. It's a powerful force that keeps you going even when Circumstances and everything are against you Scripture says the joy of the Lord is your strength and empowers you When you let that joy fly out of you.

Well, then the feelings come Then amazing feelings come some of the most exciting feelings we can have In this life, but you see what do we do? We look for these things outside of us People are looking for love But the world needs now is love sweet love It's the one thing that there's just too little of you know that old song People are looking for love Listen love lives inside of you If you want to find love you're looking at the wrong place if you're looking out there It's within you People are looking for joy They're doing everything they can to get those wonderful feelings, but the joy of God is worth in you the third one is peace a Peace is not an absence of conflict everybody's striving to create world peace Just listen to the news and see how much world peace you see You see how much peace you see within your own country within your own neighborhood There's conflict and strife if you want peace Stop looking in the world stop looking to people to create peace Peace of God gives you the ability to remain stable and unmoved Even though the whole world is falling apart all around you and you let that peace rise up. You're gonna feel secure and Stable He's not gonna be driven or pushed Just gonna be that's the place you must come to And that's the place I'd like to encourage you to come to See true happiness Is the choice It's not based on our circumstances it's not based on what's happening in our lives It's not based on what people do It's not based on what you have or do not have Your happiness comes from within Now if you're not a believer you don't have any of that and your starting point is to come to Jesus and Receive him as your personal Savior and to invite the Holy Spirit to come in to live inside of you And when you do that you're going to transition from living under the law of self-effort to a place of resting in the finished work of his grace So let me ask you ask you these questions, what do you feel deep inside you right now? Are you unhappy? Are you frustrated? Do you feel defeated? Are you not sure what to do next? Well, if you are a child of God, you're born again at the Spirit of God, you must not look for something to do Just stop And listen to his voice Inside of you Ask him to take control And to live his life Place all of those cares in his hands Stop, stop Stop all the striving, stop all the care, stop all the worry and anxiety Stop all the drive Stop Listen Doesn't speak loudly And if all the noises, the voices out there, if you allow them to fill your mind, you won't hear that sweet, deep, quiet voice Your Savior saying I'm here I want to do these things for you I want to be your Savior I want to save you from these problems that you're experiencing All you need to do is hand the control over to him And then make a choice It's the only thing you need to do, make a choice Happiness is a choice Make up your mind Declare with your mouth From now on I'm going to take what situation I'm in And a good start would be to look at all the blessings God's already given you and be thankful for them Many people all around you don't have what you've got We're never satisfied sometimes, we want more Start with what you have Scripture says godliness with contentment is great gain You can come to a place of contentment and you choose to be happy That high blood pressure will start to drop Those imbalanced hormones that are going haywire in your body will start to stabilize Your body will start to function the way God created it to Your emotions will quieten down and come under control And as Jesus takes his place on the throne of your heart there comes a stability and a peace and a security that holds you When things start going wrong all around you and you're tempted to worry Jesus in you will not let you worry When you're tempted to fear Jesus, vice versa, in you will not allow you to fear Now you can come to that experience and it's an amazing experience When you're saying, I really want to worry and if I look at everything that's going on I should worry But you know what, I can't worry I can't fear People are dying all around me but I cannot fear it because I know who is in control of my life If you learn to do this, folks, and live by his grace instead of by your own efforts you will never experience the curse of the law again in your life It's just coming to his presence before we end Lord Jesus, I thank you for your grace your love the fruit of your spirit that dwells within us I've given you a word, Lord and I pray that you have made it real and that even now you will make it real to each one who's listening to it right now And I ask, Lord, that you will give them your love and your joy and your peace for you have already given it to them and it's within them and I ask that you give them a revelation now I ask you to give each one a revelation of what they already have I want you to take all those cares all that striving all those desires that have not been fulfilled and I want you to stop all the plans that you're trying to formulate in your minds to change things Let go of all those ideas that keep coming over and over and over again where you lie awake at night saying What should I do? What should I do? What should I do next? Where should I go? How should I approach this? Let it go! Stop and choose happiness Choose the joy of the Lord Choose Jesus within you Instead of trying are the efforts of the Lord which will only bring you more curses and more problems Stop right now and say, OK, Jesus whatever I do next is going to be under your control I'm handing everything over to you You are living inside my body now and I want you to go as I go out, I want you to go and live your life through me When I speak I want the words that I speak to come from you Everything that I touch and lay my hands to do I want it to be done by you I won't rush in and do what I think I should do I will stop long enough to wait and ask What should I do, your Lord? What do you want to do, your Lord? What do you want to do in my life? I make you Lord I make you master Why don't you do that now? You'll have an amazing experience Something's going to happen deep down inside of you Now if you've never accepted Jesus as your saviour, this is the time to do that exact thing as well Lord, I give my life to you I receive you as my saviour and I hand everything over to you, because I accept you as my saviour and my Lord. Those of you who have been believers for a long time, it's kind of like getting saved again but you don't have to get saved again because he's always been there, he's never left you.

But you're going to experience the joy Scripture says, restore to me the joy of your salvation It doesn't need to restore the salvation, it just needs to restore the joy Why don't you let him do that now? Why don't you put aside all those cares? Father, I pray now for each one who's watching or listening to this right now that you will help them to take those cares and place them in your hands now and now Lord, I know that you will work on their behalf to provide not only what they need to not even only provide what they desire but to provide abundantly more as your word says than what we can even ask or think You stand on that promise He said I'll give you more than you can even ask or think or think how big you could ask He can give you something bigger than that Whatever you thought of is too small for God Because God calls the things which are not as though they were, he calls them into existence and creates them and he's going to create those things in your life You'll just stop and hand it over to him Hallelujah Can you feel that peace coming now? Can you feel that deep inner settledness? You don't have to trade water anymore You can stop swimming You're not going to die His arms are there holding you giving you security As you go out now each day start your day like that in his presence Let him guide you and lead you walking continually in that stability and peace Be with him Thank you for it Father in Jesus name Amen

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