Which Way believer? Is it the broad or the narrow way?

I am sure you know the story of the strait gate and narrow way as against the wide gate and broad way which we have heard several times; this past Tuesday during our midweek service, the preacher described both ways very colorfully so I decided to borrow it hoping that she will not mind. Really, really and really again, I am not advertising the church I attend but we definitely hear the word of God. I hope you do too in your church otherwise, you need to do something about it. These are very “perilous times”; I sincerely don’t know how any believer can successfully navigate this life without consistently hearing the accurate The Word of God. I guess you read your bible, which is really great, but what you hear may help your understanding and/or interpretation of what you read and maybe also let you know the ones you may have missed. Again, it impacts on the quality of your fellowship since you most likely keep company with some in your church.

 

Mathew 7: 13 “You can enter God’s kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”

So the preacher, describing the broad way, said that the fact that it is broad suggests that it provides  enough room to turn around several times over so that one can sin and repent over and over again until it becomes a normal way of life and others can sway from side to side several times over so that one may be a little spiritual one day and carnal the next so that no one needs to be too much of any just as long as you a good mix - not overly spiritual or outright carnal after all you still prefer to be described as “believer or born again”. The reality though is that notwithstanding the way you prefer to describe yourself, the path that allows you all that movement is one that leads to hell which isn’t the destination you  chose when you chose to make Christ Lord in your life. You just flowed into it for the ease of living. As it is often said, “You know, life does not have to be so hard.”

Romans 14: 17 “For the Kingdom of God is … a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

1 Corinthians 4: 20 “For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.”

The truth is, the problem with that narrow gate and difficult road is just what they are “narrow and difficult”. Our challenge though, is that this is the only way that takes us to that end we desire so much as believers in Christ. I guess God let it be that way because He knows that He already provided all the help we need and will ever need to go through and go through well; otherwise the bible won’t refer to His Kingdom which is this narrow and difficult path as meat and drink. Certainly, our God is good and He is not one of those parents described in the African adage, who give with gifts with one hand and retrieve it from you, with the other” so that you actually got nothing. He sent His son to die for us that we may have that gracious life on earth that would facilitate a wonderful life with Him in eternity. If there is anything that could be described as confusing about God, it surely isn’t that. He reaffirms His desire for us to live an amazing life, albeit on this narrow way, by providing abundant grace; not to destroy ourselves by continually  doing wrong and apologizing, but to live marvelously on the narrow way.

Galatians 5: 19 “When you follow the desires for your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”

Galatians 5: 25 “Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.”

God has laid out clearly for us what He will not tolerate. It behooves us to put that truth before us always even if we fail several times over. To put a lie before one’s self is to short change one’s self. How does anyone in their right senses do that to themselves? God has made it clear that we are required to be Holy, we have to be. He also says every man would reap what they sow, so that our time on earth is our season for sowing whilst the reaping is quality of life we get to live in eternity. We must be careful to ensure that our sowing will produce the harvest we sincerely desire which is why we must put the truth before us always. It will be sad if for ignorance, one sowed bad seeds and only released they sowed the wrong seeds on the day of harvest. What do you want for eternity? We must make that decision daily and God has done all He will ever do to ensure we get the help needed to get our desired result. We must begin to credit God with all the credit that He deserves, which satan would hate because the more credit one gives Him, the more.

Galatians 6: 7 “Don’t be misled-you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.”

Don’t Leave For The Pain; God Is Turning It Around

I had a very special guest today; one of those I actually love to sit with and just chat. These are some of the people who visit, deliberately, to spend time with you and are genuinely interested in sharing your highs and lows as well as share theirs. I am so glad that this visit was all about a new high that God has given her. I suspect she thinks I was sleeping, because I was drowsy, but I was wide awake and her story was another testimonial of God’s goodness. I don’t know what more God needs to do to make us very assured that He is good and always working to bring us to a good place. We must begin to credit God with all the credit that He deserves, which satan would hate because the more credit one gives Him, the more one trusts Him and moves closer to Him in love. Trust is a must for love, if the bible is correct as we all know it is, then loving God and trusting Him must go hand in hand. A relationship not built on trust is already faulty and would end up in the wrong place.

 

Psalm 103: 5a “He fills my life with good things.”

Psalm 37: 5 “Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you.”

So you must know now that I love her story. She has been born again, loving and trusting God; believing Him for great things; yet everything that ought to go wrong went wrong. In her own self, she was dealing with personal weaknesses that threatened to destroy her and then she had challenges with her spouse and marriage. As if that was not enough, her family had issues which even included the death of a sibling. It was indeed a difficult time and she doesn’t know this but I sometimes wondered how she coped with life and still found the energy to laugh because I know for certain that laughter in such times, is very costly. No one, but her alone, knows what it cost for her to laugh. Also, from the little one has learnt about God, He won’t give you information as to how He will turn everything around so you are somewhat in the dark. You just go on knowing that “He has your back” which is really like walking blindly. An unplanned walk you embark on, seemingly without a destination and your path remains unlit. Every step is a challenge and/or struggle; yet, bad as it felt when you took the last step, you still have to take another and several others that you may go forward. No one goes forward remaining in the same position.

Ecclesiastes 9: 1 & 4 “Even though the actions of godly and wise people are in God’s hands, no one knows whether God will show them favor. The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad…Good people receive the same promise as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don’t… There is only hope for the living.”

If you have not gotten there, you will one day: as life goes on. My question is this – what will you do when you get there i.e. when the challenges come? Some of us are right there now and my question is – what are you doing? Whether or not you act, you have done something. Our response to challenges that life throws is a major pointer to where we are at with God. I hate to say this but everyone will get there one day, believer or not; when you do, will you “curse God and die” as Job’s wife counselled him to do or will you stand? I have lived long enough to see a number of believers go through contrary circumstances and each one responded according to “the amount of God in them.” Some “go through” when they are young and others when they are much older but how are you “going through”? The way you come through kind of determines where you end up. Some, though they came through, have become bitter and wicked because of these experiences, while some others have become very cynical about this faith we share. From what we know, I don’t think the attitude with which we come through will change God or even cause Him to reconsider His methods and anyway, He already provided strength or grace to help us come and to do so successfully.

Job 2: 9 “… Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.”

Romans 15: 13 “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

I have seen a number of people lose their salvation for circumstances like this and as a result lost the opportunity of enjoying benefits God had laid out for them in their future which sadly, they may never touch. They lost their joy which also activates strength and everyone needs the strength to stand whilst trusting that He is working things out as He is indeed. Today, my friend testified; God has completed the work. The end of it was so quick and much more than she wished for that she is still reeling from the depth of the love that God showed in working everything the way He did. The beginning was so slow and the middle too tough; no one would have thought it would end the way He ended it. It is like a dream to her and so shall your own story end – just like a dream. It happened to the children of Israel too, they thought they were dreaming when God turned their captivity around. However, you have to hold on. You have come too far to truncate everything. It is too late to turn your back Him. Please be encouraged, God is working it but you must trust and invest in your relationship with Him.

Hebrews 10: 35 – 37 “So do not throw away tis confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it bring you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised. For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay and my righteous ones will live by faith.”

Testing Our Convictions – Why & How

It is so good to know that people not only read but also think through our blog posts. I would like to thank everyone that takes a minute or two to read our articles. You make it all worth our while so thank you. It was one of you who drew my attention to that fact that I did not mention how to test one’s conviction as per my last blog; so I just want to share that. I wish I could come up with something really high sounding but then, that would not be the faith we profess as was handed down to us. Our faith is so simple that Paul talks about its simplicity being the reason many intellectuals and highly educated struggle with it. I wonder, given the simplicity of Christ life here on earth, why we would expect His gospel to be any different. Isn’t it amazing how man who was formed in the image of and by a very simple God, would dare to even think that the very same God is too simple to make sense? We must really think of ourselves much higher than we should.

1 Corinthians 1: 26 – 28 “Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things that are despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.”

So to test our conviction concerning our faith, I advise that we take our minds back to when we got born again and remind ourselves of what led us to believe that we had changed. You want to be reminded also of the decision and consequent action that preceded you having that conviction that you are born again. Some of us were even Christians by religion ye we knew we had become “Christians’. After all, there is really no drama announcing any one’s salvation. Though God will not be boxed so that we can’t confirm how He will move in a life, the “born again” experience is always a change on the inside with an outward expression. You want to check that your response to God at the time is even now much deeper and your passion for Him, even greater. Salvation is a full package, the fullness of which we are filled with as soon as we are born again. Our spirit man receives life instantly, though the outworking keeps unfolding. So whatever happened inside us at the point of getting born again, is all that will ever happen and all we have to do, is ensure that we are building on it; are you? Can you look back at your responses to life soon after you got born again and confirm that the same belief that instigated them still instigates your responses today? No one disconnects from Christ and remains same. You may pretend to others, but you know the truth and see it every time you look in your mirror.

John 15: 5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.”

1 Corinthians 2: 15” Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.”

One of the very beautiful things about God is the fact that even if you don’t ask for help, when He sees that we are genuinely desirous of a faith conviction test, He helps us; His desire is that we love that if we find a problem, we love Him enough to want it fixed that our relationship with Him may be stronger. God is more interested in keeping that relationship beautiful than He is in keeping count of your sin; for that is not something He appreciates nor is it His job as some have come to believe. The process of our salvation may be complicated in the realm of the spirit where all things start, but here on earth, it is simple and so must be our “faith test.’  Interesting as the world may seem, it is not. Loss of salvation definitely is the beginning of a joyless life which signals imminent loss of strength and beginning of unbearable pressures; signs we often misinterpret.

2 Corinthians 13: 5 “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test.”

Luke 4: 8 “Jesus replied, the scriptures say, you must worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.”

In the times that we are in, we have to sincerely believe what we believe and hold onto it tenaciously. If we believe God through Jesus Christ, who appears to be the problem of many, then we must hold on to Him and live accordingly. Everything is eating away at the very root of what our faith in a way that could be likened to the way, I am told, that rats bite people. I hear they do it so nicely that you almost don’t feel the pain until after they are long gone; they bite and blow nice air. The enemy is “biting and blowing” and a lot of us are sleeping the sleep of death but we are not aware. We must re-visit our root belief from time to time. If we have precious things stored away, no matter how safe we believe they are, we would check them from time to time. We must be deliberate about reminding ourselves of what we believe because we cannot afford to forget what we believe.

Good Time To Test Your Convictions Again

Welcome to the year 2018! Just to mention, I intended to post my blog earlier than I would normally because it is the beginning of the year, but I didn’t though the blog was ready – the power of habit. Thank God we have power over habit which is another reason to celebrate the presence of Christ in our lives; some there are, who would want to break a habit and can’t because they are not been empowered by the Holy Ghost. Grace is not available to them. We really must thank God always. No wonder your resolutions often fail. Commit them to God, lean on our Helper and it will be different this time.

1 Thessalonians 5: 18a “In everything, give thanks”

As we begin another year, it is another season wherein we ought to test our convictions about our faith and life in Christ. We need to be certain that it is what it should be and firm as it should be. So much has happened in the past few years that have impacted on our lives in several different ways and eroded the faith of many who loved Christ as a result of which some have obviously walked away from Him whilst some others have unknowingly left Him. It would be sad to have walked away from Him and still believe that one is in Him assuming, falsely, that everything is okay. No believer deserves to be deluded about their walk with God. It is sad to think one is one thing when they are in truth, another. It will be painful to attend church regularly, maybe even helping out in church or preaching zealously and end up in the wrong place because one did not realize that they had disengaged from God and the Holy Spirit had left them. It is like building on an imaginary foundation. So it is wise to check once more so that if there is a problem, it can be fixed immediately. Some damage are not really obvious except one is deliberate about checking.

1 Corinthians 2: 15a “Those who are spiritual can evaluate all thing.”

Hebrews 12: 12 “So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fail but become strong”

Life has not been the easiest and reality is that life happens to all, both believers and unbelievers alike. Someone recently told me that they were not aware that bad things happen to believers, the truth is that they do; but God goes through it with us and ensures that we come out better than we were before the challenge. He works all things out for our good. However, the pressures of life’s challenges can wear one out and satan knows this so he attacks believers repeatedly despite that he knows he already lost the battle. The strategy is to wear us out to the point where our faith collapses because we are battle weary. Every fight takes its toll on us and if that happens consistently, anyone can be tired if they do not learn to renew their spiritual strength. Whilst there are believers who deliberately turn their backs on Christ for selfish reasons; there are some who don’t even know their backs are turned on Christ and never intended for that to happen but it did because they just lived and never took out time to check their convictions. We cannot afford to be careless about our faith. Our enemy goes around constantly looking for whom he can destroy. We must not be unaware of his ways and act wisely.

Isaiah 52: “Wake up, wake up, o Zion! Clothe yourself with strength.”

Ecclesiastes 9: 2 “All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him ...”

Whilst we are testing our convictions, it is advisable to also think on the things we admire. We as believers, are enjoined to set our eyes on Jesus Christ and make Him the object of our greatest admiration but we often have our eyes everywhere else. If your eyes are on “the world” for long enough, you will begin to admire the things of the world and it won’t be too long before you walk toward what you admire and as a result, walk away from God. Whatever you gaze at consistently becomes your idol which is ultimately what you worship. You can’t worship the world and all that is in it and remain steadfast in this faith that we profess. Moreover, no one goes forward looking back. There is no room for looking back on this journey. If we must go forward, we must set our gaze ahead on the one who has gone before us and done it successfully – Jesus Christ. You must see Him for yourself; don’t see Him through some other person’s eyes. You must ensure you have your personal convictions about Him. You have to know Him in whom you have believed. If you don’t please fix it. He is waiting to help.