I want to say thank You, we want to say thank You, all we have to say is Thank You Lord. All over the world the Spirit is moving. All over the world as the prophet said it should be, all over the world, there is might revelation as the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Father, thank You for Your blessedness all through this week. We give You praise for the miracles that left us with Wow! We are grateful for Your love and care that are beyond us. With all humility, we say thank You, glory and honour be ascribe to You Alone Amen.
Beloved, are you as excited as I am today? Wow! It has been a long week full of its challenging and anxiety but you know what, God saw me all through it, it was so bad as a point but I told myself you cannot go beyond these, ‘laying it at His feet’. I told myself no calls, no pity-party, let God be God.
He showed up. Lord, I did not take it for granted, I return to say ‘Thank You Lord’.
Beloved, what are you thanking God for? At least there is life, yes, what again? Ummmmh! Ok, let celebrate Him for the gift of health and vitality. Praise the Lord. we believe that the coming week will be better, I believe Him.
Beloved, what can you guess from the topic before us today? These two trees are nurtured by the Lord Himself as you will later read from the message below. They are ‘trees of the Lord’. Beloved, will it be said of you that you are one of such trees? He is of the Lord’s!
The Lord is seeking such ones who will dedicate their lives to doing God’s work.
We have few of such trees among the generation of today. Selfless individual who pour out themselves to be use of the Lord, helping humanities and make our world a better place to be.
Discussion like these do not sell wide or spread fast like the ‘prosperity and get rich quick’ kind of discussion but the truth is hard both for me penning it down and to you who is in the position of doing it, except the Spirit of God is helping you to live above the pleasure of the world, seeing His gifting and gifts as means of expanding the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
Today’s topic is being dedicated to one of my mentor and her husband whom the Lord have used and He is using to extend the gospel and building up the futures of most families, investing in their children academic pursuits and so many other things too numerous to mention here. They are blessings to many and have not stop advocating to others in their categories to join in making the lives of people around them better.
Today, their two children are graduate of noble professions even when they are far away from them except visiting as work schedule permits them.
The Lord took the burden from them and made their children the envy of many. By God’s grace tomorrow their daughter will be getting married and soon after will be walking down the aisle with her blessed husband. While their son by God’s grace also is presently doing his youth service in a good and reputable organization.
They are fun to be with and their live and family points you to the Lord. What else will be more honorable than that – serving the Lord, both men and heaven bearing you witness that you are walking on the Lord’s path. The blessings of the Lord has continually manifested in their family (Prov 11:25).
In Job 22:21-30, we are enjoined to lay down our gold for the Lord and He will exalt us. He will defend us and hearken to our prayers and establish us. When men are saying that there is a casting down, for you it shall be a lifting up, all these will come to us as a result of the pureness of our hand.
Beloved, is the blessing from the Lord that make rich and with it no sorrow is added. His blessing has ‘indeed’ attached to it.
Beloved when you are blessed indeed. You are a blessing and a wonder.
Let us layside every acts of selfishness, put away greed and see the God multiply the seed in your hands as you sow into the life of those whom may not be able to pay you back but will always draw down the hand of God to bless you. Stop playing hide and seek with your blessings from the Lord.
If you desire to be among God’s tree, flourish like the palm and cedar, then please read on:
“The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” Ps. 92:12
These trees are not trained and pruned by man: palms and cedars are “trees of the Lord,” and it is by His care that they flourish; even so it is with the saints of the Lord, they are His own care. These trees are evergreen and are beautiful objects at all seasons of the year. Believers are not sometimes holy and sometimes ungodly: they stand in the beauty of the Lord under all weathers.
Everywhere these trees are noteworthy: no one can gaze upon a landscape in which there are either palms or cedars without his attention being fixed upon these royal growths. The followers of Jesus are the observed of all observers: like a city set on a hill they cannot be hid.
The child of God flourishes like a palm tree, which pushes all its strength upward in one erect column without a single branch. It is a pillar with a glorious capital. It has no growth to the right or to the left, but sends all its force heavenward, and bears its fruit as near the sky as possible. Lord, fulfill this type in me.
The cedar braves all storms, and grows near the eternal snows, the Lord Himself filling it with a sap which keeps its heart warm and its boughs strong. Lord, so let it be with me, I pray thee. Amen.
Beloved, did you read that, both the cedar and the palm have their challenges but the Lord Himself fill it with saps that keep it warm and strong.
Earlier in the week we considered what it really meant for a man to lay down his life and carry the cross, today by the grace of God we will be considering further ‘the life of that man that wants to lose his life for Jesus sake’. Let’s go on:
The Man Who Loses His Life For My Sake Will Save It
Perhaps you remember the old Western ballad that depicts a lone cowboy plodding across a parched desert, near death in search of water. To his delight he happens upon a well that is equipped with a hand pump. A note is attached to a cup of water:
“Friend, you can drink the water in the cup and quench your thirst, but you’ll die before reaching the next water hole. If you will pour the cup of water into the well to prime the pump, water will gush out, and you’ll have all the water you can drink. And, kindly refill the cup for the next thirsty traveler.”
Likewise, Jesus calls us to pour out our lives in selfless service to others for Him. But we will never know whether He’ll return our lives to us until we offer them up to Him.
Early this morning, I lay in bed reflecting back over some 40 years, where as a youth, I gave Jesus that cup of water — my life, and in effect said, “Pour it out… Do with it whatever You choose.” Of course, I had no idea whether it would dissipate into oblivion, or return to me in gushes of life-giving water.
Recalling His faithfulness, I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude, and compelled to offer up prayers of thanks, not only for watering my dried out soul, but for allowing me the privilege of watering other weary travelers along the way.
QUESTION: Today, are you willing without reservation, to offer up your life to Him in selfless worship and service? If you are, then here is His promise to you:
“If you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday. And the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.” (Isaiah 58:10, 11)
It is a certainty that if you don‘t offer up your life, you will shrivel and die in the deadly desert of self-centered existence:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant.” (Jeremiah 17:5, 6)
Are you ready to lose your life for His sake? There is a reward for you and it is very certain because God is not man that He will promise and not fulfill it. Are you down today? Don’t give up, help is on the way. The Lord will fulfill all that concerns you.
Finally dear beloved, make sure you are either on the ‘go’ or ‘giving’ for the Lord both ways, the Lord will not forsake you but reward you handsomely.
Remain blessed in the Lord.
