The Purpose and the Abuse of the Season

Monday Motivation: The Purpose and the Abuse of the Season

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo Credit: Angeleses/Pixabay

Quest for Fulfillment

Monday Motivation: The Quest for Fulfilment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shalom, have a great week ahead!

Preparing for a New Season

Ministry Wednesday: Preparing For a New Season

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shalom to you!

Photo Credit:Bishwas!/Pixabay 

Writing Your own Epitaph

Monday Motivation: Writing Your own Epitaph

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Minister’s Food

Ministry Wednesday: The Minister’s Food

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

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

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

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

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

Mark 3:33-35 New Living Translation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo credit: Pixabay 

It's Not Good to be Alone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No wonder our Lord, Jesus Christ said in John 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good day to you!

Photo Credit: Geralt/Pixabay

Where Success Begins

Motivation Monday: Where Success Begins

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

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

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

Photo Credit: Skeeze/Pixabay 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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