Tag: Mark Saunders

Christians, our lives are a gift from Divine, unchallengeable authority.

Omnipotent… He can speak things into being.

Omnipresent… everywhere at the same time and omniscient… knowing all things.

Of all the powers and universes he could have given to us, or all the demands he could have placed on us, instead what he offered us was the opportunity to know him.

He offers us identity, relationship and purpose which bring growth and freedom… if we choose to receive it.

How do we find it?  Through Jesus Christ.  The tree of life.

Jesus Christ opened a way through the cross for us to know God’s heart for us and to learn His ways.

But how do we find the reality of this?

• Simply ask with a sincere heart… Jesus Christ reveal yourself to me.
• Find a bible and read it.  Start in the book of John in the New Testament.
• Find a Christian and talk to them.
• Find a Church and go to it.

Seek to know Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. It’s the real deal.

• Mark Saunders

It’s amazing how the ways of our flesh want to keep us chained… captive to its ways… even as born again Christians.

The only way to be free from the flesh is to identify with Christ (the new man) instead of Adam (the old man)

This identification with Christ happens specifically through our identification with his death – not his teachings.

Sorry good people, there’s no other way to live free from the bondage of our flesh other than identifying with the death of Christ.

What does that mean?

When temptation comes, we seek the grace of God, desiring the spirit of God to rise up in us instead of us fulfilling the desires of our flesh.

We’re ready for our flesh (the nature of Adam) to suffer and “die”… to be crucified… instead of fulfilling its lusts and desires.

This “death” needs to happen daily.

Jesus said this… if any one wants to follow me he must deny himself daily, take up his cross and follow me.

Paul described it well when he said “it’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”

Christians we’re ready to “die daily” to carry Christ’s life instead of being chained to our flesh.

• Mark Saunders

When Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tested, His first temptation was to turn stones to bread.  

He was hungry and what would have been wrong with that.  His reply was, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

He saw the trap… which would have been to subject Himself to the authority of Satan by following his subtle and seemingly innocent suggestion.

Sin often doesn’t start out being obvious. It likes to deceive and lure us in, coiling round us like a python until we’re stuck and can’t get out. It’s objective is to destroy us.

Why?  Because we’re loved by God.

Here’s a big one… online pornography.  Many Christians are trapped… trapped between lust on one hand and shame and condemnation on the other which drive them away from the only One who can help us.

The Lord will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we can endure and He always provides a way of escape. (1 Cor 10:13)

There’s hope… the words of Jesus himself… “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”

Godly sorrow produces repentance dear friend… look for it… it can be found. 

We can use all the techniques and principles to stop us falling into the same trap… but they don’t work… we need the freedom that only Christ can give… it’s made available through the cross.

Stop running away from it.

• Mark Saunders

In an instant, years of sin, hurt, insecurity, addiction can be miraculously melted away.

Born again Christians can confirm this freedom from the bondage of the enemy.

But it doesn’t stop there… there’s a road to maturity we need to walk.

This “road” deals with us… who we are, how we think, how we react. It shapes Godly character within us.

This process is often not instant or easy but it’s in this process the “spiritual man” is formed.

The Lord allows situations to happen that test us… that we can even say bring suffering in us… but don’t resist… accept with the attitude of heart that the Lord be glorified through it… by our response and by the fruit in our lives that’s produced from it.

Right here this sounds to many like “another gospel”… but it’s the original work of the cross… that we seldom hear anymore because we’re too consumed by our blessings, books and programmes that we’ve substituted for real Christian maturity.

Today, let’s allow the power of God to work in us… that even through these tough situations the Lord be glorified.

• Mark Saunders