Praising in the Pit…

July 8, 2020July 8, 20204 Comments

“Focus on remaining so gracious that when the time comes for your testimony, people’s recollection of how you maintained your faith and good character despite going through such a difficult season, will encourage them even more about what it is to truly trust in God.”

Smiling when things are falling apart around you, is possibly one of the most difficult things to do.
It’s hard to laugh, have fun, or even see the good in anything, because your circumstance is saying otherwise.

Today I want to encourage you to P R A I S E in the Pit.
And if you cannot think of any reason why it may be worth it, simply consider the fact that you have life, God still loves you perfectly, and His word says He will always be with you – that is more than enough to give Him praise for. (Romans 8:38-39, Deuteronomy 31:6)

In addition to that praise, here are three other key things to do:

1. Continue to do and be G O O D

Don’t allow your situation to make you bitter.
Natural emotions that we may experience when things are tough include;

Sadness
Frustration
Anger
Feeling fed up
Being irritable
Self-pity
Loneliness

and many others.

When we feel like this, it’s often difficult to be our usual selves, and in fact it is quite easy to fall into the trap of allowing our emotions to dictate and change who we are, negatively.
One of the most important things I want to tell us is that we must not allow our emotions to rule us. Yes, things aren’t great, but that is no excuse to compromise your character and forget who God has called you to be – which is someone who exudes L O V E at all times. (1 Corinthians 13).
Focus on remaining so gracious that when the time comes for your testimony, people’s recollection of how you maintained your faith and good character despite going through such a difficult season, will encourage them even more about what it is to truly trust in God.

When you find yourself getting into ‘a way’, remember that God’s word tells us a lot about His plans for us. (Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28).
Therefore, knowing God has a greater purpose, plan and will for you, means you cannot allow your energy to match your present situation. Instead, you have to ensure your energy is in line with the greater place God is taking you to! For that reason you need to draw out the praise that is on the inside of you and show God that you are dedicated to praising Him in spite of what is going on in your life. Show Him that your love for Him goes beyond your circumstance and that you truly love Him for who He is, not what He does.

2. Don’t obsess over ‘why’

Common perspectives many of us may have adopted throughout life, is that there is a reason for everything and that there is always a lesson to learn from every season you find yourself in. While I agree with both these concepts, we must be careful not to distract ourselves with trying too hard to make them fit into our lives in the most practical or perfect way.

Here’s what I mean by this…
Sometimes God does share ‘why’ He’s taking us through things, other times, He doesn’t.
The point is, if we get so utterly consumed with finding out ‘W H Y’ something is happening to us, or we get fixated on gaining an idealistic lesson out of it, we run the risk of losing focus on how God has truly called us to serve in that season, as well as engaging with God’s actual purpose or lesson for us.
For some of us, our focus on finding out ‘why’ could actually wrongly dissuade us from praising. This is because we subconsciously tell ourselves that we need a reason and purpose for the pain before we can praise in that pit, when actually the word of God encourages us to praise and give thanks in ALL things – good or bad. (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Focusing on getting a so-called reason or lesson that we deem tangible enough to us, also falsely implies that depending on the answer we get, God could possibly be unworthy of our praise – and this is so far from the truth.
The bible tells us that He is worthy of all praise, honour and glory forever. (1 Timothy 1:17).

3. Surrender it all to God

This is the most important bit.
Stop trying to create the ideal outcomes in your mind, and stop trying to help God sort things out your way – just give it to Him and rest in Him.

The bible not only teaches us that we are made for God’s pleasure and to bring glory to His Name (Isaiah 43:7, Isaiah 43:21), but it also very clearly enlightens us that God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). Therefore some things may not make sense to us. Some things won’t add up according to how our human minds may try to work them out, and so chasing a reason, or trying to create an artificial lesson that we assume God is trying to teach us, will only leave us exhausted and disappointed.
What we should do instead in these situations, is truly and wholeheartedly seek God and ask Him to enable us to live out His very purpose for us in that situation.
We must learn the art of absolutely surrendering our will and way to God, realising that He is Sovereign and thus actively deciding to allow Him to have His way. This may not be easy – but it’s always worth it.

Worth it;
– because the earlier we surrender, the sooner we have peace.
– because walking with God is so much better than working against Him.
– and because ultimately, we should always desire for God’s perfect will to manifest, as opposed to anything else, as He really does know best!

Now get to know God’s Promises

It’s all well and good me encouraging you to trust God and rest in His promises etc., but you need to know His word for yourself, because that is what you have to hold on to.

So here’s a start for verses to use to remind yourself of how well God will carry you through it all, and that there surely is a greater glory awaiting you at the end:

Something crucial to remember in the midst of your pain and unrest, is that regardless of how sour things may seem, God has not, and will not EVER remove His covering over you. This means no scheme of the enemy could ever prevail over you, nor lead you to destruction, rather, just like He did with Joseph, God will turn it all around and use it for His glory and your victory. (Genesis 37:18-28, Genesis 39:21).

The story of Joseph (found in Genesis 37 onward) provides a good example of someone who praised and served his purpose diligently whilst in his pit. In fact his very service to others whilst in jail, is what then delivered him in time to come – but that’s a word for another day.

Admirable examples of other Praisers in their Pits and people who remained faithful to God in the face of adversity are;

Daniel – with friends in the fiery furnace – Daniel 3, in the lion’s den Daniel 6

Paul and Silas – Acts 16:16-40

Job – Job 1, Job 1:20-22, Job 2:10, Job 42:10-17

In each story, as each character served their season of pain/trials with diligence and grace, we see the final outcome was completely worth the strife, especially when it caused others to give their lives to God.
So today I encourage you to keep Praising and keep your heart Faithful to God.
Praise your way into the sweeter season, because you serve a God that would never leave your current situation as your final destination.

Set it in your heart that NOTHING will steal the praise from your lips and the worship of your heart,
Because at the end of the day
God will still be God –
The Sovereign God, who knows best,
So why not Praise Him anyway?!

Keep the Faith, Don’t Stop Believing

Song suggestion: Praise Him in advance by Marvin Sapp

*Practical tip: (suggested by a friend and I think is a great idea) Create a playlist of Ten upbeat praise songs! Get into your praise zone with these daily and be reminded of God’s goodness.

Idols?

April 7, 2020April 6, 20209 Comments

What or who are they in your life?

A lot of us within the body of Christ have the false belief that because we don’t look up to graven images and we don’t physically bow down to shrines or symbolic statues or figures, that we aren’t idolators…

But we’re so wrong.

Take a look at the list below and let’s rank these things – and I want you to be very very honest with yourself.

In your life, where is God’s true position amongst the following things/people?
(And please let this be a genuine assessment of where He really comes in the mix of things and not where you’d like Him to be in an ideal world…)

Job/Career
Business
Spouse
Partner (boyfriend or girlfriend)
Child/children
Education
Home care and chores
Socialising
Food
Bills
Fitness
Any other activities and people we fill our days with

Where is He?
Lower than you expected?

You see, every single thing/person that you allow to take a greater weight, value or importance in your life than your pursuit of God and His will and His word –
is an I D O L.

And please bear in mind that this is not always done consciously…
You mean no harm or insult to God when you do it, but to name a few:

You look at your phone and check that social media news feed ten times more than you even think of meditating and conversing with Your Maker.
Your tithe and offering is often short because you had other things to pay for.
You just want to quickly do the washing up first, then you’ll pray.
You just need to cook for the family first, then you’ll read the Word.

Very easily, He’s fallen a couple or even a good number of places in the ranking…
But we didn’t mean for it to be so.

Now don’t get me wrong, a very select number of things in our lives are actually ‘that important’ and in fact God does not undermine their importance either. However the problem of idolatry arises when we prioritise these things above God, and often it becomes a repeated habit.

What many of us have done is just about ‘fit God in’ and made Him work around everything else that we have going on, rather than the other way round. This is not only in terms of spending time with God, but it is also applicable in terms of what we do with our finances and other resources in which He has given us clear instructions about how to use them to serve Him.
We have put things so far above God and made Him last on our list. We rush and are eager and take so much more pleasure in engaging ourselves with all the things of the world; but we forget that we ought to be working out our salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12-13).

Sound like idol worshipping yet?

One of our favourite luxuries being children of God, I’m sure is G R A C E.
But that very gift that God has given us freely, is what many of us are abusing and it’s the reason why we’ve become so lax in our service and worship to the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

We seem to have forgotten that God comes first!
(Matthew 6:33, Matthew 22:37-40).

How about we flip it, and start to do it right.

-Prayer and worship should be intentionally scheduled into your daily routine, not just as and when you remember.

-Your tithes should be the first thing intentionally set aside from your 100% on payday, not just scraped together after you’ve dealt with everything else.
I understand this can be sensitive for some who are struggling, but I really encourage you to activate your faith in doing this, and then watch for the fruits of your obedience – the Lord Himself says ‘Test Me…’ – God will never fail you! (Please see related scripture here: Proverbs 3:9-10, Leviticus 27:30-34, Malachi 3:8-12).

-Church services – to fellowship with others, and render a service before God, take precedence over work and social events etc.

Again, that’s only to name a few – we all know the things we need to adjust in our lives, so let’s not neglect what needs to be changed.

I must say though – I get it… A lot of the time when we’ve put God on the back burner, our main justification is because it’s in order to do stuff ‘we HAVE to do’ – it’s when we’re tending our flock – so God understands, right?
I’ll put my hands up and say I’ve done it too – mainly with my education – surely God doesn’t want me to fail, right?

But let us remember the word in Ecclesiastes 3:1 that says there is a time for everything, thus we must create order, structure and discipline in our lives and ensure that drawing nearer to God is at the top of our plans.
Retrain your mind to know and understand that God who gave you all these things will surely help you take great care of it all, but not at the expense of your worship and relationship with Him.

Father,
Today we call our hearts back to You in Jesus’ Name. We ask for Your perfect forgiveness to cleanse us and renew us for every single way we’ve made things and people in our lives god above You.
We ask that You enable us to consecrate our lives back unto You and revere and honour You as we ought to.
We don’t want Your wrath O God, we want Your smile and we want to make You happy, therefore help us get our worship and service right in order to please You. And help our hearts to truly chase and long after You in Jesus’ Mighty Name

Restore us unto You Father, let us be close to You,
in Jesus’ Mighty Name we pray.
Amen.

Keep the Faith, Don’t Stop Believing.

Beauty in your Simplicity…

March 5, 20184 Comments

Do you realise that sometimes your most simple and plain stateis more than enough?

Now this is a weird one, because we see that actually sometimes in the bible the reference made to being simple/simple-minded is actually in a light which displays a lack of wisdom and an inability to push forward (Proverbs 1:22, Proverbs 14:15).

However at other times we see that simplicity in worship, and in serving Christ, is deemed ‘just right’. (2 Corinthians 11:3, 2 Corinthians 1:12)
And that’s where I’m going today.

Quick scenario to hopefully help paint the picture:
Have you ever dressed up in what you thought was the absolute best outfit ever, perfect make-up/shape up, gone out, and then not really gotten as many compliments/as much attention as you had anticipated (not necessarily because you desired it, but because you believed your appearance commanded it)?
But then on the most lowly and meek of days, when you didn’t try so hard, but still looked good, this very day was when everyone had something positive to say?!

I assure you that this does not happen just by chance.

God is such an intentional and amazing God, that He uses such scenarios to show us something deeper.
And with this example, God is showing us something in terms of our walk with Christ – that there is greater beauty when you strip all the layers away, and just come as you are, in your truest and purest form…
With a child-like innocence (Luke 18:15-17, Matthew 19:14), and a heart that just yearns for more of Jesus.

You see, many times we get so tied up in the puzzle that society has created Christianity to be.
We get lost in the complexity that man and woman have themselves constructed as the apparent ‘life of a believer’.
And we forget the beauty of the basics.
Unfortunately, once this is gone, we find ourselves losing out on the results of an authentic worship.
We find ourselves playing the role of someone who loves God, rather than truly living it.
Thus, we become less fulfilled and actually find that we’re struggling to truly Encounter God as we have before.

But remember, God just wants us to worship in spirit and in truth though… (John 4:24)

He didn’t ask for an extravaganza or a parade or all the dramatics that sometimes maybe look like they’re making something happen in the spiritual realm.

He just wants the real you.

He wants a worshipper, a child of His own, who will live for Him and serve Him, in spirit – not led by the flesh or things of this earth, and in truth – not a facade and not a show for others to see, but genuine, real, sincere worship.

You see what happens is, on the days when we don’t try so hard and don’t try to do too much, what people see is beyond the physical.
In fact God takes that simplicity and purity, and places His glory upon it, and makes it way bigger than we could ever comprehend.
What am I saying here?
I’m saying that when we do less, we give room and allow for the glory of God in us to shine through MORE – and you better believe this glory is incomparable to anything we think we could ever adorn ourselves with.

This applies not only to our walk with Christ, but with many other areas of our lives too – when we allow God to Shine through – the outcome is so much more glorious than what our mere mortal ability could have ever accomplished.

So with this, let’s pray…

Father Lord,
Let our lives always give You all the glory.
Help us to come back to the heart of worship, and bring ourselves to You in our realest, purest form.
Help us to strip away every addition we’ve put into our relationship with You, based on what humans have said it should be, and rather let us just come with a humble and pure heart, ready to receive every part of You.
Enable us to never lose sight of the cross and never get so caught up in what society says Christianity should look like, but rather empower us to have confidence in our simple, true and moving worship to You, with every single aspect of our lives.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen

Keep the Faith, Don’t Stop Believing
God Bless you.

Submit your Flesh

November 22, 2017Leave a comment

The excuse of ‘I’m human’, is one that definitely gets overused in our society of believers.

Many of us use it to justify our actions when we’ve fallen short, or sometimes to actually convince ourselves that we can go ahead with doing something that we know isn’t right.

But here’s the thing, if only we would cultivate and nurture a good standard of self-control and self-discipline, as the bible instructs (Titus 1:8, Galatians 5:22-23), we would find ourselves resorting to this statement less and less…

I aim to challenge you with a few things today, in the hope of you developing a renewed conviction about some of the things you’ve allowed yourself to slack with…

You see, the bible teaches us to flee from sin, (1 Timothy 6:3-11), yet so many of us walk side by side with it.
Where we’re mingling and mixing with the things that lead us astray, some of us will find that rather than becoming more spiritually inclined, we’re becoming more accustomed to the ways of the world, and in fact becoming more comfortable with engaging in practices/activities/habits that we ought to really detest as children of God!

That’s why this message today reminds and instructs you to always
Submit your flesh to the Spirit of God in you!

It is an absolute MUST to do this.

“Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?
Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?
Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death?
For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.”
[Romans 6:1-4]

When we make the decision to accept Christ and walk with Him, one of the first things we establish is that our old self has died, and our new being is alive in Christ, as the above scripture says. We are then encouraged to walk in the light of Christ, and to actively rid ourselves of all the worldly things we used to do when we didn’t know Him, in order to fully pursue this new life and new glory with Him.

But friend, these days your lines are blurred.
You’re speaking Jesus but you aren’t living Him.
You’re portraying Jesus but your heart isn’t really here for Him, fully…

So what’s changed?

Why does it seem like you’re caring less and less about the implications of your decisions?
Why does it seem like you’ve lowered your standard of how much you want to obey God?
Why does it seem like you’ve lost focus?

You see, the word of God is intentional, and therefore every word is for a reason, so when it says to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12), it’s because being a follower of Christ is not at all a passive decision, but rather an active, alive and vibrant choice to walk in His way. This means therefore that if we don’t culture, grow, nurture, and pay attention to our spirit, then indeed we will so easily become entangled in sin (as Hebrews 12:1 puts it).

So for many of us, over time, our lax attitude towards our journey with Christ has allowed the old self to creep back into our environments and slowly infiltrate our minds and therefore our behaviours, beliefs, and attitudes.
What this means is that we’ve become more ‘okay’ with lying, theft, sexual immorality, drunkenness, idolatry, selfishness and all the other things that we were initially so eager to put behind us when we first got saved.

For some of us, we get tired.
Our enthusiasm runs out.
Our interest and ability to be ‘bothered’ with the things of God, and honouring God, decreases, and so we find ourselves drifting further and further away from the will of God and His purpose for us.
In some cases, what’s surprising is that actually some of us are still able to look ‘Jesus-good’ externally, but deep down in our hearts, we couldn’t be any further away from true worship and surrenderance to the heart and will of God.

If I’m talking to you, and this message is for you in any way, and you’re ready to be real, I’m saying let’s go back to basics…
Yes, I’m calling you out, and I’m hopefully making you uncomfortable with where you are in your walk with Christ right now, but understand that I’m not judging you – instead, I’m simply saying don’t spend another second compromising your faith or relationship with God! Rather, let’s return to that very fundamental aspect of giving our lives to Christ, and turning our lives around;

“We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.”
[Romans 6:6-7]

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.”
[Galatians 5:24]

You are not a slave to sin.
Sin is no longer your master.
Sin no longer controls you.
Sin no longer has a hold or any power over you…

I’m emphasising this point, because the weakening of sin’s power, by our death and resurrection in Christ Jesus, is such a key element to remember from today’s message.
When we stray away from the will of God, we often forget this truth because we are so immersed in the ways of the world.
Therefore sin begins to look convenient. And in this slippery area of dabbling, the devil capitalises on our state of mind and tries to trick us into believing that sin holds us ransom again as it once did, that it’s too hard to let go of the wrong habits, and that sin has defeated us…

But these are all LIES!

You are no longer a slave to sin. (I had to say it one more time!)

And you must rise with this strength daily, in order to conquer every wayward desire of the flesh.
You must understand from this truth, that the Spirit of Christ Jesus, who conquered death and destroyed all power of sin – that Spirit in You, is greater and more powerful than your flesh.
Your Spirit has authority over your flesh!

Therefore you ought to train your flesh to pipe down.
You ought to tell your flesh ‘not today, not ever, you’re not getting your way’.
You ought to submit your flesh to the will of God daily; your thoughts, words and actions – and begin to build up a resilience against any desire to engage in sinful natures (1 Peter 4:1-2).

I’ll finish by sharing something Paul said in the bible;

“I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.”
[1 Corinthians 9:27]

Another translation says;

“No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” (NIV)

Let us develop the understanding that we too have the authority, the courage, the power and the tools of the spirit, to discipline ourselves, discipline our bodies, and discipline our flesh, in order to ensure that we do what we are meant to be doing, and that we run our race with purpose and perseverance to win!

Further Scriptures to read and pray with daily:
Overcoming tiredness – Galatians 6:7-9
Overcoming sin – Romans 6:11-14, Titus 2:12, Ephesians 4:22-23, Romans 12:1-2
Growing in the Spirit – John 3:30 (a crucial daily declaration)

Keep the Faith, Don’t Stop Believing
God Bless you

#SubmitYourFlesh
#SpiritWins
#MoreThan100PeoplePraying

What can I do for You?

August 16, 2017Leave a comment

Having recently had many conversations regarding relationships, and ‘getting it right’, and understanding the different requirements etc, it made me think about applying certain things to our relationship with The Father.

One thing that came up in particular is the fact that as individuals, we often focus solely on receiving our personal wants and needs from others.

Meaning that though we’re in a relationship with another person, we only concentrate on the different things we expect that person to do for us; how their actions and decisions can benefit us, and how anything and everything pertaining to them, can please us.

But what about the other person?

Today I’m asking us, What about God?

A relationship with God is the most important relationship anyone should have, therefore we ought to evaluate our behaviour in this relationship, every now and then, in order to see how we can improve it and make it better – all in the desire of drawing closer to Jehovah.

So let’s be real, just as we can sometimes be selfish in our relationships with one another, we are often also very selfish in our relationship with Abba Father.

Many of us get to a place where our prayers (which ought to be conversations) only contain requests galore…

“Father can You do, ABCDEF,
maybe I don’t need G,
but I definitely need HIJK and all the rest of it.”

We wake up, and yes we may manage to thank Him, but again, we jump in and ask Him to bless our days, grant us favour and grace and so on.

Now don’t get me wrong, asking God to be the centre of your day is not a bad thing, trusting in the beauty of His grace and therefore desiring your day to be saturated in it, again, is not a bad thing, but what God gave me for this post, to pass on to you, is that
every now and then, it’ll be nice for us to ask Him what He wants…

If we read Deuteronomy 12, we see a God of specificity.
And don’t worry, I understand that this chapter is in a completely different time, where there was no Saviour yet, but what I want to draw from it, is that we serve a God who pays attention to detail.
And if the bible tells me that my God is Consistent, never-changing, the same today, yesterday and forever (Revelation 1:8, Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8), then that must mean, that this Specific and attention to detail God, still exists.
So why not appeal to that side of Him every so often?

Why not acknowledge that He has wants and desires too, and rather than ask so much for things that can bless our own lives, let’s ask God how we can Perfect the one thing that He takes from us, which is our worship.

I’m not asking you to go before God with a goat or a cow, but I am encouraging us to develop a habit of ASKING God what He wants and how He wants it…

How would You like me to proclaim Your name today?

How would You like to be served today?

What do You want my worship to sound and look like today?

What songs do You want to hear me sing to You?

What can I do today to make Your name and glory STAND OUT to those who experience and encounter me?

Many times we base our entire ‘living for God’, on what we think and assume He wants, what we’ve seen or heard others do, or what we’ve been told to do;

““These people come near to me with their mouth
    and honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
    is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”
[Isaiah 29:13]

But the bible tells us a true worshipper, worships in spirit and in truth – John 4:24.

Therefore I want us to become more sensitive to the Spirit of God in us and let us listen to what God is saying about true worship, rather than imitating what we’ve seen around us.
Let us become unselfish in our relationship with God, and learn to stop focusing only on what we can get out it.
Instead, let us ask Him what He wants, and actually wait to hear what God desires of us.

Let us desire to have a heart that is near to Him, through a worship that is no longer based on rules and acting, but rather based on a deeper knowledge and understanding of what God wants, what God likes, and what God will be pleased with.

Let’s pray;

Father, I know I have the freedom to worship You freely all the days my life, so I pray that You will help me to worship You in a way that is personally perfect for You.

Let me not focus on doing it anyone else’s way, but rather help me to acknowledge and focus on what You want, and how You want it.

I pray that after reading this message, I won’t get caught up on worrying about worshipping ‘right’, but instead, I pray that I will always long to worship You in Spirit, and in Truth.

Help me to always consider You more in my daily living, and let me walk closely with You, and become so familiar with Your heart and Your desires, that the things that flow from me naturally are more and more aligned with that which pleases You.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen.