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Responding Right To Adverse Life Experiences (2)

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  In a previous post Responding Right To Adverse Life's Experiences (1) , we considered why current life realities, for many, are largely adverse. We saw that current life realities are in line with prophecy about the last days, which we are in. Moreover, we saw that current realities is consistent with the character of the devil, who is the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4). We then concluded with a message of hope, that Christ has overcome the world and made us more than conqueror. Nevertheless, it is important ot critically examine how a believer is expected to respond to adverse life experiences.  1. Respond from PEACE (John 14:1, 27) Beloved, you have the  peace of God . Jesus left HIS peace with us when He was returning to heaven, knowing that we will need His peace to sanely and calmly navigate the chaos in a world filled with trouble, distress, frustration, agony, etc. He forewarned us that we will have tribulation in the world. It is important to understand th...

Lessons From Noah's Thanksgiving

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  Genesis 8:20 (NKJV) - "Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar." After God saved Noah, his family, and the other living things that entered the Ark from the flood, the first thing Noah did, in appreciation to God, was to build an altar unto the Lord. Afterwards, he offered burnt offerings on the altar (Gen 8:20-22, please read for context). There are several lessons we can draw from this story; First, every manifestation of God's goodness should turn you towards your altar . Giving your altar the attention it needs is one powerful expression of gratitude to God. If God blesses and promotes you, and you then allow that blessing or promotion to draw you away from God or make you too busy to service your altar, that's ingratitude. Secondly, altars are designed as a platform for offering sacrifices. Approach and service your altar with a consciousness of sacrifice. Sacrifices ...

Responding Right To Adverse Life Experiences (1)

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Gal 5:22 - 23 (NKJV) - "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law ." We live in an incredibly troubled world. The troubles show no signs of abating. Be it economic or financial, marital or parental, health including physical, emotional, and psychological, there seems to be crisis upon crisis upon crisis that don't look like going away anytime soon. You look around you, and you see someone who is going through some form of difficulty, or has recently been through one. And sometimes, that person is us. And even though these experiences are disturbing, for us Christians, it's unsurprising because what we see is in consonance with the prophecy concerning the last days (Matt 24:12, 2 Tim 3:1, Isa 60:2).  Moreover, the devil is the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4), and global realities, which are largely disturbing, are consistent with his character . The Bible said...

Crossover to take over (2)

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Deuteronomy 9:4‭-‬6 (NKJV) “Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. In a previous post  Crossover to take over (1) , we were given the assurance of a victorious 2022 because God has already conquered 2022 and delivered victory to us. And that though we may face of with intimidating and overwh...

Crossing over to take over (1)

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Deuteronomy 9:1‭-‬3 (NKJV) “Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?’ Therefore understand today that the Lord your God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to you. In a previous post  God is the reason , the reference scripture was considered from a reflective or retrospective perspective. In this post, I will like to examine the context of the scripture and present the futuristic dimension. In the passage, the Israelites were about to cross the Jordan river and God needed to give them a pep-talk or charge to prepare them for the victories He had already secured them on th...

JESUS came to reveal God's likeness

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Colossians 1:15 (NKJV) He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation . God created man in His image and likeness. However, when man sinned, he still had the "image" of God, but lost the "likeness". In other words, he still looked like God but he lost the capacity to display his likeness or similitude to God . Consequently, what became the norm were behaviors that were completely atypical of God. Man took turns to misrepresent God from their distorted perspective of the likeness of God or their inability to replicate how God was really like. Cain killing Abel was a case in point among many others. Recall, man was supposed to learn and perfect his knowledge of God and the capacity to flawlessly exhibit the likeness of God from the time God set aside to spend with man in the Garden of Eden. The Bible says God came down everyday, in the cool of the day . Why did He do that? He wanted fellowship with man with the intent that man would get to know...

God is the reason.

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Deuteronomy 9:4‭-‬6 (NKJV) “Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. Beloved, in a previous post  God is gracious , we were told that " it was not the righteousness of the Israelites (adherence to the law of Moses) that made God give them "a land flowing with milk and honey", No, not...

Annals of the Cross (8)

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In previous posts, we were told that the Cross was an eternal and irrevocable statement of  love  and  judgment  by God to man and the devil respectively. We have also been told that the  Cross  has a plethora of associated dividends which are legitimately ours to enjoy now and forever. In addition, we were also told that because of the sacrifice of Christ on the   Cross , God doesn't really have a choice anymore, as it were, He has to bless us. The moment He accepted 'payment' (Jesus' death), He committed Himself to deliver 'the goods'. Moreover, the  Cross  is the eternal receipt, as it were, that reminds God of the payment Jesus made for everything we desire. Because of said payment, God justly, duly and extravagantly dishes out our divine emoluments. Also, the  Cross  was also an eternal and irrevocable statement of God's willingness to help mankind as well as  an eternal and irrevocable statement of God's commitme...

Jesus loves you

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On this side of eternity, we sing " Jesus, You're all that matters " and rightly so, He's indeed all that matters and I don't want to get into that right now. We should sing it, again and again and again "He's all that matters".  However, on the other side of eternity, Jesus is singing "you're all that matters to me". And while you don't need to be a scholar in rocket science or a brain surgeon to understand why He's all that matters or why He is all that should matter, many still can't wrap their heads around the fact that we're all that matters to Him ! But think about it, why else did He die on the cross?! What was His motivation if not your inestimable worth!  Friends, if you think about what He gave up to come live here on earth and His ultimate crucifixion, you can't but get some comprehension of the fact that you're indeed all that matters to Him . Jesus is greatly in love with you! I...

Give your bread and fish to Jesus!

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God is still in the business of multiplying loaves of bread and fishes. But like that little boy did, you have to give it to Him and watch Him multiply i t.  God wants to feed the world with your loaves of bread and fishes. Look around you and you will find that many are hungry and are in need of bread and fishes, and I don't mean this literally only. The world right now is full of gloom and doom, but the solution is with you, in your hands . Give it to Jesus, let Him reach out to people. He will sustain you with it and the world as well. Friend, you may not know, but there are a million and one people who are worse off than you, and their condition has worsened in the light of the Coronavirus pandemic. But you can be an instrument in the hand of God to ameliorate their sufferings or altogether change their lives forever .  And yes, you may have just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes like the little boy had, it's Ok, give it to Jesus. It may even be less than 5 loa...