Holy Spirit, You are welcome in this place. Thank You Father for being good to us. You so beautify for every situation. Thank You for the salvation of my soul, I do not take it for granted O Lord of mercy and compassion. Thank You for every power belongs to You. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
Thank You for You are indeed The Good Shepherd. Wow! You may not understand this but I want to tell you that our God is good and His mercies endureth forever. Our father is a good God.
I woke up last week Friday with all my activities lined up till night, because I planned to attend a vigil in that night. Now came a great storm with every tendency to rock all the activities lined for the day.
One of my son came up with complain of stomach ache though that not the first time he was mentioning it that week, some measures were taken which I thought have taken care of it. Here, he is again telling me, mum my stomach is heavy, I advised him to make use of the restroom but he came back to say he did not pass out anything. Meanwhile I was working on the daily devotion.
My thought ran wide, I lost concentration, I gave him some medication in addition I blessed wine into blood of Jesus and gave him, applied anointing oil after bathing him (the weapon of our warfare is not carnal), get him ready for school, thinking that he will feel pressed and get some relief. Behold, they were ready to leave for school, he came to me and said, mum, am not sure I will be able to go to school, I want to stay home though He will be having his mock exam that day. This is very unlike him, this is the first time he will ever be the one suggesting to stay home when he is sick.
I was taken back, I looked up from where I was working and told him to undressed. While I was battling with what next to do. I was praying silently in my heart then I want to my husband who suggested that he should go to school, he has been very strong but as soon he saw me, he came up with this ill deposition because I traveled out of town for few days. I was not comfortable with his suggestion, so I asked him to undress and rest.
Now I was torn in between cancelling every schedule for the day and head to hospital and being a weekend, another dilemma started. Why? Someone may want to know. I want to go to government hospital and the rest is a story.
As I was working on my laptop with my son laying beside me. Do you remember the last Friday’s second message “ how do you respond to seeming impossible circumstance” with fear or faith.
I lost all manners of concentration as soon as I was able to pull through the message. I asked myself, so what next? I went to my husband who also have his plan lined up to seek his opinion again, he still said, I think he will be okay, let him dress and go to school.
Sincerely, I was taken my time to make sure that my letting him go to school was born out of selfishness, because whatever I have lined up, can still rescheduled except that of rounding off the training I mentioned sometime ago. The trainer might not want to reschedule it but it does not worth the life of my son.
O! I was torn in between fear and faith. Beloved, this is real life situation and here I am confronted by the very situation am to send to you to read and practice. I told myself this is dirties trick from the pit of hell. If I am to babysit today, it means all my schedule cancelled including his mock exam and possible the vigil scheduled that night.
I told myself I chose to have put my faith to work. I came back to where he was lying down and told him to get up and get dress, I am taking you to school. He agreed with me, and we took off. I dropped him off to school and the teacher was briefed about his health, he told me not worry.
Beloved, as I said earlier, I chose to make my faith work. I lift him into God’s care. Everything worked out perfectly, I went for the rounding off program, came back. He took his mock exam and came out top of the class. When I enquired of him, how he was faring having come back from school, he said, mum I am much better now.
Beloved at the vigil the first prayer request made by my GO was on children having health challenges, I cannot believe it I went to pray and be prayed for. I believe it is settled.
Why am I boring you with this story? For every promise of God, hear me, the devil will contend with it.
This is your month of laughter and rejoicing, the enemy of your soul will contend with it and will want to make it unfulfilled but you watch it.
I put to work the promise of the day, like Jonathan, God honoured my faith. He made me realized again that He can take care of me and my son or whatever the situation might be. Beloved, what are you trusting God for? Put your faith to work and see you ride victoriously over that seeming impossible situation.
As a continuation of the last week topic on “integrity” the message before us will give us further insight on how to live right.
Let explore it together:
Creating God In Our Image
As our society continues to slide into its moral and spiritual abyss, we believers tend to follow suit by calibrating our view of God downward, in order to ensure the fact that the stark coantrast between our duplicity and God’s holiness is not too obvious.
After all, it’s tough to keep one foot in each camp if the contrast between the two is too great!
In truth, the gap between man’s perception of God and the reality of the true God is shockingly greater than most of us can ever imagine. Isaiah the Prophet, for example, when visited by the Holy One declared,
“Woe to me!… I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” (Isaiah 6:9)
One way we calibrate our view of God downward is through rationalization:
- We rationalize the filth we regularly drink into our system through “entertainment“. God’s standard however is that,
“[You] will set before [your] eyes no vile thing… If anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think on these things.” (Psalm 101:3a; Philippians 4:8a)
- We rationalize our self-indulgent lifestyle. Christ’s calling however is that,
“If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will save it.” (Luke 9:23, 24)
- We rationalize our work ethic. Christ’s warning however, is that,
“Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)
CREATING GOD IN OUR IMAGE by rationalizing our flesh-driven behavior? The Word of God does not allow us that option:
“Make every effort… to be holy.” Because, “without holiness no one shall see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14).
I want to remind you that this walk with God can also be a lonely. Not many people will want to be around you. why? Your interest and their interest will always clash. You will no longer be among the happing group, do not be dismay, Christ suffered same so while will yours be different.
I can count how many times my then friends use to call my number. It so funny, how life can turn out to be too lonely but you can turn it to a prayer time bearing in mind that we will give account of all our idle talk (Matt 12:36). So you are not losing anything at all.
Moreover, we are call to a life of sobriety (2 Cor 5:13; 1Thess 5:6; 8; 2Tim 4:5; Tit 1:8). Come let us read more:
The Solitary Life Of A Disciple
The path of the serious disciple is a lonely one indeed. In the past couple of weeks, three professed believers have indicated to me that for various reasons they are choosing not to pursue a thoughtful commitment to follow Jesus Christ:
- For one it has to do with the crushing pressure of getting a new business up and running.
- Another, it seems, is seduced by the pleasure his newly acquired affluence now affords him.
- And a third honestly admitted to me that applying Biblical ethics to the operation of his business would prove his financial undoing.
Why should I be surprised or chagrined, as the life of the serious disciple has always been a lonely one:
- Jesus faced the prospect of the cross alone.
“Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.‘ He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled… He fell with his face to the ground and prayed… Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. ‘Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?‘ he asked…?” (Matthew 26:36-39)
- Paul faced the trial for his life alone.
“At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them.” (2 Timothy 4:16)
Over a period of time, as the Holy Spirit puts His finger on various issues in our lives, we are faced with the choice of obedience, or of going our own stubborn way.
The more we obey, the greater will be the sense of alienation from the vast bulk of fellow-believers who have long since chosen the easier path of compromise.
During one of Jesus’ critical interactions with His followers, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?‘ Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.‘” (John 6:66-68)
QUESTION: Are you prepared to walk the passage of obedience alone with Jesus – at whatever the cost – while most fellow-believers are surrendering to the world’s seductive forces? I am sure you are! (both adapted from FOTM).
Are you? Let take a look at the way we are going and address it before we are the point of no return.
Remain blessed in the Lord.
