Gateway Community

GOD created angelic beings (see Hebrews 1). One of them betrayed God and led a revolt against Him (see Revelation 12). Defeated, Satan and his angelic allies were cast out of heaven. This foe of God is our adversary. Described as a thief, murderer, and destroyer (John 10:10), the accuser of the faithful (Revelation 12:10), the devil, he is no impotent, imaginary character. Rather, he is a present and real enemy who seeks only defamation, death and destruction for believers. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, many believers do not take his existence or scriptural warnings and instructions about him seriously; thus his activity is often attributed either to God or us. To live the life God has for us demands that we deal with our enemy. In James 4:7 and 1 Peter 5:8&9, we are commanded to resist Satan. In Ephesians 6:10-18, we are told to put on the armour of God because we will be doing battle against the enemy.
by John Eldredge

James 4:7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

1Peter 5:8 – 9 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like aroaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.

Ephesians 6:10 – 15 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principal ties, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

Ephesians 4:1—3
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Before Paul starts to teach the Ephesian believers how to walk worthy of the calling to which we have been called in Christ Jesus, he clarifies the position which we have in Christ and the power we have been given by  His grace and spirit. And, it’s because we are cleansed by the blood of Christ, seated together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, have our new nature in Him, are holy and without blame before him in love, that we can be empowered to live a life which would otherwise be ‘impossible’. Once the Christian accepts and believes who they are in Christ, by His grace and finished work on the cross, they begin to realise that all things are possible to those who believe!

Ephesians 1:3—7
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.

Yours sincerely
Pastor Sandro Schietroma

When the women came to Jesus’ tomb, very early in the morning on the first day of the week, they found the tomb empty.  An angel appeared and said to them, “Don’t be alarmed, you are looking for Jesus theNazarene, who was crucified.  He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him”. (Mark 16:6)

If you go to the place where they say the tomb of Jesus is today, you will find a sign with those words, “He has risen, He’s not here”….

There have been many attempts to try and locate the remains of the dead body of Jesus.  To try and find the dead physical body of Jesus is like trying to find the missing link between man and apes; they simply will never find it, because there isn’t one.  We serve a risen Saviour who  defeated death, therefore giving us the hope of a new resurrection as He said in John 14:19:  “Because I live, you also will live.”

John 11:25– 26
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?”

Happy Resurrection Sunday
Sandro

Occasionally the voyage gets arduous as if you’re ascending uphill, your body ambience’s fatigue, your mind may get weak, your feelings are unsystematic and you may even “speculate”, “God are you still with me, I feel alone”. King David through the Psalms expresses these sentiments, but regardless of his “emotions” he always makes a deliberate decision to trust in God’s mercy, rejoice in the Lord and sing to Him in spite of his feelings:

Psalm 13:1-6
How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and hear me, O LORD my God;
Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death;
Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him”; Lest
those who trouble me rejoice
when I am moved.
But I have trusted in Your mercy;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.
(N.K.J)

Sandro

1 Corinthians 13:4-7  (NIV)
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

God is love, and love does not keep any record of “wrong”.

Under the new covenant, God says that, “Our sins and iniquities He remembers no more” (Heb.10:17), “He has cast all our wrongs as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12).  As His children who reflect His image – love and grace – this can be a challenge to us.

The Word clearly calls Satan “The accuser of the brethren”(Rev.20:10).  We must allow God’s grace to work in us, as we renew our minds to be more Christlike, and reflect His grace towards our Christian brothers and sisters and not reflect the  image of the “accuser” by finding fault, holding on to each others shortcomings.

Jesus gave us a parable of the servant who was forgiven by his master for a BIGGGG debt.  The servant then went and found someone who owed him a debt and severely held it against him.  That man’s master was very upset with him. We must learn to forgive as we have been forgiven.

Mat 6:14-15  (NKJ)
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Let us embrace His grace toward us and reflect it towards the wider body of Christ, after all, “We have all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God”, but we are saved by grace through faith in the finished work of the Lamb of God, upon the Cross of Calvary.

You are Blessed to Be a Blessing!
Sandro

Hebrews 8:10 & 12
I will put My laws in their mind… I will be their God… I will be merciful to their unrighteousness… their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.
A Daily Devotion by Joseph Prince

You may be feeling stressed at work today because your boss just gave you a list of things to do. Maybe he told you, “You have to type this letter. You have to meet this client. You have to write this report. You have to…” Wouldn’t it be nice if your boss
had, instead, said, “I will type this letter for you. I will meet this client for you. I will write this report for you. I will…”?

Well, your boss may not be that gracious, but your Father in heaven is! When He found fault with the old covenant and established the new covenant (Hebrews 8:7–8) in His Son’s blood, His “Thou shalls” became “I wills”. You see, under the old covenant, the focus is on you — Thou shall not… Thou shall not… Thou shall not… It is all about your performance, your obedience, your works.

But under the new covenant, God says, “I will put My laws in their mind… I will be their God… I will be merciful to their unrighteousness… their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” It is no longer you working for God, but God working for you, in you, through you! The more you believe His “I wills” or promises, the more you will see His heart for you and the more your faith will grow.

It is foolish for me to just tell you, “Come on, man, have faith!” You will still find it hard to have faith because I am not giving you anything to build faith in you. But if I were to tell you all about what God says He will do for you, faith will arise in your heart. Faith is a response to knowing what God says He will do for you.

So the best thing you can “do” under the new covenant is to not focus on what you must do for God, but what God says He will do for you!

Matthew 15:27
And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

Come as you are to the Lord with your need, and lean on His unfailing and unconditional love for you. You don’t have to pretend to be more than what you are to receive the blessing you need from God. You don’t have to pretend to be someone else to appear more deserving to receive from God.

A Canaanite woman desperately seeking healing for her demon-possessed daughter came to Jesus (Matthew 15:22– 28). Knowing that He healed and did miracles among the Jews, she pretended to be a Jew, calling out, “O Lord, Son of David!” (only the Jews addressed Jesus as the “Son of David”). Jesus did not answer her. His silence made her drop her pretense and cry out, “Lord, help me!”.

Only when her pretenses had melted away did she see the grace of God extended to her. Jesus made a way for her to receive her miracle even though it was not yet time for the Gentiles to receive His blessings. He told her, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

Many people might be offended at being called a “dog”. Actually, the Greek word used here by Jesus means “puppy”, and is thus an affectionate rather than offensive term. So this woman was not offended. In fact, she knew then that she could receive healing for her daughter because even puppies get to eat what falls from their masters’ table. She saw that the crumbs under the Master’s table were enough for a Gentile, a “little dog”, like herself. You must understand that the Jews then considered Gentiles dogs. But what Jesus was trying to say was that He was called to the Jews first, not the Gentiles. Yet, He loved this Gentile woman and her daughter enough to provide a “loophole” for them to receive their miracle. So, when the Canaanite woman took her place by dropping the title “Son of David” and just leaned on Jesus’ compassion for her, her daughter was healed from that very hour.

If God was willing to extend His grace to a Gentile, how much more you, His beloved child! You do not need to depend on pretensions to receive a miracle from Him.

Come as you are and lean on His grace. If He has delivered Jesus up for us, “how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things”? (Romans 8:32)

Psalm 139 is a poetic scripture full of many great verses that for some are all time favourites. It speaks of the intimacy with which God knows us.

The opening verse is considered a general statement to lead into the rest of the Psalm, but if we have a closer look at the second line of the verse, we can also see that it stands alone as a very confronting, concise statement.

Psalm 139:1b
“You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.” (NIV)

For many, this very short line says too much. Far better to gloss over it and not think too hard about what it really says. For those that love God and understand who He is, the verse can still be confronting, but full of wonder at the same time. The word “searched” in the Hebrew comes from a root word meaning to penetrate. It means to examine intimately. It speaks of God dissecting, probing and searching our inner beings. Some might think this invasive. Perhaps in this age of privacy law many would think God has no right, but God is all knowing – that is who He is. The word “know” means to ascertain by seeing.

So then, we have a picture of God probing deep; dissecting us, folding back every
layer; investigating us thoroughly, leaving nothing untouched, and through this process understanding who we really are. From our human perspective this is an uncomfortable, disturbing and repulsive picture. It places us in a space where we are in danger of unravelling, ashamed of our nakedness. The amazing thing is
that it should be God who is repulsed by us, but instead He has drawn Himself
nearer by sending His son Jesus. What amazing love! What amazing grace!

To those that love God, surrendering ourselves to His intimate knowledge of us allows Him to work wonders in and through us. It frees us to become all that God intends us to be and knows that we can be. In this state we too can declare the words of David, “You have searched me, LORD, and you know me”, and have
peace, not fear.

Maurice King

Have you ever thought about how much energy it takes to be bitter or hold a grudge? We only have a certain amount of energy for each day. If we use it for the wrong purpose, if we focus on the negative or dwell on whoever hurt us, then we’re not going to have the energy we need for the right purposes. We’re not going to be able to make the best decisions or be as creative as we need to be. We’re not only doing ourselves a disservice, we’re doing our family and friends a disservice, too. As much as you may want to, you can’t control what other people say or do; you can only control yourself. If you focus on the actions of others and allow them to constantly upset you, then you are handing your peace over to them and giving away your power. The Scripture says, “Don’t let the sun go down while you are angry”.

The reason many people don’t have joy or enthusiasm is because they go to bed every night with anger and unforgiveness weighing them down. When you go to bed with a cluttered mind and are focused on the negative, you wake up with the same negative emotions; not to mention, you probably won’t sleep very well, anyway!

At one time, or another, we have all faced the temptation to disconnect by giving someone the silent treatment or just going to bed angry. You may not reach a resolution by the time the evening comes, but if you will learn how to agree to disagree and still be friends, you will enjoy your relationships a whole lot more and have peace in your home. And, ‘Don’t sin by letting anger control you.’ Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry. (Ephesians 4:26 NLT).

Sandro

Every ne goes through difficulties and painful situations in life. In fact, scripture tells us that in this world we will have tribulations and trials. I’ve heard it said that the life of faith is not about the absence of problems, but the presence of power — God’s power at work in us, leading us to the place of wholeness and victory.

He promises to take those things that the enemy meant for evil and turn them around for our good. It says in Romans 8, that He causes all things to work together for our good, because we love Him.

In his book, The Heart Revolution, Sergio De La Mora puts it this way: “Without God’s perspective, we miss out on some of His greatest lessons found in this tension between joy and tribulation. Think of a car battery. It fulfils its purpose through the power that comes from both a positive and a negative current running through it. When a car battery runs out of power, we give it a jump-start by hooking up both the positive and negative cables. The tension of joy and tribulation in our lives works the same way. We need both positive and negative currents to energise
our purpose and call.” .

Today, I want to encourage you, no matter what you may be facing, no matter what you may have been through in the past, God is not the author of destruction; He is the author of life and peace. He didn’t bring that difficulty into your life, but He can use it to launch you forward into your destiny. John 16:33 tells us that even though we have challenges, we can be of good cheer because He has overcome the world and deprived it of power to harm us. Keep your heart and mind open to Him, keep meditating on His Word, and let Him revolutionise your heart and life!
Sandro