God Must Be Loved For Himself

God being who he is must always be sought for Himself, never as a means toward something else.

Whoever seeks other objects and not God is on his own; he may obtain those objects if he is able, but he will never have God. God is never found accidentally. “Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Whoever seeks God as a means toward desired ends will not find God. The mighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, will not be one of many treasures, not even the chief of all treasures. He will be all in all or He will be nothing. God will not be used.

His mercy and grace are infinite and His patient understanding is beyond measure, but He will not aid men in their selfish striving after personal gain. He will not help men to attain ends which, when attained, usurp the place He by every right should hold in their interest and affection.

Yet popular Christianity has as one of its most effective talking points the idea that God exists to help people to get ahead in this world. The God of the poor has become the God of an affluent society. Christ no longer refuses to be a judge or a divider between money hungry brothers. He can now be persuaded to assist the brother that has accepted Him to get the better of the brother who has not.

A crass example of the modern effort to use God for selfish purposes is the well-known comedian who, after repeated failures, promised someone he called God that if He would help him to make good in the entertainment world he would repay Him by giving generously to the care of sick children.

Shortly afterward, he hit the big time in the night clubs and on television. He has kept his word and is raising large sums of money to build children’s hospitals. These contributions to charity, he feels, are a small price to pay for a success in one of the sleaziest fields of human endeavour.

One might excuse the act of this entertainer as something to be expected of a ‘twenty-first’ century pagan; but that multitudes of evangelicals should actually believe that God had anything to do with the whole business is not so easily overlooked. This low and false view of Deity is one major reason for the immense popularity God enjoys these days among well-fed elites in the world.

The teaching of the Bible is that God is Himself the end for which man was created. “Whom have I in heaven but thee?” cried the psalmist, “and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee” (Psalm 73:25). The first and greatest commandment is to love God with every power of our entire being. Where love like that exists there can be no place for a second object. If we love God as much as we should, surely we cannot dream of a loved object beyond Him which He might help us to obtain.

Bernard of Clairvaux began his radiant little treatise on the love of God with a question and an answer. The question, Why should we love God? The answer, Because He is God. He developed the idea further, but for the enlightened heart little more need be said. We should love God because He is God. Beyond this the angels cannot think.

Being who He is, God is to be loved for His own sake. He is the reason for our loving Him, just as He is the reason for His loving us and for every other act He has performed, is performing and will perform world without end. God’s primary reason for everything is His own good pleasure. The search for secondary reasons is gratuitous and mostly futile. It affords occupation for theologians and adds pages to books on doctrine, but that it ever turns up any true explanations is doubtful.

But it is the nature of God to share. His mighty acts of creation and redemption were done for His good pleasure, but His pleasure extends to all created things. One has but to look at a healthy child at play or listen to the song of a bird at sundown and he will know that God meant His universe to be a joyful one.

Those who have been spiritually enabled to love God for Himself will find a thousand fountains springing up from the rainbow-circled throne and bringing countless treasures which are to be received with reverent thanksgiving as being the overflow of God’s love for His children. Each gift is a bonus of grace which because it was not sought for itself may be enjoyed without injury to the soul. These include the simple blessings of life, such as health, a home, a family, congenial friends, food, shelter, the pure joys of nature or the more artificial pleasures of music and art.

The effort to find these treasures by direct search apart from God has been the major activity of mankind through the centuries; and this has been man’s burden and man’s woe. The effort to gain them as the ulterior motive back of accepting Christ may be something new under the sun; but new or old it is an evil that can only bring judgment at last.

God wills that we should love Him for Himself alone with no hidden reasons, trusting Him to be to us all our natures require. Our Lord said all this much better: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).

** Written by Aiden Wilson Tozer (A.W. Tozer) **

*** From the Book - "Man: The Dwelling Place of God" ***

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Behold, He Comes!

Text: Revelations 1:4-8

The pages of the Scripture are filled with warnings to both believers and unbelievers that the Lord is coming again. The promise of His second coming will be literally fulfilled just as the prophecy concerning His first coming was fulfilled literally.

None should be carried away with the words of the scoffers saying, “Where is the promise of His coming?” (2 Peter 3:4). Jesus Himself warned: “for as the lightening cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:27).

The coming of the Lord will be sudden and unexpected. Every wise person will get ready for His coming. In readiness for His coming, the sinners including the backsliders should quickly return unto the Lord and seek pardon. The compromising Christian should “awake to righteousness, and sin not … for now is salvation nearer than when we believed” (1 Corinthians 15:34; Romans 13:11).

For the believer, he/she must continue in holiness and righteous living, looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. He/she is to get himself/herself occupied in the Lord’s work snatching as many as possible from the hand of the devil.

Knowing that the Lord can come at any time, he/she is sober and vigilant, watching over his life and conduct and praying without ceasing.

The Lord is coming to take His own unto Himself and reward them for their love and labour.  He will make a separation between the sheep and the goats. At the first phase of His coming, He will take the believers up with Him in the air to reward them while the rest that re in the world will suffer great agony and torture under the ruler-ship of the Antichrist.

Therefore, He shall descend with the saints upon the earth to rule for a thousand years after which He shall “execute judgment upon all and convince all that are ungodly among them of their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (Jude 1:15).

The time to prepare for His coming is NOW, not tomorrow. The time is short. The door of mercy will not remain open forever. Seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near (Isaiah 55:6-9).

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When Last Did You Have A Spiritual Checkup?

A young Christian lady had scheduled a business appointment with a client for 9am on Monday. Being a worker in the church and nursing mother of a seven months old girl, her Sunday was so occupied that she barely had time to even press her clothes to be worn the next day.

She was moving from one chore to another and eventually by 8:30pm, her to-do list was fulfilled for the day. She had only wanted to rest few minutes before dinner, only for a terrible sleep to overwhelm her. Being an early riser, it was odd that she woke up just five minutes before 9am on Monday. With much anxiety and remorse, she prepared hurriedly and off she went for the meeting.

And there was an unfriendly traffic gridlock, what she least needed at the time. The client had called and wanted to cancel the meeting due to her lateness; “Please, kindly exercise some patience. I will be with you in the next ten minutes,” she said just to appease the client. Whereas, she was only five bus stops away from her house and many miles away from the rendezvous. Though she managed to meet the client eventually after several hours of delay, the fact remains that, she had lied.

Three days later, her boss told her to follow-up on a client and send feedback the same day. Amidst several tasks to be completed for the day, she forgot and because her boss didn’t ask at the moment, neither did she bother to carry out the assignment. Her boss asked for a progress report the following day and so as not to appear incompetent she replied: “My apologies sir. I had called the client but the number wasn’t reachable. I will try again and get back to you.” The boss retorted, “That’s fine but get back to me as soon as possible.” Yet again, she had lied.

She started her week with compromise. One misdeed led to another and more lies ensued that week. Sadly, no guilt what so ever did she feel and I guess she would say in her heart, ‘I didn’t really mean to lie. The circumstances were just beyond me and I know God being a merciful Father understands and will forgive me.’

This is how some Christians really are, daily compromising their faith and allowing ‘those little foxes that spoil the vine’ to dominate their lives and ridicule their testimonies of salvation. They neither watch nor pray and alas, fall into diverse temptations that give the devil an opportunity to trample on their faith and convictions.

In the epistle of Apostle Paul to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 13:5), he admonished them, and by extension all born-again believers, to examine themselves whether they are still in the faith; proving themselves by the standards of God in His word.

As Christians, we cannot afford to be nonchalant with our spiritual lives while gratifying the physical. The days are evil and seductions to backslide are taking several forms to the detriment of babes in Christ. The enemy of our souls is unrelenting on his intentions to multiply the sorrows of men and keep them in eternal bondage.

Hence, it is so important that we tread with caution, taking stock of our lives daily to know with certainty whether we are still right with God, for no one knows when the trumpet of rapture shall sound. And how painful and pitiable it would be to claim to know and serve the Lord and yet, not make heaven eventually just because of negligence of being spiritually conscious in examining our lives.

The Lord Jesus Christ admonishes us to watch and pray so we will not fall into temptations (Mark 14:38; Matthew 26:41). Jesus knew that for the true believer temptations, persecutions and trails are inevitable (John 16:33, see also Acts 14:22, 2 Timothy 3:12). Therefore, He exhorts us not for a second to lose our guards and often observe a spiritual checkup for we know not when the appointed time will come (Mark 13:33; See also 1 Timothy 4:16).

Unlike the young Christian lady whose story was earlier told, “No compromise” must a sincere Christian be.

"No compromise with error, for Bible truth we stand,

Let none remove the landmarks erected by God’s hand.

With loyalty our watchword and faith in Christ our stay,

We’ll bravely storm the forts of sin and thro’ Him win the day.

No compromise with worldliness, no yielding to the wrong,

No lowering the standard that’s stood thro’ ages long;

With Jesus as our leader, His Spirit as our guide,

We’ll firmly stand for righteousness whatever may betide."

We are truly in the last days where the seeds of the antichrist are on rampage. Sin lures at every corner and takes prey of souls that aren’t vigilant of the devices of the devil. Such people take lightly the exhortation of the Christian Hymn: “Christian, seek not yet repose.”

"Gird thy heavenly armor on,

Wear it ever night and day;

Ambushed lies the evil one:

Watch and pray."

We mustn’t be so lax as to allow the devil rob us of our salvation bought for a costly price at Calvary. Even spiritual complacency in times like this is as well dangerous for “if any man thinks he stands, he should take heed lest he falls” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Finally, dear friends, let us examine and probe our ways, and let us return to the Lord should we find any blemish in our hearts and don’t measure up with God’s standards (Lamentations 3:40). Watch and pray in the morning, at noon and at night, and put away everything and anything that may hinder us from making heaven.

Run with perseverance the race marked out for us as believers, looking unto Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:1-2). And not forgetting that, it’s only those that endure till the end will be saved (Matthew 24:13; Matthew 10:22).

There’s so much at stake. We can’t afford to miss heaven for anything in this world or let our loved ones miss it too. So, when last did you have a spiritual checkup of your life? Should Christ come this very minute, will you make heaven?

Examine yourself today and may God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you and me through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (1 Thessalonian 5:23).

Please share this with others so they may continue in the faith and prepare their souls for the coming of the Lord.

God bless you and thanks for reading.

*** Written by Michael Olajubu alias Jacobs Adewale (Admin) ***

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Lies Of The Devil

One day, a young woman raised in a Christian home was asked by her pastor if she was born-again. “Of course, I am born-again. I am a true child of God,” she responded confidently.

The pastor smiled warmly and asked further, “how do you know you are born-again?”

“Well, it’s obvious as everyone can see. I am good, decent, disciplined, kind and loving person. Besides, I go to church regularly. These make me a good Christian,” she replied with excitement.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Feeling guilty for lying to her boss, a woman went to her pastor for counselling. “I had lied to my boss to avoid being fired, and now I feel guilty before God,” she admitted in tears after telling him what had happened in the office. “Please pastor, what do I do?”

“Is that why you are crying?” the pastor queried with a soothing smile. “You should understand that no human can live without sin. Besides, lying to your boss is just a little sin. You only said that to protect yourself from any misfortune. It doesn’t matter; God understands.”

The foregoing interactions reveal how the devil, the old evil genius, the master of deception and all evil machinations, the brilliant mastermind of revolts and rebellion against God, and a professional trickster, tricks people with his lies, giving them a false hope of eternal life. You must understand that he has nothing to offer you.

Being the archenemy of man, his major goal is to destroy lives, and he does this through his subtle, skillful but destructive lies (John 10:10). Jesus says, “There is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).

Imagine the damnable lie he told the woman who had lied to her boss through the pastor that no human can live in this world without committing sin, and that “a little sin” doesn’t matter, justifying the woman’s action. To say a person can’t do without sinning is simply underestimating the power of God’s grace.

The Bible tells us that the moment you are born-again, you are free from sin because you are regenerated and quickened by the grace of God, you have Christ formed in you, and you are made a partaker of God’s nature. You don’t live, walk, give yourself or continue in sin because you are under the influence of the Spirit, power and grace of God which preserve you from the temptations of the devil, pollution of the world and corruptions of your own heart (1 John 3:9).

Moreover, there’s no big or little sin. Sin is sin! So what you call a little alcohol, a little lust, or a little lie will damn your soul because “They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21). God never takes any “little sin” lightly, even if it is committed to protect one’s self or to get out of trouble.

It’s also strange to believe that being kind, generous, disciplined and regular in church without assurance of salvation qualify you as a Christian. Being nice or religious is not the same thing as being born-again. Substituting salvation with a good religious and moral lifestyle is another lie of the devil.

The Bible teaches that everyone needs salvation because we were all born in sin; we were all sinners by nature (Romans 3:23), and to be born-again simply means to repent of or turn away from all your sins.

Six (6) steps are involved in true repentance:

1 Recognizing you are a sinner (Psalm 38:18)

2 Confessing your sins to God in prayer, asking for His forgiveness (1 John 1:9)

3 Forsaking those sins (Proverbs 28:13)

4 Believing you have been forgiven (Romans 8:1-2)

5 Accepting Jesus as your Saviour and Lord, and living a righteous life (1 John 4:14-15)

6 Reconciling with those you have wronged by righting your wrongs (Numbers 5:6-7; Matthew 5:24; Luke 19:8).

If you haven’t taken these steps, you are not born-again and no amount of good deeds, religious activities or moral uprightness can cancel out the debts of your sins.

Finally, the Word of God never teaches eternal security – once you are born-again, you are forever born-again – even if you sin at will or occasionally after you professed to be born-again. If you believe you are secured eternally and lead a sinful life, then you have been brainwashed by agents of the devil. Anyone who had repented of his or her sins and believed in Jesus at one time or the other can backslide.

The Bible uses expressions such as “left thy first love” (Revelation 2:4); “depart from the faith” (1 Timothy 4:1); “put hand to the plough and looking back” (Luke 9:62); and “the dog is turned to his own vomit again…" (2 Peter 2:22) to tell us that you can lose your salvation or any other Christian experience you have. Luke 9:62 categorically says that when this happens, you are unfit for God’s kingdom – heaven.

So friend, don’t allow yourself to be deceived by the lies of the devil. If you are not born-again, repent of your sins now and accept Jesus as your Saviour and Lord. And if you are born-again already, don’t fall into sin and damn your soul. Be wise!

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The Christian’s Obligation To The Lord

Text: Matthew 25:14-30

All believers have a responsibility to fulfill the purpose of God for the Church in the world. Having accepted the gospel and becoming children, they must accept the obligation of passing the message of salvation to other people.

God expects every believer to join in the urgent task of rescuing those on the path of destruction.

The Lord has endowed every one of His children with certain gifts, abilities and talents to enable them serve Him. These talents, which include ability to preach, teach, evangelize, help, provide succor, etc., are to be deployed for the benefit of other people. Also, the blessings of God are not to be selfishly kept to ourselves, but to be used to expand His kingdom; we receive to give.

As love prompted God’s great gift of His Son, so His love in our hearts should prompt us to give, minister and engage in loving services in the church for the welfare and happiness of other people. Our commitment should constrain us to evangelize, invite people into the church, warmly receive and care for new church comers and cultivate their friendship.

We must also not default in paying our tithes and offerings for the support of the local church and mission work.

As committed members of the body of Christ, we must be true and faithful ambassadors of Christ by upholding the teachings of the Bible. If we are faithful and the Lord meets us so, we shall be greatly rewarded when He comes to take home His own.

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There Is No Wisdom In Sin

The world has divided men into two classes, the stupid good people and the clever wicked ones.

This false classification runs through much of the literature of the last centuries from the classics to the comic strip, from Shakespeare’s Polomus, who furnished his son with a set of good but dull moral platitudes, to Capp’s Li’l Abner, who would never knowingly do a wrong act but who would rather fall on his head than on his feet because there is more feeling in his feet than in his head.

In the Holy Scriptures things are quite the opposite. There righteousness is always associated with wisdom and evil with folly. Whatever other factors may be present in an act of wrongdoing, folly is one that is never absent. To do a wrong act a man must for the moment think wrong; he must exercise bad judgment.

If this is true then the devil is creation’s prime fool, for when he gambled on his ability to unseat the Almighty he was guilty of an act of judgment so bad as to be imbecilic, He is said to have had a great amount of wisdom, but his wisdom must have deserted him at the time of his first sin, for surely he grossly underestimated the power of God and as grossly overestimated his own. The devil is not now pictured in the Scriptures as wise, only as shrewd. We are warned not against his wisdom but against his wiles, something very different.

Sin, I repeat, in addition to anything else it may be, is always an act of wrong judgment. To commit a sin a man must for the moment believe that things are different from what they really are; he must confound values; he must see the moral universe out of focus; he must accept a lie as truth and see truth as a lie; he must ignore the signs on the highway and drive with his eyes shut; he must act as if he had no soul and was not accountable for his moral choices.

Sin is never a thing to be proud of. No act is wise that ignores remote consequences, and sin always does. Sin sees only today, or at most tomorrow; never the day after tomorrow, next month or next year. Death and judgment are pushed aside as if they did not exist and the sinner becomes for the time a practical atheist who by his act denies not only the existence of God but the concept of life after death.

History is replete with examples of men whose intellectual powers were great but whose practical judgment was almost nil: Einstein, for instance, who was a mathematical genius but who could not look after his own bank account and who absent-mindedly ran his little motorboat aground with the excuse that he “must have been thinking about something else.” We can smile at this, but there is nothing humorous about that other class of men who had brilliant minds but whose moral judgment was sadly awry. To this class belong such men as Lucretius, Voltaire, Shelley, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman and thousands of others whose names are less widely known.

The notion that the careless sinner is the smart fellow and the serious-minded Christian, though well-intentioned, is a stupid dolt altogether out of touch with life will not stand up under scrutiny. Sin is basically an act of moral folly, and the greater the folly the greater the fool.

It is time the young people of this generation learnt that there is nothing smart about wrongdoing (sin) and nothing stupid about righteousness. We must stop negotiating with evil. We Christians must stop apologizing for our moral position and start making our voices heard, exposing sin for the enemy of the human race which it surely is, and setting forth righteousness and true holiness as the only worthy pursuits for moral beings.

The idea that sin is modern is false. There has not been a new sin invented since the beginning of recorded history. That new vice breaks out to horrify decent citizens and worry the police is not really new. Flip open that book written centuries ago and you will find it described there. The reckless sinner trying to think of some new way to express his love of iniquity can do no more than imitate others like himself, now long dead. He is not the bright rebel he fancies himself to be but a weak and stupid fellow who must follow along in the long parade of death toward the point of no return.

If the hoary head is a crown of glory when it is found in the way of righteousness, it is a fool’s cap when it is found in the way of sin. An old sinner is an awesome and frightening spectacle. One feels about him much as one feels about the condemned man on his way to the gallows. A sense of numb terror and shock fills the heart. The knowledge that the condemned man was once a red-cheeked boy only heightens the feeling, and the knowledge that the aged rebel now beyond reclamation once went up to the house of God on a Sunday morning to the sweet sound of church bells makes even the trusting Christian humble and a little bit scared. There but for the grace of God goes he.

I am among those who believe that Western civilization is on its way to perishing. It has many commendable qualities, most of which it has borrowed from the Christian ethic, but it lacks the element of moral wisdom that would give it permanence. Future historians will record that we of the ‘twenty-first’ century had intelligence enough to create a great civilization but not the moral wisdom to preserve it.

** Written by Aiden Wilson Tozer (A.W. Tozer) **

*** From the Book - "Man: The Dwelling Place of God" ***

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Is Your God Able To Deliver?

A Christian who cowers with fear and trepidation at all threats and challenges of life really doesn’t know the God he or she claims to serve.

Such a Christian is one the Lord describes as, “O, ye of little faith” and is not deeply rooted and built up in Christ nor established in the faith that moves mountains. The body of Christ doesn’t rejoice in cowardice for we have not been given the spirit of fear but of power, love and sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

We should know that there will always be oppositions and daunting times in every believer’s life. Daily, our adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. He is still in the business of killing, stealing and destroying the souls of men (John 10:10), and his major and only target are the very elects of God who have chosen to live by the Spirit and are dead to the works of the flesh.

It is undeniable that our Christian walk can never be devoid of trials and adversity, “for we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Even the Lord Jesus Christ in the book of John 16:33 says, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Truly, only in Christ do we have lasting victory over the world’s difficulties and troubles. To trust in the arm of flesh is to settle for disappointments, depression and despair. But no true child of God ever knows defeat for his or her trust and confidence is in the Lord, God Almighty (Jeremiah 17:5-8).

This brings to memory the uncommon and uplifting story of the three Hebrew brothers – Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah – and how mightily God works for them that solely trust in Him. There’s no one who ever reads the Bible, even the book of Daniel 3:1-30 and would doubt the unrivaled power of the Most High God.

King Nebuchadnezzar openly put to test the faith of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (as we all know them to be called) and wanted to know if their God was able to deliver. As the incident was recorded, King Nebuchadnezzar had made an image of gold and ordered all his provincial officials to worship it and warned that whoever does not worship the image will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.

The three Hebrew brothers with knowledge of God’s clear command in Exodus 20:1-5, 34:14-17, knew better not to worship a man-made god with eyes but cannot see, with ears but cannot ear and with mouth but cannot talk. To shorten the story, these brothers defied the King’s order and were thrown into the furnace. Then the miraculous happened afterwards.

What, however, strikes the mind is the Kings query when the brothers defied his order. King Nebuchadnezzar asked, “Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to deliver you from my hand?” (Daniel 3:13-15).

Have you ever been in a situation where your faith is put to severe test? Your salary hasn’t been paid for months and your rent is due, your partner’s business isn’t as vibrant as it was, your child’s school tuition fee is impending and you are running out of stock for food. You ask a colleague for loan and he or she is requesting a nonnegotiable thirty percent interest on principal every month. Your siblings and relatives all exhume excuses with global economic cash crunch.

For want of alternatives, you ask few neighbors around and one of them puts it straight to your face, “but I thought you are a Christian and all these are happening to you. Don’t you pray? Why not ask your God for help?” You look at all sides and see no one to turn to. And here the devil rejoices at your calamity, asking you this same question, what god will be able to deliver you from my hand?

Dear brethren, learn from the Hebrew brothers and be strengthened by the example of their faith. And they responded, “We do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from your Majesty’s hand. But even if He does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up” (Daniel 3:16-18).

Time and again has history revealed that they that know their God are strong and shall not be moved by the schemes of mean men or by threats and trials from the evil ones. They are not one to faint or falter in the days of adversity and times of troubles (Proverbs 24:10).

They are as brave lions that are never shaken. They have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Their hearts are secure, they have no fear and in the end, they always look in triumph on their foes (Psalm 112:6-8). Now, the question is do you know the God you claim to serve? Is your God able to deliver?

But for those who do know their God and trust in Him, this is what He says to you, “I will remove from you all who mourn over the loss of your appointed festivals, which is a burden and reproach for you. At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you… I will give you praise and honour in every place you have suffered shame… and among all the people of the earth when I restore your fortunes before very eyes,” says the Lord (Zephaniah 3:18).

Don’t you believe it? If truly you do, then, have faith! The Lord is at work and He is able to deliver and save you from all your troubles.

*** Written by Michael Olajubu aka Jacobs Adewale (Admin) ***

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The Cure For A Fretful Spirit

The Holy Spirit, in Psalm 37:1-2, admonishes us to beware of irritation in our religious lives:

“Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.”

The word “fret” comes to us from the Anglo-Saxon and carries with it such a variety of meanings as bring a rather pained smile to our faces. Notice how they expose us and locate us behind our disguises. The primary meaning of the word is to eat, and from there it has been extended with rare honesty to cover most of the manifestations of an irritable disposition. “To eat away; to gnaw; to chafe; to gall; to vex; to worry; to agitate; to wear away”; so says Webster, and all who have felt the exhausting, corrosive effects of fretfulness know how accurately the description fits the facts.

Now, the grace of God in the human heart works to calm the agitation that normally accompanies life in such a world as ours. The Holy Spirit acts as a lubricant to reduce the friction to a minimum and to stop the fretting and chafing in their grosser phases. But for most of us the problem is not as simple as that.

Fretfulness may be trimmed down to the ground and its roots remain alive deep within the soul, there growing and extending themselves all unsuspected, sending up their old poisonous shoots under other names and other appearances.

It was not to the unregenerate that the words “Fret not” were spoken, but to God-fearing persons capable of understanding spiritual things. We Christians need to watch and pray lest we fall into this temptation and spoil our Christian testimony by an irritable spirit under the stress and strain of life.

It requires great care and a true knowledge of ourselves to distinguish a spiritual burden from religious irritation. We cannot close our minds to everything that is happening around us. We dare not rest at ease in Zion when the church is so desperately in need of spiritually sensitive men and women who can see her faults and try to call her back to the path of righteousness.

The prophets and apostles of Bible times carried in their hearts such crushing burdens for God’s wayward people that they could say, “Tears have been my meat day and night,” and “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain daughter of my people!” These men were heavy with a true burden. What they felt was not vexation but acute concern for the honour of God and the souls of men.

By nature some persons fret easily. They have difficulty separating their personal antipathies from the burden of the Spirit. When they are grieved they can hardly say whether it is a pure and charitable thing or merely irritation set up by other Christians having opinions different from their own.

Of one thing we may be sure, we can never escape the external stimuli that cause vexation. The world is full of them and though we were to retreat to a cave and live the remainder of our days alone we still could not lose them. The rough floor of our cave would chafe us, the weather would irritate us and the very silence would cause us to fret.

Deliverance from a fretting spirit may be by blood and fire, by humility, self abnegation and a patient carrying of the cross. There will always be “evildoers” and “workers of iniquity,” and for the most part they will appear to succeed while the forces of righteousness will seem to fail. The wicked will always have the money and the talent and the publicity and the numbers, while the righteous will be few and poor and unknown. The prayerless Christian will surely misread the signs and fret against the circumstances. That is what the Spirit warns us against.

Let us look out calmly upon the world; or better yet, let us look down upon it from above where Christ is seated and we are seated in Him. Though the wicked spread himself like “a green bay tree,” it is only for a moment. Soon he passes away and is not. “But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: he is their strength in the time of trouble.” This knowledge should cure the fretting spirit.

** Written by Aiden Wilson Tozer (A.W. Tozer) **

*** From the Book - "Man: The Dwelling Place of God" ***

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What Do We Take The Holy Spirit For?

To make mockery of the person and power of the Holy Spirit is to make trivial the very throne of God and the preeminence of Christ himself.

Of all esteemed personas of the Christian faith, be it kings, martyrs, apostles, disciples, priests, prophets and pastors of days gone by and the present, who could be trifled with in thoughts and words, the Holy Spirit certainly doesn’t make the long list.

Modern theology, especially among young believers, grapples with understanding the apt operations and ministry of the Holy Spirit. The issue of who He is, how He works and His role in the life of a Christian have often revolved around dark clouds of human doubts.

I certainly claim not to have comprehended the mystery of the Spirit but the Scriptures, to an extent, give understanding on the ministry of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is an integral member of the Triune God and thus, is deserving of reverence allied with the rest of the Godhead. But pitiably, the Holy Spirit is the most unrecognized, the most dishonored, the most grieved, the most abused, the most misrepresented and the most blasphemed of the members of the Trinity.

In the light of this discourse is a scrutiny of an article brought to the fore titled: “15 Ways to Unleash the Power of the Holy Spirit Right Now”. I find it rather disturbing to conclude that heresy, I tell you, heresy and utter misapprehension of the Holy Spirit embellish the claims of this article (click here to read).

If there were ever ways to unleash the power of the Holy Spirit (a thought not so absurd to conceive) in the life of a believer of Christ, the road map should unarguably start from a willful repentance at the Cross; by faith and prayer proceed into sanctification; and a genuine spiritual longing leading to an eventual – but continuous experience of – baptism of the Holy Spirit. Hence, the unleashing of the Spirit’s powers to the glory of God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son and Lord of all.

"You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). This infilling or baptism of the Holy Spirit is God’s promise to His children of grace through faith in Christ Jesus, and its offering is simply to this end: that Christ be glorified in and through us being His witnesses in all nations of the world.

This gives a clearer finality as to the purpose and ministry of the Spirit of God – the believers’ Helper, Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor, Counselor, Strengthener, Standby (John 14:16; John 15:26; John 16:7 AMP), that Christ may be glorified.

But these heresies by the article in question suggest, amongst several others, that “when you stand on your head while speaking in tongues, you will literally feel the power of God activated within your soul.” It submits also that there is a thing called “Spiritual mouth-breathing” that should be observed “to the point of near-hyperventilation which will cause one to become extremely light-headed and dizzy, which always means you are having a personal experience with God.”

I suppose, at this point, you are entertaining an innocent chuckle fused with ‘godly grief’ at these erroneous views of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. What really do we take the Holy Spirit for? A supernatural force at one’s beck and call triggered by ‘chemical dumps in the brain resulting from forced emotional highs and lows?’ God forbids!

One tends to wonder the origin of such presuppositions that rattle the regenerated mind. This is certainly not Biblical if the case of the Apostles at Pentecost (see Acts 2:1-47) is anything to go by. The unleashing of the Holy Spirit’s power witnessed at Pentecost was preceded by a spiritual longing for the revelation of God’s promise (Joel 2:28-29; Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26-27) as affirmed by Jesus Christ, matched equally by prayer of faith at the upper room.

The book of Acts 10:1-48 reveals a similar case of unleashing the Spirit’s power. Cornelius, ‘a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always…’ moved the hands of God to his favour.

We shouldn’t fail to note Cornelius’ spiritual longing and prayer (as it was at Pentecost) before the unleashing of the Spirit’s power, “So Cornelius said, ‘Four days ago I was fasting until this hour…’ (Acts 10:30-31). ‘Then Peter opened his mouth and said: In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him… While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished… For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God’ (Acts 10:34-35, 44-46).

Both events of the Apostles at Pentecost and Cornelius have something in common. We see God-centered souls with a genuine spiritual longing for God’s manifestation backed by prayer of faith; and then, the unleashing of the Holy Spirit’s power.

Without exhausting the list of Scriptural references of how the Holy Spirit’s power was unleashed, it is, however, flawed to believe that the Spirit’s power could be wrought by mere mechanisms of human mind and reasoning. Unleashing the power of the Holy Spirit is not and cannot be about manufacturing and tweaking emotions. To suppose so is fit for a sacrilege or better still, a blatant blasphemy.

In lending illumination on “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit” on his blog, Morgan Guyton, director of the NOLA Wesley Foundation, defined blasphemy as “falsely attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to demonic activity.” And if this is Biblically irrefutable (Mark 3:19-30), what shall we then call an outright reversal of this – attributing the works of diabolic conception to the Holy Spirit?

Whatever coloration related responses may take in this regard, I leave you to decide as you see fit. But we could, however, deduce from this an indignity of the Holy Spirit and consequently, could label such notion as blasphemy.

“Punch yourself in the face as hard as you can. Your eyes will well up with tears as you encounter the Lord personally and intensely” or “stick your finger into a light socket. Instant Holy Spirit power!” What an appalling and heartrending depictions of the Holy Spirit’s power.

Christ’s urgent appeal to His beloved is these: “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation” (Mark 14:38) and “…do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).

Should we miss the foundational knowledge and principles of the Christian faith and our understanding of Scriptural doctrine be faulty, then have we not the truth and live not in the Spirit. We walk in darkness still and not in the light of liberty by grace through faith in Christ.

Now must we earnestly content for the faith once delivered unto the saints, upholding the truth of Christ and exposing the unfruitful works of darkness. We must not only study to shew ourselves approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, but must also study to maintain the purity of the gospel by discerning the truth from concocted falsehood from the pit of hell meant to lure the very elect.

Finally, brethren, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:15-17). And since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen (2 Peter 3:17-18).

*** Written by Michael Olajubu, alias Jacobs Adewale (Admin) ***

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