The Holy Spirit and Marital Choices

The Holy Spirit and Marital Choices

One wonderful way God keeps the believer on the path of righteousness is by the leading or the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

I'm not here talking only about righteousness which is translated to mean having a right standing with God, which I understand quite well, I'm talking about the practice of righteousness where we practice what is right before God, walking within His core values, doing the things that bring Him pleasure and living according to His predetermined counsel for our lives. 

Without the leading of the Holy Spirit we can't walk in the plan of God for our lives. The new birth gives us the opportunity to be carried by the wind of the Holy Spirit in running through the divine courses for our lives to their ends.

John 3: 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.

6 Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.

7 Do not be amazed that I said, ‘You must be born again.’

8 The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (Berean Study Bible)

Romans 8:11 And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.

12 Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it.

13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Berean Study Bible)

The New Creation was designed to operate by the Spirit of God blowing the believer around. The New Creation lives and derives identity and empowerment from the quickening (giving active life and vitality) of the Holy Spirit within to live according to God's will and not according to the flesh.

This isn't just in some areas of our lives but in every area, be it career, calling, marriage, or in spiritual decisions about our services to God and our lifestyle choices. It is our default state in following God's plan for our lives, either in the short, medium or long term.

We can't walk in God's plan for our lives without the Holy Spirit and we can only be sure about making the right life's choices if we are led by the Spirit of God.

This is the design of God for the New Creation.

But in the last two decades, from the late 90s to be precise, because of the frustration pastors feel about growing number of misters and spinsters of marriageable age remaining single, they feel the leading of the Holy Spirit in making right choices in marriage can be sidelined.

 They feel it should be by individual charms and desires. Just 'point and kill' like they say in some restaurants, where you choose the live fish you want and the chefs kill it and prepare it for you.

The result of that change is everywhere for all of us to see. The last decade presented to us as probably the period with the most dysfunctional marital relationships in the body of Christ in the last half century. 

If we need the Holy Spirit in making other choices that may be less important to our destinies, then we would need Him much more in making marital choices.

Does the Holy Spirit leading us mean our senses and intelligence are unnecessary? Of course not, the Spirit of God works with them so they won't lead us astray. There is a way that seems right into a man but the end is destruction. But with the Holy Spirit who sees the end from the beginning, we are safe. We shouldn't take every intuition, dream or vision as God's leading without judging, so also we shouldn't take beauty, charm and charisma as what's good for us without checking with the Holy Spirit. 

Without the leading of the Holy Spirit, our intellect, senses and brains would be influenced by the flesh and consequently empower our lusts and inordinate affections to influence our choices wrongly, leading us through their vanities unto destruction.

Develop a vital relationship with the Holy Spirit by walking in the consciousness of His position and operations in your life, trusting that, just as the Word says concerning Him so is He within you. Getting Him involved in daily decisions and promptly yielding to all of His pressures in order to be in step with Him. And when it comes to marital decisions, it won't be strange following Him into marital bliss. 

He leads, we follow and we are safe! With the Holy Spirit, we can always choose right!

Discipleship is Discipline

Discipleship is Discipline.

Discipleship is learning from a master towards becoming like him. Discipleship to Christ Jesus is learning from Him to become like Him. The goal of discipleship isn't to become an attendee of a religious gathering but to live like Him in our society.

It demands total allegiance to the principles of the Master and the applications of those principles in day to day life within the host communities.

It is a narrow and strait way and door. It doesn't give room for any serious maneuver. It is a yoke, howbeit an easy yoke. It would demand cutting off of excesses that won't fit in into the strait way. You can't come in with everything.

Yet, it is freedom. It removes the heavy yoke and frees the follower of the weight of the world's worries, anxieties and cares. The narrowness is made of guardrails to keep the follower from the dangers of excesses that may trip one over the cliff and not made of fences to restrict freedom. Freedom has boundaries, beyond those boundaries are dangerous snares. Discipleship is meant to keep us from those snares.

One day, Jesus Christ was going somewhere and a large crowd followed Him. One should be glad that a great crowd follows you'll think. But suddenly he stopped and turned to them and gave a speech.

Anyone who wants to follow must be ready to 'hate' father, mother and every social connection including self. Such a person must forsake all he possesses, such must deny self, carry his cross in readiness for crucifixion and then follow Him... Anyone who wants to follow must sit down and count the cost of following vis a vis the Kingdom to gain and then make the decision either to follow or not to follow. Luke 14

This is the discipline of the disciple. It is such that these conditions have to be considered in every decision to be made in order to remain in discipleship. If I have to choose between the principles I'm learning from Christ and the comfort or the pleasures these things bring to me, my discipleship demands that I deny myself of those enjoyments to maintain my stand as a disciple.

Putting any other person, including oneself, before the Master, makes that person or oneself the master. In that case discipleship allegiance changes. You can't be a disciple to two masters same time.

If you have a possession or an opportunity to possess something that you cannot leave or forsake, if you have to choose between it and your allegiance to Christ and His principles, then discipleship allegiance changes from Christ to whatever that possession or opportunity is.

If you have to be crucified for your allegiance to Christ, you are to offer the cross you're already carrying for the purpose instead of denying Christ.

Every opportunity isn't a good one for a disciple, except it protects your allegiance to Christ and to His principles. Self denial is part of the discipleship deal. It is the discipline of discipleship.

The world knows this and would offer opportunities with conditions that negate our allegiance to Christ probably to even demand allegiance to other ways of life.

Improper discipleship is the foundation of falling away from Christ under unfavourable conditions.

Apostle Paul prophesied that in the last day, perilous times would come. Some other translations rendered it as, in the last days, it will be difficult to be a Christian. And these are the days. 2Tim 3

Each one of us would have to ask ourselves if we are merely part of the hosanna shouting crowd or those who believe to the saving of the soul and are ready to die for what they believe?

Ask if the things you enjoy from the world are compatible with your convictions of Christ and decide what you want to do about it.

Know this, that this is where our faith is tested. Reading through Hebrew 11, we see that faith and conviction are matters of making choices between things that are compatible with one's convictions against things that offer pleasures and comfort but aren't compatible with what one believes.

And we see how God came to the defense of each of those patriots of faith and how He rewarded their steadfastness, even those who laid down their lives, as they joined the cloud of witnesses, in that better country with foundation, where the maker and the builder is God, a heavenly city, prepared for us by God.

How are you doing with the disciplines of discipleship? Are you a disciple of Christ or of something else? It isn't by being born into a Christian family or bearing a Christian name, attending a big church or being a minister with a big title... It is by your convictions about Christ...and how strong they are in making you able suffer discomfort in maintaining your stand for Jesus Christ.

Good day to you!

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Where is Boasting?

Where is Boasting?

We met energy here. Life isn't man made. The potential to live and to make things happen came from God but how we use life and the energy we met here depends on either we lean towards fulfilling God's desires or  on following our own purposes.

It's a fact that man is a free moral agent who can make independent decisions and make things happen here on earth without God and even directly against God's pleasure. Man can be successful in rebellion against God in this world.

It is under this leverage that sin becomes possible. If nothing can happen except by God, then sin would not have been possible.

So success in any particular endeavour isn't a sign of God's approval. Babel was built to an extent and God Himself said, they would have achieved that, were He to let them be. Who knows how many millions of Babels have been built since then without God interference? 

That lack of divine interference is now making us think we can do and undo, and whatever we achieve even with God's involvement is based on our own life, prowess, energy and personal development and not God's. 

When we operate this way, we feel we don't owe God any glory or thanksgiving for what we achieve and in so doing, think God is unnecessary in man's affairs. We don't see grace, divine permission, support or any contribution of God into our success rather all the glory comes to us.

You may think I'm speaking only of unbelievers, no, it happens also among believers, even among ministers of the gospel. I once heard a man of God making comments on the infrastructure of their ministry headquarters back in the late 80s saying, when God was the only one working there, that it was all bushes and forests until he joined Him and those things were built. Though I understand the principle he was speaking from, it sure sounds as if he was the one who made the difference and not God.

Pride is a very deadly emotion. It points only to self absolving any other of any credit including God. Those who want to experience God deeply must avoid it like a plague. Pride won't give glory to God rather runs a person in direct collision with Him.

You may be a very casual Christian who don't pray much, who don't study God's word much, who don't go to church much, who don't do all the standing on God's word to receive anything specific from God, yet it will be safe for you to know that the life you have and the energy with which you live to make things happen comes from God. Give Him that credit and give Him the glory. 

You may be a big fasting and prayer person, a mighty seed sower, a giver in the realm of giving all, holier than all, working perfectly before the Lord, a man of great faith and love, yet, don't ever think that the smallest thing you receive from God is because of any of these wonderful things you do. The grace to do any work of righteousness is purely from God. He is the One who works in us both to will and to do of His own good pleasure. Give Him all the credit and praise. 

The truth is that we all have our weaknesses and if that's all we have, we may never be able to achieve what we have achieved, no matter how modest.

If our outcomes have been by the reason of those things we do wrongly and not by those we do rightly, we won't be able to boast of anything at all.

Jesus Christ told us through His disciples that without Him, the Vine, we, the branches can do nothing. Here in His Kingdom, we who have submitted to His Lordship should learn to work with Him and to stay within what He permits us to do and to accomplish and not to overreach beyond His workings within us. We should only work on the outside to catch up with His working on our inside, nothing more according to Colossians 1:29. Seeking self glory won't make us limit ourselves to that inner working. I know that sounds condescending but that's our life.

Because another end of boasting is to think that we deserve more than what He permits us to accomplish in spite of our gifts and efforts. Our gifts, intentions and efforts aren't enough, it takes divine working for us to become all God has prepared for us to become without becoming what God didn't have in mind no matter how impressive that may be to people. 

When we, who have submitted to His Lordship and leading, understand that we can only do so much as He permits, we won't have any reason to boast, to look down on ourselves or to query God why we aren't as big or as good as others in achievements.

Rather, we will give God glory that we are able to do as much as we do, trusting God to be able to do more if He wills. We may dream big, put in big efforts but the outcome will be within God's limits in fulfilling His own purpose and pursuit. Paul plants, Apollos waters, but the increase is of the Lord. The only One who matters according to Paul, is the one who gives the increase. To Him alone must the glory go. 1Corinthians 3:6&7

You can't measure your success or judge another person's failure by the size of outcomes but in relation with divine purpose. If we build big but fail to fulfil purpose, we fail before God even if the world sees us as billionaire achievers. Life is all about divine purpose and divine purpose depends on divine power and it is that input of grace that gives God glory.

Have you been boasting lately? Have you praised your own wisdom, power and might? Have you looked down on others to blame them for the size of their achievements compared to yours? Have you seen yourself as bigger than where God has prepared for you? It's time to repent and give glory to God. 

Give God glory and avoid boasting. God resists the proud and give more grace to the humble.

Psalm 147

10 His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,

nor his delight in the legs of the warrior;

11 the Lord delights in those who fear him,

who put their hope in his unfailing love.

12 Extol the Lord, Jerusalem;

praise your God, Zion.

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Travelling Through Life's Labyrinth

Travelling through Life's Labyrinth.

When Jesus Christ was about to go to the cross, He spent time talking to the disciples, preparing them for His departure.

He told them not to depart but to remain so that the fruit of all He has done and would be doing might show forth through them. He as the Vine and we as the branches which shows the fruits.

He told them He would be leaving with them four entities to replace His companionship with them and to help them. His name, His word, His peace and His Holy Spirit.

When speaking to them about the new birth, He had spoken about the Holy Spirit, His movement and His relationship with those who believe. The believer would be born again by the Holy Spirit and so the believer will move like the wind. People would hear the sound as they move where they like, but won't be able to determine where they may be coming from or where they may be going.

Christ didn't want to leave us without a comforting companion in His absence, He didn't want to leave us as orphans, He promised to come to us by His Spirit. John chapters 3, and chapters 13-16.

Apostle Paul tied our being born of God as His sons to the working of the Holy Spirit in the believer. They shouldn't be separated, in order to get the best benefits embedded, just as the Lord didn't separate them in John 3. Jesus Christ must have taught Paul that, for us, called the Gentiles, to be able to comprehend.

As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Romans 8:14

In the prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah that spoke about the new creation, the new covenant and the new kingdom, God had promised that the pathway to knowing Him and walking in His will would be by His Spirit living in the people of God.

Today, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit individually when we are alone and collectively when we gather together in the name of Jesus Christ. He lives within us, what a blessing! 

We can't travel this maze of a life with its complexity without the understanding of what is right and what's wrong. And we won't only need the knowledge and the understanding of what's wrong and what's right at the general communal level of the pleasers of God, but at the individual level of the believer's personal destiny management.

We know for instance at the general level, how we should not be unequally yoked together with an unbeliever, which applies in marriage and in many other scenarios beyond marriage. But we don't have it written in the Bible who exactly that person we should be yoked together with among believers should be say in marriage for instance. Only the Holy Spirit knows who is so written in the volume written concerning each of us. 

We know from Scriptures, on the general level, how we all should go into all the world to make disciples of all nations but its not written in the Scriptures where exactly each of us should go to operate.

This is one reason why the new covenant wouldn't run by the Law which is limited in scope and runs only on the outside. God intends for the believer to be led by the Holy Spirit from within, who is the custodian of all the knowledge of God and all the knowledge about us, who also is the revealer of God and of all the deep things of God.

1Cor 2:9 But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,

Nor have entered into the heart of man

The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 

11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 

12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

This is very profound following what Jesus Christ said about the Holy Spirit. It requires a deep meditation by every child of God. 

John 16: 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 

13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 

14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 

15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.

Jesus Christ said the Holy Spirit will SHOW us things to come and declare or reveal to us things concerning Him. 

In all, the believer will not be able to live a day successfully in pleasing God here in this world without the Holy Spirit. Of course, human beings live here on the earth successfully to their standards with the faculties God has given them to operate here on the earth without the Holy Spirit. But as amphibious supernatural beings that we are, being born of God, with our success defined by our obedience to God, we won't achieve our supernatural potentials and ability to obey God and live like Him without the workings of the Holy Spirit from within us. 

I understand that we somehow define the role of the Holy Spirit with power, supernatural manifestations and His fiery nature, but His primary workings are more in the area of leading us in the path of righteousness than the display of power to witness, helping us as we testify of Christ. 

Therefore, He seeks our being yielded and malleable to Him from within us. He is fluid, flowing as the wind, fire, water, and flying like a dove, if we would be led or moved by Him into the people, places, events and timings of divine pleasures and will, we must be as fluid as He is. When we become rigid, in our ideas, pleasures, understanding, and every other thing that fuel our decisions, we become less yielding to His pressures and we experience less of His leadings. Mark 1:12, Romans 6:16-22

Meanwhile, there's a way that seems right to a man but the end is destruction. Our understanding and wisdom can be powerful, but they are only informed by our past and are limited to our ability to properly interpret history and not by the knowledge and the understanding of the future. 

The leading of the Spirit is powered by the omniscience of God and the omnipotence of God to break into our routine and make us go in the direction that suits our future and destiny in God even unconsciously once we are totally yielded. 

All we have to do is to trust Him. Trusting that He indwells us in real time. We need to trust Him that He who indwells us isn't inferior to the one who works in any other believer, no matter how 'anointed'. We need to believe beyond what we hear, dream or see in any vision or revelation, which are compromisable, that He is at work in us both to will and to do of His own good pleasure. We must believe in the leading of the Spirit as sons and children of God. 

When we lose confidence in His leading and workings within us, we devise our own ways which at best may work for a while but which end in destruction. 

When we lose faith in His leading from within us, we begin to seek mediums and are open to falling prey to false prophets and familiar spirits to deceive and take advantage of us, and may lead to man-worship, as we deify men and trigger divine jealousy through our inadvertent idolatry. 

When we lose faith in the leading of the Spirit from within us as children of God, we work against our own spiritual development, mortgaging and outsourcing our spiritual growth and personal relationship with God. 

We can be led by the Spirit of God, we should be led by the Spirit of God, this is our default setting. This is what God wants to do in us, this is the New Covenant, and every believer in Christ Jesus should explore this grace in the place of prayer and total yieldedness to the Holy Spirit as the leader. 

This is the only way the believer can successfully manoeuvre through the complexity of this perverse world system and the constraints of pleasing God daily and in every situation within it as we await the coming of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. 

Pray this prayer consistently for yourself... 

Hebrews 13: 20 Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 

21 make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen 

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There is Healing in Christ Jesus

There is Healing in Christ Jesus

There was a time when we'll get all excited hearing words like this title. We got all excited hearing words like, 'healing is the children's bread' from the story of the syrophoenician (A non Jewish) woman who came to Jesus Christ seeking healing for her sick daughter, with the kind of faith Jesus Christ never saw in Israel.

Over time, as medical science gets better and apostasy and scoffers increase, with all sorts of unexpected things happening in the healing ministry, casting aspersions on the ministry, faith in the healing power in Christ began to wane.

Of course, medical sciences has improved health care system a lot, but that still doesn't mean people aren't dying or that they have had all the breakthroughs needed to cure all diseases that afflict man. It shouldn't be a reason why we should cast aside our faith in divine healing, we'll always need it.

There has also been those arguments saying the days of miracles and healing are gone or that healing isn't in the work Jesus did for our redemption. We have scoffers, who manipulate scriptures to make the promises of healing irrelevant today.

But it's incontrovertible that Jesus Christ healed while He was here on the earth in fulfilling prophecies that went ahead concerning Him and that part of the commission given to those who believed in His name, is to do the works He did in His name and by His Spirit.

It was explicitly recorded how the apostles and the disciples continued in this mandate, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manners of diseases.

Divine healing isn't just to care for God's people but also to declare and confirm the truth of the gospel of Christ. If it is argued that medicine has replaced divine healing in caring for people, how then has it replaced divine healing in evangelism?

The fundamental basis for our faith in Christ is that God raised Him from the dead and that He is still alive right now even if He has been made to sit on the right hand of God in majesty. If He is still alive, and manifesting with and in us through the Holy Spirit, the other Comforter sent to replace Him with us, so that we won't be left as orphans after Christ left, then, it is in order to believe that He is still healing the sick today.

Of course, we know that the challenge to our survival while waiting for His return aren't tailored to be handled by human capacity and resources alone. Why then should we abandon ourselves to the limits of the physical, in fighting the unending and unyielding challenges we face in time, when we have a good offer of help from the Lord?

Even with a supersonic health care system, it is possible for the Christian to be excluded because of his or her faith in Christ by persecution, under which circumstances, the efficacy of divine healing becomes the only option available, if we must be alive and well to continue our purposes of shining the light of God to the world. We'll always need this earthsuit to function here, God knows that, and has made provisions for it.

Apostle Paul once wondered why it was seen as an incredible thing that God should raise Christ from the dead. The same question should be asked even much more in the case of healing, why it should be seen as an incredible thing for God to heal the sick and to heal supernaturally, knowing that He made us from ordinary dust and that by His breath, every thing we have now in our body anatomy and physiology came to being?

He is God and we can call upon Him in time of any trouble and He is faithful to make a way.

Another source of unbelief is a lot of things seen in the healing ministry.

One query is that healing ministers ought to heal every sick person as advertised. I agree that lots of advertisements are quite misleading in the claims and expectations they put forward, but then, they aren't the Healer, and there are lots of issues going on between God and the individual that's beyond what the minister has the right to get involved in which may deprive a seeker from getting healed. Remember lots of people were touching Christ the day the woman with the issue of blood touched him and was healed of a twelve year plague. 

Besides, healing at an evangelical crusade has a different purpose than healing among a group of believers. The purpose of an evangelical crusade is to win souls and every thing is geared towards people receiving Christ, if it takes only one person being healed to bring those who should be saved to Christ, that may be all the healing that would take place.

In the local church however, it is written, is there any sick AMONG YOU, let him call the elders of the church to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up...James 5.

It wasn't every time Jesus Christ came across with sick people that He healed all the sick. At the pool of Bethesda, where the man with palsy was healed after 38 years, there were many other sick people there but He healed only one, and we don't know why but there was a situation recorded by Matthew in chapter 8, where by evening they brought to Him all that were sick, and He healed them all. Meanwhile, He was at His hometown at a time and He couldn't do mighty miracles there only that he healed a few sick folks with minor ailments.

The truth here is that we shouldn't use the situation of others to judge our own faith in Christ. That someone didn't get healed shouldn't be the standard by which we relate with God's healing promises. The relationship we have with Him and His promises to us should be the basis for our faith. That someone backslides and falls away from the faith shouldn't be the basis by which we judge our own walk with God, if everyone backsides, we should determine that we'll continue to walk with God in such a way that we won't fall, whatever it will cost. If people aren't enjoying certain gifts of grace that everyone should be enjoying, don't join those who would say, it shouldn't be for them...rather stretch your wọn faith to receive and God will honour your faith. 

Some may have made the healing ministry a tool for exploiting people and extracting from them. This still doesn't erase the work Jesus did and the promises He left for us for our healing. Don't let other people's unfortunate rascality rob you of your inheritance in God. 

Many in unbelief would fake healing miracles and manipulate testimonies to show how powerful they or their ministries are, for patronage and for human accolades. This too won't erase the truth that God still heals neither would it destroy the promises of God. Have you met or heard of anyone like that? Pity their unbelief but walk on in faith towards God for your own healing. 

We have the more sure word of prophecy, where God declared Himself as Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that heals His people. Exodus 15:26 saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, FOR I AM the LORD, YOUR HEALER.”

Here He declared Himself as one with the responsibility of our healing and health. Apostle Peter pulled this provision out in the healing of a disciple in Acts 9:34 

And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose.

Again, God promised His people to bless their bread and water and to take sickness away from their midst. Of course, we know He has the ability to do so.

Exodus 23:24 you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. 

25 You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. 

26 None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.

God rewards undivided attention to His worship and to faith in Him as God. He takes primary responsibility for our care as we worship and serve Him wholeheartedly without compromise. 

In the fundamental messianic prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 53 of his book, we saw Christ bearing our pains and sicknesses, bearing the punishment for our peace and healing us by the consequent stripes the punishment brought. 

3 He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. 

He was like someone people turned away from;

he was despised, and we didn’t value him.

4 Yet he himself bore our sicknesses,

and he carried our pains;

but we in turn regarded him stricken,

struck down by God, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced because of our rebellion,

crushed because of our iniquities;

punishment for our peace was on him,

and we are healed by his wounds. (Christian Standard Bible)

The healings Christ performed were seen to be the fulfillment of this prophecy by the apostles in retrospect. Matthew said Christ healed so that this might be fulfilled and Peter affirmed this in His epistle.

Matthew 8:16 When evening came, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed. He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick, 

17 so that what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

He himself took our weaknesses

and carried our diseases.

As long as Christ lives, this prophecy shall continue to be fulfilled by the healing and health of those who seek His kingdom and believe in Him. 

1Peter 2:22 He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth; 

23 when he was insulted, he did not insult in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. 

24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

The issue is if we believe this. If we understand that the same word that brought us the promise of our eternal salvation brought us this one also, and we handle our healing just as we handle our salvation, living above sin, we will enjoy the same divine faithfulness in every area, all things being equal. 

We should recover our faith from where scoffers have put it. We should recover our faith from being overthrown. We should trust the Lord with every area of our lives including our healing and health and God will be pleased. 

Let Him be the Healer, that He said He is and allow Him to lead as He wants in getting us our healing. With Him there are no incurable diseases. The worst we could be was to be dust, and if out of the dust, all we call our bodies today came, then there's no sickness that can be incurable to Him. 

If He has each hair on our heads numbered, He sure knows what and where exactly the problem is in the cells of our bodies. Let us trust Him. 

As Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness, and whosoever looked to it among those who were bitten by the serpent was healed, so also God has lifted up His Son today, we are saved and healed as we look up to Him. 

He is able to keep the plagues away according to His promises... Don't despise Him who made the body, He knows what to do to repair it. He raised Christ from the dead according to the gospel, He by the same Spirit can give life to our mortal bodies...Hallelujah! 

Do you believe this? 

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Having Food and Raiment...

Having Food and Raiment... 

6 Now godliness with contentment is great gain. 

7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. 

8 And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. 

9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. 

10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows

I believe God gives riches and wealth. Many rich people can testify to this, how some opportunities they didn't bargain for met with their diligence and proactive efforts. I believe God always has His purposes for giving each of us talents; by the way, talent means money. I'm sure also that God judges between His purposes and the pursuits which we engaged the potentials He has bestowed upon us in.

But our purposes won't require all of us to be managers of stupendous physical wealth, riches and possessions. Many of us will only enjoy the basic providence of God in His faithfulness to meet our basic needs and to be able to show some love to others. Not all of us will be millionaires as believers for instance, but the basic things He has promised will not fail most of us.

But that still depends on being on same page with Him when it comes to the issue of personal possessions. You can't study around what Jesus Christ taught about personal possessions and not notice His tilt towards contentment, not being covetous, relying on God in faith, not trusting in nor worrying about money, and seeking the kingdom of God.

It's good for a good disciple to go into the gospels to mine those things Jesus Christ said and did about finances, money, cares of this world and so on...there we can find good balance and stability on the matter of the Christian and money and we can develop lots inner peace. 

This is crucial and apostle Paul knew it in giving instructions to his son in the gospel, Timothy. He had written to him about the purpose for which he had left him at the station, basically to stop people from preaching things contrary to the truth of the gospel, that's in chapter one. In the second chapter, he reminded him to intercede for all men, particularly for kings and those in authority. He went on to tell him some local church policies about orderliness in the conducts of men and women in the church he was pastoring. The third chapter was mainly about the qualifications and the conducts of local church leaders under him, he mentioned briefly the mystery of godliness at the latter part of the chapter. The fourth chapter was about Timothy himself, his ministry, his personal development and how to be a good minister of the gospel. The fifth was about how to relate with and to different categories of members in the church as a leader, how to relate to young men, young women, older men and older women, how to care for widows, the church and the family responsibilities to widows, and also the protocol for disciplining elders and so on. 

In chapter 6, he told him about his relationship with money and with rich people in the church. A close study of these things will tremendously help a minister who truly want to please God.

One primary instruction Paul gave in the sixth chapter is for Timothy to withdraw from those who think godliness is a means of gain or profit. These set of people must have been ministers themselves and church influencers whose focus for ministry was to make money and who judge their successes with how much money and materials they've accumulated.

He told him that godliness with contentment is great gain. We didn't bring anything into this world and its definite that we won't take anything out but if we have food and clothing, we should be therewith content...

I'm sure this is where he would have problems with lots of people who aren't yet properly discipled. In a world where the bigger the better, the more the merrier, staying with only food and raiment shouldn't make you content...all you can have is all you can have and its all you should have...

But in that liberal thought lays the foundation of the greed and covetousness we grapple with in the body of Christ today in support of the worldliness in society.

God didn't say all He could afford was food and raiment, Jesus Christ even said, the Father knows we have need of those things the world seek, and they shall be added as we seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

However, God wants His children to learn contentment. We should let little be sufficient to us. Jesus warned us against covetousness, when two brothers came to him over their rightful inheritance they wanted him to help share, He warned them against covetousness, saying a man's life doesn't consist in the abundance of what he possesses. Apostle Paul was echoing the same to his young minister protégé.

When we make life all about what we have, nothing else will matter in our pursuit of wealth. It becomes the ultimate goal of pursuit, it becomes the definition of life's success as if that's all we came to the world to get. We won't mind sacrificing others and their well being in pursuit of our greed and lack of satisfaction. People become part of the collateral in achieving things we don't really need.

And some ministers who Apostle Paul described as having their bellies as their God in his letter to the Philippians chapter 3, won't mind taking advantage of people's greed to satisfy their own.

It may look as if contented people are 'visionless', it isn't so, they may not have personal ambitions, which we don't really need in the pursuit of purpose. But many don't even know the difference between the nature of life's purpose and having wealth and so they adopt having wealth as life's purpose, as if what was meant to keep us alive is also the reason to be alive. The fuel in the car isn't the reason for the existence of the car, or is it? We don't live to eat, we eat to live. We must seek the higher purposes!

So the Apostle told Pastor Timothy, what happens to those who make getting rich as their goal and pursuit, how they fall into various snares and to the danger of being pierced through with many sorrows leading to perdition. Remember that word 'perdition' and Judas Iscariot?

This is very instructive for ministers of the gospel.

One thing I have noticed is that every time, the apostles spoke about ministers greed, the repercussions is always swift destruction, aside this letter to Timothy, 2Peter 3 and Philippians 3 also say same thing. I wonder how we often don't see it.

The reason I see for this is that we look for scriptures out of the context of Christ that support our greed and we use them to psych ourselves into thinking contrary thoughts to what Christ has said to us. We can't do that and be faithful or honest. 

The result is the way the world see us as thieves, usurpers, and lazy people who are only out to milk people in the name of religion. The insult don't really bother me, it is the response to the truth that gets at me. 

People now openly desecrate the gospel and the word of God and treat it as scam because of the greed of some of those who preach it. It's almost making us think twice about preaching and teaching the truth about giving because people won't know what our motivations are for teaching. I know ministries that won't ask for offerings and tithes, even if they believe it should still be part of our worship, others who take won't talk about it or ask for it at all...not just because it's the modest thing to do but to keep minds at rest to listen to God's word first because of those who have made godliness a means to profiteering and merchandising the people. 

It will do us a lot of good in our walk with God to be contented with food and raiment as we pursue higher purposes in our life's endeavors as believers in Christ. You can become anything God wants you to be and rise to the heights of humanly possible life's positions and achievements but it won't be for the purpose of wealth gathering but to be a blessing and a shining light for God and for His Christ. 

Later in that sixth chapter, Apostle Paul still went ahead to give Timothy an instruction for those who are rich in this world...meaning, all he said wasn't that we can't be rich but we must understand the technicalities surrounding how to manage our faith when we have great possessions and not to live like the rich fool, who had a great harvest but didn't live to enjoy any of it, not knowing how to handle it. 

Folks, God will never endorse or promote our covetousness and greed, that's why we pray and don't get positive response when our desire is to spend those things we ask for on our lusts according to James chapter 4. So, a believer must check again, if those things being spent on our lusts are truly the blessings of God or the snares of the devil to trap us away from Christ. 

We are safe, when we see godliness with contentment as great gain and not see godliness as gain but to be content with the basics of life...even when God has purposed to entrust us with great riches and wealth! 

We become vulnerable to sin and to ridicules when we won't be happy with whatever we have trusting God!

Hebrews 13:5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;

never will I forsake you.”

Philippians 4:12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 

13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Can you?

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The Bell Won't Save You!

The Bell won't Save You!

I was watching UFC, and I heard something the referee said to the contestants among other things which I can't remember now, I heard, "The bell will not save you!". That word kept ringing on my mind, I can't even remember anything about the fight right now, except that phrase. I guess the phrase means, once you're being counted out or already held in a knockout grip, even if the bell rings, signalling the end of the round, the knock out will still stand... The bell won't save you.

My mind went straight to the grip of sin and the fall into temptations that trips people out of Christ, the bell is either death or the rapture.

It means to me, that if we permit the temptations and the trials working to knock us out of Christ to keep us in the grip of sin till death or till rapture, without us enduring by all the gifts and graces of the new creation in Christ to the end, the death or the rapture won't save us. 

One thing we always seem to overlook is the fact that lots of people are already falling into temptations and are denying Christ as we speak but waiting for the rapture to keep them from facing the Antichrist.

Many others too are already facing the kind of persecutions that make the Antichrist real time for them.

The CAN chairman who was beheaded a few months ago wouldn't have had it worse in the great tribulations of the Antichrist.

Leah Sharibu won't even think the Antichrist is in the future, to her, he is here in real time...

But when we sit in our comfort zones, we only see a future Antichrist while daily falling into simple trials and temptations, because we don't think we have any responsibility to stand for Jesus, denying self and carrying our crosses beyond wearing a gold crucifix around our necks and wrists.

Lots of Christians are today ready to do anything for money, even betray Christ for money like Judas, exactly what the mark, the name and the number of the Antichrist will be about...we don't easily care about those but when we hear about the Antichrist, we look into the future beyond the rapture...will anyone who betrays Christ, deny and reject Him for money today, like Judas Iscariot, get any less judgment? Will such be saved by rapture? The bell won't save such, if such remains so till death or till rapture. 

Let's care less about the Antichrist, but more about today and its temptations. The trouble of each day is enough for it. It'll all become a distraction focusing on the Antichrist now.

People die everyday, many will die of this virus or of some other causes today and face eternity, and people will keep dying long before rapture comes. None of us will be here by year 2220 even if rapture tarries beyond then. Many will die today who never knew they would. Will the Antichrist matter to them? What will matter would be the destination after now. Eternal damnation will be worse than the pains of the Antichrist and of his great tribulations. 

Our focus should rather be to be found in Christ faithful when that moment comes. Our individual plan should be to remain so long we are alive, rapture will only save those who would be alive and remain, according to apostle Paul.

We must live, remaining in Christ irrespective of the temptations and the trials we face, we must live as if we would face judgment the next moment. We shouldn't see the prophecies about the Antichrist as some futuristic event that don't involve us in the now... There shall be serious temptations of both pain and comfort between now and our death or the rapture, our conviction will be stretched to its elastic limits, but we must not snap into apostasy, into unbelief into a lifestyle of sin, we must not deny Christ, not even now... We must remain steadfast to the end...

He who endures to the end shall be saved... Shalom

Matthew 10:22 You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. NIV

John 15: 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. NIV

Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. NIV

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The Antichrist: What Difference Does it Make?

The Antichrist: What Difference Does it Make?

End times matters are coming to the fore again and I believe it is what Christ would want at this time as we remember His suffering, death and resurrection this week.

Daniel prophesied concerning the end times, beginning with the graphic interpretation of the dream Nebuchadnezzar had, which he couldn't remember until Daniel and his friends narrated it to him with the interpretation.

The dream pointed to the kingdoms that would rule the world till God's kingdom would be established. These kingdoms have come and gone and we are witnessing the toes of the image that depicts the schedule of events in our days. Daniel chapter 2.

When John, the Baptist came preaching, his message was simple and clear, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand", he preached as the forerunner for Christ.

When Jesus Christ came, the message didn't change, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand"

Of course, people thought it was all about restoring the kingdom back to Israel. But it is more than that, it is about God ruling over the nations removing all rules and all authority. 

1Corinthians 15:24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

The central teaching of Christ is about this new Kingdom coming, which had started in the spirit realms from where with time, it will manifest fully.

One question people kept asking Him was about the signs of the end of the age before the advent of the full manifestation of the kingdom of God. And He gave answers as appropriate which we can read from the gospels, and were written to churches by the apostles in the epistles.

One prominent figure of the end of time is the person called the Antichrist, he has other appellations like the abomination of desolation, the man of sin, the beast and so on.

Another prominent part of the end times is the first resurrection or the rapture of the saints, the catching up, just like Jesus was taken up with a glorious body after His resurrection.

Another event in the narrative are the tribulations, the persecutions and the sufferings from satanic systems and from natural disasters for the believer and for the entire world. 

We also have the coming of Christ, the millennia reign of Christ and the Armageddon war that will totally paralyse Satan and his angels, the world and the universe as we know it, casting them into the lake of fire.

And finally, the emergence of the new heaven and the new earth. 

The complexity of the interplay and the sequence of these events are not so easy to understand and so we must simplify it as much as possible to be able to find our place in the whole process having the kingdom of God as focus.

First of all we must understand that certain behavioral patterns won't permit entrance into the kingdom of God. Sin and unrighteousness won't take a person from here to the next level. Nothing abominable will be there. 

But man has no capacity to attain such level of righteousness without the help of God through His love. It was this grace that brought the gifts of righteousness, redemption and the new creation we received in Christ through the new birth, which opens the door of the kingdom of God to mankind.

With the new creation that's in Christ, our conformity to Christ's image becomes possible as He leads many sons into glory. He can now work in the believer what is well pleasing in His sight by the power of the Spirit that indwells us. 

Here is the defeat of Satan and his system and that becomes the target of his pressure and warfare against mankind and particularly the believers in Christ. 

Satan is called the Tempter, he uses schemes, lies, pressures of sufferings and of comfort to lure both the world and even believers away from Christ. He knows he has been judged already and condemned eternally, his time is short and would deceive as many as possible through the broad way. 

His temptation does not leave anyone out. He even wanted Jesus Christ to bow to him and so join his team by offering Him all the Kingdoms of the world and their glories. 

His offers are always around the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, outside his wickedness and terror. 

The temptations from Satan is real and not hidden. And people, both believers and non believers in Christ, fall daily, choosing the temporal pleasures of sin and of the world rather than Christ. 

Faith in Christ is the key that offers all that God has provided to save us. The future of mankind in the coming kingdom is tied to faith in Christ, and that then becomes the object of satanic warfare. He wins whenever people lose that faith in Christ and loses when people keep their faith in Christ. 

Money, power and the glories of the world are always the major tools of Satan's lures and temptations. He knows money will draw worship from man just as God draws worship from man. The power money has is always awe rendering to mankind and so becomes a major tool in Satan's hands to draw men away from following God. 

This has been on since mankind created money to answer all things. They have been trading their souls for money since and trusting in it over trusting in God who gave life which money didn't give. 

Now, when the Antichrist comes, he's going to leverage on the monetary and financial systems of the world to force people away from Christ and from their eternal salvation and people are so scared, and are only happy that rapture would probably have happened before his full manifestation. 

Meanwhile, Jesus said we would see the abomination of desolation sitting in the Holy place. And apostle Paul, said the day would not come until there be a falling away first and the man of sin revealed. 

Mark 13:14 But WHEN YE SHALL SEE THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:

2Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 

4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

Though the rapture will cut the the days short for the elects sake according to Mark 13, before the full manifestation of the Antichrist in his full powers, the church will still be here to see him exalt himself above all that is called God. 

And even now, the spirit of the Antichrist is here already and antichrists are already here according to Scriptures. 

1John 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

1John 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time

Meanwhile, the answer to them is in 1John 4:4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

Rapture will cut short their effects on the believer and usher the world into the full manifestation of their evils. But the rapture won't help those who chose to be lured away even now. According to apostle Paul, there shall be a falling away. This falling away is nothing but people falling for the temptations and the force of the tempter to abandon Christ for the lusts that are in the world. To those falling away and abandoning and denying Christ on the altar of saving their own lives by being 'wise' and 'reasonable', rapture won't be a safety net.

Seeing that denying Christ both now or at the full manifestation of the Antichrist carries the same damnation, believers should rather strengthen their convictions in the salvation that is in Christ and be ready to suffer, and if need be, to lay down their lives for their faith to secure their eternal salvation and not to fall away. Many are already selling their birthrights in Christ for a morsel of meal from Satan, yet thinking it would be different when the Antichrist comes. If you can't refuse to be lured away now, what would happen to you if the Antichrist offers you his mark as a pass for running your business and patronising others?

To those who take their salvation seriously, to those who understand the price of discipleship, the Antichrist means nothing because there's nothing he will offer that they had not already overcome by the Holy Spirit who lives within them even now as they are ready to lay down their lives for their salvation in Christ Jesus.

Jesus said he who would save his life will lose it, but he who would lose his life for His sake will find it. Mark 8:35...have you ever lost anything for Christ and for His gospel? 

Fundamental discipleship teaches us to be ready to forsake all that we have for Christ, to be ready to forsake every social attachment for Christ, and to carry our cross ready to die for the cause of Christ in self denial... Luke 14:26, 27&33

To many who have so being discipled and disciplined, the rage of the Antichrist makes no difference, they face his spirit daily and they overcome in their strides having their focus on the final goal, overcoming him by the blood of the Lamb shed for them on calvary and by the words of their testimonies not loving their lives even into the death.

11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Revelation 12

If we would protect and strengthen our faith and conviction in Christ, we won't fall or be afraid of either the spirit of the Antichrist or to the Antichrist himself.

Maranatha!

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What Should we be Doing Now?

What Should we be Doing Now?

 

32 He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. Daniel 11

The covid-19 pandemic is demanding a lot from the inhabitants of the world. It is a time to know what to do per time to escape with minimal hurts and losses.

The crucial days in the pandemic are those days when it was discovered that the virus is highly contagious and that it can be prevented by social distancing, quarantine and self isolation. I believe those days were the days solutions were found. Whatever happens afterwards depended on how nations and individuals responded to those crucial information.

Unbelief, apathy, excuses, carelessness, selfishness, indecisiveness, fear of the unknown, financial and economic considerations, preservation of convenience etc wouldn't let a lot of nations do what they should do, based on the knowledge already discovered concerning the virus, to prevent it.

It is the same way the world has responded to every major warning in history. The warning of the impending flood in the days of Noah, was spurned and treated like something impossible being propagated by alarmists. It was taken in unbelief and the consequences were terrible, only the household of Noah was saved.

Jesus Christ said that the coming of the Son of man would also be as the days of Noah. They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage and in the merriments, sudden destruction would come.

That Jesus Christ would come like a thief in the night isn't for lack of warning and of prior information but for unbelief. Those who believe in Him won't be caught unaware by His coming. They are in the know and in the light and they are prepared.

1 Thessalonians 5: 2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 

3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 

4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 

5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

Jesus Christ didn't hide it from us how the days prior to His coming would look like. Which tells us that He didn't plan it to be a hidden thing. But it will still be hidden to many through unbelief and deliberate lack of knowledge.

We were warned that scoffers would come, asking for where the promise of His coming were written. Wondering why He had not come since the days that the fathers had gone to sleep, deliberately shutting their minds against the long-suffering of God, who wouldn't ordinarily want sinners to perish but to repent and to be saved.

2Peter 3:3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 

4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 

5 For they deliberately overlook this fact...

Deliberately, people overlook scriptural warnings through deliberate ignorance and unbelief, wishing the days of trouble away just because they want to continue their ungodly lifestyles as usual. This disregard to warnings will bring the day of Christ to many as like a thief comes in the night.

So what should we do? We are to take the right actions. Daniel 11:32, a prophecy about events in the last days, show us two kinds of people. 

One set are those who violate the covenants and the others are those who know their God. Those who violate the covenant are those who do despite to the word of God though unbelief and such other negative attitudes. 

Those who know their God are those who took their time to seek out what's on God's mind and to know Him intimately. 

The first set ended up being corrupted by flatteries, they became corroded and decayed through deceitful words that promised them good but that won't deliver, setting them up for destruction. But the other sets went for the word of God, they went for the knowledge of God and they were those who became strong and firm enough to take action. The opposite of corruption is firmness or integrity.

At this time when the situation is sending everyone into the closet including the church, we don't need to be too spiritual to know that God is calling us back into our closets. Our Father, who dwells in secret is calling us to come to Him in our secret places where He dwells, to come into personal and intimate season with Him. This is where we discover Him and know Him at a closer range. And when we know Him and His covenant arrangements, we would be easily immune to satanic and worldly flatteries that corrupt, rather we'll be firm and strong enough, not only to resist but to also to take appropriate actions.

What should we be doing now? We should be seeking to know God more. We should be looking more into His covenants, into His principles and promises. Our faith is strengthened as we look into the mirror of God's word to see what He had planned, what His purposes are, to better understand His principles, and the prophecies that have gone ahead of us so we can pray and position ourselves appropriately.

For instance, the record of Luke of what Jesus Christ said about the end of days in chapter 21 tells us of those things that would happen and how we should respond. Our response won't be of fear but of joy, knowing that the day of our redemption is near. Our response would be to witness to the things He had said, His message to the world.

As we stay indoors, to avoid the spread of the virus, let us see beyond the avoidance of the virus rather into God's deeper purposes, which is basically to seek His face and to become more intimate with Him in order to know Him deeper and deeper.

It'll be a waste of time if all we do is sleep, eat, watch the news, panic, and talk, without seeing the time as an opportunity to know God better and to prepare for all that He has said concerning the future.

Reorganise your schedule to favour your spiritual development and closeness to God like never before. It will impact your life, relationships and businesses when the siege is over.

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What is God Doing Now?

What is God Doing Now?

(Long Read Alert) 

These are tough times. Not just physically but emotionally and psychologically. They are even tough times socially and putting out opinions isn't anything easy. Writing this isn't easy on me and I hope I don't lose friends. It isn't for arguments but for solutions. 

But IF it's the truth, it will help those genuinely looking for solutions and answers and return to restore those things that cankerworms and caterpillars have eaten.

Growing up and being raised on the Bible, I had a very funny relationship with the Scriptures. There are parts I would read over and over, there are parts I won't touch with a long pole. This isn't because of unbelief really but because of fear. They make me rather uncomfortable.

My favorite was the book of Exodus and other early books of the Pentateuch, but not Leviticus I would enjoy the stories in Numbers, but not the numbering. I cherished the suffering of the children of Israel in Egypt and their deliverances, the wars, and their victories up to the stories of Joshua and the conquests.

Of course, I never pitched myself with the losing sides. I never saw myself as a little innocent Egyptian boy, enjoying the wealth and the slavery services of a conquered group of visitors, I never saw myself as the little boy suffering the plagues and seeing all the deaths or losing my father in the red sea as he and other soldiers pursued these runaway slaves.

Even the plagues that happened within the children of Israel didn't move me, I was on the side of Moses and not on the side of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. I wasn't on the side of the children of Jericho, of course I would have died with them, and I wasn't a member of the house of Achan. These stories were 'sweet' because of the side I was, I never considered the people on the other side.

In my relationship with my Bible, I won't read the book of Job, to me it was 'R' rated, that was horror and violence in one movie. I won't read the book of Revelations, full of scary things. And I won't read Galatians 5, and any such verses that tried to put the responsibility of living right on me, they judge me and why should I be judged? Of course, I was just maturing. 

It took maturing to break the habit of selective reading. And when I did, I began to see God differently. God is a good God, but He also demands responsibility, and He is a God of justice and judgment who is not to be taken for granted. He can actually be righteously terrible in judgment. 

Under the circumstances we are in right now, in finding solutions, we need to know where God is on this. If Job had fallen sick, probably letting his shield of faith down briefly and Satan's arrow hit him, he could quickly deal with it, putting the devil down through the provisions of redemption. Satan had come to steal, to kill and to destroy and the eternal life of God will deal with it by the authority in name of  the Life Himself, Jesus Christ, the Lord. 

But it is a different case when Job started losing all of his family members and all of his wealth and his life became something else. The question would have been, what happened to the edge God had put around Job and not why did Job let his shield of faith down? This is more than Job and his impeccable righteousness. God is involved in what's happening to Job. 

If I have a flat tire on the Third Mainland Bridge, (the longest and probably the busiest bridge in Africa on a workday), it MAY be Satan trying to hinder me like he did to Paul and the warfare would continue right there as I claim my victory. But if all the vehicles on the bridge on a Monday morning have flat tires, that's something more than the regular, wise men should ask questions and reflect. 

It means, we need to rate issues by its merits to know how to handle it. 

I don't believe a pandemic of the magnitude of covid19 would happen without God knowing about it. I know people are more comfortable with the expression of 'God permitted it' rather than 'God did it'. We believe there's no reason why a good God would do such a terrible thing. But to me, I don't see a difference in God permitting and in Him doing it. 

If you could stop it, even if you didn't plan it, but you didn't stop it, they you're not better than the one who planned it. It is aiding and abetting and every legal system frowns at it. But we know that God gauges the trials and the temptations that comes to us so that we would be able to handle them. He permits only what we can handle, and would even make a way of escape so we can bear them according to 1Corinthians 10:13 so that if we fail, it isn't because we had more than we can handle but because we didn't handle the temptation as we should. 

But why would God permit such a devastation? If we get the answer to that, I'm sure we can get a solution of how we can be saved. 

Ordinarily, I believe God has an edge of protection around the world. He has a program running that must run through. We are heading towards a new heaven and a new earth. So, in spite of man's tendencies of violence, the wickedness of Satan and the eventualities of nature, the world has remained protected by God beyond what man could do. 

Just a big enough asteroid hitting the earth will paralyse it completely. Scientists say it had happened before and it can happen again, the question is why hasn't any of that magnitude hit since the beginning of this era? There is an edge of God around the earth keeping it till His agenda is done. 

So, when something happens that seems to put the world on hold and suspends God's plan for the world, for nations, for territories, for cities, for families and for individuals then, we should ask Him who had put that edge around the world. 

Did this catch Him unawares? I doubt, I believe He's up to something. Can the devil do this to Him and all by himself? I doubt too. I'm almost thinking that Satan himself is in awe right now... Most of his business centres are shut down. If anyone of either God or Satan was caught unawares, it would be Satan, he's the one suffering this more among the two. 

So, what's God doing now? He's receiving people to heaven's bliss, He's healing lots of people infected, He's helping the bereaved come to comfort, He's helping those at the front lines from getting sick or getting into weariness, He's helping nations do the right things to support their people. He is keeping people home with their families and making individuals think deeply about their lives and about God. He is bringing back to us what matters and showing us that we can actually do without those things we are killing ourselves and others over. He's helping scientists find a cure and a solution. 

But can God do this? Yes, He can. It's only because we never pitched ourselves with people like the Egyptians during the 10 plagues, they deserved it, we don't. We never thought about the children of Jericho, who didn't have a Rahab to throw out the scarlet scarf in support of God's people to save her family and friends, the other citizens of Jericho, who didn't make the decisions to shut the Israelites out deserved it, we don't. We never pitched ourselves with those who perished with the flood but with Noah and his family, even if our sins are more than of those who died in the flood, they deserved it, we don't. We never thought of being the family members of Annania and Sapphira who died even in the New Testament, they deserved it, we don't even if we are doing worse than them. We never asked how could God have done what He did to Herod, and we never wondered why He had to kill him in such a horrible manner because we assume he deserved it but we don't. And not pitching ourselves with those people didn't give us a balance perspective of who God is and it has helped to keep people away from the fear of God since they never saw a God who won't be on their side even when not doing well. Some even believe that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament. Meanwhile, He did same things in the New Testament too if we read properly. Jesus wept bitterly on Jerusalem and other cities because of the evil coming upon them via the judgment of God, didn't He? Did those things happen or not? Yes, they did but we aren't those people, so we don't know that side of God. And we don't present that side and so people go on thinking their sins have no consequences, yet our message is to help people get saved. Do you get saved without any danger looming? Is there a rescue team without a danger to rescue people from? 

God is a God of judgment and we should be wary of His terrible judgment. It doesn't always happen, the Scriptures say because judgement against evil isn't promptly delivered, so men's heart are set in them to do evil. The Scriptures also said, God is slow to anger, but not that He doesn't have wrath, even if His anger is for a moment. That little moment can be devastating, it'll hurt people and even the 'innocent' and 'righteous' may not easily escape. Is God wicked? He's not, the judge of all the earth won't be unrighteous. A righteous and benevolent judge will still send people to jail or to death, not for wickedness but for justice and the innocent people connected to those so judged will still share it it, how I wish they won't. Besides, our rating of good and bad are always informed by our selfish comforts, if it doesn't pain, then it is good, even if we need the pain to be better! 

The world is apostate and we all know, every serious believer knows. But we don't feel it until we demand justice for a wrong we have suffered. But that justice we seek for ourselves will make some innocent people suffer, it will be painful but what can we do about it?

That's why the way out of the present situation is to ask God to fulfil His purpose quickly and to cut the days of His wrath short in mercy. And He will do so even if Pharaohs' hearts would remain hardened to their own personal destruction afterwards. 

Our jobs as the people of God is to help people see the severity of God and also His love, its not a time to do PR for God, its time to seek Him and to plead and pray for the world. 

I'm sure hearts will fear God again and return unto God. We may be seeing the onset of a spiritual revival and the church, which is the light of the world and the salt of the earth will have to shine this light for the world to see and for the world to run into that light and preserve what remains as the salt that she is. 

It's time we humble ourselves before God, even as the church and seek His face, it's time to repent of our own sins, and return unto God, He will abundantly pardon. 

He will send solutions, both scientific and spiritual and will stop the plague like He stopped them in Egypt and all through the history of plagues in the Bible. He will then restore all that has been lost and bring us back to health and to wealth. 

It's time to let the world see her sin unto repentance and sound the alarm of preparations for the end and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

For the individual believer who has faith in the knowledge of our redemption in Christ, the healing Scriptures and the redemptive promises in Christ haven't been suspended, we can be shielded like the children of Israel were distinguished but we have to shine our light for the world to see what must be done, we have to stand in the gap for the world at this time and intercede in fasting and in praying in humility, and to testify of Christ according to what He said we should do in times of famine, pestilences and persecutions. 

You may not agree with this or with some parts of this, and I can understand, it does not make you my enemy but look sincerely into what I've said and listen to God in your heart for the truth and let's do as God has led us. 

Peace by all means! 

Photo Credit:Geralt/Pixabay 

Peace By All Means

Peace By All Means 

2Thessalonians 3:16 Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.

We've been studying the book of Galatians at The Bible Class, TBC every Wednesday night for a while now, you can always join us on Facebook live, last week we studied the fruit of the Spirit in chapter 5 verse 22, part of which was peace.

The elements in the universe are in constant random motion, so science told us, they aren't resting even in their most solid state and that's what creates the stability we enjoy. The more organised things are, the less stable they become. It is ever difficult to maintain order and orderliness without an external force.

That means the state of rest is unstable and if the state of rest isn't constant, then there will be collisions caused by the chaotic random movements of matter and that will be the norm. The cause of the troubles of the world. 

But we also don't need that state of random motion, if we are to make progress. Human development comes by the reorganisation of matter away from the random state it naturally exists in. Meaning, the development of the world is unstable, no wonder there is decay, destruction, deductions and devouring. Everything tends to go back to its natural state away from the unstable developed state humans tend to put it for their convenience and comfort.

This agree perfectly with what Jesus Christ said.

Matthew 6

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 

20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 

21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

He showed us that as we lay things up here on earth, they assume more unstable state and so would tend towards finding their stable levels through decadence, destruction, deductions and devouring on their ways back to their original states.

John 16

33 These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” 

Here we know that the world is a perpetually troubled system and except a higher force is deployed to overcome and force it down it will serve its troubles in shipments to its inhabitants. The only stable state of the world is the state of unrest and trouble. 

This tells us that peace is a force that overcomes trouble. To be able to sustain and maintain the development we need, to be able to enjoy rest and health, we need the force of peace. To enjoy inner calmness by which we can access innovation and enlightenment, we need the overwhelming force of peace to calm the troubled soul. 

Meanwhile, peace can't be found in the world system, which constantly is being built up against the forces of stability, the peace the world gives comes from the balance of threats and from fake and unfaithful assurances. True peace comes from Christ and His love. In Him lay the forces of peace. 

The peace Christ gives is such that hardly makes sense. We are not to have any anxiety about anything, a thing we can only achieve through the workings of the Holy Spirit within our spirits. But by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, we should make our requests known unto God and then we would have the peace of God that passes all understanding guard our hearts and minds. 

Phil 4: 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 

7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

The primary answer to prayer is peace, that true peace which is from Jesus Christ. The peace the world gives doesn't last because it must serve the selfish interests of those promising it.

I was told about a management phenomenon with the acronym VUCA last night. And it's so interesting to me. It spells out as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. They jointly describe the world's state of affairs, practically confirming what Jesus said.

Jesus Christ laid back sleeping on a pillow in the keel of a ship, while the ship was going through a terrible storm. That's peace that makes no sense!

Rising up, He went out to command that same peace upon the forces of the sea and transfered the calmness within Him to the raging sea and there was a marvelous calm...we can enjoy that same tranquility within us through Him. 

If we must be sane and live life to the fullest, we need peace. It is part of the fruit of the Spirit and an extension of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts at the new birth.

There's rest with Jesus Christ to those who are in any trouble. If God gives quietness, no one can make trouble. In the trouble that's in this world, the peace of Christ is what we need. He has overcome the world and we can rest in His victory irrespective of the tumult in the world.

Peace and fear don't go and in hand, where there's peace, there's no fear and there's no anxiety...

Would you consider Jesus Christ for your peace? He is the prince of peace and He will give you peace by all means to keep your heart and mind.

Job 34: 29 When He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?

And when He hides His face, who then can see Him,

Whether it is against a nation or a man alone?—

In all the uncertainties and troubles that are in the world... There's still peace in Christ Jesus... He has the forces that can arrest any trouble of any sort and shield any tribulation we may be in from touching us within.

He can give peace in the present troubles in the world... We can trust Him...to keep nothing from being broken or from missing out from their places.

Let Him speak to that storm... Peace! Be still! And there shall be a great calm!

Photo credit: nutraveller/pixabay

The Cared for, The Carefree, The Care Giver and The Careless

The Cared for, The Carefree, The Care Giver and the Careless

Photo Credit: RitaE/Pixabay 

As at today, the twentieth day of March in the year 2020, the world remains under a battering from the scourge of a coronavirus pandemic which would probably not leave the world the same way we'd always known it in our generation.

Though the mortality rate has been relatively low compared to some other diseases, the propensity of it being transmitted is higher and people can get infected as easily as possible if exposed to the virus. A high percentage of people too also recover, symptoms can be mild in many people and mortality is high among old people and people with underlying diseases in the more advanced nations where it's easier to have data.

The question is what should be  our response and how are we actually responding as believers to such a scourge at this time.

There are different possible mentalities we can have as people who believe in Christ Jesus and follow the Bible as the written word of God. We may have the Cared for mentality and attitude, we can have the Carefree attitude, we can have the Caregiver attitude, we can have the mentality of the Careless and we can combine two or more of these attitudes in response to the pandemic.

I will start from the Careless attitude. The scourge is already here in the world, people have been sick, recovered and many have died. Though we know so little about the virus that it was a big breakthrough to even discover how to test for it, and there are no vaccines yet to prevent it, the power against it in the physical is to prevent transmission. The truth is that the measures, if followed carefully and meticulously can prevent people from getting it. Social distancing and proper washing would work.

But the Careless attitude towards it may create a breach and freely release the virus to go haywire everywhere. The Careless mentality may remain in deliberate ignorance, such may take to some unfounded conspiracy theories that may lower one's guards, such may remain in denial, may refuse to obey public orders of taking precautions and the measures necessary to keep the virus at bay. The Careless attitude can be the most dangerous attitude.

It is possible for a believer to assume he or she is in faith whereas such is in presumptions or in foolishness. It isn't a time to be careless or lazy with one's faith. It is time to be meticulous with scriptural steps of faith and to be sure the physical measures are in place.

Proverbs 22

 3 The prudent sees the evil and hides himself,

            But the naive go on, and are punished for it's. 

Panic isn't an answer but not also carelessness.

Then we have the Carefree. The Carefree attitude isn't same with carelessness. It is the attitude of being secure in the truth not to have fear, anxiety or panic. The Carefree is that person who knows that anxiety would not add a cubit to one's height, who knows it is an exercise in futility to worry which may even compound the problem. 

We have people panic buying things to stack up, not knowing when the situation will assuage, people running helter skelter and even dying for the fear of the virus, we hear that some in some countries are panic buying guns. 

Peace of mind is crucial. 'Fear not' is the word for the believer. We may go through the valley of the shadow of death, yet we should not fear because God is with us... We won't be careless but we won't also be afraid, we would not fret over anything, we have peace, we won't fret, we won't worry. 

Philippians 4:5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 

6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 

7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Then we have the Caregiver attitude. The one who would go beyond self to see to other's well-being in times like this. Those at the front lines, giving their lives to save others. Helping people spiritually, psychologically and physically to be able to remain normal and to recover. Those who think of the sick and those who have lost their loved ones. Those who grieve with the grieving, who helps the sick and those who would do everything to see that the vulnerable are protected from the trouble. 

We can suddenly become selfish, wanting to save ourselves alone. We can suddenly become insensitive to other people's struggles in the situation but we are called to bear one another's burden. The lockdown will be tough for a lot of homes and the believer should step up at this time to help people. The believer should have words and actions of love to help and to show love to people at this time. The believer should spread hope and affirmations at this time. Give to those who may not have, and don't put unnecessary burden on those who are lending their hands. We should walk in love.

Romans 15:1 We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

Galatians 6:2 Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.

Then we have the mentality of the Cared for. The believer ought to go about with the assurance of God's covering and care. The boldness of having God to cast all our cares upon because He cares for us. We should have the mentality of the word and not of the world without hope. God cares about our health and well-being. He is our healer, our Healthcare provider. He is our inheritance, in Him we have all that we need. He is our shepherd. He is our Father who actually fathers us. Even the hairs on our heads are all numbered, He recognises each of the cells in our bodies one by one. He knows every need. And He has all the pre-knowledge of all that's happening. He wasn't caught unawares by any scourge or by any situation. He knows the ending from the beginning. He knows why and He can be trusted.

1Peter 5

7 Throw all your worry on him, because he cares for you.

We should rehears all of His promises of love. Think about His loving plans for you, think about His ability to bring those things to pass in spite of all the dangers around, think about the fact that He can never lie or be unfaithful. Let this be our mentality at this time to activate the power of God for times like this.

God bless and keep you in Jesus name.