Receive As You Hear The Good News

Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes…


If you have been to motivational seminars, you would probably have heard the speakers say, “If you follow these five steps, then you will come to a place of financial increase.” They would probably have told you also that if you don’t succeed, it is because you did not follow the steps correctly or diligently.

Thank God that the gospel or good news does not work like that! The minute you hear or read the good news, and you believe and receive it, His Word goes forth to sozo (the Greek word for “save”) you, making you well, prosperous and whole, “for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes”.

What is the good news? It is that God loves us so much that He gave us His Son to take our beating so that we can have His blessings without having to work for them. Right now, as you are reading this devotional, listening to a preacher or hearing a sermon tape, as you hear God’s Word, His power is released into your situation, working things out for you and turning your situation around for your good.

In Acts 14:8–10, we see Paul preaching the good news in Lystra. A man who was crippled from birth was listening to Paul. Paul, seeing that he had faith to be healed, said, “Stand up straight on your feet!” And the man leaped and walked! He heard the good news, believed it and was healed.

At a leadership conference in Oslo, Norway, where I was speaking, a pastor there shared how a well-respected businessman was healed while listening to one of my sermon tapes. This man was deaf in one ear. And when he was listening to the teaching on the tape, his deaf ear popped open without anyone laying hands on him or praying for him! He was just listening to the good news when his ear opened. Now, that is what I call the power of God unto his salvation, sozo-ing him, making his hearing whole!

My friend, these miracles happen not because we follow some kind of formula faithfully, but because we hear the good news preached and believe it!

When You See God’s Grace, He Sees Your Faith

Ephesians 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,


Many times, people ask me, “Pastor Prince, I know that God’s promises are true, but how can I be sure that His promises will come true in my life?”

My friend, if you want God’s promises to be sure in your life, you cannot depend on you. If you depend on you — your obedience, goodness, service and even faith — you will not be able to receive God’s promises. But when you depend on God’s grace — His unmerited, unearned, undeserved favour towards you — that is when His promises become sure in your life.

This was true of the woman with the issue of blood. (Matthew 9:20–22) She didn’t go around saying, “I must have faith… I hope that I have enough faith… I will have faith… I will not lose faith.” No, she was only conscious of the grace of Jesus — how He always healed the sick, how powerful He was in raising the dead and how willing He was to use that power for her healing.

She just saw His grace abounding towards her, so much so that she said, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” And when she came behind Jesus and touched the very hem of His garment, she was healed. At the same moment, Jesus stopped, turned around and said to her, “Be of good cheer, daughter, your faith has made you well.”

When the woman saw His grace, God saw her faith! It was not for her to see her faith by doing something about her faith. It was for God to see her faith. And so it was by grace, through faith, that God’s promise became sure in her life.

God wants you to see His grace. And when you see His grace, He sees your faith. God says, “For by grace are you saved through faith.” (Ephesians 2:8) The Greek word of saved, sozo, doesn’t just mean to save from hell, but also to heal, preserve and make whole. So it is by grace that you are made whole, kept healthy, preserved and prosperous. It is by grace through faith that God’s promises become sure in your life!

All That Jesus Is Before God, You Are

2 Corinthians 5:21
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.


When an Israelite brings an animal as his sin offering, he lays his hand on it before killing it. (Leviticus 4:1–4) By laying his hand on the sin offering, his sins are transferred to the innocent animal. The animal dies for his sins and he goes free.

In contrast, with the burnt offering, when the Israelite lays his hand on the animal (Leviticus 1:3–4), the beauty, worthiness and acceptance of the unblemished animal is transferred to him. God accepts the perfection of the animal sacrifice on his behalf to make atonement for him. Because God accepts the unblemished burnt offering, he now has right standing before God.

Do you know that the two offerings speak of Jesus one offering of Himself when He hung on the cross? He is both our sin offering and burnt offering — “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us [as our sin offering], that we might become the righteousness of God in Him [as our burnt offering]”. Just by His one sacrifice, your sins were transferred to Him, and His righteousness was transferred to you, the moment you put your faith in Him. That is the grace of God towards you!

`As our sin offering, He offered Himself once and for all. (Romans 6:10) The sin offering was never a daily offering because God does not want His people to be sin-conscious. However, the burnt offering was both a morning and an evening sacrifice (2 Chronicles 13:11) because God wants His people to be righteous-conscious.

Likewise, God wants you to lay claim daily on Jesus as your burnt offering and say, “Father, I thank You that Jesus is my burnt offering. All that Jesus is before You — His righteousness, excellence, beauty and perfection — is transferred to me. Jesus has Your unclouded favour, so I enjoy Your unclouded favour in my life. Jesus is the righteousness of God, so I am the righteousness of God in Christ. As He is before You, so am I.”

Because Jesus became your burnt offering, what He is to the Father today, you are! That is what it means to be in Christ!

God Wants Your Household Saved

Acts 16:31
So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”


When God got you saved, He didn’t just have you in mind — He had your whole family in mind! That is why His Word says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Now, this does not mean that once you believe on Jesus, your family members are automatically saved. What it means is that you have opened a big door for God to move into your family’s life and to touch every member of your family.

So don’t worry about your unsaved dialect-speaking grandparents. God knows how to reach out to them. I have a relative who speaks only Cantonese. She can’t go to church because she is very old and her legs are weak. But Jesus appeared to her in a vision and spoke to her in pure Cantonese. She never met Jesus, but knew it was Him and understood what He said to her. After that encounter, those who have visited her have been amazed by her knowledge of Jesus.

Even up to the very last moment, God will reach out to your unsaved family members. This happened to my late maternal grandfather who used to make fun of me being a Christian. On his deathbed, he was gasping for air and was in great discomfort. He couldn’t die peacefully. My mother, who was with him, told him, “Dad, just say, ‘God, forgive me.’ Call on Jesus.” My grandfather remained hardened even towards the end and he was in great pain. But at the very last moment, he cried out, “Jesus, forgive me!”

You see, my grandfather had no time to pray the sinner’s prayer. But God says that “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”. (Acts 2:21) Jesus will find every excuse to save a person. My mother said that after my grandfather called out to Jesus, she saw the peace of God come upon his face, and he passed away peacefully.

God’s desire is for your entire household to be saved. Right now, your family may be giving you a hard time, but because you are a Christian, a big door has been opened for your Daddy God in heaven to touch them!

The Sure Symbol Of God’s Love

Romans 5:8

But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.


Imagine this scenario: Your car tyre blows and you are late for work. At the office, you find out that someone else got the promotion you had been hoping for. Then, you receive a call from home, informing you that your mother fell and fractured her hip bone. Before long, you hear a voice telling you, “If God loves you so much, how come all these things are happening to you?”

Perhaps you are asking the same question today and wondering if God really loves you. Well, I want you to know that you must never judge God’s love for you based on your circumstances. No, look at the cross instead! The cross is the sure symbol of God’s love for you. It is at the cross that “God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.

A teenager learnt that the cross indeed spoke of how much God loves her. At one point in her life, she was contemplating suicide as the only way out of her loveless, messed-up life. She had intended to take some pills with a lethal dose of alcohol. She was all ready to die when she started clicking aimlessly on some MP3 songs on the Internet. And of all the songs that were on her screen, she picked a beautiful song written by one of our church musicians.

The lyrics of the song, sung by one of our church vocalists, spoke of being held by God’s love and being treasured in His sight. It touched the teenager. Sensing that an awesome God with His amazing love was reaching out to her, she abandoned her plan to kill herself. Not long after that, she found our church and met the person who had sung the song. She eventually came to know how much God loves her and how He has demonstrated His love for her through the cross.

Beloved, when you look at your life and find yourself wondering if God really loves you, look at the cross and see God’s outstretched arms. It will remind you of how much He loves you!

You Matter To God!

John 10:3
… he calls his own sheep by name…


Do you sometimes feel like you are just a face in a crowd or a number in a system? You are identified by your identity card number or passport number. Even when you see the doctor, you are called by your queue number. If you feel depersonalised and dehumanised, that is exactly how the devil wants you to feel — that you do not matter much to anyone, especially to God.

But you do matter to God! He calls you by name. He knows what you are going through and where you are hurting. He sees you and cares for you, just as He cared for the people when He first walked on earth.
On one occasion, Jesus crossed all the way to the other side of the lake, even defying the devil’s attempt to drown Him (Luke 8:22–39), because a man who was demonised was calling out to Him for help. Jesus heard him and crossed an entire lake just to go to him. My friend, Jesus came a long way from heaven to come to you. You certainly matter to Him!

Even now, if you have problems in your life, Jesus sees you and He will not pass you by. He will do for you what He did for the woman at Samaria. There was a shorter route from Judea to Galilee, but the Bible said, “He needed to go through Samaria.” (John 4:4) Jesus purposely took a longer route because He wanted to stop by Samaria to speak to the woman who had been searching for things to satisfy her in her life. Now, Jesus has come to offer you the more abundant life too. (John 10:10)

In Luke 5:12–13, Jesus touched the leper and healed him. Although He could heal from afar, which He did for the 10 lepers in Luke 17:12–14, Jesus chose to heal this leper by touching him. The leper had been dehumanised, after being cut off from society for such a long time. Jesus’ personal touch gave him more than a new lease in life — it made him whole.

In the same way, Jesus has a personal love for you because you matter to Him. He calls you by name, sees beyond your every fault and wants to meet your every need!

What Is On Your Heart?

Hebrews 8:10
". I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts."


“Pastor, I don’t know what I want to do?”

“What is on your heart?”

“I would love to work among children.”

“Then work among children!”

“But I am waiting on the Lord to show me.”

“Well, He has given you the desire, so go and work among children!”

“But the desire comes from my heart, Pastor Prince.”

You see, many of us have been taught that we cannot trust our hearts. We quote verses like “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked…” (Jeremiah 17:9), not knowing that Jeremiah was referring to the man who had not received Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. But once you are saved, you have a brand new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), and you can trust the promptings of your heart because God dwells in you and He leads you from within. And don’t worry because His promptings will never contradict His Word. It will lead you to good success.

Often, you find that when you follow your inner promptings, it is actually God who put those desires in your mind and wrote them on your heart. I remember years ago when I approached one of our church leaders and told him, “I really think that you are called to become a full-time pastor.” It turned out to be a confirmation of what he already knew on the inside. You see, God was already leading him from within. And today, he is one of our full-time pastors.

If you enjoy something and desire to do it, then go for it! Go with the flow. God Himself says that He will guide us from within. Let’s not doubt Him. And don’t worry about the outcome. Leave the results to God. Your part is just to follow the flow. God’s part is to work in you both the willingness and the performance of it! (Philippians 2:13)

Jesus said that when you believe in Him, out of your heart will flow rivers of living water. (John 7:38) Follow the flow and you will come alive. You will bring forth fruit, and not wither and die. Whatever you do will prosper!

Blessed Wherever You Are

Deuteronomy 28:3 "Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.


You may have heard of people who think that to have better “luck”, they have to move to a new home, work for a certain company or even migrate to another country.

The truth is that it is not the place that gets you the blessings, but whether God’s blessings are on you. And for you, child of God, you are already blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:20) He has paid for your blessings with His blood. So the blessing is not on the land but on the man!

It was in the city of Jerusalem that Jesus was whipped, cursed and spat on. And it was outside the city on Calvary’s hill that He was pierced and crucified. That is why you are blessed in the city as well as outside in the country! In fact, you are blessed regardless of the location.

Perhaps you work in a non-Christian company and your boss doesn’t quite like you. In fact, he sometimes mistreats you. But God can still bless you in spite of your boss. You get blessed because you believe God for it. It has nothing to do with your boss or the company.

And when you get blessed with a fast promotion or fat bonus, some friends may ask you to recommend them to your boss. They think that it is your boss or the company that is blessing you, not the Lord.

If you don’t see the blessings, check what you have been believing and saying. Have you been complaining and blaming everyone and everything around you — your parents, race, gender, environment and government — for your lack of blessings? You need to believe and confess that you are blessed because of Jesus’ finished work on the cross, not because you are of a certain race or work in a certain company.

My friend, it does not matter where you work or live, what colour your skin is or what you do for a living. If God blesses you, you are blessed! And it is all because of Jesus. So say to yourself, “I am blessed wherever I am — blessed in the city, blessed in the country!”

Taught By God Himself

Hebrews 8:11“None of them shall teach his neighbour, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.


By Pastor Joseph Prince (NCC)

As a parent or someone serving in Sunday school, you may think that the children under your care are too young to know the Lord. And you wonder if you are wasting your time reading Bible stories to them or singing hymns over them.

Or you may have been buying Mandarin and Hokkien sermon CDs for your dialect-speaking parents or grandparents, and you wonder if the Bible teachings are too difficult for them to understand.

My friend, don’t underestimate the Holy Spirit. Many elderly folks in our Mandarin and Hokkien services, who first heard about Jesus through the recorded messages given to them by their children, are now born again and attending church regularly. And they are so full of Jesus that they cannot stop talking about Him to their relatives and friends.

Even for a young child like my daughter Jessica, when she was one year old, she would spontaneously raise her hands whenever she heard Christian songs, but not non-Christian ones. My wife Wendy and I had never taught her how to recognise Christian songs. The only explanation we have is that Jessica was taught by the Lord Himself. (Isaiah 54:13)

When Jessica turned two, she surprised us again. Wendy was tucking her in bed one night when Jessica looked at her and said, “Jesus died for Jessica because Jesus loves Jessica.” No one taught her to say that. But I remember looking at her before and by faith saying, “You know, darling, Jesus died for Jessica.” She just looked at me and I did not know whether she understood me. I just believed that the Holy Spirit is a better teacher than me.

So don’t limit the Holy Spirit by saying things like, “The children are too young… My grandparents are not well educated… My atheistic friend won’t be interested…” Just send God’s Word into their lives by faith, and trust the Holy Spirit to do the teaching and impartation. For God says that no one has to teach anyone to know the Lord because all shall know Him, from the least — including little children — to the greatest!

Jesus Cares....

You are greatly "Blessed", highly "Favored", deeply "Loved", forever "Safe", completely "Forgiven".


For you are the righteouness of God in Christ Jesus.

Jesus Loves you...

Hi... I'm Joseph Lim, enjoy life and God bless.