The Purpose and the Abuse of the Season

Monday Motivation: The Purpose and the Abuse of the Season

We can't talk Christmas and not talk about purpose. There are a few lessons we all can learn from the season.

Today, Santa Claus, whatever it is, has almost taken over the purpose of Christmas. Watching a cartoon on TV yesterday as the writers tried to give reason to the celebrations, I saw how they were frantically trying to pin Christmas on Santa Claus as if it's Clausmas and not Christmas.

To me, it is an abuse of purpose. Not that Christmas celebration itself is sacrosanct to the purpose of Christ's incarnation and manifestation in the flesh, but, at least, it bears His name and it was originally meant to celebrate His birth even if the gospel didn't tell us His birth date.

The crux of the celebration therefore should be the birth of the Christ and the importance of His coming into the world. This is purpose.

We all know, as we have been taught that when purpose isn't known abuse is inevitable, the blurring of the purpose of Christmas is giving way to its abuse. It may eventually become unnecessary if it's purpose isn't pursued.

To the business world, if an abuse of purpose becomes an unexpected path to product acceptance and patronage as Christmas has become, such is an acceptable abuse but not so for our spirituality. The abuse of Christmas isn't good for purpose.

Christmas should celebrate Christ. Celebrating Christ is finding out the purpose of His coming and accepting what that is, otherwise, it's of no use.

No matter how merry a Christmas is, if Christ isn't enthroned in the heart, it is of no use. No matter how many gifts we give or take, if we haven't received God's gift of Christ into the heart by faith, to believe the message and the values Christ brought and to accept the works He did for our salvation, those gifts are mere vanities.

The message and the works of Christ and the grace of God's love they represent are the crux of the purpose we celebrate at Christmas... Any other thing is an abuse of purpose...

Merry Christmas to you and your family? Remember, it is Christmas and not Clausmas...

Photo Credit: Angeleses/Pixabay

Quest for Fulfillment

Monday Motivation: The Quest for Fulfilment

One of the fundamental questions about life is how to define and discover fulfillment. Outside the basic things of life, food, raiment, housing, health, security, liberty, society, relevance, relationships, information and communication which includes transportation, would we still have a need for fulfillment?

The quest for fulfillment is often obscured by the need for these things. The need for them doesn't often help us to discover how we need inner fulfillment. So long we are yet to meet these needs, we keep thinking our fulfillment will be when we meet the needs.

But they are actually insatiable, we'll always need more and more of these things instinctively because we think our fulfillment is in having them.

When we condition our basic needs through contentment, we can then see how much we need fulfilment.

Now, when we find fulfillment, we suddenly realise that we don't need an excess of many of the things listed above as we once thought when we hadn't found fulfilment.

Many of the items listed above define humanity's basic acceptable selfishness but personal fulfilment defines their limits beyond which they will become useless, wasteful, unacceptable and oppressive.

Take security for instance, one may get enough security to actually become paranoid about insecurity and would want to see conquering those seen as security threats as the thing to do to be assured of any security. Such a thing will happen when the sense of fulfillment hasn't been achieved. The sense of fulfillment takes away fear.

Desire for fulfillment is an indicator of life's higher calling. We were not made to have food, health, security and perpetuity, these are means to an end. We were not made just for the sake of existence, survival and death, if that's all, then what? Wouldn't it just be a waste? Life would mean nothing and hasting the process might just be alright because even if it lasts a million years for a person, it would still amount to nothing. Vanity upon vanity will equal vanity.

Fulfillment is found in Christ and in the purpose for which God has created us. Christ came to declare the truth of God to mankind just as each is sent to reveal something about God and about what He had done or prepared for us here. Christ was sent to make us see the possibilities ahead of us in the future and in the timeless and eternal realm of the supernatural in the kingdom of God.

The spiritual and the supernatural within man is what yearns for fulfillment and nothing in the physical can fill that void no matter how much money, materials we achieve or how we matter in society.

Are you looking for satisfaction and fulfillment? It isn't in satisfying our greed and lusts, neither is it in hurting others to get our desires, it is in filling up the supernatural void within us, the reason why Christ came to give us that water of life that satisfies eternally.

With that, contentment comes naturally, and fulfilment is birthed, even with only food and raiment. Without it, gaining the whole world won't suffice!

When the water of life has satisfied the thirst of the soul, love and light manifest on the outside. Aggression, oppression, deprivation of others, lack of compassion, sympathy and empathy will naturally fizzle out because there is peace within. Giving becomes easy because holding on to more than you need will be uncomfortable and incompatible with the inner satisfaction and fearlessness within.

It isn't religion, it is Christ. Fulfilment is in Christ Jesus, a satisfaction that has no roots in the physical but which only bears fruits for others to partake of in the natural.

Seek that satisfaction... Then others will be added.

Shalom, have a great week ahead!

Preparing for a New Season

Ministry Wednesday: Preparing For a New Season

Kenneth Hagin once said, preparation time is not a wasted time and I believe it strongly. If we must maximize our gifts and potentials to give birth to our divine and eternal purposes, we must recognise our time of preparation and subject ourselves diligently to it till its over before we get to the stage of performance. Proper preparation must precede perfect performance and profitable productivity.

God is committed to preparing us in the best way possible even before we become conscious of it. He takes us through different situations and circumstances to bring the best out of us. We would learn, for instance, how to be full and how to suffer want, how to abase and how to abound, we would learn first how to be the same person in whatever position we find ourselves and we will learn to be able to work with the strength Christ gives.

One area of preparation is to review the assignment given. How clear is it now compare to when we first received it? What details are being highlighted now that were blurred in the vision before?

I understand that divine assignments and their seasons don't run according to our calendar, they have their own schedules. There are times of waiting and times of movement that may not coincide with our months, years and decades. But these new moons help us to know the mind of God as pertaining to seasons and schedules and we can use them to organise our activities.

So, a new year and a new decade is dawning and we need to review how far we've done of the assignment God gave us.

We need to be ready for whatever God would have us do in the coming year, either we are continuing with what we've done or what we are doing or we have a new phase of the assignment to execute.

Preparation can't be done without an anticipation for performance.

We know we have God to please and to impress. We must seek to be well pleasing to Him. We want to continue to do His work and to complete it per time and per phase. We don't want to be workmen that would be ashamed.

So, we seek to receive strength and wisdom for the new season. We would need fresh grace, we would need the anointing and required wisdom. Challenges will come with the new year, we need all that it takes to overcome. If we fail in the days of battle, it'll be because our strength is small...we need to be prepared like a horse is prepared for battle even though we know the victory is of the Lord.

There shall be fresh temptations to overcome and there will be need for progress, momentum, speed and fresh eternal impacts to make but we won't wait till then to prepare, now is the time to fellowship with God and in His word to gain strength, wisdom, power and all we'll need to make the expected impacts.

What if Christ comes on the 1st of January or even before then? How prepared are you? Will the work already done stand the test of fire? If we hear 'Time up', how would we react?

These calls for personal preparation for us all. Some of us still yearns for new levels in God, we yearn for the mark of the prize for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, we yearn to be delivered of divine pregnancies we'd carried for so long...and many are due for this coming year and decade... We need to prepare for the delivery...

We are not in darkness for the day to catch us unawares, we should not be carried away by the activities of darkness, they may look legitimate but they will keep us oblivious of the times and the demands. Nothing must catch us unaware... Nothing that God demands of us should... We are children of light!

We would need extra oil for our lamp as unto the wise virgins, only with the extra can we survive the night. We must prepare for the long haul, loaded with those spiritual materials that would last us the night! We must not burn out in the middle of the night before the bridegroom shows up.

It's time to prepare! The new year is coming and only the prepared will ride on the waves of the storms its coming with... Be prepared, start now! Seek God's face and live!

Shalom to you!

Photo Credit:Bishwas!/Pixabay 

Writing Your own Epitaph

Monday Motivation: Writing Your own Epitaph

Epitaph is an English word formed from the Greek word epithaphios which means a funeral oration. Epitath is a text written in honour of a deceased, often on a tombstone where the deceased is buried.

These days, people hire orators to write it for their dead, or browse the internet to get best ideas and words to impress visitors to the tomb, most of which may actually be misleading.

The truth about epitaphs is that each of us writes his or her own, and whatever we write, our loved ones or those they hire can't ever write anything better or more accurate.

We live our lives for what we will be remembered for. I believe there is life after death, we are eternal, we really don't die. I believe after death there is judgment and I believe whatever we do here has impact on what we meet at the other side, I believe we are either saved from eternal judgment or we face the wrath of eternal justice.

But epitaphs aren't written for God. God's judgement doesn't need human accolades or condemnations. God is all knowing, if we follow His salvation process, He is faithful to save us at the end.

But then, our lives are also meant to inspire others and we ourselves seek to know what people think about us. Epitaphs are written for people to read to receive knowledge and inspiration about the dead.

We all love to be remembered for good. You may have written someone else's epitaph but how about writing your own by yourself?

And some people won't mind writing theirs too. Of course, we write our own profiles here, and we can convert that and eulogise ourselves but that won't be enough... But the way we write epitaphs isn't the same way we write profiles. You may pen your own profile, you won't pen your own epitaphs even if you wrote it.

Each day and choices we make write our epitaphs on the minds of people, what they will eventually pen and put on the piece of marble to be placed on our tomb is what we are writing today on the minds of those who will pen it.

The problem is that many of us are too carried away in pursuing all manners of things for our selfish temporal sustenance that we forget about what we are writing as we pursue life.

Epitaph writing calls for living life deliberately intentionally. You know what you want to be known and remembered for. You want it to be something of good quality that affects lives more. Then you start working to make it happen, in so doing you make it difficult for whoever would pen your epitaph to write merely whatever he or she thinks or read somewhere else.

We must live our lives in such a way as to positively affect every single person we meet in this life even if meeting for a very brief moment. We have only one life to live and it's so brief, so brief that, light, with its speed of travel, won't reach any significant distance in the universe before the oldest person live from cradle to grave.
Death is inevitable, if Christ tarries, as soon as we die, the epitaphs written about us are rehearsed in every mind upon where we have written it... And if it is to be penned, what will the text be?

Live deliberately, live intentionally, live purposefully, live to leave inspiration behind, live eternally.

In celebration of a child and servant of God, Reinhard Bonnke, who slept in the Lord recently after faithfully preaching the gospel of Christ's love to millions across the world, living a life of great inspiration!

The Minister’s Food

Ministry Wednesday: The Minister’s Food

John 4:34
New Living Translation
Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work

Following Jesus as our Lord and Master requires that we conform to Him and to His style, in believing His every word and living our lives accordingly, following how He lived and made His choices and decisions, considering how He did ministry and patterning our own pursuits of ministry after His in everything, both in administration and in preaching, teaching and ministering. This is how to be His disciples as ministers.

In the passage above, He declared that what gave Him satisfaction was not mere physical food or things but doing and finishing the will of His Father. Which He demonstrated by going hours and hours without food even being hungry and in need of rest. We will always have pressing needs, but doing His will is what will bring perfect satisfaction with or without the needs being met. 

In Luke 10, we read the story of Mary and Martha. Martha was going about to serve Him, while Mary was listening to His word at His feet. He didn't stop any of them from doing what they prioritized, but when Martha complained, He told her what's more important to Him which is hearing His word.

The question each one of us as ministers ought to ask ourselves is what actually brings us satisfaction. Is it the physical service and the physical things we get from people or the opportunity they give to us to deliver the message and to do the word of God?

Mark 3:33-35 New Living Translation

33. Jesus replied, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” 34 Then he looked at those around him and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. 35 Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

We shouldn't miss where He drew His social satisfaction from. Definitely not from His biological intimate family relations but from those who hears Him and does the will of the Father in heaven. Those of His intimate family too can fit into that if they want.

Sometimes, we prefer those who satisfy us physically to those who hear the word of God from us. A times we prefer those who would do obeisance to us and roll on the floor before us to those who hear and do the word of God. We sometimes recognizes and treat people according to our physical and biological relationships, social classes, even religious classes and not according to their willingness to hear God's word and to do the will of God.

We should make our priorities His priorities. That's the only way we can genuinely lead people to Him without us becoming the ultimate in our ministries and taking over His place.

It shouldn't be about our own pleasures and personal satisfaction. Our satisfaction and fulfillment should be drawn from His own pleasures and satisfactions to be authentic before Him.

We need both Mary and Martha around us, but we must always see Mary as having chosen the good part and we should commend and protect her.

We need physical supplies and also the opportunities to do God's work and to finish it for our food and nourishment but we should always see that the ultimate nourishment and fulfillment would only come from doing the will of God and finishing it.

We would always need our physical and biological family members and also those who are attracted to us to hear the word and to do the will of God, we should be careful to recognize our true mothers, brothers and sisters as those who hear God's word and are willing to do God's will.

We will always have a crowd of people coming all around us for whatever physical things they can get through charity and prayers but we should always know that those who came for the word of God, to hear and to practice, are those who are genuine, not those who are not ready to do God's will but are ready to do whatever other things we desire of them.

Our satisfaction must be drawn from the will of God being done around us and not from things that only appeal to our ego and lusts.

This is how to maintain our places and bishoprics in the class of Christ's disciples and among His true servants.

May the Lord grant grace and strength to discover what His will is and to prioritize the doing of God's will.

Remain faithful and blessed in Him. Good day to you.

Photo credit: Pixabay 

It's Not Good to be Alone

Ministry Wednesday: It's not Good to be Alone (4' Read)

Ministers relationship is very crucial to fulfillment of ministry. When God said, it is not good for the man to be alone, He wasn't talking only about the marital system of mankind but in reference to the social being He had made man to be.

We were made to relate with one another if we are to function as we should. We won't ever find fulfillment being alone.

In destiny, people play a major role. It is major factor in destiny. People sent to us or those from whom God had sent us, those sent with us both temporarily and permanently, those we are sent to or those sent from us... Each of these groups requires proper connection and relationship with us to be able to deliver the desires of God.

But ministerial relationships can be as complex as any other. There are so many things brought into it that don't permit effectiveness. There are a lot of carryovers from the world that make a mess of the effect the relationship is meant to create.

Ordinarily, there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither free nor slave in the new creation and in the Kingdom of God. Meaning, the social demarcations we have in the worldly society don't exist here in the kingdom of God. But we may erroneously bring those in and create a social classification among us which may even be peculiar to us. The flesh can be very innovative, once its given a chance, even within a spiritual environment, it knows what to do to establish itself and fester with its works.

You can begin to have classes of graces and anointing, classes of achievements, classes of riches and wealth, and so on once the flesh steps in. 

We are to give honour, not really to demand it. We were told to give honour to whom honour is due, we were not told to seek honour that we even think is due us. But the flesh seeks honour.

No wonder our Lord, Jesus Christ said in John 5

44. How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?

This is a major setback to relationship between and among ministers. We seek and receive honour from one another instead of seeking honour from God and in doing so we destroy fellowship.

We are to give honour, and not to seek it from others! If we abide by this rule, how sweet would our fellowship be?

Jesus Christ, our Lord told the apostles, whom He appointed to send forth, that He won't call them servants but friends... How would the saviour call those who can't save themselves friends? Yet He did it and it is Him we claim we serve, but we know those in our class to call friends, don't we?

God, the Father didn't count it as demeaning or degrading to permit His Son, Jesus Christ to be in His form and to even extend that to those who believe in Him. Jesus Christ Himself didn't see equality with God something to grab by force according to Philippians 2. These personalities are the ones we claim to serve, they called us into service and we have this to learn from how they relate.

We were called into fellowship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, what a display of humility from God the maker of all things! On what grounds are we fellows with God? Think about it? But He wants it and desires it and was willing to send His Son to die on the cross in order to bring that to pass... I was told its the less that should seek the better but God won't wait for that before coming to seek us and to bring us into relationship with Him... We must learn from Him, if truly we share His nature.

If relationship must work among Christian ministers, we must learn from God and practice what we see Him do. And we have the capacity since we share His nature. His nature is primarily of love. God is love. We are His children, we can't be anything but love. But that's only legal, we need to put that to vitality for it to make any difference.

We have the capacity to forgive, we should forgive. We have the capacity to be generous and be helpful, we should do just that. We have the capacity to condescend to people of low degree, we should practice it. We have the capacity to build friendships beyond the world's class mentality, we should do it.

It won't work when we go about seeking people to bow down to us, to prop up our egoistic selves, to call us big titles, to recognise how big we are and to see us as different from them. That's not the spirit of Christ, we have not so learned Christ, that's Satan there in all his identity.

Lets remove all of those things that separate us. Let's stop seeing meekness as weakness, let us stop trampling on those who show us love and honour in their humility. Let us stop thinking we are better than others, seeing that whatever extra we think we have better than others is only given by grace to serve them...

Nothing destroys relationships like pride and nothing builds relationships like humility. We should also remember that the king of all relationships is friendship... We can build it with others, if God could build it with us, even from His exclusive level of the Omnis.

Thank you for reading, it's time we gave these things some very deep thoughts in the Holy Spirit.

Good day to you!

Photo Credit: Geralt/Pixabay

Where Success Begins

Motivation Monday: Where Success Begins

Sometimes the way forward is backwards. Sometimes we have to go back to go forward. There are things we may have left behind that we'll need going forward and no matter how much ground we are covering, we would have to go back to pick up what we left behind to make a meaning. It may be an information, it may be a skill, a relationship, a certification, an experience or whatever that may be. No matter how successful we have become, there are things we may need to go back in time to get in order to make that success worthwhile at the end.

We may have conquered many worlds and we may be ruling at many fronts but if we are yet to conquer self, we are yet to start the process of success.

Anyone who has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down and without walls said King Solomon. Such is like a city with its security apparatus grounded and has become susceptible to alien invasion and at the mercy of opposing forces.

Photo Credit: Skeeze/Pixabay 

Self control is the greatest virtue a life can cultivate. You can't arrive at self control until you have conquered self. You can't control what you are yet to conquer. And whatever is valuable enough to be conquered is surely on the radar of other potential conquerors, it may even already be under the control of another for the pleasure or service of the conqueror. 

What it means is that when you are not in control of your self, something or someone else is in control and such can make you do things you never thought you could do. 

Look around you, you'll notice that everything around you is trying to dictate and control what you do and so dictate who you are and so redefine you. You can only handle them, not by fighting them or struggling with them but by conquering self and controlling it. 

The first thing to conquer and take back from whoever is in charge are your thoughts. All sorts of things try to gain the attention of our thought system. Because whoever controls your thinking also controls your perspective to life and as you think so are you. 

That's why God's wisdom tells us to guard our minds with all diligence because issues of life flow from there. A man is defined by what is loaded in his heart so said Jesus Christ. Be careful what you load into your heart, if the tree is made good, the fruit will automatically be good. Don't let evil and negativity fill your heart to make you bring forth evil fruits. Conquer and control your thoughts! 

Conquer and control your appetites. Our aspirations shouldn't control us, we should control our aspirations. Honour, dignity, respect, love, goodness, grace and mercy are more valuable than any level of life's achievement. If you gain the whole world and lose these, you may die heartbroken with life having no meaning and full of regrets. Check your aspirations and appetite for material things, for sex, for food and drinks, for positions and for accolades, if you don't conquer to control these appetites, they have the capacity to drive a person into insanity, depression, untimely death and destruction. They can sting to the point of losing the very desire for life... Conquer and control your appetites, otherwise you'll be conquered by it and brought under the control of ruthless life's slave masters. 

Conquer and control your emotions. Feelings of affection, feelings of frustration, feelings of anger, feelings of disappointment, feelings of joy and of sorrow may all look involuntary but that's because we are yet to conquer them to be able to control them. 

We should not be happy or sad uncontrollably. Our desire to always be happy may be used as bait and bit to control us. Evil people can make us happy enough to trap us and make us grieve and sorrow enough to take more valuable things from us if we let go the control of our joys and sorrow. No trap is set for a would be victim using baits of what the victim dislikes. 

So many people have been put in bondage by the three most powerful words, "I Love You". We need affection and affirmation but we should control our desire for affections and affirmations. Not everyone who says 'I love you' deserves to be paid attention to in return, no matter the pressure. Many are users and abusers. The pursuit of validation may lead to a deadly cul de sac and may eventually make one trade more valuable things for a moment of accolades. 

Many of us have issues controlling how we react to unpleasant situations. Unpleasant words and actions that tend to demean us and abuse us have a way of inspiring anger and evil speaking. Lack of self control shows more than in any other way in the way we talk and show anger. We can therefore be controlled by others just because we cannot defer anger and control our tongues. We become like robotics, people already know what they need to say or do to get us raging or talking, they therefore control us as puppeteers control puppets to the entertainment of people and of themselves... Conquer and be in control of your temperament and talkativeness. 

Many have issues with publicity. In these days of social media we tend to live our lives on the streets of life, on social media. We seek publicity and so we show off. If one gets addicted to the lure of publicity, such makes life vulnerable to evil people lurking in the dark corners of social media. Be careful of that attention seeking self of yours, that desire for popularity may get you into people who have nothing but evil for your destiny. 

You have to ask yourself what exactly are those things running your life? The things concerning which you have lost your power of choice. Those things we are under compulsion to do. These things make us weak. 

No matter how great we have become, and how many people we have influence over, if there are still some areas where 'little' things still control us, then we make our lives and the lives of those we have influence over vulnerable. 

It's time we took charge of our lives and be in control of our successes and not our successes being in control of our lives. Deliberately refuse to satisfy some desires you have the power to satisfy. Deliberately fast some things that are within your reach, break the compulsion, take charge of your body, don't be body ruled, what great joy of victory it brings! 

Good morning and have a great week ahead. Be in charge, rule your world! That is where success begins and that's where it ends, so that all that is in between can have real meaning!

God Has a Plan for You

Ministry Wednesday: God Has a Plan for You. 

I was 52 two days ago, it has been a great time of meditation and reflection for me. It afforded me to do appraisals and make projections. I was able to recheck on the places I'd been, the people I've met, the events that I'd gone through and the times and seasons of my life so far.

I'd seen the practicality of different people's roles, efforts and effects in my life. How they came into my life, the values they command and the values they left. Those sent to me and those I was sent to. Those who journeyed with me and those we are still running together. Those I wished I never met, though necessary and those I wished could be there forever but would only be for a time. 

I'd looked back at places I've been to and being through. The effect of each on my life, growth, development and maturity. My arrivals and my departures, my connections and my disconnections, both those I made happen and those I simply had no control over.

The events of my life, actions, reactions, consequences and repercussions and how these have shaped my outlook to life, management of relationships and how they had reformed me.

All these in the times and in the seasons so far in my life.

The people, the places, the events and the seasons in life being the basic factors of life's destiny can be sure measures for life's appraisals. The level of management given to these interwoven factors of destiny determines what outcome one has in life and in fulfilling divine purposes in life.

Looking back I realise that God sure has a plan for every life, for everything brought in to and working in our lives.

During some very terrible times of my life, that truth was an anchor for me: the fact that God has a plan and a purpose for my life. We know what God told the children of Israel when in an uncertain captivity in Babylon... How He, through Jeremiah, the prophet said I know the thoughts or plan, I have toward you, the plan to prosper you, plan of good and not of evil, to give you hope and an expected end. 

I believe that's true for everyone. And it is soothing to know that God is powerful enough to bring that plan to pass, whatever the plan is and whatever the route and the giants and the demons on the way.

I've realised that the only thing that's too powerful than the plan is the individual. Because in spite of God having a plan, the individual too has his or her own plans even if he or she isn't omnipotent, which means it'll end in disaster or become susceptible to satanic hijacking and at best could only produce personal comfort and not divine purpose or pleasure.

In time of trouble, its often difficult to remember that God has a plan. It was tough for the Israelites in Babylonian captivity to be able to know anything about God's plan for them. They would have rather wondered if God was faithful. And so, that season became a time for God to remind them that a plan was hatching that will eventually be in their favour.

I have realised that if we can allow God, if we can let go and let God, if we can trust His plan and work closely with the Holy Spirit as He leads us, incredible things can happen in spite of our pains, disappointments and mistakes. God can make our outcomes to be beyond our difficulties and errors, if we let Him! 

The Holy Spirit is the manager of our destinies. He is the wind who blows us in the direction of God's plan for our lives. He knows who we should connect to per time, He knows where we should be per time, He knows what we should make happen and how to react and relate with the events of our lives we have no control over. 

He is the one who knows when the show is over at any point on the journey and when a next phase will be starting. He knows the times of sabbath, He knows the times of labour. He has our future sorted, He has an inventory of all that has been prepared for us, things that eyes have not seen, that ears have not heard, things that had jot entered into the imagination of men's minds... And He knows when each will come and how we should connect with them.

In all, He knows how to work all the factors together for our good. Looking back, I would say the greatest thing to know through the journey is that God has a plan for the journey, even at those times when it didn't look like it.

That understanding will help us to move in steps with the Holy Spirit. We won't arrive later than expected at places and we won't arrive earlier than necessary. We won't stay when He had moved, we won't move when He is still in the middle of something.

Though we may not know it as at then, but if we work and walk by faith with and in closeness with the Spirit of God, we would unconsciously walk in the centre of His plan as He reveals the mysterious plan God has for us and for each season of our lives. He reveals these things into our heart bearing witness with our conscience per time. 

To whom we yield our lives to obey, to such we are servants, according to scriptures. We are to yield to the quickening of the Holy Spirit, as He puts that sweet subtle pressure on us to drive us to the next phases of our lives. There's is the quickening of our mortal bodies by the indwelling Holy Spirit which we must work and walk with to fulfil divine destiny. When we become tied down and rigid to where God has brought us, it'll become too difficult to move on when He's leaving. The greatest problem to Barnabas and Paul in leaving Antioch would have been their great success in that city, yet that was not even the work to which the Holy Spirit had called them. 

My admonition is that God has a plan for our lives, and He has power and all resources available to bring the plans to pass, and if we yield to the leading of His Spirit, with faith and assurance in that invisible plan, we will eventually fulfill destiny.

You may be going through very serious times now, and uncertainties may becloud your mind, all you need do is surrender to that plan by faith, let your heart be filled with the conviction and the assurance that there is a plan God is working on and that He will bring the changes that will bring clarity.

Trust Him! Yield to Him! Ready to move at His push and to do His own good pleasure as He desires! 

God bless and keep you and cause His face to shine upon you and give you peace in Jesus name! Amen

Relationship Friday: Rekindle Love

Rekindle Love

Relationships are kept by love. It is difficult to enforce relationships without affections. Relationships, though defined by responsibilities aren't sustained by mere duties without passionate love. Duties and responsibilities should be offsprings of love.
Many a times, relationships start with affection but it is soon lost to mere duties as responsibilities replace affections and endearments.
When he is asked if he loves his wife, he says yes, and when he is asked why, he says, because he gives her money and takes care of her...
When she is asked if she loves her husband, she says, yes and when she is further asked why, she says because she gives him sex, takes care of the home, and the children, cooking and cleaning!

When they are asked if they talk, take walks together, if they hold hands in public and touch outside touching for sex, they wonder why those are important in marriage, the duties are enough, they only talk, go out together and take walks with friends and not with spouses.

Marital relationships often fall into the trap of duties and routines. The duties are easier to do than to forgive and to forget offenses. It's easier to give money than to sit together and talk over difficult things. It's easier to cook and wash and be preoccupied with children than to walk together down the streets holding hands.

Duties are used as palliatives for our consciences, they become alibis for us against the prodding within us, asking how good we are doing with our married partners.
They justify our anger and disaffections towards each other. We use them to highlight how irresponsibility and ungrateful the other person is and we use them to support our complaints and frustrations.

But does being up and doing with our "responsibilities" and "duties" towards the home and towards one another really bring bonding and happiness in marriage? The answer is No!
Marital relationship, just as any other relationship is sustained by pure love from the heart, affections and endearments that flow from the heart. That feeling that keeps the other person safe in the heart, carried about everywhere even when they aren't present. The feeling that creates that sense of missing one another even after a few minutes of separation. It is friendship but to another level. A commitment beyond mere duties.

Most relationships started with it but it soon fizzles away as duties and responsibilities bring in selfishness and carefulness, destroying the freedom and the friendship that would be needed to sustain the relationship and keep joy and laughter within it.

When duties and responsibilities take over from free flowing love, the relationship then is at the mercy of the forces of duties waiting for the failure of one in carrying out his or her responsibility or duty. Once that failure comes, the relationship falls apart. Meanwhile, love covers multitudes of sins. Love is ready to suffer and make sacrifices. Love when mutual can resist any storm with selflessness, generosity, accommodation and largeness of heart! Love cares less about duties and responsibilities, only seeking how to satisfy the needs of the other, not as a duty made compulsory by society but as driven by love and the good of the other person!

Have you permitted duties and responsibilities to take over the place of love in your heart? Do you rate your spouse's love for you by his or her ability to fulfil his or her responsibilities? Do you rate your love for your spouse just by the responsibilities toward him or her, while you find or give friendship and affection elsewhere? What happens when for certain reasons beyond your control you aren't able to continue with your duties and responsibilities? Will that mean you no longer love him or her, will that be the end of the relationship?

This is why we should rekindle love in our marriages and relationships. Forgive the hurts and the offences, they will always come, don't mind them. Find friendship again within your marriage and let that be the reason for carrying out what should be done. Create freedom for one another within the relationship, let the relationship be strong enough to accommodate mistakes and corrections without them hurting the system. Be the friend you should be to your spouse, don't let pride and ego stop your joy and happiness.

Why not do something unusual for your spouse to rekindle your love life this weekend? Now is the time to be innovative, and do something unusual to spark the plugs of your love life again! You deserve to have a good marriage, you'll need to stop complaining about the rough and hard palm tree, tap the wine instead and fill your gourd with pure wine of love and affection with joy... You deserve it! Go for it, don't be shy and don't be discouraged!

Have a great weekend of love!

Photo Credit: RedHeadsRule/Pixabay 

Ministerial Pressures

Ministry Wednesday: Ministerial Pressures

Ministerial Pressures

Philippians 3
12. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

13. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

14. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Ministry has its basic pressures but not all pressures are right pressures. The pressure of ministry is derived from the pressure of being a Christian, an extension of that, so to say.

Every Christian must apply certain pressure of faith to break whatever barriers to get into the kingdom of God. We must fight the fight of faith, we must contented for the faith, we must war a good warfare. There is no place for complacency and ease, otherwise, we are swept away. We must press into the kingdom.

Luke 16
16. The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.

There is then the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus which we must press towards to attain, if we would ever lay hold on the purpose for which Christ had laid hold on us...

The understanding of God's will in this regard puts certain pressure on a servant of God to also transmit same pressure to his pursuit of the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

But then we have other things that unnecessarily put pressure on us, which pressure we also transmit unnecessarily onto other systems.

We have the pressure of the world. We unnecessarily want to attain what our counterparts in the world or outside ministry have attained. We come under the pressure of worldly attainments and lose the pressure of the kingdom like Demas. Many of us don't have to leave where we are unlike Demas, to have left Christ because of our love for the present world!

We come under the pressure of performance. We want to make the world or the church see what we are doing or what we can do. There is nothing wrong in wanting to perform to the strength God gives us. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. But we shouldn't seek to perform beyond the strength God has given otherwise, we come under a bone crushing pressure to perform, that produces nothing.

Pressure of acceptance. Yes, apostle Paul asked the Romans to pray for him so that the offering of his gifts would be acceptable to the brethren in Jerusalem, Romans 15. But we should not bring ourselves under such pressures of human acceptance, rather we should seek to be acceptable unto God. Human approval without God's approval is disapproval! We must know exactly what we really want.

There is the pressure of self satisfaction. We have personal goals and dreams we want to achieve. We often erroneously use the platform Christ has given us in ministry to pursue those and we often accomplish them, but would our personal satisfaction also satisfy God even when we had not pursued His own satisfaction?

There are so many other kinds of pressures we bring ourselves under unnecessarily that may push us into doing things contrary to God's word and to His Spirit.

There are people under the pressure to defend their integrity, to defend their churches' membership and attendance, pressure to cover up crisis and scandals, pressure to sustain a home, pressure to be financially free and so on...

Eventually, pressure gets something broken,

we don't have to wait till we are pressured into doing evil or getting into trouble. That subtle pressure can create a different person unknown in the book of life, so avoid it.

The world is going through financial crisis and the church would feel the impact but we should keep ourselves strong in God through unfailing faith and faithfulness. We must be careful for nothing but be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

Finally, let us remember that what has been kept in our charge can only be managed by the Holy Spirit who lives within us. So, let's become more connected to the Holy Spirit and learn to engage Him in handling the pressures that come upon us and we will do well.

Let each check what kind of pressure, he or she is under, and let each destroy the monster he or she has created that's causing unnecessary trouble and threats and be free from unnecessary pressures to pursue that one thing... The mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus...laying hold on the reason for which Christ laid hold on each one of us!

Have a marvelous rest of the week and keep yourself in the love of God. I love you so much!

2 Timothy 1
14. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.

Photos: Pixabay

Connection, Not Perfection in Marriage

Relationship Friday: Connection, Not Perfection

A friend and a big brother with his amiable wife, Pastors Tim and Shola Oladipo, wrote a book with the same title, Connection, Not Perfection: Our Marriage Journey so Far. A compilation of lessons from over 30 years of their marriage experience.

In finding stability in marriage, some often set out looking for a perfect persons who behave perfectly according to expectations, without any flaw or offence. Such expectations are quick ways to failure because inherent within such is a large possibility for disappointment.

Now, if such expectations are sure to be disappointed, should we otherwise expect the worse from our spouse and from our marriages? What good does marriage promise then? Or should we agree to the notion that marriage is a necessary evil?

The joy of marriage is enormous and there is no reason not to expect marriage to bring a better life to a couple, however, what we must know is that it won't happen automatically.

Living happily ever after marriage is a possibility if we are ready to work out the salvation with fear and trembling. Every good thing that has ever been said about marriage is a possibility if we are ready to remove the possibilities of disappointment.

One ideology to first embrace is that no one is perfect, not you, not your spouse, not anybody for that matter. What God does is that He makes the imperfections of one to be made up for by the perfection of others.
Meaning, no one is perfectly imperfect. Everyone has his or her strong points meant to make up for the weak points of the other. Two can so work together that their output won't reflect their imperfections. But it takes vital connection between the two of them to achieve that.

It therefore means that we must learn how to connect with one another. Learning about the spaces left by our spouses to fill, searching within us the materials needed to complete what is missing.

Our rough edges are results of the fault lines where we broke off from the whole us, and to have us back as one, they fit back into each other to form the seamless whole our marriages are meant to make of us.

Those areas that get us mad about our spouses are those fault lines where we were broken off, waiting for us to bridge and to close up to get the oneness which marriage is.

We see deficiencies in our spouses but they are just indications of those areas we have to fill up. If a wife can't cook, and that, not for laziness but the husband can, it naturally shows who God has raised to do the cooking even if traditions and culture say it's the woman who must cook. If they try to stick to such traditions rather than what God has done already, they'll neither be happy nor have peace. They will always be anger and they may fight often and be unhappy with one another due to frictions.

They are both wonderfully and fearfully made, though imperfect but because they can't connect, they look like they are not made for each other.

Are we ready to connect so that we can extract the joy, peace and all that are embedded in our marriages? We should, so we can avoid the frustrations caused by concentrating on those areas of our spouses that show their imperfections.

Can you make money where your spouse can't? Can you take care of the children where your spouse may not have the skills or the time to? Can you find out what you can do to protect your spouse from being exposed to those things that highlight his or her weaknesses by confronting those things by yourself?

This is where love is displayed and not in permitting the exposure of your spouse to demands he or she can't cope with because of his or her weaknesses. That's one way to connect even in our seemingly imperfect situations.

We can learn more about this subject by getting and reading the book, Connection, not Perfection: Our marriage journey so far
The book is available on Amazon here https://www.amazon.com/Connection-Not-Perfection-marriage-Journey-ebook/dp/B07MX7H758

You can also get it if you'll be at the "Before and After 'I Do', BAID" Lagos meeting holding at Ikeja on the 10th of November 2019, 2pm to be facilitated by the authors of the book. It'll be available for free for the first 50 participants to arrive at the venue. #3, Eleruwa Street, WEMABOD Estate, WAHUM Bus stop, Off Adeniyi Jones, Ajao Road, Ikeja, Lagos.

If you are in Lagos, plan to be there, try to arrive on time, even if you miss the book, don't miss the seminar... It promises to be highly impacting... Invite other friends, both singles and married.

Remain super blessed! Have a glorious weekend!

The Power of Agreeing

Relationship Friday: The Power of Agreeing for Oneness

When God said it isn't good for Adam to be alone, He wasn't trying to accomplish the desire of another person but of Himself.

Even Adam himself didn't know what was good or what was not good. But according to design, he was made a social being. He would not be able to survive without others around him. That was the original design.
Of course, it was possible for God to make him procreate by himself, if God had so chosen but the design was not to be. Man wouldn't be able to wait till any such process of procreation would have happened. Something had to be done that same day...to satisfy that original design.

This is one reason why we know that the woman was not an afterthought after all. Adam was already designed not to be alone. He was not to be like our sun, which is just by itself or our moon which is just one, he was to be in a community and to be part of a society beyond being able to merely procreate.

So God had to split him into two in order to have a companion. He did it along sexual line and added procreation into it. And that is telling of God's mind. Man won't be able to make anything tangible happen being alone. He wont be able to naturally procreate by himself, he would need others to fulfil his destiny.

If he would need others then he must learn the ropes of being together with others. Inability to accommodate others is key to life's fulfillment. Adam would have to be able to accommodate Eve. And that would mean being able to look beyond the anatomical differences between him and her, to be able to see the point of agreement in the same flesh and bone they were. This is now the flesh of my flesh and the bone of my bone...

It was after that, they could look at the reason for their differences. The differences were not to create separation but as points of compatibility for oneness. The differences show why we are to complement one another to birth a common future.

The differences are to bring us together and not to separate us. To create points of completion for us and not to bring competition between us.

The way to this completion needed for procreation of glorious things we were blessed with will be agreeing. Lack of agreement undermines the potential of our being able to complete one another to give birth to our increase and future. How we love to foolishly compete!

When it comes to physical and biological reproduction, we have the differences in sex organs to complete each other for procreation. Each is equipped with potentials needed to supply what the union would need to have the common output.

But it isn't only in the area of biology that we were so separated to be rejoined. Every strength each has is to complete something in the other to bring something new to birth for their common increase and future. If there is a common vision, which should be.

Just as we are bones of same bones and flesh of same flesh, so also should husband and wife have vision of same vision, desires of same desires and aspirations of same aspirations for their increase and the future of both of them together.

And as we have different sex organs which must supply different things to make procreation and the future possible, so also we aren't the same in many other areas where the production of the future and of increase is potent.

We shouldn't be afraid of our differences. Compatibility isn't sameness. It can't be. We are only compatible when we have points of connection with one another for fruitfulness, multiplication and replenishment of our world towards having dominion. And to connect, one will have to be plug and the other socket. The bones and the flesh may be same.

And this is why we need agreement. Agreeing leads to oneness of desires and of vision. The differences need agreeing for the connections to happen for fruitfulness. Without agreeing we can't reproduce. Agreement is the power that holds our common future and increase.

Agreement requires submission. Putting down all that one has in order to connect to and with all that the other has and has submitted also. When we can't submit to one another, we can not come to agreement. The essence of submitting isn't for one to lord it over another. It is for such to receive what the other has to submit also.

In biology, the one with the womb submits to the other to submit the half seed to combine with the other half waiting within. It is a game of mutual submission as they submit, one to the other in turn.

Same way in every other area. One with the womb submits to the other to submit what he or she has, so as to combine the seeds and to carry the increase till parturition or birth for both to rejoice together in their fruit.

How is your agreement with your spouse? You may have been good in the biological fruitfulness, how are you doing in the fruitfulness of other areas of destiny? What about your submission? What are you bringing to the table for the future you both desire? Your future depends on this...to enjoy the blessing of being fruitful, multiplying, replenishing, subduing and having dominion!

Think about this and make it work for yourself.

God bless you and your relationship greatly.

Read and share!

Have a great weekend!

Upbeat

Monday Motivation: Upbeat

Being upbeat isn't what you always want to be. There are times for sober reflections and deep thinking. You shouldn't always be here and there, talking all the time, you'll need time to be still and have some quiet.

But being excitedly upbeat is invaluable. You don't trade that for being moody and dull. Being weighed down can be counterproductive. Being cast down can lead to losing interest in lots of things and being slow to executing necessary things we should do.

Being sluggish will keep you always steps backwards. Others get there before you and you come late to meetings and to schedules. There are a lot to lose not being upbeat.

We are cast down mainly by hopelessness, frustration and disappointments. Loss of loved and dependable people in our lives can cause our souls to stoop. Failures and negative events can bring sorrow and sluggishness but nothing beats hopelessness.

Hopelessness makes you lose the zest for life and living. Life and hope could be synonyms. When there is hope, there is life and where you find real living, it is because there is hope. Hope is zeal, it puts fire in your bones, you press, and beat through restraints to go for the goal... Hope keeps you going, knowing the possibilities that exists for you ahead!

Positive expectation cures us of regrets and projects us into the future. We are driven by the possibilities of what lies ahead. But when the feeling of being at the dead end of life overcomes us, hands can drop and drudgery may set in.

We also gain excitement and being upbeat by the sense of being needed. When you have to be there for others, you count yourself relevant. When other people show reliance on you, it makes you want to be there for a longer time.

Rejection often makes you feel needless and useless. The feeling of uselessness may cause a person to even want to end it all. When you feel unappreciated, the zeal to wake up, stand up, dress up and show up won't be readily there...

If you aren't appreciated for the things you do, the excitement of doing the same again is lost. Boredom quells our being upbeat, it comes by doing same things over and over. Monotony can bring tiredness, though the consistency we gain from it builds expertise in us but we often get tired of doing the same thing over and over.

We keep our excitement knowing that what we do would be appreciated some day even if not now. A parent that's doing everything to keep the kids in school and well, may not feel appreciated, since no one might even ever say thank you... But the result of that seen in the development of the children for society is worth the effort...it shouldn't be traded.

The Pastor that spends and is spent for the sheep may not be appreciated voluntarily but nonetheless, the care affects lives and would keep a lot of people away from the path of hell and destruction.

We must understand like King Solomon said, that there is no labour without profit... Even if the payment does not come every month end.

There is something about being productive and adding something to life that should keep us excited. Isn't it amazing that when the writers of the New Testament letters were writing them that their intentions wasn't to make them into a book that will be packaged together with the almighty books of law and the prophets?

They wrote from prison, they wrote from pain and from comfort, they wrote to friends and to God's people without the ease of modern technology... They wrote not knowing that you and I and generations ahead would read and be inspired...they didn't plan that what they were writing will someday become a bestseller. They just wrote to strengthen the faith of their friends and see what it has become today...

It means, many of the things we do today, even reluctantly, may be kept for the safety and well-being of many generations coming and if we stop doing them, we can't become all that God has created us to be...

So, don't be tired. Strengthen the feeble knees and lift up your hands that are hanging down...wake up from slumber and go become all that God has planned for you to be. You're pregnant of great things, you need strength to deliver and the excitement of the Lord is your strength...

It's a new week... Be upbeat, don't be tired... Make something happen this week in spite of all the things that would keep you down...

It's a great week!

Marital Investment

Relationship Friday: Marital Investment

It is a fundamental law of nature that when the conditions are right, what you sow, you will reap. Actions and reactions are always equal and opposite. Whatever we give, we receive. We are constantly sowing by reason of our words, actions, inactions, reactions and attitudes. We can't even control if we sow or not, what we do or don't do, what we say or don't say eventually brings a harvest. It is fundamental and spiritual to life.
We can only control what we sow and what we don't sow. We can be conscious about what goes out of us. We can be deliberate about what we permit to fester in our minds and what we permit to escape our thoughts into our vocal system and into our activities. In so doing, we automatically create a response that brings us a commensurate harvest.
The law is drawn from the nature of God as a judge, who judges all things without respect of persons. It controls economies, it controls life. What you invest within a supportive environment must definitely bring you a harvest.

The same is true about marriage. It does not just happen that a marriage comes out perfectly. It must take advantage of the supportive environmental system God has put in place to support its blossoming to bring success.

Not every soil, amount of rain and sunshine supports every plant for a good harvest. It takes studies of the laws and the principles that support a seed, to know what it takes for it to bring forth an harvest.

The seed may be good, with great potential to bring forth desired results but the farmer must understand what specific requirements are required for that seed to bring forth its possible potential.

Marriage as a whole has its requirements for success, and each marriage also has its specific requirements to succeed. These, we have to discover and apply to get the best possible outcome.

You can't be feeding an animal with what it's system doesn't use and expect it to respond in proper growth and development. The same with marriage.

We must apply desire, diligence, determination and discipline in our quest for a good marriage and the subsequent home. We can't afford to throw garbage into our marriages and expect it to return to us with a beautiful edifice. It won't work.

Our thoughts, words, actions, inactions, attitudes and reactions must be tailor-made to bring out the exact desire we have for our homes.

Investment requires knowledge as earlier mentioned, and knowledge comes through both revelation and experience. The good thing about knowledge is that it does not have to be you who got the revelation or the experience before you gain expertise in practicing it. If you can gain access and use it, so long it's the truth, it'll work for you.

Investment, therefore starts and continues with gaining relevant and adequate knowledge. Don't pretend you know it all. Our challenges are mostly those areas where we lack knowledge, which life's tests have revealed for us to fix with knowledge and wisdom.
That's why I am inviting you to the program on marriage and relationship by BAID NIGERIA (Before and After "I Do") coming up at Ikeja on the 10th of November by 2pm at MAN Center, Wemabod Estate, Ikeja, Lagos. Participation is free and there will be opportunities for counselling. See further details on the attached photo...

You need to do this for you relationship, reach out to others too to come add to their learning, share this article with your friends and family. BAID is a place to access proven knowledge from divine revelations and skillful experiences in the word of righteousness, made available for us through grace.

It'll be a worthy investment for you that will yield greatly for you going forward.

Save the date...prepare to be there. It'll heal relationships and fortify marriages!

Good morning and have a lovely weekend

The Power of Consistency

Monday Motivation:The Power of Consistency.

We were admonished in scriptures that we should not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Consistency sets you apart in any of life's endeavors. Whatever one chooses to do, one hardly becomes anything substantial without being consistent in practicing it.

There will be reasons to stop doing just one thing day in day out. There may be boredom after a while, there may be that sense of thinking doing something else might give a quicker result and change of life. There may be difficulties and challenges that have to be overcome. There are a thousand and one reasons to be discouraged from continuing on a pathway one has chosen, the truth is, one may eventually form the habit of moving from doing one thing to the other just because some difficulties show up which should be avoided.

There isn't any new thing we desire to do that doesn't have its own discouraging challenges and it's own potential difficulties probably worse than the previous option.

Every endeavor would need consistent supplies of diligence, wisdom, innovation, perseverance, discipline, sacrifice and tenacity. Wherever one moves to, the discouraging factors in one will always surface again. Those factors are consistent everywhere.

There is no business endeavour,  for instance that won't need to be marketed. Consumer behavior is consistent in every industry. You'll always need to persuade people to patronise, you'll always need innovation in marketing.

However, that does not mean everyone of us is cut out for everything. We need to identify where our interests and skills are, choose what area of that we are most skilled, knowledgeable and innovative, the area we are most convincing and where we are most likely to give maximum consumer satisfaction and efficient delivery of the goods and the services expected, the area we are most competitive both in costing and pricing.

When we have made that choice, the next thing is to stay put, weathering the storms, growing up, and laying claim to a place in the system.

There are a lot that will be learned through being consistent and the more one stays, the more the industry identifies with one, and one is identified with the industry.

No matter how good one is, if one leaves the business, career or industry, those who don't have the skill, the wisdom or the innovativeness necessary as much as one is will be the only providers of the service and they will take ownership of the market and become the face of the industry because of consistency.

A magnifying glass when focused can create fire but when it isn't concentrated at a point, it is just another object of play irrespective of its potential. It takes time for trees to bear fruit, we would need time to maximize our potentials, we will need patience in what we have found to be our way, we would need long-suffering and perseverance to make a mark in life.

If you are a parent reading this, share it with your teenagers and young adults. Help them to make the right choices and encourage them to prepare for the long haul, if they start in time and remain consistent, they will arrive faster than being impatiently inconsistent, jumping from one endeavour to another and always remaining rookies in every new thing they lay their hands on.

Even many old roller coasters may need to stop rolling, to gather some moss of experience and develop some expertise on one thing, within whatever limited time that is left.

The story of the man who founded a globally recognised chain restaurant at 65 is quite interesting, but when you read it again, you'll discover that he had always been a salesman all his life, trying to sell something until he discovered the exact thing to sell...even at 65, with whatever challenges, he stuck to it and made a mark.

Have you found what it is God sent you here to deliver? Find it and stick to it, don't give up just because it's tough or because of initial failures, don't be tempted by those things that seem to be working better in other people's hands, wait on it in perseverance, and become the champion you were made to be.

On this and on other related matters, you can reach out for counseling, it can make a huge difference in your life.

If this has blessed you, share it for others also to be blessed by it. Thank you so much for reading.

Good morning and have a great week.

Photo Credit: Geralt/Pixabay

Try

Monday Motivation: Try

I always remember the motivation our headmistress back in primary school always gave us. She would say, the reason why the session was divided into three terms was to say, try, try and try again!

To try means to summon enough courage, energy and resolve to attempt something beyond what's within one's immediate proclivities. There are things we don't feel we can do but among the things we should do. Left to us, we would rather not do them but now they have to be done.

A sick person without an appetite would have to try to eat, even if the least thing he or she wants is food, meanwhile, the energy and the nutrients from the food are needed for recovery.

The world we have today with all the advancement and development came about only by those who believe in the possibility of development, who also dared to take steps against all odds towards the vision of the faith in their hearts.

People who believe that there is a better country the Creator had embedded in the present and were ready to take the journey. They had all the odds against them, it didn't look like a worthy cause and it didn't appear as a viable course.

They had to defy their fears and the unbelief of society to reach out to the things others called impossible. I realised we would never know what's possible without trying the impossible. And until we try, we won't ever be able to do.

Imagine those who had the crazy idea of flying and who were foolish enough to try to make a flying machine with enormous risks.

Imagine those who believe we could tap electricity and had to try even paying with their lives.

Imagine someone who could think of bringing the television into Africa, when they were just getting their independence from the colonial masters.

Imagine thinking of a skyscraper in a nation like Nigeria amidst what people would call underdevelopment.

But life would remain stagnant and would never get to its potential until we try to go beyond where we are. Yes, there are things we see as limiting, but it has been proven to be mere illusions and facades, waiting for someone to dare them.

If we don't try, we don't need help. Grace makes things easy but it's for people who dare to do things others won't do. When we discover what God has kept for us, and we try to reach them, God will send the help He had stored up for such purposes to get us there.

What could you accomplish if you try? Maybe you need to start a business, write a proposal, go back to school, register for a course, register a company, make a marriage proposal, get married or have a child... Or may be you need to gain more grounds in your spiritual life and break off from the flesh that holds you down in sin... Don't say, you'd tried before and failed, try again...till you get it done...

Every failure shows us one more way not to do it...reducing the probabilities of failure... You're getting closer by every trial... You lose nothing for trying... Just try and try again, in trying you'll encounter help!

Hebrews 11
15. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
16. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

Good morning, happy new week!

Man of God, Man of Faith

Ministry Wednesday: Man of God, Man of Faith

Jesus Christ said not everyone who calls Him Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of God. He said further that many shall say on that day, how they prophesied and cast out demon and did many mighty works in His name, but He will answer, get thee behind me, I know you not, you workers of iniquity...

That should sound scary to ministers of Christ and should help us to consider many things.

It shows that we can actually do all these things without a connection to His heart. It is often said that the avenue to power is holiness but His comments here may prove that wrong. People were walking in power and they are also working iniquity same time according to the Master.

The servant of God then should consider his or her convictions and how that reflect on his or her life and ministry.

There are two basic movers of our tongues to minister. The utterance of the Holy Spirit and the faith of God in our hearts.

Ephesians 6
18. Praying always... 19. And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel.

2 Corinthians 4
13. We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;

The two can work separately. People may speak what they don't believe. And so their lifestyles would not agree with the faith they preach. The preach faith but live in unbelief. They speak and teach faith but rationalise their obedience to God's word. They have the form of godliness but deny the power thereof.

God expects that our convictions will rule us. As a friend puts it recently, the proof of believing is behaving. What we permit or disapprove of are based on what we truly believe. You can't really trust God and be working iniquities. We live our faith naturally!

People are not just to follow our words but also our faith as they see it in our way of life.

Hebrews 13
7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. (ESV)

When we understand that the opposite of faith is works. Doing it by God's grace through the knowledge of God's Word is faith, doing it by our own power and wisdom regardless of God's Word is works.
When we seek to get God's promises by His power and wisdom through His word according to His will, we walk in faith, getting the same things our own ways irrespective of God's word and wisdom is works.

Faith is living absolutely a life dependent on God's word and on His leading by the Holy Spirit. Faith is taking steps not to satisfy the needs of our flesh, our pride, ego or lusts but in response to divine will and Word in order to satisfy God's desires and pleasures. Faith is the conviction we have of the reality of the supernatural as presented to us in God's Word and demonstrated by Jesus Christ while here in the physical.

It explores the extent of supernatural possibilities made available by the omnipotence, omniscience and the omnipresence of God within the bounds of His word.

This faith is such a conviction that would be ready to suffer pain and even death when offered an alternative not approved by God.

Faith looks like a risk for lack of appeal to the human mind and rationality, but it isn't a risk to the believing one because of the reality of the supernatural he or she has come to accept as true and as the norm, which God is ever ready to defend, no matter what. He has called us to walk on water, we see solidity and not liquidity just because He called. It is no more a risk but a reality of what He said, which He has demonstrated! We can step out and walk on His word even if it's all water around!

Faith will be tested, sometimes with deprivation, pains and losses, without which faith isn't proved to be what it is, faith untested is of little value, it is more precious than gold when tested. It is also the test of God's faithfulness. If we don't fail the test of faith, not losing our conviction to the end, God's faithfulness too will not fail.

Alternatives test our faith, and our faith proves God's faithfulness. If we are not ready to suffer for our convictions in God, how should we then expect to see the full manifestation of God's faithfulness, which we have not placed any demand on by our faith?

We are in a world of scoffers, a world where unbelief is taught as faith, a world that is ever learning but not coming to the knowledge of the truth, a world that has a form of godliness but denies the power thereof, a world of self seeking, pleasure seeking world, where we always love to play safe when engaging the things of the supernatural, a world of compromises and negotiations with the things of the Spirit. A world where faith in uncertain riches, in money, in self, and in the arms of flesh has more preachers and teachers than faith in God, in His supernatural and in all He has done.

Yet, in such gross darkness, God is counting on His light bearers to arise with their torches to declare His kingdom and faith in Him in this crooked and perverse generation.

The man of God must be the man of faith, and not to be sifted as wheat, losing the solidity of faith for the chaff of unbelief, doubts and fear in mere religion. We should be planted by the rivers of God's word, to bring forth our fruits of faith as we run the race with patience before the audience of those who have before walked this pathway of faith, with our leaves green and flourishing, prospering in all we do through the faithfulness of God as the branches of God's Vine, to whom we have entrusted our lives, to whom are glory and praise forever more. Amen

Have a wonderful week and a marvelous new month living the life of faith in God's Grace!

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