Ikthus Dumaguete

Our relationships are a good indicator of the trajectory of our lives. The people that we spend most of our time with have an incredible influence on who we become. To become better, we may need to make better choices concerning the “whom” we spend our time “with”. BE PART OF GOD’S MISSION GIVE: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/give/ SERVE: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/ministries/ GROW: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/first-steps/ For more info or prayer concerns contact 09560615574 or message m.me/ikthusdumaguete #IkthusDumaguete#SundayOnlineService

Every choice we make in life has consequences. We must use wisdom that is given to us by God to choose wisely. That all begins with a fear of God. This fear is a reverence and respect for Holy God, but that fear can mature into a deep and abiding trust. Ultimately it is our trust in God that helps us make better choices. BE PART OF GOD’S MISSION GIVE: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/give/ SERVE: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/ministries/ GROW: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/first-steps/ For more info or prayer concerns contact 09560615574 or message m.me/ikthusdumaguete #IkthusDumaguete #SundayOnlineService

Prayer and Fasting January 2024 Victorious Living: Knowing and Doing the Will of God Part 1: The Deep Search  Part 2: The Desperate Struggle  Part 4: The Upward Service  Part 5: The Inner Significance  PDF: Part 1: https://bit.ly/3vB5fyu Part 2: https://bit.ly/3vyffZG Part 3: https://bit.ly/48tvVA2 Part 4: https://bit.ly/3Hd7lYa Part 5: https://bit.ly/47CKXCa

Prayer and Fasting January 2024 Victorious Living: Knowing and Doing the Will of God Part 1: The Deep Search  Part 2: The Desperate Struggle  Part 4: The Upward Service  Part 5: The Inner Significance  PDF: Part 1: https://bit.ly/3vB5fyu Part 2: https://bit.ly/3vyffZG Part 3: https://bit.ly/48tvVA2 Part 4: https://bit.ly/3Hd7lYa Part 5: https://bit.ly/47CKXCa

Prayer and Fasting January 2024 Victorious Living: Knowing and Doing the Will of God Part 1: The Deep Search Part 2: The Desperate Struggle Part 3: The Full Surrender Part 4: The Upward Service Part 5: The Inner Significance PDF: Part 1: https://bit.ly/3vB5fyu Part 2: https://bit.ly/3vyffZG Part 3: https://bit.ly/48tvVA2

Prayer and Fasting January 2024 Victorious Living: Knowing and Doing the Will of God Part 1: The Deep Search Part 2: The Desperate Struggle Part 3: The Full Surrender Part 4: The Upward Service Part 5: The Inner Significance PDF: Part 1: https://bit.ly/3vB5fyu Part 2: https://bit.ly/3vyffZG Part 3: https://bit.ly/48tvVA2

Prayer and Fasting January 2024 Victorious Living: Knowing and Doing the Will of God Part 1: The Deep Search Part 2: The Desperate Struggle Part 3: The Full Surrender Part 4: The Upward Service Part 5: The Inner Significance PDF: Part 1: https://bit.ly/3vB5fyu Part 2: https://bit.ly/3vyffZG Part 3: https://bit.ly/48tvVA2

A Christ-follower is oriented toward the future, not the past. God is always standing in the future, calling us forward in hope, never backward in regret. BE PART OF GOD’S MISSION GIVE: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/give/ SERVE: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/ministries/ GROW: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/first-steps/ For more info or prayer concerns contact 09560615574 or message m.me/ikthusdumaguete #IkthusDumaguete#SundayOnlineService

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33 When we put the things of God first in our lives, the other things fall into proper order. However, when we prioritize earthly things, we find ourselves anxious and full of worry. God helps us have better priorities. BE PART OF GOD’S MISSION: GIVE: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/give/ SERVE: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/ministries/ GROW: https://ikthusdumaguete.org/first-steps/ For more info or prayer concerns contact 09560615574 or message m.me/ikthusdumaguete #IkthusDumaguete#SundayOnlineService

Ikthus Daily Word | November 30, 2023 | Thursday 1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” Seventh, there is a desire to please God and to live a good life because of what He has done for us. The realization of His love should make us not only hate sin, but also desire to live a holy, godly life. If you do desire this, you love God, because our Lord said, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” (John 14:21). Eighth, we have a desire to know Him better and to draw closer to Him. Do you want to know God better? Is it one of the greatest ambitions of your life to draw closer to Him, that your relationship to Him may be more intimate? If you have within you the faintest desire to know God better and are doing something about it, I say you love God. I will put the ninth point negatively, and yet it may be the most important of all. I am referring to a conscious regret that our love to Him is so poor, along with a desire to love Him more. If you are unhappy at the thought that you do not love God as you ought to, that is a wonderful proof that you love Him. My last test is that we have a delight in hearing these things and in hearing about Him. That is one of the best tests. There are certain people in the world—alas, there are many—who find all that we have been saying utterly boring; all that we have been saying would be strange to them. Such people are spiritually dead; they know nothing about this. So whatever the state of your emotions may be, if you can tell me quite honestly that you enjoy listening to these things and hearing about them, if you can say that there is something about them that makes things different, then I say that you know the love that God has for you. A Thought to Ponder: Is it one of the greatest ambitions of your life to draw closer to Him? Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠

Ikthus Daily Word | November 29, 2023 | Wednesday  1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” Fourth, I have a sense of sins forgiven. I do not understand it, but I am aware of it. I know that I have sinned; “my sin is ever before me” (Psalm 51:3), as David says. I remember my sins, and yet the moment I pray, I know my sins are forgiven. I cannot understand it, I do not know how God does it, but I know He does it, and that my sins are forgiven. A sense of sins forgiven leads me to the fifth test: a sense of gratitude and thanksgiving to God. No one can believe that God sent His only begotten Son into the world to die on the cross without feeling a sense of praise and thanksgiving. Think of Saul of Tarsus there on the road to Damascus. The moment he saw and understood something of what had happened to him, he said, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). That is, what can I do to repay You—how can I show my gratitude? Do you feel a sense of gratitude? Do you want to praise God? A sense of gratitude and a desire to praise is further proof of the knowledge of God. Then sixth, there is an increasing hatred of sin. I sometimes think there is no better proof of a knowledge of God and knowledge of the love of God than that. You know, if you hate sin, you are like God, for God hates it and abominates it. We are told that He cannot look upon iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13); therefore, whatever your feelings may or may not be, if you have an increasing hatred of sin, it is because the love of God is in you—God is in you. No man hates sin apart from God. A Thought to Ponder: No man hates sin apart from God. Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠

Ikthus Daily Word | November 28, 2023 | Tuesday 1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” I shall suggest to you ten tests that you can apply to yourself to know for certain that you know the love of God to you. Here is the first. It is a loss and absence of the sense that God is against us. The natural man always feels that God is against him. He would be very glad if he could wake up and read that some bishop or other had proved that God never existed; he would be ready to believe that. The newspapers give publicity to anything that denies the faith; they know the public palate. That is why the natural man is at enmity against God; he feels God is against him. That is why when anything goes wrong he says, “Why does God allow this?” And when men and women are in a state of being antagonistic toward God, then, of course, they cannot love God. So one of the first tests, and I am starting with the lowest, is that we have lost that feeling that God is against us. Second, there is a loss of the fear of God, while a sense of awe remains. Let us approach Him “with reverence and godly fear,” writes the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (12:28). John is going to elaborate on that; that is the rest of the fourth chapter of 1 John. We lose that craven fear of God, but oh, what a reverence remains. Third, there is a feeling and a sense that God is for us and that God loves us. Now I put it like that quite deliberately because it is so very true to experience. I have lost the sense that God is against me, and I begin to have a feeling and sense that God is for me, that God is kind to me, that He is concerned about me, and that He truly loves me. A Thought to Ponder: I have lost the sense that God is against me, and I begin to have a feeling and sense that God is for me. Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠

Ikthus Daily Word | November 27, 2023 | Monday 1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” How can my joy abound? How can I walk through this world with my head erect? How can I come through triumphantly? Well, here is the main thing: I should know the love that God has toward me. If I have that, I can say that “neither death, nor life . . . nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). Therefore, the questions come to us one by one: Do I know this love? Can I make this statement? It is made everywhere in the New Testament. Paul is particularly fond of stating it: “. . . the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). No man could state the doctrine of the atonement in all its plenitude and glory like the apostle Paul, and yet here he says in essence, “He died for me; He loved me.” This is personal knowledge, personal appropriation. You find this everywhere in the New Testament. For example, “Whom having not seen,” says Peter, “ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). Do we know that? These people did not see Him, and so we cannot argue and say, “It is all very well for those first Christians; they saw Him. If only I could see Christ, then I would love Him.” But they did not see Him any more than we see Him. They had the apostolic witness and teaching and accepted this witness and testimony. They loved Him and rejoiced in Him “with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” A Thought to Ponder: They loved Him and rejoiced in Him “with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠

Ikthus Daily Word | November 26, 2023 | Sunday 1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” John has gone on repeatedly writing about the love of God, and you notice how he never tires of doing so. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world” (1 John 4:14). Now [verse 16] he repeats it again. This is because he knew that in his own day and age there were all those so-called mystery religions or curious cults that talked about the love of God; and they all tried to teach that you can know the love of God directly. That is always the characteristic of mysticism; what finally condemns mysticism is that it bypasses the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything that bypasses Christ is not Christian. I do not care what it is, however good, however uplifting or noble; it is Christ who is the manifestation of the love of God, says John. I do not hesitate, therefore, to aver and to add strongly as follows: I must distrust any emotion that I may have within me with respect to God unless it is based solidly upon the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him God manifested His love. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Therefore, I say that I must never attempt by any means or method to get to know God or to try to make myself love God except in and through my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I must avoid every other direct approach to God, every direct dealing with God. A Thought to Ponder: Anything that bypasses Christ is not Christian. Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠

Ikthus Daily Word | November 25, 2023 | Saturday 1 John 4:14 “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ clearly saves us, in the first instance, from the guilt and the penalty of sin. We are all guilty before God and before His holy law. We are guilty in His presence; so the first thing I need is to be saved from the guilt of my sin. I need a Savior in that respect apart from anything else. I have broken the law of God, and I am under the condemnation of that holy law; so before I can talk about salvation or about being saved, I must be perfectly clear that I am delivered from the guilt of my sin. That is the glorious message that the New Testament Gospel brings to me. In Christ my guilt is removed. It is no use my facing the future and proposing to live a better life. I am confronted by my own past— I cannot avoid it, I cannot escape it. I have broken the law—I must deal with the problem of my guilt—and I cannot do so. I cannot undo my past; I cannot make atonement for my misdeeds and for everything I have done against God. I must be delivered from the guilt of my sin, and Christ—and Christ alone—can so deliver me. But having thus had the assurance that the guilt of my sin has been dealt with, I am still confronted by the power of sin. I battle the world and the flesh and the devil; forces and factors outside me are trying to drag me down, and I am aware of their terrible power. The man or woman who has not realized the power of sin all around him or her is a novice in these matters. There is only One who has conquered Satan, there is only One who has defeated the world, and that is this Son whom the Father sent into the world to be our Savior. Jesus Christ can deliver me from the power of sin as well as from the guilt of sin. A Thought to Ponder: Jesus Christ can deliver me from the power of sin as well as from the guilt of sin. Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠

Ikthus Daily Word | November 24, 2023 | Friday 1 John 4:14 “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” The whole biblical meaning of this particular term should be put like this: Christ is the Savior as the result of something that He has done. We must get rid once and forever of the idea that we are the actors or doers and merely receive encouragement from Him. Not at all! The biblical representation is that God sent Him into the world to do something, and that we are saved as the result of something He has done quite apart from ourselves and our own action. He has acted, and it is His action that produces salvation and the way of escape for us. Now here is something that is utterly fundamental and primary, and unless we are agreed with this statement there is really no point or purpose in proceeding any further. Salvation, according to the New Testament—take, for instance, Colossians 1 where you have a perfect illustration of salvation—is something that is entirely worked out by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is something that has come to men and women as a free gift to them, and they have nothing to do but to receive this gift. It is something provided; it is the righteousness of God that is given. That is something that is surely basic, and of course there is no phrase, perhaps, that puts all this more perfectly than that great and glorious phrase that was uttered by our Lord Himself upon the cross when He cried out, “It is finished” (John 19:30). With His last breath, as it were, He cried out, “I have done it! I have completed the work that You gave Me to do.” It is He who saves, and our salvation comes from Him and is derived from something He has done once and forever on our behalf. A Thought to Ponder: Salvation, according to the New Testament, is something that is entirely worked out by the Lord Jesus Christ. Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠

Ikthus Daily Word | November 23, 2023 | Thursday 1 John 4:14 “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” The whole Gospel in a phrase! This is the only time in which John uses the expression “Saviour” in the entire epistle. He gives the same teaching, of course, in other places. He says that our Lord is “the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). There is a sense in which he repeats the thought here, but he does not use this precise phrase but describes Him as “the Saviour of the world.” The word “Saviour” does not merely mean helper. We are not told that the Father sent the Son to help mankind; it does not mean that He is just someone who assists. Nor does it mean that He is just one who teaches or indicates to us what we ought to do; He is not merely an instructor. Indeed, I would go further and say that the term “Saviour” and its connotation must not be thought of in terms of an example or pattern or encourager. I use these terms because so often people speak about our Lord as Savior, and yet if you ask them to define what they mean by that, they say that Christ as Savior is One who is marching ahead of us and is leading the way. Now the element that is seen in such ideas is that ultimately you and I have to save ourselves, and what the Lord does is to aid and assist us—to give us encouragement and make it somewhat easier for us to do so. Now that, of course, is clearly a complete denial not only of the biblical teaching, but also of the historic faith and creeds of the Christian Church. A Thought to Ponder: The word “Saviour” does not merely mean helper. Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠

Ikthus Daily Word | November 22, 2023 | Wednesday  1 John 4:14-16 “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” The apostolic witness is most important. What is it? John, in effect is putting it like this: “The important thing is to know God. But how can I know God? ‘No man hath seen God at any time.’ But we have seen and do testify that Jesus is the Son of God.” That is the statement. Notice how he puts it. He had not had a vision. What then? Thank God, “we have seen.” He said it all in his introduction: “That which . . . we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life . . . That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you,” said John. No man has seen God, but we have seen Jesus, and Jesus said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (See John 14:9). In other words, the apostolic vision on which my faith is grounded is this: It is a belief in that which the apostles tell us they saw, and the explanation of their understanding of what they saw is found in the four Gospels. The statements in the Gospels are not simply objective statements; they are statements plus interpretation, and at long last modern man has come back to see that. They used to contrast John with Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They said that John preached, but that Matthew, Mark, and Luke just gave the facts. But they now have to admit that what all four wrote was facts plus interpretation. Like John, the men who wrote the first three Gospels believed and understood that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. They saw and testified; in other words, they saw, and they expounded. A Thought to Ponder: The explanation of the apostles’ understanding of what they saw is found in the four Gospels. Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠

Ikthus Daily Word | November 21, 2023 | Tuesday 1 John 4:15 “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” John’s whole case is that you cannot believe that Jesus is the Son of God unless God dwells in you and you in God; that is his argument. “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” And the way in which God dwells in us is by the Holy Spirit. So we can say that the people who do confess that Jesus is the Son of God have the Holy Spirit already within them. Or to put it another way, they cannot believe that Jesus is the Son of God without possessing the Holy Spirit. Now this is a doctrine that is common to the whole of the New Testament. The apostle Paul puts it like this: “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. . . . But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:7-8, 10). You see, the whole case can be put like this: Even the princes of this world, the great men of the world, looked at Jesus of Nazareth and saw nothing but a man, a carpenter. They may have regarded Him as a kind of unusual religious genius, but they did not know He was the Lord of glory. Why not? Well, says Paul, because they had not received the Holy Spirit. But you and I, he says to the Corinthians, we understand these things, we believe them. Why? Because God has revealed them to us by His Spirit, the Spirit who searches all things, “yea, the deep things of God.” A Thought to Ponder: God has revealed “the deep things of God” to us by His Spirit. Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠

Ikthus Daily Word | November 20, 2023 | Monday 1 John 4:13 “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” How does this blessing come? Well, I do not see any evidence in the New Testament to support what used to be called a “tarrying meeting.” Some people had that idea. God had certain blessings to give, and they thought they had to wait until they received them. But the gift is given by God in His own way and time; this gift does not come of necessity at once. It is God’s gift, and He knows when to give it and when to withhold it. Do you remember the case of Moody? This was his story. He became conscious of his lack and need, and he began to pray to God about it. He gave obedience to the Word of God as well as he could, and he went on praying for months. Nothing happened to him, but still he went on praying. Yes, he waited for it, but it did not come, and the story is that one day, walking down a street in New York, not in a tarrying meeting, not even in a prayer meeting, suddenly God overwhelmed him with this mighty blessing. It was so mighty that Moody felt he would be killed by it, and he held up his hand and said, “Stop, God!” God has His own time. God knows when to give the gift, and we must never imagine that by going to a meeting or following a certain procedure it is bound to come. No; the Holy Spirit is sovereign, and He gives in His own way. It may be dramatically or suddenly or quietly; that is irrelevant, because what really matters is that we receive the gift. The essence of it all, I think, can be put very simply: “Trust and obey.” A Thought to Ponder: God has His own time. God knows when to give the gift. Devotional Source: Walking with God Day By Day Need Prayers? Message us: ⁠Ikthus Dumaguete⁠ Keep updated by following our socials: ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Youtube⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠