HE THAT IS COMING SHALL SOON COME….

At the beginning of the year, this is only a few days ago, we made definite decisions to move forward. As we know, moving forward speaks of positive change. In another couple of days, the first quarter of this year will be over. As believers, who need to take stock from time to time, I would like to suggest that it is time to pause and consider. To commune with our hearts upon our beds with a view to evaluating our move forward this year. You don’t have to be there yet but we need to ensure that we have not been discouraged enough to abandon that word.

Philippians 2: 13 “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.”

If we must achieve anything in life, we have to be very deliberate. We can’t just let things and life happen to us. As much as it is within our control, we have to insist on being who God has said we are in every situation and circumstance. Even when for example, everything is contrary, we have to have a confident assurance that God is at work in the spiritual working things out according to His word and the period of waiting is the period when He is working in us that we may please Him.

We all have to learn to believe in the reality of those things that we do not yet see. We must daily see what God says about us and what He says He will do for us no matter how unrealistic it may seem. We have to accept the reality of the unreal and make that our way of life. If God says it, then it is so despite what anyone else may think. The decisions concerning our lives are really ours to make. People can support us but we cannot make it their responsibility to make decisions for us that concern our life. The consequences will always be yours to bear. Neither your pastor nor family can bear the consequences for you. At the very best, they can only be there for you. The joy of it will also be yours.

Ecclesiastes 3: So I saw that there is nothing better for people than to be happy in their work. That is why we are here! No one will bring us back from the death to enjoy life after death.”

There is a plan and a purpose to all God does. Since He is not frivolous and is aware of the creative nature of His word, He will only say things that will further His purpose. If we know that, then we know that He definitely will do all that He spoke to our hearts. The veracity of His word is not just about us but also that His ultimate purpose be achieved. It affects His ultimate purpose, if that word fails. So do you still remember that word or are you discouraged and so, altered your circumstance and/or theology?

To move forward in life, we have to consistently check our thoughts. We can’t let our minds think whatever it wants to think. We have to be deliberate about what we want to allow our minds think. It is so important to evaluate one’s thoughts because a man eventually becomes what he thinks. What are you thinking? Are you thinking the thoughts of God for your life? Remember, you are who you are in your mind. Your thoughts count.

Philippians 4: 8-9 “Fix your thoughts on what is true, honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are worthy of praise.”

GOD HAS NOT FORGOTTEN YOU

Whoever said God’s word or promise sometimes fail? Don’t ever believe the person. Like the songwriter says “look and live”. Look to Jesus and live in the fulfillment of His word. The woman Cry Out prayer conference is a true testimony of the fulfillment of the word that goes out of the mouth of God. This is something that had been prophesied years ago before it was ever conceived in my mind. At the time, it was definitely not a possibility but here we are today and God is working to accomplish His purpose. 

Interestingly, everything is aligning; with every one, God takes us a step higher and I thank Him. God was again mighty in our midst and this time we had several guest ministers, Mrs. Nkoyo Rapu, a mighty woman of God who in her usual way, declared the accurate counsel of God for every woman. Nathaniel Bassey and Preye Omayuku were guest music ministers whom God used mightily. Of course we also had the MercyPlace choir (anointed choir) from my church. We already have several testimonies and I know there is a lot more we have not heard.

That entire story is to assure you that God will always bring His promise to pass as long as we stay with Him. He allows us go through the strangest of paths whilst taking us on this journey that brings us to the fulfillment of the promise. Sometimes the journey of life seems to take us on a path that looks like it would never connect to the path of the promise but God is a “way-maker.” He knows how to make a way where there was no way. So that He creates a way that connects both paths to bring you into the promise just at the right time. Truly He moves in mysterious ways to perform wonders.

Do you have a word of promise from Him that appears will never be fulfilled, are you afraid that though you walk with God, the path you are on appears to be taking you further and further away from the fulfillment of your destiny, do you feel like you are at a dead end in life? Be Still! I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that if you remain with Him, He shall make perfect all that concerns you. Do not try to help Him birth that promise or destiny because you may birth Ishmael (child of the flesh). At the end of the day, Ishmael will never give you peace. Wait on the Lord. He has a name to protect. To birth Ishmael is to try and help God work things out thereby creating problems for yourself and everybody. Ishmael is born from ideas and not promise.

So where are you at now? Are you almost at the point of giving up? Do you think it is impossible to fix that marriage? Are you thinking that nothing you touch will ever work out right? You are definitely not a FAILURE so why should you allow such thoughts take root. God does not birth failures. You may fail sometimes but you are not a failure. Let the God who is the lifter up of our heads, life that head up that you may see correctly. Look to Jesus please. Are you thinking that if this last effort fails, you will give in to the thought that you are a failure? No! No! No! What God has not said concerning you, must never describe you. You need to fellowship with and draw strength from Him that you also may live to testify.

DEATH IS A PART OF LIFE DESPITE THE PAIN

Death is very painful and always associated with sorrow because of the finality of the loss/separation. When something/someone dies, they never return exactly the same. However, death must occur sometimes, for us to go forward. For example, a seed has to die for it to produce a harvest. Our flesh has to die for our spirit man to flourish. John the Baptist, Jesus forerunner, had to decrease and eventually die for Jesus to flourish.  That sounds very sadistic but it is a truth that we have to live with. Definitely, if some things must flourish, then we may have to be permanently separated from some others. I believe there is a purpose to every “death” orchestrated by God because He is a God of purpose.

Hebrews 10: 9b – “He takes away the first that He may establish the second.”

In some circumstances, the second comes on the scene before the first dies but it is unable to be fully established until the first dies. In other circumstances, the first dies before the second even appears. We must learn to accept the death of some things and/or persons. Some relationships may need to die, some businesses, jobs and even the love of money, with the best intentions, will have to die that we may go forward and fulfill our purpose.

This sounds morbid but we have to learn to trust God enough to know that He is doing the best for us at all times. No wonder we need faith to please Him. How does anyone “handover” their life completely to a God they don’t trust and have faith in? We need to have a confident assurance that He knows what He is doing and is able to do it; so that we are not tempted to “help Him out:” particularly because we hardly ever have the full picture of what He is doing in our lives. 

1 Corinthians 13: 12 “Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”

Life gets stressful when we feel the need to understand all God does in our lives. Sometimes, we just need to submit. David fasted, prayed and wept for God to spare the life of his son by Bathsheba; after all, the child wasn’t an adulterer and hadn’t done anything wrong; David had also asked God for forgiveness. But the boy died and David did not murmur, complain nor did he ask for explanations, which couldn’t have been for lack of pain,  he must have understood God enough to know that there was a purpose to it; even though he did not know for certain that God would give them another son.

Job 1: 21b - 22 “the Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away, praise the name of the Lord! In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.”

Though it is not easy to deal with having something removed permanently from you; like David we have to trust our father to always work out the best for us. Who would have thought God would give them a son who would eventually sit on the throne? Why kill that son if they would have another son? I don’t know. Do you? We can only guess. Like the hymn writer says “God works in mysterious ways.”

REVISITING THE BASICS OF OUR FAITH

Life!!! It is tough. So many issues that leave one confused. Friends fail you, challenges everywhere from health issues to mentally challenged children; painful loses, the list is endless. Then you wonder – should these things happen to Christians? Thoughts like that have sent people into depression. Do you know that believers now commit suicide frequently? Well the question is this - do you think all of this is as a result of sin or “have they stepped out of spiritual cover,” which is another spiritual phrase for “they are in sin.” Before you answer, remember that the tower of Siloam fell on both sinners and good people.

We have tried severally to explain those things that we do not understand but at the end of the day, they are left unexplained. Deep down in our hearts, we are not satisfied with the reasons we have come up with because we know they are all intellectual attempts at explaining spiritual things. How does anybody even contemplate to do that? But we do! Pray tell, what would be the end – frustration and a lot of nothingness. Solomon would have called it “vanity.”

If you ask me, I do not believe that God’s plan for us is that these challenges are victorious over us neither do I think we are faced with challenges, always because we are in sin. I shall not pretend like I have all the answers because I don’t: however, it appears we are a generation that is too hasty to seek counsel from God and too wise to care what He thinks. We have so much to do and are so smart that tarrying before God has become unnecessary. So, instead, we trivialize the reality of being led by the spirit of God. We are lazy and have a careless attitude to life.

Instead of weeping before God when we no longer hear His voice, we alter our theology; and by so doing, have created our own form of godliness. Some of us actually say, hearing God is impossible in our time. How can we then display His power? Meanwhile, Satanists wait on him unashamedly until they believe they have heard him. We have taken this lackadaisical attitude toward God and the things of God too far and the consequences are heavy. We need to stop; we must revisit the basics of our faith. 

We can’t continue to suffer defeat where we ought to enjoy victory. We need to begin to realize that there is always a price to pay and we are empowered to pay it. Jesus paid a price to get the name above all names. He was faced with several challenges but none defeated Him. Unbelievers more often than not, think things through before making decisions; but we just do what we want to do believing that it is the responsibility of angels to catch us always whenever we decide to jump. Many Christians have been known to die like that. 

It is time to get serious. We are either going to follow God in the way He has chosen or we decide for another faith. I don’t always get it right; but I have decided that I must keep trying to get it right with God. There is a ‘God way,’ let us find it and walk in it though narrow it is. I am tired of stories that make our faith appear ridiculous and powerless. Life indeed presents everybody with challenges; but we are more than conquerors through Christ.