Life goes better when you put God first. Scripture says this; when you are planted in the house of the Lord, you will flourish. How many of you want to see your life, relationship, business and health flourish?
How do I plant myself in God’s House? It is real simple; just come to church. That is planting yourself in the house of the Lord.
Pray for your pastors and their families – Find a place to serve – Being Faithful in your giving; we need to honor God with our tithe and offering, to show Him that we are thankful for everything we have, and give back to Him. These are all ways to get planted in the house of the Lord.
When you go out, and have been doing all these things, you can say; Lord, I thank you because I’m going to flourish this week. My business is going to flourish – I am going to flourish with ideas and creativity. I’m going to flourish with my family. God I’m going to give you first place.
What great time to be here celebrating the Resurrection of the one who gave his life, so we might have life, and have it more abundantly.
I call it Ultimate Life. ‘Ultimate’ means ‘The best’ – ‘Life’ is the ‘Way of living’. So, the ‘Ultimate life’ is the ‘Best Way’ of living. The bible shows us the best way of living.
There are those times when you do not feel like coming to Church, but something happens when you get together with believers – especially with thousands of believers who are full of faith and expectation.
Here is the thing, faith is contagious. You would catch a cold from someone who has it. In the same way, as you are here today, you might catch healing, faith or favor – that person on the right or left of you – you know the bible says everything you put your hand too is blessed. Look at your hands real quick and say, my hands are blessed. Everything they touch, is blessed.
So when you begin getting around people, you begin getting contagious. And I think here at Watoto we need to be contagious, full of life, full of God. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be around corrupting people.
We are celebrating Easter and the Resurrection, the tomb is rolled back and Jesus sacrificed on the cross – I was reminded of a story of a young boy in England, years ago he wanted to come to America.
He has saved his money and finally, got enough to buy a ticket on a ship that was going from England to America. He had just enough for the ticket. He thought to him self; if I get there, I can start afresh, begin a new life. The first day on the cruise he got up and passed by the restaurant and cafeteria, people were there eating and enjoying.
He said to him self; that looks great, but I don’t have enough money to buy that food. So he went back to his cabin. Had a little bit of bread and some water and just rationed to that for the days it would take him to get to America.
3rd day – dinner was going on – he was looking in, just seeing all the people enjoying the great meals but he didn’t have enough money for the food, so he went back down – had a little more of his bread and water – the captain noticed and said; young man, I noticed every time there is a meal, breakfast, dinner, you come up and look – see all the food but you never go in there and eat any of them.
The young man said; Captain when I bought the ticket on the ship, I didn’t have enough money to pay for food or anything else, I barely had enough money to even get the ticket.
The captain looked at the young man and said; Young man didn’t you realize that when you bought the ticket you purchased all and the food had been included.
Jesus, when he died on the cross for you, he purchased the ticket and everything that you need has already been included in the ticket. There is peace in this ticket, Joy, blessing, healing – everything you need is already been paid for in this ticket.
It is up to us to receive the blessing that God has already supplied for us.
Scripture in Hebrews 9:12 says; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
I want to talk to you about the power in the Blood. In the Old Testament, the only way you would receive forgiveness from all your sins was to sacrifice an animal. Without the shedding of blood there would be no remission of sin.
Every year the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the temple, and he would make this sacrifice for the sins of all the people. And they called that the day of Atonement.
If the sacrifice was acceptable, then their wins would be covered not taken away. It was an ongoing process and priest had to be sure, that everything was perfect.
Animal had to be spotless, of right age and all other requirements. That was a constant pressure they had to live under. If our sins are going to be forgiven this year, is our sacrifice going to be good enough, they would wonder. The blood of animals only offered temporary forgiveness.
But God told Abraham that there was a day coming when he was going to get rid of the old covenant, God said that was ok for a time, but; I’m going to make a new covenant – and it will not just cover temporarily your sins, it will permanently take care of them.
Trouble is it couldn’t happen with blood of bulls, cubs or goats or anything like that – it wasn’t good enough. This kind of forgiveness was going to take a special kind of sacrifice. That is what we are celebrating this weekend.
So John the baptist was out one day ministering and when he saw Jesus, he looked up and said; Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.
John new that Jesus was the sacrifice that God told Abraham about. Jesus was God’s lamb and when He died on the cross, there was going to be shedding of His blood.
It says in Hebrews that; He went once and for all into the Holy of Hollies. Not with the blood of goats or bulls, but with his own blood to secure the redemption and forgiveness of sins for all of us. One bible version says; An everlasting release from our sins.
I don’t know about you but when we talk of good news, this is good news right here. His blood put an end to the old system of sacrificing again and again every year.
Now you can live with the confidence that your sins – past, present and future are going to be covered not just temporarily, but they are washed away. There is an ever lasting release that happens in your life and that is the power of the blood that Jesus shed for you.
By Pr Dave Martin.
More of the audio version of this message available at watotochurch.com
