Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 2416 BOCNEWS.com NOVEMBER 2016 How to Live a Blessed Life “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same mea- sure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” — Luke 6:38 (NKJV) I’m going to speak to you on how to live a blessed life. Do you know that God is a blessed God? The Bible says, “Blessed be God,” so my God is a blessed God, and He wants to bless us. He also wants to see to it that not only are you blessed, but that you begin to live a blessed life. If you are ever going to be blessed, you must be a bless-er. You must be someone that blesses others. He said that you and I can choose to be blessed, so to live a blessed life is a choice. You might be blessed and not be living a blessed life, because it’s a choice. He said, “To those who are listening and want to live a blessed life, the first thing you do: love your enemies.” So how do you live a blessed life? You must be a lover. And when I say ‘lover’ I mean an Agape lover. You must love your enemy. It means to live a life that is full of love. The Bible says the greatest commandment is: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” In other words, until my heart, my soul, my mind and my strength are full of the love of God, I can’t love you. Do you see that? I can think that I love you, I can say that I love you, until you break my china plate, and I break you with my china plate. Because unless I am full of love for God, I can’t love others. He said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That’s what He said in—is it not true? But when we get to Luke 6, He is not talking about your neighbor. He’s talking about your enemies. I can love my neighbor; it’s not difficult if you say that I should just love my neighbor. But then He said, “No, no, no, no; this is not about your neighbor, but your enemies.” And it is a command, not a suggestion. It’s not, “If you can do it…” If you want to live a blessed life, it’s a command. Love your enemies. The word ‘enemy’ means ‘one who hates you’. Your hater—one who opposes you. One who wants to see you fail. One who wants to see you fall. Jesus said, “It’s easy to love those who love you. He says, “Even unbelievers do that. It’s easy to love those who love you.” If he loves me, I love him. Your enemy is the person who desires to see you fail. His desire is to see you fall. His desire is to block you from progressing or to stop you from advancing. They don’t want to see you succeed or prosper. They don’t want anything good to come out of you. They’ve gone around badmouthing and destroying you. Now God says, “Love them.” Is there anyone in your life that falls into the category of enemy? Is there anyone that has been jealous of you? Someone who doesn’t want to see you succeed? Somebody who wants to see you fail and fall? They’ve gone around trying to destroy you? I want you to do something: get that person’s image in your head right now. Remember them. Don’t just say, “To Whom It May Concern.” You know it concerns some people. If there are many, just begin to roll the tape. 30, 40, 1000…as many as they are, please, for Christ’s sake, don’t spiritual- ize it. Because you are going to be set free today. This is the operating room. You are on the operating table. Bring their picture: it’s your ex. It’s your present or future wife. The man you are yet to meet— all of them. Just bring their pictures—your pastor, even if it is me, and pray for them. “Well, God, what should I pray for?” Would you ask that same question too? “What do I pray about? Kill them? That’s prayer. Shoot them. I don’t know. What should I pray?” Luke 6:28 (NKJV), “Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.” But in this particular verse the word ‘bless’ comes from the same root where we get our word ‘eulogy’. To eulogize means to speak well of. He said, “Speak well of those who curse you.” That’s powerful. Speak well of them. Say good things. So how do I pray? I go to God and I speak well of those who hate me. Ah, this message is not for everybody. It is only for those who are listening. It means to pronounce God’s favor upon them. To pronounce God’s favor on the ones who don’t like you. Your enemies—your haters. Jesus said, “If you want to live a blessed life, pray for them. Speak well of them, and speak blessings on them.” When we talk about living a blessed life, what do we think of? We always think about having money, a big house, a big car and power—is that not true? That’s not blessing. That’s the fruit of blessing, and you don’t have to be blessed by God to have all those. But to be truly blessed, you must do this: live a life that loves others. Look at Luke 6:37 (NKJV) “Judge not,” Somebody read that and he didn’t see ‘not’. “He just said, ‘Judge.’” And he’s been running around ever since judging everything. Read the whole thing: He says, “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” “Ff-f-f-f-f-f-f and you will be forgiven.” They always jump the ‘forgive’ part and emphasize ‘and you will be forgiven’. No, say, “Forgive”. Don’t be scared; God has forgiven you. In Christianity we do two main things: we give and we forgive. He said, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Let’s unpack that. To live a blessed life, you’ve got to live the character of God. Look at the passage. If you point at somebody, watch your fingers. The per- son you are pointing at takes one, but you take three, and your friend that you gossip with gets blessed with one too. We as the church judge all the time. We judge the appear- ance. To judge means to asses or evaluate a person’s heart or a person’s motive. It’s to assume that you know the motive in their hearts. The Bible says that the only person qualified to judge the heart is God. So when you judge peo- ple, you place yourself on the throne that does not belong to you, and you are equated with Satan and Lucifer when he was cast out of heaven. When you do the same thing, it’s the mercy of God that does not allow God to cast you out of His presence. He says, “Stop playing God. When you judge, you are playing God.” Then He said, “Do not condemn.” To condemn means to declare one to be outside of the mercy of God. When you condemn some- body, you just said to them, “Your case is so bad that even God cannot forgive you.” It’s saying that the person is beyond God’s forgiveness. Is there any case that God cannot forgive? You are not God. When we arrogate to ourselves what is an exclusive right of God, we equate ourselves with Lucifer who was cast out. Forgive. It’s one of the most powerful words in the Bible. To forgive means ‘to release’, ‘to let go’. It’s to give freedom or liberty. To say, “You are free now.” Jesus said that when you don’t forgive you have someone in bondage—you put someone in prison. You are holding someone prisoner because of what they’ve done to you. So you have forgiveness—it’s not that you don’t have it—you have forgiveness, but you are holding it; you are not releasing it. Jesus said, “You can only live a blessed life when you release them and set them free.” How do you know that you’ve really forgiven somebody? Let’s start here: get the picture of those that have hurt you in your mind. Your mother in law. Your father in law. Your sister out law. Your supervisor. Your wife. Your husband. Your brother. The police. The white folks. The black folks. The Hispanic folks. Somebody of another race that has said something to you. Get their picture, because that is where healing starts. God says, “When you get their picture, the evi- dence that you have forgiven them is when you can put all their pictures in your mind like this, name them one by one and begin to declare God’s blessing upon them.” Did you get what I just said? You can look at them, “My mother in law, my father in law, Pastor Ade, all of you, may the Lord bless you. Ah, you just bought a Mercedes. You will buy an aero- plane. I bless you. You are going to be good in life. I don’t care what you have done to me, but from today I release you. You shall be healed. You shall be protected from evil. You shall be lifted. I pronounce blessing upon you and upon the works of your hands.” And God said, “When you do that—watch out! Somebody is living a blessed life.” Ade Ajala By Rev. Dr. Ade Ajala How do you know that you’ve really forgiven somebody? Let’s start here: get the picture of those that have hurt you in your mind.Get their picture, because that is where healing starts. God says, “When you get their picture, the evidence that you have forgiven them is when you can put all their pictures in your mind like this, name them one by one and begin to declare God’s blessing upon them.” SCRIPTURE