Striking Financial Balance

Ministry Wednesday: Striking Financial Balance

As ministers, we have a responsibility to walk with God in financial correctness. We will always need money and materials. Having them brings some degree of confidence to be able to do all we want to do, but it also brings the sense of independence. Financial independence is a goal to many people including ministers. The down side of that is that it may make us independent of God also.
Someone had said, if God cannot control your finances, He can hardly control you, and I agree with that to a large content. But that's not the best, God still want us to have these things but would still want us to be malleable to Him.

God wants us to depend on Him for all we need, when we get to that point when we can do it ourselves, we become slippery in God's hand and so most times God would want us to grow with the experiences He's taking us through.

One balance we need in the area of finance for instance is between total dependence and being faithful.
We need to know that it is possible to live totally trusting the Lord and still be financially faithful. That's actually how the Lord wants it to be. But we often think living dependently on God is impossible as ministers of God. The world's financial system swallowed up the faith of the church in this regard. We suddenly believe that ministry isn't work enough to be done without doing other things to make money.

Here we have the possibility of being controlled by our needs and desire for money and materials. Our service to God can nor be dictated by our needs or our inability to control our own finances. That's quite close to serving God at the terms of our financial situation. We are saying on other words, that we can only give ourselves to Him only when we have things in order financially.

And we think that once we don't have that financial back up or position in ministry, we wouldn't be able to be all we were meant to be even when God is there with us. That makes people believe more in money than in God. Is that what's called choosing between serving God and mammon? And isn't that why we are where we are with the abomination of the desolate sitting at the Holy place?

But on the other hand, we also believe that without an external source of income from a secular commercial work, you have to be dependent on the church, ministry or you have to become a burden to people around you. Some, believing that the church now has total responsibility for their sustenance, go without caution to do all manners of unsavoury, ungodly things to extract money through every means of manipulation from God's people.

The balance here is simple, our faith must be in the supernatural, in God and not in people even if God would largely use people as channels to bring in what He has sent.
We must believe that God is our source, our employer, who don't only reward but sustains while even before the reward come for the work to go on.
We must believe that God is able to supply any how even miraculously. And we must be sure that God is the possessor of the heaven and the earth, and of all that live in them both in the spiritual and the physical. And He is free to use anything or anyone.

The actual truth is that God has actually provided what we all would need before the need would come. Each of us has a purpose to meet needs in other people's lives just as we were raised to meet needs and to be solutions for other people and their issues.
The provisions are already here before the needs ever came. God anticipated the problems and the needs and so raised the solutions upfront.

So we can actually live in the balance of being able to live by faith in our work for God particularly when God doesn't have a place for us outside the ministry. Even when God sends us into the secular, we must remember that our Source is more than our businesses or careers, God is our source!

We can live totally on God and still be financially faithful. When we live trusting God, we also are able to live without trusting men or being a burden on them, we also would be able to preserve our boasting like Paul did not because we are able to do it ourselves but like Abraham, who won't take even a shoestring from the recovered loot of the Kings of the land lest they say, they made Abraham rich.

What are you ready to do as a servant of God because of your needs and your desires? Can you rest on God's providence even if you have to lose your life to save it?

Are you willing to enjoy God's faithful miracles of providence?

Remain blessed

Driven

Monday Motivation: Driven.

There is always an harmony needed between a car and its driver to attain maximum possible levels of performance. And if we are to factor arriving at destination to the equation, the motive will have to also be considered.

The system you run, the level of your competencies, the goal in pursuit and the values that dictate boundaries of what's right or wrong all matter in a person's life's pursuits.

It's like driving a car, within traffic rules to arrive at a destination within a time limit. It depends on the quality of the car, the quality of the driver, the knowledge of the route to destination and the resolution of the driver to obey traffic rules at all cost and to still arrive at destination within time limit.

In life, we are not always the driver, we are most likely the vehicle, we are only driven. What drives us matters, it'll dictate if we follow the rules, it'll also determine if we choose the right way to go, it will also dictate the destination and our motives.

Influences are powerful. They are everywhere. We are being with the weakness or the strength of being influenced. Our goals, life's directions, our values and choices are all subject to serious influences. Influences may be positive or negative and they don't easily show if they are positive or not.
It is quite difficult to be without being under an influence per time, yet, it is only the influence we permit that drives us, we are the products of all the various influences we have been under.

What influences your life goals? What would such influences permit in your life? What would it excuse? What risks will such influences expose you and those close to you to? What could go seriously wrong being under such an influence?

For instance, money is a bad driver, particularly when it is set as an independent lone goal in life. When having money becomes what any other thing can be traded for, then it can drive into mighty risks that can destroy suddenly. We should avoid bad and dangerous drivers, who could crash the vehicle and end a glorious journey abruptly.

It is important that each of us ask the question of what's driving him or her, find high quality drivers to be given the driver's seat who will define direction, destination, obey safety rules and still arrive in good time that will make the experience a beautiful one amidst all the challenges on the way...

You're driven, but by who?

Good morning!

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The Faith Life

Ministry Wednesday: The Faith Life

To the minister of the gospel, living the life of faith is part of the job description. Though we are called and sent to preach the word so that people can believe and have faith in God, we are also sent to be examples of the faith we preach through the lives of faith we live daily under whatever conditions.

Romans 10
14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

17. So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Hebrews 13
7. Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.

We are called to live the faith life. It is a life that breathes God's Word like the natural life breathes in oxygen. A life sustained by God's word consistently will eventually form a culture that unconsciously run on faith. It's like an electronic device perpetually connected to an electricity power source. This is actually what could be called a life of a follower of Christ.

A preacher, teacher or any other who speaks the word of God to people must understand how his or her life too should be lived by faith. When there is a disparity between the faith we preach and the life of faith we live, we become spiritually fraudulent telling people to rely on things we won't rely upon ourselves.

On the other hand, if we don't have a faith life that's rooted in God's word, our speeches will lack the confidence and the power of conviction and may eventually slip into vain jangling and philosophies of men that propagate unbelief in God's word and erodes people reliance on the supernatural, many times under such conditions, the supernatural is replaced by nonsense superstitions that have no impact either in the physical or in the supernatural except to hold people in the bondage of fear for cheap control and manipulation.

One basic foundation and requirement of the faith life is crucifixion with Christ. Apostle Paul gave his own personal experience in Galatians 2:20&21.

Galatians 2
20. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
21. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

Faith is choosing to live by the provisions, power, wisdom and the grace and mercy of God communicated and confirmed by the Word of God with an unwavering personal conviction of God's unconditional love, good intentions and His faithfulness.

Faith is a choice over self help. If self help or other alternatives could cause divine effects that are well pleasing to God, there wouldn't be any reason for Christ to have died. To the faith life, Christ is both power and wisdom for life and its challenges. To the faith life, except it is approved of Christ, it isn't reliable or wise. To the faith life, to live is Christ and to die is gain. To the faith life, nothing in this world matters but Christ.

To a minister already crucified to the self help and to the wisdom of this world, nothing is worth knowing except Christ and Him alone crucified.

1 Corinthians 2
2. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

The death of Christ is the pillar that upholds the faith life. Telling us that we can depend on God through Christ for life and all its demands and challenges. And in that death, we too must die so we can live with Him supernaturally through faith in Him.

Sometimes we want to put life in departments when bringing in Christ. And so we think certain parts of our lives aren't relevant to Christ and Him crucified. We think Christ's crucified has no importance to certain areas of life, and we think we are left to go find solutions in those areas outside of Christ. And when we want to sound spiritual, we say religiously that only our eternal salvation matters to Christ's crucifixion and so only our morality can come under the covering of the death of Christ.

But its obvious that the apostles didn't share that opinion. Apostle Paul said, the life he lived, he lived by the faith of the Son of God...he didn't say 'the spiritual life he lived', neither did he say 'the future eternal life he would live', rather, the life he lived, which should comprise of all he was involved in, in his being and in all his deeds including all his comfort, sufferings, and matters around his sustenance.

The faith life loses confidence in the flesh, either in his own or of others, Philippians 3:3&4, but puts absolute faith in God, His power and wisdom, 1Corinthians 1:24.

Grace and mercy are the life wires of the faith life. They bring the effects that please God. The faith life brings functionality to the believer's life bringing life, just as the TV is dead without electricity.

Any result, either in morality, health, finance, relationship or in any other sector of life that didn't come via the dependence on the faith life is like a filthy rag to God and an illegality to the Kingdom. Such is a frustration of grace and making vain the death of Christ. Whatever is done not with faith is sin.

Romans 14
23. And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

Because when faith becomes vain, sin persists!

1 Corinthians 15
17. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

We are in a world of do-it-yourself, DIY, and faith in Christ is under an enormous attack. We don't mind deriving power and result from any other source outside of Christ forgetting that the fake is always cheaper. Many in the church have been sifted of their faith as wheat and their faith failed, and God is waiting for a reconversion, for strength. Luke 22:31&32. Many result seen as proof aren't with the background of absolute dependence on God's power and wisdom but on manipulations and other worldly wisdom and tact.

The return to the path of faith must be led by those who have been sent to preach and not only those acclaimed to be faith preachers, every preacher of God's Word is meant to bring faith. We all have to check again if what we preach is encouraging faith in self, in the world's system or in God and His Christ, and then move a notch forward by living such a life of total obedience and dependence on Christ and on His death and resurrection. That's what we covenanted to live by when we got saved!

May we be bold enough to take the lead in the restoration of true faith in the body.

More grace to you!
It's a great day

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Building Legacies

Monday Motivation: Building Legacies

It isn't difficult to see that trans-generational businesses or companies aren't many in post colonial Africa. People simply take their businesses into their graves leaving their children to go start again from scratch. That such has negatively impacted our overall productivity is an open secret.
The reason is simple, we always don't want our children to continue on the paths we took. We see such as a dead end not leading anywhere. We want them to be more educated than we were and for them to go get jobs with their certificates far away from the 'sufferings' back home.

We say honesty is the best legacy, so we build all the right characters into them just to go get employment outside and help those organizations become great while the businesses that sent them to school is left to die with the parent's generation.

We need to learn one or two things about inheritance here. An inheritance is the right you have to the labours of your progenitors and the responsibility you have to also bequeath a greater platform for your progenies.

An inheritance must be inherent in the family system. It is what a generation owes the next and the responsibility the new generation has to preserve the legacy for the coming generations.

We often think of inheritance as being monetary or material. However, the greatest inheritance to leave is the platform and the financial system or machinery the family relies upon for sustenance and influence.

Children are to be brought up with the sense of responsibility that they would be taking over the financial system with the aim of taking it further. It gives a sense of vision and gives them ample time to put their imaginations to work in crafting better ways to achieve more and to commit to study, learning and training that will impact the system better.

I understand that not every business system can be bequeathed, but in every endeavour there's always something even if intangible that can be left for one's children for them to start life with.

An inheritance isn't for personal use. It isn't bread for eating, it is seed for sowing. From where bread comes for everyone. It is the investment in the next generation made by the past to ensure the future. It is work and not rest. It is labour and not pleasure.

It may be a cocoa farm but that cocoa farm when inherited by the next generation can be better worked and packaged to meet the demand of the new generation with new technologies, new innovations and marketing strategies to make cocoa business more relevant, presentable and profitable.

It can also be an educational set up, an engineering business, a legal or a financial system even if it's easier with an entrepreneurial system.

This is what legacies are all about. That business shouldn't die, rather it should keep the next generation busy and employed instead of them coming back with bogus certificates with no jobs. We must make what makes us money more attractive to our children enough for them to ride upon the backs of our knowledge, experiences and achievements to build their lives and not to start again struggling to start or to rise... There's no pride in always having to start again and there's no shame in inheriting a good business system to make it better for everyone!

Think about this and start working towards it!

It's a great week!

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Courtship over Dating

Relationship Friday: Courtship over Dating.

Growing up within the pentecostal community in the 80s and the 90s here in Nigeria, the path to getting who to marry was simple. Receive from the Lord who He has in mind for you through prayer and divine instructions as a brother, verify with the community and the leaders for confirmation, make your proposal and expect the sister to go pray to enquire God's approval and to table it with her own friends, prayer partners and older Christians for confirmation and then return to either say yes or no.
If yes, courtship began with strict rules of engagement comprising many fences to forestall any act of sexual immorality and sin. Courtship then leads to the marriage.

Then came dating out of the dilutions and the liberality that characterised the late 90s and early 2000s. Dating means you see someone you fancy and you ask the person out and with consent begin a relationship without any assurance of it ever getting to marriage, with most people not even having marriage in mind.

The rules of engagements are blurry, and fences are hardly existent. It has to be so because the foundation came out mainly of mere impressions that trigger desires to satisfy basic human nature of sexuality, with values such as fulfilling divine purpose, pleasing God in doing His will and following His plan for one's life are secondary or not even on the list.

In dating, proposal for marriage comes later, if it ever comes. If it doesn't come, the relationship breaks, no matter how physically or emotionally intimate it had been and the game starts all over again with another person under same uncertainty.

One argument people advance in favour of dating is that it gives the opportunity to know who you are about getting into a serious relationship with. The extent of that knowing is not defined.

But that only goes to show that dating is a child of unbelief in God, with walking by sight as precursor backed up with a believer's indulgence in spiritual laziness and slothfulness.

A believer is one who relies on God and on His will in total submission and surrender in everything. A believer is one who has confessed Jesus Christ as Lord to be saved, one who lives that confession and covenant daily. The basic response to anyone you call lord either in a law court or in spiritual matters is submission to whatever he or she says or decides concerning you. Whoever is lord has the final say.

So a believer trusting God for who to marry should be ready to receive God's mind on the matter. God sure has a say concerning everything about us with the assurance that His love would not permit His will to work evil for us.

A believer is also one who is led by the Spirit. In fact, the reason why he or she is born of the Spirit is so that he or she could could be led by the Spirit of God into God's will and righteousness. His or her wind would blow as it wants according to the influence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. If you aren't subject to being led of the Spirit then you aren't born again yet. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. We are led because we don't know. We are led because we are children in matters of life and of the spirit in comparison to God. Romans 8:14

Lack of faith in God's leading would always want us to resort to doing it ourselves. Lack of faith in God's processes puts us in trusting our own processes. We become afraid of trusting that God can lead us to the person who is best suited for us. We prefer to use our limited knowledge of people to choose for ourselves, ignoring the fact that the heart of man is desperately wicked which can not be known by any other man. Jeremiah 17:9

Dating indulges our spiritual weaknesses in these areas. We were told in Hebrews 6:14 not be slothful but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promise. So, lack of faith in these matters makes us believe we know what suits us more than God who created us, that we can assess what we want more than God would and probably that we are wiser than God and in so doing indulge the flesh in all manners of carnal lifestyles.

It may actually not be as ruthless as that but it sure tells us how unbelieving we are in things of the spirit. But we should understand that if truly God exists, and loves us as the scriptures want us to believe, then our response to His love should be faith in that love, in His omnipotence and omniscience... and in His faithfulness to deliver His best for us when it is best for us. When the only wise God makes a decision for you, you may not need to even verify it, it will definitely suit both you and the situation in question.

But then, it may actually not be unbelief in God but unbelief in our own ability to receive the instructions and the leading of His wisdom. We thus show more faith in our imperfections than in our spiritual abilities. We readily point to those who missed it trying to ear from God instead of simply accepting that as children of God we are led of God according to God's word.

At last, we should know that infallibility is with us and not with God and so we can trust God to lead us. A young man or woman who has trusted and submitted to Jesus Christ as Lord for salvation ought to be able to trust Him also to be led to who to marry, if marriage is God's will for him or her, better than trusting in his or her limited abilities to know another person, while distrusting his or her own ability to be led by the Spirit of God.

The question is if God can actually lead a believer to someone to marry or not. If He can, then dating is made easy. Receive from God and not from your lusts or emotions, confirm its from God, propose to the person, knowing full well that with that person going to God, she or he will come back with same result, get engaged and prepare for a successful marriage with grace to deal with any challenge that may come.

This is better than waiting endlessly in a relationship going nowhere while trying to find out things about someone who is deliberately covering up from you in order to use you in satisfying his or her own selfish and carnal lusts.

Consider this and let me know your thoughts on this, probably we can discuss it further.

Share this with others also, particularly with young believers who may be helped by it.

God bless you greatly and do have a wonderful weekend!

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Stewards of God's Mysteries

Ministry Wednesday: Stewards of God's Mysteries

There is something about identity and job description. They tell who you are and helps you to know your rights, privileges and responsibilities, the expectations from you and the purposes of your existence. It helps you to be professional in your preparation and delivery reflecting your potentials.

As a minister of God, you are a steward of God's mysteries. You wait both on God and on those who you were sent to serve bringing the knowledge, the understanding and the wisdom of God and His Word.

It is a spiritual business beyond mental exertion or calculations. This is primary to any other thing expected of us, to speak a word in season to him who is weary.

Isaiah 50
4. The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

Malachi 2
7. For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

The steward is the connection between the kitchen and the table. He waits on both the kitchen and the table. He is to receive from the kitchen and to deliver at the table. His job is that simple.

He must take from the kitchen and nowhere else. He isn't the cook, he doesn't cook. And he must not contaminate the dish by adding what he thinks, and must not take anything away from the dish. It is required in stewardship that a man be found faithful.

When you are called into speaking the word, you are expected to speak as the oracles of God. You don't merely learn public speaking, you connect to the microphone of the Holy Spirit to amplify and to act the loudspeaker of the feed from the heart of God.

1 Peter 4
11. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

It is a work of dependence that must exclude our emotions and our feelings. Sometimes you don't feel like it, sometimes you feel like saying certain things other than what God is saying but since it doesn't work by our feelings, we are still expected to deliver the exact mind of God once the feed comes.

Jeremiah 20
9. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

The peculiarity of this kind of stewardship is that the table doesn't dictate what the kitchen sends. The steward doesn't deliver according to what the table wants but according to whatever is sent from the kitchen.

It is possible that the world, as foretold, would not be able to endure sound doctrines at a point, and would want to recruit such stewards that would listen to what they want to hear. A faithful steward won't fall for that trick. He will remain true and faithful.

2 Timothy 4
3. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

Tips from the table would never be taken as a replacement from the reward from the kitchen. The user isn't the payer, the delivery may not be user friendly all the time. A faithful steward must be content with what comes to him from the kitchen as his reward and not be bought over by tips from the table, otherwise he'll become a servant to hitching ears.

Human philosophies, antichrist socializations and culture and so on must never replace the mysteries of God served by stewards of God's mysteries even if popular. These have the capacity to sway a person called to serve as a steward of God's mysteries particularly if he's ignorant of what he's called to serve.

That means, a steward of God's mysteries should listen more to God and expect his judgment from God and not from the world. We aren't sent to harp what the world is saying but to declare what God is saying, God's word isn't open to the world's opinions.

Every preacher, speaking to those redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ must be sure he or she delivers as given from heaven...because a great price has been paid for their souls: That's faithfulness as a steward of God's mysteries!

1 Corinthians 4
1. Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
2. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.

Good day to you

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Causes of Delay in getting Married

Relationship Friday: Causes of Delay in Getting Married

This is a very emotive subject, to be handled with utmost care. A few days ago, I was at a youth camp to speak on the matter. It is beautiful when sharing such with teenagers and young adults but a very difficult subject when dealing with matured singles who wished they had married years back and aren't yet.

But then, it's good we look into it but with utmost sensitivity, I hope, I'll be sensitive enough to be be able to pass the message.

The first cause of delay I'll talk about is the God factor. We ought to understand that not all of us are going to get married simply because God made it so. So technically we won't call this kind a delay.
1 Corinthians 7
7. For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.

Matthew 19
12. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

And that one was created and gifted to be married requires that one would need to know the timing of God. There's is time for everything and a season for every purpose on the earth. If we miss our timing, it may be difficult to to get it back easily.

Luke 19
42. Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. 43. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side...

So we need to be sure we were made for marriage and if we were, then we need to know when we should bring forth the fruit. It should never be earlier or later than. We must work within the timing of God. When the time comes, the opportunities will be many also, it is good people be sensitive and to take advantage of the opportunity God brings.

2. Satan. The warfare in the spirit is all about the will and the plan of God being done. Marriage is a destiny matter. God has His plans for individuals, He wants His kingdom to come to us in every area of our lives through His will being done and Satan is all out to keep the will of God from coming to pass. He will fight dirty, he will send disruptions in the plan to derail, he will do all kinds, sending all kinds of arrows but when we stand strong with the shield of faith, we quench all the fiery arrows of the evil one.

Matthew 11
12. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

Ephesians 6
16. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

3. Society. A lot of people who should be married aren't because of culture and societal issues. Starting from parental consent and biases, dowry matters, perspectives about weddings programing and other societal expectations, financial and others.

The fundamental of marriage is clear, that a man leaves father and mother and cleave to his wife for both to be one. While the society should be responsible in ensuring that this is done with decorum, the influence of society should never make the mountain to climb become so high that only a few would be able to. Societal expectations should not contravene the desires and demands of God.
Most societies these days don't care about cohabitation, but living together and having sexual intimacy outside of marriage isn't God's will and it is sin against God, because of lack of marital commitment that may see people going from bed to bed irresponsibly leaving their partners used, broken and burdened.
The cost of weddings should not support fornication while discouraging marriage. A parlour wedding may birth a glorious marriage that a society wedding may find difficult to produce. Waiting to have whatever society wedding while living in sin won't be God's perfect choice.

Parents too should have respect for the choices of their children so long they have been properly guided in the way of the Lord prior to the time of their choices to help them make godly choices in marriage and in other areas of life. Parents too should not shoo their children into evil hands because they want them to marry early. We should follow God in these matters, walking by faith.

4. Personal issues and choices. Personal choices has the power to affect marital timings. For instance, character traits that don't support lasting relationships can keep a person waiting for a long time.

Being of good character and virtue may have a double edged impact on timing. It may bring delay as such a person insists on certain standards in who to marry, and on the other hand, not being of good character or not being virtuous may be the reason to wait because eligible spouses may avoid such a person.

When there's immaturity spiritually and physically, there may be avoidance and consequent delay. Bad character will even chase away bad people, not only good ones.

Personal choices may mean one wants to wait deliberately for a reason or another. For instance, a lot of people who decide not to go too far in education are found to experience less delay in getting married unlike those who continue in school till their late 20s, who won't want to permit marriage distract them in the pursuit of their educational goals.

Personal choices may advice not wanting to choose among eligible people who are available for whatever reasons. Sometimes it's better to wait or be without than to get into marriage with some people. But it is also very important to be sure that the values being used as yardstick are noble enough that one won't regret later. Some diamonds come in the rough...and only keen eyes would see the architecture in ruin. So people should be careful to look well enough before concluding on people.

Finally, we should know that God has the final say. His timing is always perfect. We should walk very closely with Him to know what to do per time. With that, even the wiles of Satan will be defeated every time. Walking closely with God helps to know if marriage is for you or not and to be able to live with God's will in the matter. It also helps to be led to who that person is who God had prepared for one at the set time.

I pray that the Lord will make you like the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times to know what people should do per time. And to everyone who is under the delay of Satan, we declare freedom in Jesus name.

Thank you for reading, please share so that people who may need it may be blessed. Leave your thoughts and comments to help us learn further.

God's blessings always.

Have a beautiful weekend

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Doctrinal Stability

Ministry Wednesday: Doctrinal Stability

There is a need to strike the balance between spiritual development through increase knowledge and being doctrinally stable same time.

We owe our spiritual transformation to the renewal of our minds by God's word. God's knowledge via the revelation and the tutelage of the Holy Spirit using the various channels provided, brings corresponding changes into our lives as we begin to share divine perspectives, ideals and character that lead to differences in our lives.

There is nothing we can do without God's word and the revelation knowledge of God by the Holy Spirit. We understand that revelation is progressive, there are things we may be too dull in hearing now that we would be able to chew later on and as we grow in the things we already know, other things will come clearer: we need to be open to them.

But under this also hide errors and heresies. There are winds of doctrines that will want to sway us to and fro from Christ and His core message and expectations.

Hebrews 13
8. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
9. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

There are divers and strange doctrines released by the dark kingdom to carry the believer about like a ship being tossed by strong winds. Deceitful men lie in wait to deceive and to draw disciples after themselves and to devour like ravening wolves.

Ephesians 4
14. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
15. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

The goal of Christ is clear, to raise disciples after Him. Which means they believe Him and live lives like their Master preaching same things. Our stability must be drawn in our knowing Christ as Lord and as one to follow and to emulate in our love for God, our Father.

We are on a journey of transformation from humanity to divinity, to be conformed to the image of Christ, who is the express image of the Father, in a kingdom that shall never be left to another people, where Christ is King and Lord, who must reign till all His enemies be made His footstool, a kingdom that would eventually be handed over to Jehovah, so that He can be all in all in a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells without rivalry.

This is the core of following Christ and the essence of our pursuit of being like Him and it is our stability in this end time against all sorts of scoffers and their strange doctrines.

We should remember that we have been warned that the days are coming when the promise of His coming will become blurred and would be hard to see by the working of scoffers...

2 Peter 3
3. Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4. And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

We should be aware that that prophecy is near to fulfilment and we should then take heed to what Apostle Paul told the Colossians

Colossians 2:8 Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. NLT

Stand strong in these last days...Let your heart be established in grace!

It's a great day!

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Working What is Good

Monday Motivation: Working what is Good

Ethical investing refers to the practice of using one's ethical principles as the primary filter for the selection of securities investing. Ethical investing depends on an investor's views. Jun 25, 2019
https://www.investopedia.com › terms

Apostle Paul, writing to the Christians at Ephesus admonished those who stole to steal no more, working with their hands that which is good.

Ephesians 4
28. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

Apparently he meant stealing isn't a good work. In the business world too, there are things that are considered ethical investments meaning there are things that aren't ethical for everyone to invest in.

Ethical investing, of course depends on the values the investor holds highly and dearly and that is key to a Christian worker or investor. It means even the people of the world understand the place of values at the market place.

Christians are separated by their values. If the mountain of the house of the Lord will be one that people from other mountains will rush into, then the difference must be clear and that speaks of the value we represent as the light of the world and the salt of the earth.

But why would I look away and not consider my very highly rated values while investing? Why would I be ready to do any kind of work even if my values are demeaned by the job? It's nothing beyond the value we place on money.

If money means more to you than your Christian values and convictions, there is nothing you won't be ready to do for money even if it means betraying the most important things and people in your life.

There is a lot of money in life's very destructive habits and entertainments. Drugs, drinking, pornography, prostitution, gambling, and so on can be so obvious even if we have quite a number of Christians investing in them secretly and even quite a sum investing openly, but many more so called Christians who invest in obviously ethical and regular businesses too practice unethical things. A lot cheat and steal from their customers, they cut corners and extort from those who trust them and do things below what's expected of them without putting values on their integrity.

It is a sign that their Christian conviction is still under question. If you have confessed Jesus Christ as Lord, then you ought to know that you represent Him everywhere you go and whatever you do. And Him being the truth and the love of God won't do things that will be against God or that would put a neighbor in a worse condition.

Let our motivation for the week be to be true to our conviction of Christ in the work we do. To present the highest moral quality powered by grace as we seek to be light to the world.

Good morning and have a great week

Photo: Pixabay