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Category Archives: GOD

Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil

Luke 11:4 says: “”And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.”  When we pray, “Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil”, we know that prayer invites God into our battles. Prayer also invites us into the place where God can deliver us. It brings us to the place where God’s hand is waiting to be extended. His hand is strong with deliverance and healing, and in the place of prayer it can be released. Many times when we don’t pray, God is bound and separated from our problems. It’s not that He wants to be separated, but when He is without our prayer to invite Him in, He is automatically separated. The phrase, “lead us not”, does not mean that we are asking God to avoid taking us somewhere, but it means, “God, open our eyes when evil is coming. Unveil to us the smallest schemes and plans of the enemy so that we may respond and change course. Give us direction, and show us how to turn from the course where the enemy has laid a snare in our path.” God wants to be involved, and His involvement is filled with counsel, wisdom, the leading of His Spirit, and direction for your life. At the end of a prayer life that believes and depends on God, there is victory and deliverance.

Be led by God!

May the LORD bless Nigeria, American and Israel and take care of us; May the LORD make His face shine upon us, And be gracious to us; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, And give us peace, In Jesus Christ Name, we pray! Amen!

 
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Posted by on April 13, 2012 in GOD

 

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Worldly Cares Are Thorns

Šelpice, Jesus Christ church

Worldly Cares Are Thorns

Luke 8:14, “And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.”

LUKE 8:5-14

This third type of ground is characteristic of a large part of the Body of Christ today. These are people who have received God‘s Word, committed themselves to it to the degree that they are able to remain faithful in persecution, but because of being occupied with the affairs of this life, the Word sown in their heart is choked and no fruit is produced. Just as weeds in a garden will steal all of the nutrients and starve the plant, so the pleasures of this life, if we allow them to dominate our thinking, will stop the fruit that the Word would have produced.

Throughout history, the Church has always grown in size and strength during persecution. This is because during persecution we get our priorities straight. We realize our life is in Jesus (Jn. 14:6) and not in things (Lk. 12:15), and we focus all of our attention on the Lord. However, prosperity has been far more damaging to the Body of Christ for the exact reason stated here in this verse. God wants to bless His children with things (Ps. 35:27; Mt. 6:33), but a preoccupation with these things will choke God’s Word and make it unfruitful. If we would follow God’s formula for prosperity found in Matthew 6:19-34, we would have the Word bringing forth fruit and we’d enjoy the physical blessings of this life, too.

Notice Jesus said that no fruit was brought to perfection. This type of person will exhibit some fruit, but it will always be small and far short of what it should be. Do you feel frustrated because you are just getting by and are not really experiencing the abundant life that Jesus came to give? (Jn. 10:10) Examine your lifestyle and see if the cares of this life, deceitfulness of riches, or pleasures of this life could be choking God’s Word.

May the LORD bless Nigeria, American and Israel and take care of us; May the LORD make His face shine upon us, And be gracious to us; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, And give us peace, In Jesus Christ Name, we pray! Amen!

 
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Posted by on April 12, 2012 in GOD, Jesus Christ

 

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This is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

This is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us

John 4:10

This is Love

Love never fails!

Wait a minute, no one has unfailing love! No person can love with perfection.

That’s right. But God is not a person. Unlike our love, His love never fails! God’s love is immensely different from ours. Ours depends on the receiver of the love. Our love will be regulated by appearance or by personality. Even when we find a few people we like, our feelings will still fluctuate.

Does God love us because of our goodness? Because of our kindness? Because of our great faith?

No. He loves us because of HIS goodness, kindness, and great faith. The love of God is born from within him, not from what he finds in us. His love is uncaused, spontaneous. God loves you simply because he has chosen to do so!

May the LORD bless Nigeria, American and Israel and take care of us; May the LORD make His face shine upon us, And be gracious to us; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, And give us peace, In Jesus Christ Name, we pray! Amen!

 
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Posted by on April 11, 2012 in GOD, Jesus Christ, Love

 

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Don’t get distracted

Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey

Don’t get distracted

 

 

Acts 24:1

“Now after five days Ananias the high priest came down with the elders and a certain orator named Tertullus. These gave evidence to the governor against Paul.”
NKJV

 

What was Ananias doing chasing Paul around? As the High Priest, he should have been serving God and ministering to the people of Israel. Ananias was around 80 years old, yet he was so caught up in resentment that he was willing to make the 60 mile journey from Jerusalem to Caesarea to bring accusation against Paul. It’s been said, that “a distraction is what you see when you take your eyes off of the goal.” When we spend our time chasing distractions, we accomplish nothing. We only have so much time and so many hours in a day. In Matthew 5:37-40, Jesus told us to love God and love others, yet often we take our eyes off of Jesus and place them on ourselves.

Ps 90:12 “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” NKJV

If you are over 35, you are probably more than half way through your lifetime. At the age of 50, you have likely used seventy percent of your time. Friends, as you get older the numbers don’t get better. Take a moment and reflect. Are you distracted? If you are focused on Jesus, then you will love God and love others. Do you love others? How? If you are making a long journey and your course gets off by even one degree, you will miss your destination by hundreds of miles. This is why we have to constantly make course corrections in our lives. Are you focused on Jesus or distracted by other things? Distracted? Uh oh, time for a course correction. Do you love other people? No? Oops… time for another course correction.

 

Life Lesson: As we follow Jesus we should not get distracted.

Dear Heavenly Father,
I love You. Please help me to love and serve others. Please forgive me for times when I have been distracted. If I am off course Lord, I ask that You would show me through Your Word, through a Bible teaching church, and through fellowship with other Christians, so that I make corrections. I pray this in Jesus Christ Name! Amen!

May the LORD bless Nigeria, American and Israel and take care of us; May the LORD make His face shine upon us, And be gracious to us; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, And give us peace, In Jesus Christ Name, we pray! Amen!

 
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Posted by on April 11, 2012 in GOD, Jesus Christ

 

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God Knows everything

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God knows everything

God knows the future

I can tell you what is going to happen even before it happen (Isaiah 46:10)

During the 1990′s, highly educated and experienced economists predicted doom for the American economy, yet we experienced quarter after quarter of improved profits and higher productivity. Stock market consultants forecasted a market decline and advised clients to switch into safer financial investments, yet the stock market continued to climb to extraordinary heights.

The reality is that no one really knows what the economy will do. As someone once remarked, “If you lined up all the economists in the world one after another, you wouldn’t have enough to reach a conclusion.”

Now consider the foreknowledge of God. At one time, nothing existed but God, yet at any point in time, He knew the past, present, and future. He knew when He would create the universe, that Adam and Eve would sin, and that He would send a Saviour.

To prove His ability to predict the future, God gave us hundreds of prophecies in the Bible. One that fascinates me is the prophecy that the Jewish people would be called together as a nation.

The temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70 and the Jewish people scattered from their homeland. What were the chances that a people without a country could survive as a nation? Every other nation since then has disappeared into oblivion. But in 1948, the Jewish people re-established their homeland in Israel. The odds are astronomical of that happening after nearly two millennia.

God’s prophecies are 100 percent accurate because He not only knows the future, He also controls the future.

Your View of God Really Matters …

What are your two or three top concerns about the future? Knowing that God controls the future, and that He loves you, give your concerns to Him and receive His peace.

What More Does God Say?

Isaiah 42:8-9; Deuteronomy 30:3-5; Zephaniah 3:20

Because God knows everything, I will go to Him with all my questions and concerns!

May the LORD bless Nigeria, American and Israel and take care of us; May the LORD make His face shine upon us, And be gracious to us; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, And give us peace, In Jesus Christ Name, we pray! Amen!

 
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Posted by on April 10, 2012 in GOD, KNOWLEDGE

 

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For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises up again; but the wicked shall fall into mischief

4 days of Evangelism Training in Southern Cali...

For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises up again; but the wicked shall fall into mischief.


There has never been a greater opportunity for the church of Jesus Christ to shine
with the glory of the Lord. However, we must make certain we develop a “never give
up” attitude. Proverbs 24:16 “for though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises up
again…”

In every circumstance of life there are choices to be made. You must decide what
you will do in times of crisis, when you make a mistake, or when you experience
failure. It’s not about falling, it’s about rising again. Your enemy is intimidated
by your tenacity to never quit and to never give up.
So today I boldly decree your attitude is right, your faith is focused, and you
are expressing the reality that satan cannot win if I don’t quit.

May the LORD bless Nigeria, American and Israel and take care of us; May the LORD make His face shine upon us, And be gracious to us; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, And give us peace, In Jesus Christ Name, we pray! Amen!

 
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Posted by on April 10, 2012 in GOD, Victory

 

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Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me.

—Psalm 139:23-24

 

 

READ: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Is it possible to be too helpful? Can our helpfulness actually make life more difficult for others? Yes, if we’re being bothersome, intrusive, smothering, manipulative, or controlling. If the help we are giving is driven only by our own anxiety, we may be just trying to help ourselves.

How then can we know if our heart and acts of service are truly symbolic of God’s unconditional love? How can we love from pure motives? (Prov. 16:2; 21:2; 1 Cor. 4:5).

In prayer we can ask God to show us any way we are hurting or hindering others (Ps. 139:23-24). We can ask God to help us show love that “suffers long and is kind; . . . is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil” (1 Cor. 13:4-5).

Our efforts to help others, especially those we love the most, will never be completely free from anxiety. But we can, by God’s grace, begin to love freely with no strings attached, as God Himself loves. The test, of course, and the measure of our progress, is the way we react when our “helpfulness” is unrecognized or goes unrewarded (see Luke 14:12-14).

Lord, help us to love with pure motives and for the good of others. Help us to love unconditionally, expecting nothing in return. —David Roper

Please help me, Lord, in all I do
To act and think with motives true;
And by Your love reveal to me
Those sins that only You can see. —D. De Haan

In our desire to help, let’s love with pure motives.

May the LORD bless Nigeria, American and Israel and take care of us; May the LORD make His face shine upon us, And be gracious to us; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, And give us peace, In Jesus Christ Name, we pray! Amen!

 
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Posted by on April 9, 2012 in GOD, Mercy

 

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The Power Of God’s Word

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

The Power Of God’s Word

Luke 8:11, “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.”

LUKE 8:11-15

It is through the reading of the Word and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit that Christ in His fullness is known. What a privilege it is today to have God’s Word in our own language. Six hundred years ago there was no English translation of the whole Bible. Thanks to the efforts of John Wycliffe (1384) and William Tyndale (1523), today we are able to read and understand the writings of the apostles for ourselves. Men gave their lives to bring us God’s Word. We should take advantage of this wonderful privilege.

The piece of armour known as the “sword of the Spirit” is the only piece of armour that has the ability to cut, wound, and hurt our enemy, the devil. It’s not the Bible lying on your coffee table that makes the enemy flee, but it is the Word of God hidden in your heart, activated by the power of the Holy Spirit, and spoken in an appropriate situation. It’s similar to what is spoken when Jesus said in John 6:63, that “…the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” The Word by itself doesn’t make us free. It is the Word we know and speak that will deliver us (Jn. 8:32).

Why is the Word so effective? It’s because it is the WORD of God. It has authority, because it is indeed the WORD of God. God’s Word supersedes all authority of the church, of reason, of intellect, and even of Satan himself.

It is the Holy Spirit that wields this Word as it is spoken in faith. Speaking God’s Word in faith brings the Holy Spirit into action. In Luke 4, when Jesus was tempted of the devil for forty days, it was the Word of God, that Jesus used to defeat the enemy in the time of His temptation. Jesus constantly met His temptation by quoting from God’s Word as He repeatedly stated the phrase, “It is written.” Likewise, the Christian soldier must avail himself of God’s Word by placing it in his heart, so that the Holy Spirit may bring it forth at the appropriate time to accomplish a complete and total victory. It’s yours!

May the LORD bless Nigeria, American and Israel and take care of us; May the LORD make His face shine upon us, And be gracious to us; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, And give us peace, In Jesus Christ Name, we pray! Amen!

 
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Posted by on April 9, 2012 in Bible, GOD

 

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I am possessed by God. Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world

Mother Mary with the Holy Child Jesus Christ, ...

I am possessed by God. Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world!

Possession


And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with
the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of
twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth,
and pained to be delivered.
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red
dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his
heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and
did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman
which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as
it was born.

Revelation 12:1-4

John records some amazing visions-wonders in heaven, he calls them-of
the nation of Israel and satan. Central to the story is the reason
Christians can live in hope, the reason we can lift up our heads. The
woman described in chapter 12, Israel, gives birth to a child who is
the source of life, the source of hope, for every Christian, both those
on earth and those in heaven; she gives birth to the Messiah Himself.

Satan, the great red dragon, is there and ready to devour the child
that comes through the nation of Israel. In an analogous situation, in
Matthew 2 Herod, inspired by satan, is trying to find out where the
Christ child is going to be born. Failing to do that, he orders every
male child two years of age and under to be killed so that that he can
be sure he destroys the Messiah.

Satan is looking to possess human beings, and God is looking to possess
human beings. In fact, both God and satan are aspiring to do the same
thing, which is have men and women yield to them, then operate in the
earth to do their bidding. I am possessed by God. Greater is He that is
in me, than he that is in the world! One of the reasons God is in me is
so He can express Himself in the earth and get His job done through His
power!

Prayer for Today

Father,
I surrender all to You-everything I am, everything I do, and everything
I have. My one desire is to be wholly Yours and to do Your will and
glorify You. In Jesus Christ Name, Amen.

Think on These Things

Luke 21:25
Isaiah 62:3

May the LORD bless Nigeria, American and Israel and take care of us; May the LORD make His face shine upon us, And be gracious to us; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, And give us peace, In Jesus Christ Name, we pray! Amen!

 
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Posted by on April 9, 2012 in GOD

 

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God Is Great

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

God is Great

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.
Romans 1:29

We live in a world that has forgotten God. The latest bestselling books set out to discredit God. References to God are disappearing from many public institutions, and liberal activists want to remove His name from the Pledge of Allegiance.

God’s people should be shouting from the rooftops, “God is great!” The absence of any kind of rebuttal is the result of the insidious work of Satan. Satan wants to destroy all communication between God and man, and we help him every time we do not speak up.

Forget what is ‘politically correct’ and praise God. Some may ridicule you for praising His name, but His Word will stand forever, long after the present fads have passed from this earth. Praise God constantly. Help to repair the breach between God and man.

The old hymn says it all: “I’ll praise my maker while I’ve breath; and when my voice is lost in death, praise shall employ my nobler powers. My days of praise shall ne’er be past…” Praise Him today.

Further Reading

  • Psalms 150:1
  • Luke 18:43
  • Hebrews 13:15

God Bless

May the LORD bless Nigeria, American and Israel and take care of us; May the LORD make His face shine upon us, And be gracious to us; May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, And give us peace, In Jesus Christ Name, we pray! Amen!

 
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Posted by on April 9, 2012 in GOD

 

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