All of Christ’s sufferings did not end when He finished His earthly ministry.

He still takes the persecution of His people personally as is revealed by His statement to Saul on the road to Damascus: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” He didn’t ask Paul why he was persecuting His people. He said, “Why are you persecuting Me?” When we are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, it is actually Christ who is being persecuted.

One of the most trying aspects of persecution is the feeling that God has forsaken you. “If God wanted to, He could stop the persecution, right?

Therefore, He doesn’t care.” That’s the way the devil tries to make us think.

However, the Lord is with you in persecution. If you remember this, it will keep you from being discouraged when persecution comes.

True Christianity is exactly the opposite of the whole-world system. We are heading in a selfless direction, while the world is consumed with self. Jesus teaches us to love, while the world is full of hate. We are suppose to turn the other cheek, while the world takes opportunities to hurt us. The world and Christianity are in conflict. The only reason a Christian would not suffer persecution is if he is heading in the same direction as an unbeliever. When we go God’s way, we will bump into the devil.

Christ is still suffering persecution today when His people are persecuted.

He will continue to do so until the establishment of His physical kingdom.

Not only does Jesus’ refusal to defend Himself show His humility, but His refraining from venting His wrath against the man who senselessly killed His friend who was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets (Mt. 11:11), also displays His humble nature.

Because of Christ’s humility and obedience to the Father, God gave Him a name that is above every name in heaven, earth and under the earth. There is no exemption for anyone or anything from coming under the Lordship of Jesus. He is Lord of ALL.

Jesus has not only been exalted above every “being” that has a name, but He is also highly exalted above anything else that can be named. If you can put a name on it, Jesus is above it. Sickness, poverty, depression, anger – everything has to bow its knee to the Lordship of Jesus.

Every knee of men, angels, and demons will bow and confess that Jesus is Lord. Those who have denied His existence will bow in worship. Those who have spent their lives rebelling His authority will finally bow in submission.

Every being from all ages will ultimately bow and worship Jesus. If we bow our knee to His Lordship now, we will enjoy a wonderful life here on earth, and an eternity in His blessings hereafter. Those who deny His rightful claim to the Lordship of their lives will suffer for it in this life as well as in the next. They still will have to bow their knee to His authority, so there is nothing to gain and everything to lose if they refuse to make Jesus Lord of their life.

Herod desired to see Jesus perform some kind of miracle, and some of the questions he asked Jesus made this desire obvious. However, Jesus did not use His faith to do any miracles for Herod.

Miracles are God’s way of meeting the needs of those who seek Him in faith. Miracles will sometimes be used to demonstrate God’s ability so that people may believe (Mk. 2:10-11), but they will not happen to skeptics who are tempting God (Lk. 4:9-12).

A miracle is a supernatural intervention of God’s power over natural law.

Healings occur within the boundaries of natural law while miracles are not limited to natural law. A person with a high fever who receives prayer and then begins to recover is experiencing a healing. The Lord intervened but in natural ways. The virus, infection, or whatever was rebuked left the body (Lk. 4:39) and then the natural healing process that the Lord built into all of us took over. When something totally supernatural happens, that’s a miracle. When Jesus reattached the servant’s ear and it was instantly whole after Peter cut it off (Lk. 22:51), demonstrated a miracle. It was also a healing, but it was a miraculous healing.

Feeding the five thousand (Mt. 14:19-20), walking on the water (Mt. 14:25), translating a ship and all aboard to the other side of the sea (Jn. 6:21) – all these are miracles. Miracles are usually instantaneous whereas healings are sometimes gradual.

The Lord has never had anyone who was qualified working for Him. It’s by God’s grace that He uses any of us. Anyone who claims to be used of God because of his great holiness is either deceived or a deceiver. It’s our faith in the grace of God that allows miracles to flow through us.

God’s kind of love is not self-serving or self-seeking. Agape love will cause a person to lay down his life for another (Jn. 15:13), because he has literally forgotten himself. Many times when heros are asked why they put themselves in jeopardy to save someone else, they reply that they didn’t even think about themselves. All they thought of was the danger to the other person. That’s God’s kind of love.

God’s type of love involves emotions many times, but it is not an emotion. It is an act of the will. We can choose to love even when we don’t feel like it and we can always conduct ourselves in a godly manner, when we feel God’s kind of love. God’s kind of love is a choice.

God’s kind of love is also the antidote to selfishness and pride. We cannot conquer self by focusing on self. The only way to win over self is to fall in love with God more than with ourself. It is in discovering God’s love that we lose self love.

Jesus didn’t feel some emotional sensation when He chose to die for us, but that was the greatest demonstration of God’s kind of love that the world has ever seen. He made a choice in spite of His emotions. Because He was consumed with God’s love, He acted properly, even when His emotions didn’t agree.

Jesus is the ultimate example of God’s kind of love.

Teaching and learning in the scriptures, are much more than academic. It involves being guided by God’s principles in relationship to others, as well as knowing and responding to God. It calls for the learner to put the Word of God into practice, not just hear it (Jas. 1:22). It involves hearing a word from the outside and putting it on the inside, so that it may be expressed in our every action. Proverbs 2 tells us to incline our ear unto wisdom, apply our heart to understanding, cry after knowledge, lift up our voice for understanding, seek her as silver, search for her like hidden treasures, and then we will understand and find the knowledge of God (Prov. 2:1-7). God says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6), and He admonishes us to meditate on His Word day and night that we may observe to do all that is written therein.

All things should be done unto edifying. If those present cannot be taught by what is being done, then it shouldn’t be done. Just as with the gift of tongues (that was spoken in the church to benefit everyone) so it is with prophecy. Those who listen will learn and be comforted.

The end result of prophecy is to comfort, encourage, edify, strengthen, exhort, stimulate and help. These should be the guidelines for prophecy within the New Testament church.

We, as believers, are given the sole responsibility in ministry to build others up. This takes place in various ways as we walk in love, promote harmony and peace, and seek the true welfare of others. We must prophesy unto the edifying of the church, and speak things that are good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others.

Here is the account of God’s own creation mocking and insulting His Son without Him intervening. The pain that this must have caused the Father defies description.

Those who struck Jesus and told Him to prophesy who it was that struck Him, must have taken Jesus’ silence as proof that He was not who He claimed to be.

The natural mind could not conceive that Almighty God would take this kind of abuse from His creation. But this was the plan of God.

Isaiah prophesied that, as a lamb before its shearers is dumb (Isa. 53:7), so Jesus would not open His mouth. Isaiah also mentioned that Jesus “was taken from prison and from judgment” referring to the fact that He was not given a fair trial (Isa. 53:8). Isaiah went on to prophesy in Isaiah 53:9 that Jesus would make “his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death.” This was fulfilled when Jesus was crucified between two thieves and buried in a rich man’s tomb.

There are several Greek words used for “word.” The Greek word used here is RHEMA and it literally means, “a spoken word; an utterance, a saying, but specifically a spoken word appropriate for the situation.” It’s not the Bible lying on your coffee table that makes the enemy flee, but the Word of God hidden in your heart, activated by the power of the Holy Spirit, and spoken in the appropriate situation. It’s similar to what Jesus says in John 6:63, that “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.”

The words that we speak from the written Word of God are empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Word by itself doesn’t make us free. It is the Word we know and speak that will deliver us (Jn. 8:32).

Why is the Word so effective? Because it is the WORD of God. It has authority, because it is indeed the WORD of God. God’s Word supersedes all authority of the church, of reason, of intellect, and even of Satan. That’s why it is so effective.

In Luke, chapter four, when Jesus was tempted of the devil for forty days, it was the Word of God that Jesus used to defeat the enemy at His temptation.

Jesus constantly met His temptation by quoting from God’s Word as He repeatedly stated the phrase, “It is written.” Likewise, the Christian soldier must avail himself of God’s Word by placing it in his heart so that the Holy Spirit may bring it forth at the appropriate time to accomplish a complete and total victory.

The physical nation of Israel still has a very important part to play in God’s plan. They have a prominent role in end-time prophecy. However, the physical nation of Israel has been displaced in importance by the spiritual seed of Abraham, that is the church of Jesus Christ.

Christians are the true circumcised people of God. In Romans 2:28-29, Paul reveals that true circumcision is a matter of the heart, not the flesh, and that true Judaism is through new birth, not physical birth.

In Colossians 2:11, Paul says that spiritual circumcision was done by God without the hands of man. This circumcision, that was made without hands, proves that it was not done in the physical. Paul is referring to the spiritual circumcision of the heart. The sins of our heart were cut away and discarded through the sacrifice of Christ in a similar way that the foreskin is removed from a male. The physical act of circumcision is a picture of the spiritual circumcision that is now a reality in every born-again believer.

The condition of a person’s flesh is not the important thing. It doesn’t matter if the flesh is circumcised or holy. It is the condition of the spirit that matters with God. Those who put faith in their circumcision to save them are putting confidence in the flesh and not in God. Today, the act of circumcision is not the issue, but acts of holiness are still deemed by many as essential for receiving salvation. That is just as wrong as those in Paul’s day who believed that being circumcised granted them salvation.