David Lee Martin

In Christ, we step into liberty. Sickness and disease have no place in the life of a believer. In the same way we resist sin and temptation, we resist symptoms that speak of the fall. The old world was subjected to futility and fear. The new creation steps into a new Eden.

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So we’ve been looking at the great exchange in this season, where so many exchange gifts. The exchange that took place on the cross of Jesus is the greatest exchange that ever took place. The thing is, Jesus exchanged with us wonderful gifts. And what we gave him was really something that no one else would ever want. He took upon himself everything that kept us from stepping in to the Holy presence of God.

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He took from us everything that prevented us calling God Father. And in that exchange, we became the righteousness of God. One of the things that is so clear in the Scriptures is that not only was sin taken care of on the cross, not only was sin, and the power of sin eradicated through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, so was sickness. 1 Peter 2:24, who his own self bear our sins in his own body, on the tree that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed.

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The cross addresses everything that was lost in Adam.

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Now the Scripture talks about the first Adam and the second Adam. The first Adam, the federal head of humanity, chose to follow his own way. And we bear the consequences of that rebellion. The second Adam, the second head of humanity, the second one who came perfect, Unsullied sinless in every respect. Jesus Christ one back.

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All that was lost. Joy, health, strength. This was all one back on our behalf. Sin, sickness, poverty, confusion, disease. All were nailed to the same stake that dealt with our sins.

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All was nailed as sickness, disease, confusion, poverty. He dealt with it all. He became poor, that we might be made rich. And that is in every respect in our spirit, in our soul, in our body. Here in the natural world.

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In Christ, we step into Liberty. The Scriptures say that it’s for freedom that Jesus set us free. Sickness and disease have no place in the life of a believer. And in the same way as we are called to resist sin and temptation. We resist symptoms that speak of the fall.

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The old world was subjected to futility and fear. The new creation steps into what could be described as a new Eden. Dead to sin alive to Christ, our bodies given over to God as instruments of righteousness and true worship. The Holy Spirit himself has taken up residence in your body. Faith, my friends, comes through hearing and hearing by the word of God.

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I think it’s very easy sometimes in a fallen world to be afraid to challenge the sin and sickness soaked status quo. Bit of a tongue twister there.

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Oh, Jesus, we’re so thankful to you. You are magnificent. It’s very easy for us to be afraid to challenge these things for fear that we might offend someone some people may hear. And honestly, we all struggle at times with sin. And yet sin is taken care of.

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We all struggle at times with symptoms of sickness in our bodies. None of this. When we talk the truth. When we bring the word to the table, it’s not that we are pointing fingers. It’s not for any condemnatory cause.

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That is not the nature of our Father. He is not an accuser in the same way as Satan. Satan may use the word of God that way. But we do not. And certainly never once, ever in all of eternity.

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As our father used it in that manner. He uses it to convict. He uses it to convince that our hearts would be fully convinced of the truth. As it says of Abraham. He was so convinced of the promise that he believed God regardless of contrary circumstances and contrary proof.

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And we can do the same thing, even in the face of contrary symptoms or contrary circumstances. Being fearful to call out a lie and to fanfare the truth gives free rein to the ravages of Satan, to stand unchallenged. Instead, in the name of Jesus, we declare the free reign of God. Regardless of common wisdom. We count the blood of Jesus as something uncommon and we expect and welcome uncommon results.

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Scriptures say 1000 may fall at our side and 10,000 at our right hand. But it will not come near us. Psalm 91 if there was ever a time where we need to come again, back to the word of God and the truth that is found there in now is that time. Today I am celebrating an exchange that took place. A giving of gifts.

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I gave him my sickness. He gave me health. I hand over my weakness to him. He bestowed strength. He bore my sickness and carried my diseases.

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What a gift. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website. Davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.

No longer an outsider, an alien from the covenants, your place of authority and seat in the heavenlies is set. Your garment of praise is prepared. Beautifully arrayed you stride without shame or fear into the presence of a holy God, and call Him Father.

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Advent for adventurers. Day ten. A garment of praise for the Spirit of heaven as Hallelujah, mine and yours. If you know, Jesus is a story of rags to riches. The Scriptures tell us that he gave us a garment of praise for the Spirit of Heaviness.

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Isaiah 61:3 I love the picture that we find in the Scriptures in the book of Zechariah, we find the high priest Joshua dressed in rags, dragged before the courts of heaven with Satan baying at his heels, and these various spirit beings flank his sides, and accusations are showering on this poor guy’s burden soul. Now the entire passage is worth reading. And so I’ll just relate it to you.

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Now you can read it for yourself in Zechariah three verses one to seven. It says the Lord showed me Joshua with a high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord, rebuke, You, O Satan, even the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem. Rebuke you. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?

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Indeed, how many brands am I speaking to who have been plucked from the fire? Now Joshua was closed with filthy garments and stood before the angel. He answered and Spake unto those who stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him, and unto him. He said, Behold, I have caused your iniquity to pass from you, and I will clothe you with a change of raiment. And I said, Let them set a fair Mitre upon his head.

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So they set a fair Mitre upon his head and closed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord stood by. And the angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua, saying, Thus, Saith the Lord of hosts. If you will walk in my ways, if you will keep my charge, then you shall also judge my house and shall also keep my courts, and I will give you places to walk among these that stand by. The interesting thing here for me, anyways, is, who are the people standing by?

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Or who are the beings standing by? The Spirit asks that question. And the beings that were standing by were not natural beings. They were supernatural beings. And Joshua here is told, when you’re clothed in this way, when we take away that spirit of Heaviness and clothes you with this garment of praise.

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When we take away those filthy rags of sin and clothe you with righteousness, you will have place to walk among these that stand by. You will be able to inhabit both spirit and natural worlds, one at the same time, a co-citizen of two places.

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Here we have a picture of what has taken place in Christ. With this new authority and entrance to the heavens, you have the highest privilege of all the ability to praise the King. A garment of praise to praise the Father in spirit and truth. To step with confidence into the realm from the realm of men and into the realms of God, a co citizen of two worlds. How magnificent is this gift that the Lord has given us?

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You’re no longer an outsider, no longer an alien from the covenants. Your place of authority and your seat in the heavenlies is set and your garment of praise is prepared. You know you are beautifully arrayed to stride without shame or fear, into the presence of a Holy God and to call him Father. I love this verse, as we conclude today, Ephesians two verses four to seven. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ by Grace.

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Hallelujah, Grace, Grace, Grace. Are you saved and has raised us up together? He’s made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his Grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today.

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If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website. Davidleemartin.com have a great day.

Joy is the atmosphere of Heaven. Streets of gold are made for dancing not dragging your feet. Delight pervades the air, and every atom sings praise to the one who made them…

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Still enjoying the opportunity to celebrate some of the things that the Lord has exchanged with us and picking up on the idea of exchanging gifts, we find again in Isaiah 61:3, that Jesus, through Jesus, through Christ, God has given us the oil of joy for mourning. Joy is the atmosphere of heaven. The Bible talks about streets of gold, and I promise you that those streets are made for dancing on, not dragging your feet, I would imagine, and we can only begin to imagine just the wonders that await those of us who have responded to the call of Christ.

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We can only imagine the delight that must pervade the air with every atom singing praise to the one who made them. When Jesus said, if you don’t sing, if you don’t cry out, even the rocks will.

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I really believe that every beating, pulsing atom in heaven is singing praise, and that when we come into that atmosphere we will be enraptured with this ultimate joy, ultimate presence, ultimate delight. Man’s last enemy death is dead in the dust. There are no more tears to be shed for sorrow, but an Eternity’s worth of tears of joy that we will just thankfully offer up to our God. All the morning will be just a memory, a long forgotten shadow of a sinful world finally set free. Now the Bible talks about the oil of the anointing dripping down the beard of Aaron, just down to the skirts of his robe and heaven’s.

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Oil will drip from beard to skirt. All things passed away, everything made new. I believe that this is the world that we ache for. The Scriptures say in Romans, chapter eight, verses 19 through 23. I’m reading in the waymous, but you can read it in whatever version of the Bible you want, as long as it’s a sound one and you’ll find that all creation is groaning, yearning, aching to see this reality come to pass, to see the fullness of the sons of God.

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It reads for all creation, gazing eagerly as without stretched neck is waiting and longing to see the manifestation of the sons of God and the daughters of God, of course. And more than that, we ourselves, though we possess the Spirit as a foretaste and a pledge of the glorious future. And what a full taste it is to know the Holy Spirit and to walk with Him. Oh, my Lord, if this is just a full taste, what will the full meal be like? Yet we ourselves inwardly sigh.

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There is a yearning. There is a groaning. There is a sigh on the inside of us as we wait and long for open recognition as sons through the deliverance of our bodies. Truly, the morning, the yearning, the aching, the breaking, all of those emotions that so weigh our heart. Sometimes as we walk through this world, they will all be stripped away and we will know the fullness of joy.

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We will know. Morning. Never again. There will be no death. There will be no tears.

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There will be no sickness. There will be no brokenness. This is the dream. I think of the Scriptures that talk about the people sat by the Rivers of Babylon weeping. And this is the dream that we dream as we sit.

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Sometimes by bitter waters of Babylon. Here in the world longing for those Rivers of Zion. Zion’s joy will flood our soul. And we will sing rapturous songs of deliverance, complete and done and of Kingdom fully come. This, my dear brother and sister, is the hope that we carry.

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God has given us an oil of joy for that heavy garment of mourning. This is the hope mourn not. I say for the man or woman that you once were the man or woman. Crucified, Jesus said, you must lay down your life, lose your life in order to find it. And I think sometimes in the confusion of this present age, in this present world, we can sometimes mourn the loss of things that were just heavy weights that were holding us back.

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Friend, we have lost nothing. But we have gained all that old, unrenewed self is crucified with Christ buried in the ground. Let’s not resurrect him. Let’s not dig him up, please. The last thing we need are a bunch of religious zombies walking around.

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We want to fully embody this new life that Christ has infused us and infused their spirit with nothing of the old life will pass through the gate of eternity. Only that which has been redeemed, only that which has been sanctified and set apart for the full purpose of God, this world and all its glory. Like Paul’s no punches, he says, it’s like dung compared to the glory to be revealed. He’s speaking of all the accolades of the world, he says, what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christie doubtless.

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And I count all things but loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I’ve suffered the loss of all things.

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And do count them like dung. That I may win Christ and be found in him. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website davidleemartin.com.

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Have a great day.

Only divinity can turn ashes back to fire.

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Continuing to talk about the great exchange that took place where the gifts of God were given through the cross and what took place there here at Christmas and around on Christmas time. There’s a lot of exchanging of gifts. But as we said yesterday and over the past few days, there’s no greater exchange than the exchange that took place when Jesus became sin on our behalf so we could become the righteousness of God. And throughout the Scriptures, we find this exchange spoken of in so many different ways.

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A number of verses in Isaiah, for example, looking at Isaiah 61:3, the Scriptures tell us that he gave me beauty for Ashes.

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And I’m sure many of you who have come to faith and have come to know Jesus, who have stepped from the old life to the new will completely relate to this. I know for me, man. There was a time when my life was burning to the ground. The relationship that I considered to be the great love of my life had crumbled. I now know that it wasn’t the great love of my life.

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Larna is the great love of my life. And we’ve been married now for well over 20 years, 20, almost 25 years. And she is the absolute dream Babe, as far as I’m concerned and just gets more and more beautiful as the years go on. But back in the day when I was a young man, the relationship that I was involved in, not surprisingly, went absolutely pear shaped. But it broke my heart at the time.

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My dream of being an artist was just slapped in the face by the art school that I’d set my desire on. And again, it’s not surprising. I really was really pursuing this Avenue for all the wrong reasons. My spirituality was shipwrecked. In my confusion.

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I figured there must be more. There must be a way out. There must be some kind of Avenue to meaning. And in all of that confusion, I thought I was going to find this meaning through a smorgasbord spirituality and a cocktail of different hallucinogens that I was experimenting with. I was really on a quest.

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I was on a search. But looking in all the wrong places and into that mess stepped the Majesty of Jesus onto the ash heap that my life seemed to be walked and stepped. This unexpected guest. Jesus visited me in my home. Jesus visited me in all of that darkness and confusion.

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The Holy Ghost burst in, and in that moment, everything changed. I picture myself now just emaciated, spiritually shivering there before him, and he stripped away those ugly scars and took away and removed from me all of the filthy rags that were covering me and beauty clothes to my humbled soul with righteousness beauty clothes, the humble he gave me beauty for my Ashes. My sin had really left my life in Ashes, and there was little health to burn. There wasn’t a lot left for the flames to lick up.

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But I can tell you this.

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When the Holy Ghost moves in, he can turn Ashes back to fire. My heart was awakened to the reality of a new creation. With old things gone and new things come. The past was pinned to that Savage tree on Calvary, my life and all of my mistakes and all of my confusion was nailed there together with Christ. And this clean, open road of forgiveness stretched out before me.

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And on that night, at 19 years old, I chose to step onto that road. And I’ve been walking that highway now for wow 30 years. It was on that night, though, when he gave me beauty for my Ashes, that my grateful adventure began. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today.

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If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.

The glory of the gospel is the exchange that took place through the cross, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Christmas is a time we exchange gifts but nothing can compare to the gifts that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost exchanged with us through Christ.

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In thinking around the subject of Christmas and the season that we’re now in the subject of gift giving and exchanging of gifts is something that is like just everywhere, isn’t it? All of the shops trying to sell whatever it is they want to put in your hands so you can put it in the hands of another. But it got me thinking about the exchange, the biggest and greatest exchange that took place in history. And that was the exchange that took place through the cross, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus.

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As we’ve said, Christmas is a time that we exchange gifts.

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But absolutely nothing can compare with the gifts that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost exchanged with us through Christ. Quite honestly, our part in that exchange was the giving of something that no one in their right mind would ever want to receive. But Jesus, in his incredible humility, Jesus, in his overwhelming love for you and I and for humanity, chose to enter into a transaction in the spirit world that left us free from the burden of sin and the recipient of righteousness. When people say that Jesus was just a teacher, they completely missed the point.

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Jesus didn’t come just to teach some moral law or even a new way of living.

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He didn’t come just as an example to us to follow. We find a fervent prayer to the Father that he prayed. And he said, Now My soul is troubled. What shall I say, Father? Save me from this hour.

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He was speaking of the horrors that he was about to face as he was crucified. But then he said this and prayed this. But for this purpose, I came to this hour, John 12:27 for this purpose, I came. Jesus was in one sense, born to die. It was through his death and his resurrection that his overwhelming victory was proven and established.

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He did not come to die as a martyr for a cause. He didn’t come as an example to follow. There was so much more. Jesus did not come to establish a religion or, as I say, die for a cause. Now, many people have done that for very Noble reasons.

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But Jesus was coming for something far greater and so far reaching that it touches every human being on this planet. Today he came as a perfect spotless lamb, in exchange for the dark and sinful soul of mankind. That exchange took place on the cross. We bring our sin. He brings his righteousness.

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We bring our darkness. He brings his light, and we exchange through the blood in that body on the tree. In a sense, he became you. He became me. An exchange took place.

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He died. And when he died, you died. You died to your old way of life. You died to the power of sin. And you were raised again together with him to a new life.

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His life is the greatest gift that has ever been given. And it’s one that opened the way for every other gift to be bestowed upon us. One Peter two, verse 24 says he himself bore our sins in his own body, on the tree that we having died to. Sins might live for righteousness. What an incredible gift.

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Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website davidleemartin.com have a great day. Bye.