Monday Motivation: Retire to Refire

God instituted the sabbath not necessarily as a religious phenomenon but as a spiritual principle for eternal productivity. Without retiring, there can't be space for reloading to continue firing.
After each day, sleep rejuvenates the body and the brain to recover and conceive again for continuous delivery. God made one day a week for man, according to Christ, and it is for rest.

We are in days when this isn't regulated by any law anymore, and so people can keep working without having a life or a time to rest till they don't have anything to offer any more with health lost and quality and quantity of products diminished.

To enhance productivity and the power to enjoy the gains of labour, we must consciously organise Sabbaths for ourselves daily, weekly and annually.

It is during these periods that new ideas and innovations are born in our minds. They are times to appraise what we have done and what is yet to be done. They are the times of dreaming and planning. Why do we take dreaming more seriously than daydreaming? Because they aren't products of idleness but of rest.

The body must be ruled by the spirit for man not to labour in vain. Mental work pays more than physical work. And when the body is at a state of rest, the mind can be focused on what's yet to be, to conceive and to deliver for the body to bring forth.
Rest and idleness aren't same. The sleep of the labouring man is sweet, so said King Solomon. Jesus Christ said we should work while it is yet day, for the night comes when no man can work. Of course, we know that's a parable. There must be a no work periods not borne out of laziness or idleness but out of a sense of responsibility towards quality productivity.

Idleness is more tiring than productivity. That's why you see people saying they are tired even after doing nothing. We should actually be tired sitting down doing nothing.

Entertainment isn't same as rest. There's a place for entertainment, after all entertainment keeps the overall economy going, as many keeps working to be able to maintain their addiction to entertainment, entertainment isn't cheap but it isn't rest neither. It can be engaging and draining mentally and physically and it has the ability to destroy productivity if care isn't taken. King Solomon said, he who loves wine and oil would not be rich. Entertainment has the potential of derailing focus. Most of the entertainments we have today were developed to divert the attention of a restless populace by past kings so the people won't have the time to see their lack of leadership competence that may bring a revolt against them. Just as they used religion, entertainment also was used and even more.

Entertainment isn't rest even if a level of it can be engaged in the time of rest. Entertainment has its good part but it isn't rest.

Rest is productive in nature and also reproductive. It prepares the body to work without an hangover, and refreshes the mind to conceive what the future holds. It doesn't cover past faults like entertainment may do rather it helps to see what's better to be done and how better to do things.
No one should get to work tired, drained or burned out. Resuming work should be with rejuvenated vigour which shouldn't be by reason of drugs or anything like that but by quality rest.

I understand that many don't know how to shut down. But it's an habit to develop. Many feel guilty taking a rest even when lack of rest may be killing them because of how they have been psychologically conditioned. Some erroneously won't rest because they don't feel tired. You don't wait till you are tired before consciously stepping aside, we must rule our bodies and not our bodies ruling us.

Let resting and resorting be part of the plan for our days and years, work will never end even if it has killed, one must consciously learn to leave work alone so as not to make a shipwreck. When we have quiet and good quality rest, we are restored to a good degree of the factory setting to deliver quality.

Most importantly for leaders of organizations who care for others and who want jobs to be done. Many of them complain of people not spending their time of rest on the jobs, while they themselves would hardly leave work for a rest, thinking of the gains they would have made during the time of rest. But it's an illusion that kills.
Some church leaders won't sleep for fastings, vigils and counselling, no weekends, no holidays, no vacations, no retirements, yet no much physical comfort to fall back on, some lose their families and their health and old age may bring the negative harvests of such lack of personal responsibility.

This must change for preservation. We must often heed the call of nature and of God to keep a sabbath and also to hear Christ saying 'Come ye apart for a while to rest...'

So that when duty calls we won't be too tired to be productive or not to be able to go all the way in fulfilling purpose...

Create times to shut down, to throw the phone away and just be by yourself. It works, rest works!

Compliments of the season and happy new year to you.

Good morning, it's a great week!

Mark 6
31 And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. 32 And they departed into a desert place by ship privately.

Relationship Friday: Marital Integrity & The Undefiled Bed

Getting married, vows were made to remain faithful to that one person you are getting married to and to forsake all others. Even in situations where such vows were not made, the institution of marriage connotes the height of commitment possible in human society, a lifetime commitment to that person till death.

The percentage of people who are able to stay true to this is what is unknown. Several cultures have had to adopt that in its various interpretations but in most, it is generally unacceptable not to be faithful to the marital vows.

But more and more, people break these expectations and vows to flirt around and commit all sorts of lewdness breaking each other's hearts and trust. Families have been scattered and marriages terminated because someone decided to defile the marriage bed.
It's difficult to expect that your spouse would go out of his or her way to sleep with another person. It shouldn't even ever be expected. Though we hear these days that some would do that with each other's consent, but we need to understand that the mutual consent doesn't make it right. It is taking perversion to another level.

That unfaithfulness is wrong and unfair isn't something we can feign ignorance of. Yet the knowledge of that wouldn't stop the temptation to flirt and, in so many cases, to fall, even if it draws guilt and pain.

Some see the solution as not being caught and would pay whatever ransom to keep it unknown but that too further creates problems. The fear of exposure with the guilt already there will definitely create untold psychological problems.
The answer isn't in mutual consent to live unfaithfully, neither is it in cover ups and definitely polygamy won't stop it, or how many women in a man's life will stop him from thinking of another one he is yet to sleep with? Except that polygamy or keeping a harem of women is hypocritical on many fronts, trying unsuccessfully to curb sexual immorality in men, without thinking of how to curb same in women. King Solomon with a thousand women in his life still craved for the wife of his youth, unsatisfied with the harem.

Even though, sexual immorality is a just reason for divorce, I don't think it should always end up there because if every sexual immorality in marriage ends up in divorce, how many marriages would remain?

But that code teaches us something in principle, that just as powerful as death is in separating a marriage, so also is sexual immorality. It teaches us that, sexual immorality and unfaithfulness is as if the person murdered his or her own wife or husband.

I have heard the argument that if God doesn't want us to sleep around why did he allow our libido to be inflamed towards others outside our spouses? But it's an irresponsible mentality. The question would be if you are to sleep around with every person towards whom your lust pushes you? How would that be?

The answer isn't in self justification but in self control with good reasoning. King Solomon said he who commits adultery has no sense. It takes a high level of thoughts to overlook and to avoid.

Some people would convince themselves with the illusion that they had married the most beautiful woman or the most attractive man. Maybe to make their spouses feel good or to make other people look less attractive, the truth however is that you may not have married the most beautiful person on earth but you have every responsibility to be faithful to him or her even if such has the world record of unattractiveness. To wait till you marry the most beautiful person before being sexually responsible is never to be faithful to anyone for life.

But it is possible to remain true. I can understand that it is possible to love your spouse and still fall into sexual immorality with another but it is not possible to be thinking correctly and fall.

As Christians, who are born again and recreated, we are built to be holy and to maintain the honor in marriage with the bed undefiled. We know God judges such. We have the capacity and grace and we need not shirk it rather, we should employ the riches of God's grace, the gift of righteousness and the quickening of the Holy Spirit to overcome.

When the home is working as it should and the love we have for each other is expressed, it will be difficult to fall. When we look out for each other and we respect each other's opinions about our lifestyles we become safe.
When we stay together, as friends and companions, it becomes difficult to fall. To be sexually immoral requires some degree of independence, secrecy and covering up and so interdependence, openness and togetherness between couples are deterrents. Except when the relationship has totally broken down and both have lost respect and sense of responsibility towards the other.

But the most basic of all deterrents is that self desire not to be involved in such acts for God, for spouse, for family and for self. It is a desire that must be deliberate with cogent decisions to go with, to consciously watch against vulnerabilities and engage every spiritual and physical resource to war against it and also employing the power of marriage itself to deal with it.

Marriage seals us normally with the commitments it comes with if we won't despise them. When the Bible says we should get married to avoid sexual immorality, God knows there are things in a godly marriage that should keep a child of God from sexual immorality.

In a functional marriage spouses wont be sex starved to the point of seeking relief outside marriage, if we don't want to be heartbroken, we need to do what we have to do. Yet, just that you are sex starved isn't enough reason to go out there sleeping around, it is like justifying rape by how the rape victim is dressed. Being sex starved in marriage is a problem that can be solved if help is sought, it shouldn't be a reason for adultery.

It is a matter of integrity to remain faithful to your wife or husband for life. It makes the other person sure of your reliability even in other areas. If you have been secretly nursing how to do things behind the back of your spouse or you are already deep into such, know that you are exposing yourself to hurts, guilts and shame of sexual immorality that may not quickly go away not just for you but for people you truly love and care about around you.

As we approach the new year, let this be a thing to seek and to do. When such decisions are made, God backs them up with His grace and power and with time we only wonder in retrospect how what people call impossible had become possible in our lives.

It is possible, let's do this! I wish you a happy new year 2019. God bless you.

Hebrews 13:4 English Standard Version (ESV)
4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Ministry Wednesday: The Gift of Christ, The Beginning of Ministry

Ministry Wednesday: The Gift of Christ, The Beginning of Ministry.

Though hardly used in Christmas exhortations, John 3:16 was Christ's own explanation for Christmas.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The essence of Christmas is captured in John 3:16. That God permitted His only Son, the only one who had the genetic material God has, the only other being who had the seed of God, the only other being who had the nature of God, the Zoe, the eternal kind of life, infinite and original, to take on a human body, sharing in human life, being subject to death, so that humans too can upgrade to share in that same kind of life for the purpose of being part of the family and the kingdom of God eternally.

That's the essence of the joy of Christmas and it is the essence of ministry. If we know this, it is safe for us.

It must have been for love, it couldn't have been by legality. It has to be of grace and not of works, that God will decide to save mankind and share His life with us.

After all, God didn't promise Adam that if he ate the forbidden fruit and died, as assuredly as He had told him, that He would come back to raise him up and give him a new life.

Redemption wasn't part of the original deal. If God had not sent His Son, His Only Son, whom He loves to come to redeem us, giving us another chance, God would have had no fault. It was love that moved God and not justice. We have no right to being saved but for God's eternal unconditional love.

So we see God's love motivating His will and decisions to save us.

Then we see the place of His ability to give sacrificially. His love moved Him to decide on our salvation and His ability to make sacrifices took over to provide His only Son as the sacrifice for our sins.
His faithfulness completed the cycle, He assured us that whosoever believes would not perish but have eternal life.

We may love people, and make great plans for them, we would need the necessary ability to be able to fulfil the plan and enough faithfulness not to fail when asked.

And this is ministry as exemplified by God and His Christ. We are called into ministry to continue the process. It won't be godly if it isn't done that way.

We must share the same unconditional love God has for people. His love is to whosoever. It is sincere and honest. Ministry must begin and continue in this love. Love must be the motivation for our ministries. If we don't have the capacity to love, then we don't have the capacity for ministry.

After that, we must share that same decision God has made for people. We must seek to see everyone standing perfect and complete in all the will of God. Not standing perfect in our own will but in the will of God. The unconditional love we share with God for people, should lead us to desire same things God desires for them. We don't use our pains, biases, offenses and levels of relationship to determine what people's lot should be, rather we seek for them to be all that God wants for them to be, nothing less nothing more irrespective of who they are to us. This is ministry.

Now, we don't always have the power to give what God wants or desires for the people. This is where our dependence on God comes in. This is where grace comes in. When we share same love and desires with God for them, we need to then make ourselves available by faith and submission, ready to make whatever sacrifice it takes to bring God's will to pass for the people. Here, God takes over and passes His omnipotence through us to bring His will to pass in the lives of the people who believe. This is ministry.

It takes making ourselves available sacrificially just as Jesus Christ did, for God to move through us to bring His will to pass in the lives of His people.

Lastly we must be faithful to this process. Whoever believe should be saved and not be disappointed. Ministry requires of us to remain faithful to God's service and devotion, to His call upon our lives, to the grace He has given us and to the people He has committed to us to minister His will to. If we aren't faithful, He won't be able to trust us with what's valuable to Him. He won't be able to trust us with His word and with His cause. If we aren't faithful, we fail. We fail to carry through to the people what's expected of us. We fail to beat all the odds to deliver purpose. It takes faithfulness to deliver. And at every stage our faithfulness will be tested, we must not fail.

Christmas should remind us of the reason for ministry. It is the beginning of ministry. It is the example of ministry for us to follow.

God loves the world that hates Him, we should love as He does.

God made decisions and commitment to save mankind. We should share and respect those same decisions and make commitments to see them come to pass in people's lives.

God has the ability in His omnipotence to bring His will to pass for everyone. We should believe that and make ourselves available to be channels of His power for the purpose of establishing His will in people's lives.

We should share the character of faithfulness God has. We should be faithful towards Him, towards His will, towards His word, towards His cause and towards His people.

This is ministry and the grace to do this is available in Christ Jesus which we draw through knowledge and faith.

May this grace be multiplied to you today and always in Jesus name. Amen.

Merry Christmas and I wish you a very happy new year in advance!

Monday Motivation: Timing and Processes

I don't know what to properly title this thought. But follow me, you'll understand what I'm about to share.
We always have tasks that eventually culminate in the success of a bigger project. That's the essence of visions and goals. It has been properly flogged how we measure our level of progress by the little successes and goals we achieve per time underscoring the importance of goals. These goals are created by little tasks we accomplish by our skills and competencies.

These tasks must be synchronized and programmed according to proper placement and timing in the program created to accomplish the tasks and eventually the overall project.

We thus have the elements of accomplishments as more than knowing what to do but also knowing when it comes in to be done. This is the importance of processes and timings.

That's why we talk about putting the cart before the horse. This is why we write recipes in cooking and procedures in many other things we do.

In life and businesses, we must find out the elements and the components of the projects we are to accomplish and find where each fits in and when each comes in.
We can design processes and procedures that accomplish particular tasks easily if we know the elements that make them up and when and where they fit in the process.

No matter how small or casual a task is, particularly if such tasks come often, it's easier we discover the program that makes such work. Success may depend on it.

Without them, simple things become so cumbersome, and processes become clumsy and disorganized. Time and other resources are wasted and the bogus cost and the pains the project eventually incur may not be justified by the results.

Take time out to discover the processes that guide life generally and your life specifically, see to it that the cart isn't put before the horse, and know the importance of every element and when what comes in and when a thing has expired. Make sure nothing takes more than its place and time and follow the processes that work to bring you to the place prepared.

Everything has a solution in its how's, when's and in its processes. Discover it and follow. God's blessings on you alwa

ys. Compliments of the season to you, Merry Christmas!

Isaiah 28
9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: