Persistent Obedience
Gen.26:12 “When Isaac planted his crops that year, he harvested a hundred times more grain than he planted, for the Lord blessed him.”
Our lesson today is from the life of Isaac. It is easy to look at our scripture reference today and claim the promise for yourself. But I do not think God wants us to ignore the verses that follow [please read Gen.26:12-25] because they teach us a very important lesson when it comes to going forward. It is a lesson in persistence. Isaac was persistent. God had just changed Isaac’s destiny but with his growth and multiplication, came fierce opposition.
Instrument
1 Sam.3:19 “As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him, and everything Samuel said proved to be reliable.”
Samuel encountered God and the very next day he had to take a stand for God. 1 Sam.3:15 “Samuel stayed in bed until morning, then got up and opened the doors of the Tabernacle as usual. He was afraid to tell Eli what the Lord had said to him. 16 But Eli called out to him, “Samuel, my son.” “Here I am,” Samuel replied. 17 “What did the Lord say to you? Tell me everything. And may God strike you and even kill you if you hide anything from me!” So Samuel told Eli everything God told him; God was chastising Eli on his Read the rest of this entry
Leadership
Deut.11:18 “So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 19 Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road…”
Our lesson today is from the life of Samuel, Hannah’s son. Hannah had a deal with God; He would give her a son and she will give the son back to God to serve God. And that was exactly what happened. God gave her Samuel and immediately she weaned him, she dedicated him to God and dropped him off at the temple. You can imagine how young the boy was but she actually left him in the temple with Eli. She would visit him from time to time to give him new clothes. When you dedicate your children to God, believe that Read the rest of this entry
Engage
1 Pet.3:3 “Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. 4 You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.”
1 Pet.3:5 “This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They put their trust in God and accepted the authority…” God is just amazing! Right here in His Word, He has laid out the keys to lasting beauty. Do not get me
wrong; as a lady you must take care of yourself. But you are not to be completely focused on looking good, sounding right and smelling good. If you are not good within, all those things will not matter. Imagine buying a designer perfume, the package came with the designers seal so you have no reason to Read the rest of this entry
Vision
Ruth 1:16 “But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.”
Our next lesson is from the life of Ruth. Ruth moved forward after she encountered God. Scripture introduces Ruth as a single woman, though she had been married but was now widowed and single again. As if that was not enough, this same Ruth was in the company of bitterness. Imagine someone trusting God for a life partner or someone waiting on God for anything, hanging around bitter people. The company of bitterness has a way of amplifying an already bad situation. But God came through for her.
Rejoice!
James 2:26 [AMP] “For just as the [human] body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works [of obedience] is also dead”
1 Sam.1:17 “In that case,” Eli said, “go in peace! May the God of Israel grant the request you have asked of him.”18 “Oh, thank you, sir!” she exclaimed. Then she went back and began to eat again, and she was no longer sad.” The Bible records that Hannah’s countenance changed and this is so instructive. Just like Hannah, you and I must take action; add action to your faith. You have waited, you have fasted, you have worshiped, and you have prayed. You need to add actions to your faith. Her action was she broke Read the rest of this entry
Sorted!
Heb.10:23 “Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise”.
The second Biblical example is from the life of Hannah. Hannah’s story was not just that she was married and childless, her husband was married to another woman that had children for him. So Hannah was childless in the midst of fruitfulness and was consistently ridiculed for it. The place of waiting comes with a certain level of pain that can greatly increase if the people around are not sensitive. But Hannah remained faithful to God. She could easily have focused on her pain and drifted away from God which is what a lot of Read the rest of this entry
Speak Up
Est.4:16 “Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die.”
The beauty about our relationship with God is that whenever we call on Him, He hears us and answers us. Scriptures give us many examples of God’s faithfulness through answered prayers. Over the next few days we are going to be looking at examples of people in the Bible that encountered God, how God changed their destinies and they moved forward.
Our first example is Esther. King Xerxes had a problem with his wife and she was dethroned. His search for a new queen led him to Read the rest of this entry
Ultimate Pleasure
Ps.63: 3 “Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you! 4 I will praise you as long as I live, lifting up my hands to you in prayer. 5 You satisfy me more than the richest feast. I will praise you with songs of joy. 6 I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you…”
C. S. Lewis says, “He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only”. What he is saying is if Brother A has God, a house, five cars, a beautiful wife, twenty children, and everything he wants and Brother B has God, no house, and nobody wants to marry him, C. S. Lewis says, Brother A does not have more than Brother B. Wow! So what about the other things? The truth is as long as you have God, you have everything because God is all. In fact Brother B will discover that in the Presence of God there is fullness of joy and at God’s right hand are all the things he is even looking for – the pleasures forever more.
Sweet Hour
Heb.4: 15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. 16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
God wants us to come to Him boldly but most times we look at the mistakes we have made and the mess it has created, and we run from God. I am telling you today that the value of your life does not depend on the mess you have made. The value of your life is dependent upon the price that Christ has paid. When you do not see yourself in the light of the mess and the mistakes you have made, and you look at the cross and seeing how much you are worth [Jesus dying for you], your spiritual awareness rises. You are actually Read the rest of this entry
