Holdfast Onto The Faithful Word Of God
Let me refer you to a scripture that reminds us of the importance of God’s word. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Mat. 24:35 NIV). No matter what happened last year or even last night, God is faithful to His word. Therefore, have faith in His word and hold onto it. God’s word is not going anywhere. God’s word was with us last year, it was with us yesterday, and it’s with us today and forever. There can be many things that can go on in the world around us, we can face many trials, many things can happen in our lives, but all of these things will come and go, but God’s word will be with us forever. Therefore, hold onto it. That means have faith in His word. A lot of times we try to depend on things of this world, things of this culture, but they are not the most reliable things to stand on. They sometimes fall through as you may say, but do you know something that will never fail you? Something that’s always reliable, and will always come true for you when you need it most? It’s the word of God. That’s why I encourage you today to have faith in God’s word and hold onto it. Has God given you a word? Yes, He has. So, hold unto it. Have faith in His word. Has God told you that He will supply all your needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus? If He did, then stand on that word and don’t consider anything else. Don’t let anybody tell you that you will struggle to afford food. Don’t let anybody tell you that you will struggle to afford your essential needs, (Mat. 6:33; Phi. 4: 19). Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do it (Phil. 4:13). Your faith should be in the promises of God. Your faith should be in the word of God. Have hope in God’s word and hold onto it. So many people are hopeless today because they are not dominated by the word of God. God gave us His word so that we can have all that we need to live out this life that He has called us to live. That’s why it’s important to get into the word of God every single day. That’s where our strength will come from. That’s what we can rely on to go into anything that we might face, whether throughout the day, throughout the week, or throughout our lifetime. So, I encourage you to trust that everything else will pass away, but God’s word will remain. It will not pass away. His word is here to lead, guide and direct your life. Hold onto His word. Put your faith in the faithful word of God. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so, through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:20 NIV). Renew your mind with God’s word. This means put your trust and faith in Jesus and God’s word above everything else – above your feelings, what you think, what your circumstance may look like, and what others say or think. This is so important because everything we receive from God comes to us by faith. “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). One of the ways to walk in faith is to renew your mind through the word of God. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2 NIV). God has already given us His word and His promises. All you have to do is to renew your mind and appropriate what has already been provided. This doesn’t mean God has already provided so you’ve got nothing to do. I assure you one of the difficult things to do is to renew your mind. It takes effort to renew your mind, and if you are sitting in front of the television, watching ungodly things, and things that will take up your whole time, then you are not renewing your mind. You have to learn to spend some time in the word. How much time have you spent studying the word of God since you became a born-again Christian? We need to keep learning. One of the hardest things to do is to unplug from this world and the ideas and philosophies that this world is giving us, and to start acting and thinking according to the word of the Lord. It’s not going to happen if you are a passive Christian. You have to be an active Christian; you have to be a determined Christian. Most of us spend so much more time in the world system, thinking the wrong things than we do the word of God. You need to get the word of God and hold onto it. You need to renew your mind. The word of God is so available today. Statistics show that the average person spends 4 to 5 hours a day watching television, and on their phones, making phone calls and looking at social media. You can cut out all the bad stuff you use your phone for. If you are to add to that, how many hours do you spend on your phone texting and reading things? You could come up with 6 or 7 hours a day. You can renew your mind if you want to. But we just put more importance on what we hear on the news or what someone is saying on social media. If you want to renew your mind, you will have to put priority on the word of God. Some Christians have allowed the fake news of this world to flow through their mind. No wonder
Do It Today. Do It Now
Do It TodayTake possession of what grace has already made available. It’s very easy when the call of God comes upon our lives to think of a lot of reasons why we won’t respond to it at that moment. There will always be excuses about things we think we will need to do first. But it’s a wonderful thing to be sensitive to Almighty God when it comes to receiving His gift of salvation or serving Him. This is so that when He speaks to us, we will hear His voice and respond, and not delay, but take immediate action. Be conscious about the need to obey God’s command ‘now,’ and immediately. The word that is dear to the heart of God is the word “today”, but Satan’s favourite word of all words is the word “tomorrow.” Today is one of the greatest gifts God has given to mankind. There is a moment in our lives when God speaks. 2 Cor. 6:1-2 says it this way, “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:1-2). Do you understand the message of this text of scripture? There’s a time when God speaks, a time when his voice is being heard. It’s at that moment that you need to respond. When God, by the Holy Spirit, speaks to our hearts, that’s the moment we respond, not tomorrow, not tonight, but now. Today, don’t harden your heart while you hear his voice. Today is the day of salvation, tomorrow is not the day, yesterday wasn’t the day, but today. Tomorrow can be a dangerous word, for tomorrow has robbed many people of their dreams. It has robbed students of educational achievement and career opportunities. It has kept more people from coming to Christ than any other word in the dictionary. Let me remind you that tomorrow will rob you of opportunities to serve Almighty God. What’s the first thing that a man needs to fulfill his God given purpose? What’s the first thing that a man needs to live the abundant life that God created us for? It’s a day, it’s today. As simple as that sounds, every day is a gift, and it’s so precious. God gave us structure, He gave us a day, He gave us weeks, months, and years. He also gave us seasons and they all begin with a day, and that could be today. This is God’s provision for our purpose and so the first thing that a man needs to fulfill his purpose is a day. Sometimes, it’s something so simple as forgiving someone, or something so simple as giving a gift to someone. It can be giving an offering to God, or something so simple as praising God when you don’t feel like it. It’s the little foxes that spoil the vine. Something so simple as just the small things that the Spirit of God is leading you to do and the things you know you must do. We may think or say I’ll do it tomorrow or I’ll do it next week or I’ll do it next month and before you know it, we’ve wasted a month, we wasted a year. You see, the day God put something on your heart is the day you should start working towards that thing. So, don’t worry if the progress is slow. Forget about what you haven’t been able to do up until now and just be willing to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as he leads and guides your life. Do It NowA day is extremely important because you become what you do every day. Your life takes on the shape of what you do every day and so your future is never going to be what you want it to be unless you start with today. Your future is never going to be what God has put into your heart unless you start moving in that direction today and continue moving in the same direction every day until you eventually get to that place. “This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps. 118:24). Each day is the day that the Lord has made, therefore, we will rejoice and be glad in it. Every day is perfect, and every day comes with opportunities. It cannot be improved; it’s perfect the way it is. I can’t change it because it’s perfect. So, the Psalmist says this is the day that the Lord has made, and we will rejoice and be glad in it. We will have to rely on every day to accomplish our goals. I need to structure my day according to what God has put on my heart so that I govern my day, take control of my day and live my day the way God wants me to live it. I’m not going to live my day in fear, I’m not going to live my day being anxious, I’m not going to live my day worrying about tomorrow. This is the day which the LORD has made. A new opportunity has appeared. It’s a new day that the Lord has made for mankind. It’s a perfect day, it’s a blessed day to rejoice and be glad in it. A day made and ordained by God for us to achieve our purposes in life. Every day you wake up, remember that it’s a perfect day the Lord has made for you to do great things to glorify His Holy name. We will rejoice and be glad in it. What else can we do? I’m not going to live my day intimidated, I’m not going to live my day cowardly, I’m going to live my day boldly and I’m going to live it with courage and purpose. In Luke 9:59-62,
Take Immediate Action
Immediate ActionThere is a story in John 5:2-15, where Jesus met a disabled man who had no one to help him. Christ is the helper of the helpless. His one desire was to help, and so He healed the man who had an infirmity thirty-eight years and had waited for so long by the pool of Bethesda hoping to get help. Christ delights to have mercy on the helpless, so He singled this man out from the rest of the great multitude and healed him. 5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 7 The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” 9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years (John 5:5). That was a long time – for thirty-eight years he waited at the pool for his healing. He was focused only on trying to get into the pool for his healing until Jesus came along and showed him another way. “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” (John 5:7) In this story, we see very clearly the conditions under which the power of God operated. Jesus ordered the man, and, as he tried to obey, God’s healing power came to heal him. “Rise, take up your bed, and walk.” If there’s one thing that’s going to be responsible for change in our lives, it’s when we take immediate action to do the thing that God has revealed to us to do, or to do the thing that we know we need to do. We believe in God, but many have misconceptions about how He works. We think when we believe, then God does everything. When we believe, very often God shows us what we need to do. I’m not saying God doesn’t move supernaturally. The excuses paralysed the man and nothing was going to change until he took immediate action to respond to Christ. Do something you haven’t been able to do. That’s when something supernatural will begin to happen. You do what you can do in the natural, and then what happens is God will add his super to your natural, and you will experience supernatural results. The things we cannot do, He will do them for us. If we are going to do nothing and expect God to do everything, then that’s not going to happen. And He is not putting any burden on us. All He wants is for us to receive what He has for us. I’m talking about when the Holy Spirit has put something in your heart, He’s trying to lead, and guide, and direct your life, and we do nothing. He said, “Get up, take up your bed, walk”. Be ready to step into what God has already provided by grace. “Rise, take up your bed and walk” (John 5:8). What a strange command to be given to a person who has been crippled for thirty-eight years. But all the man needed to do was to obey the command, take immediate action, and receive his healing. There are things that God makes known to you, and weeks go by and you don’t do it, and I can’t help but to wonder what if you would have applied immediate action to the thing that you knew you had to do. So is what I hear Jesus saying here, “Rise, take up your bed, and walk”. I hear Him saying “Do it now”, I hear Him saying “Get up, take a step”. That’s what He was trying to let the man know. Essentially, Jesus was commanding the man to attempt the impossible. Jesus said, ‘Get up’! He told him to pick his bed up and carry it away. The man could have said that for thirty-eight years he had been lying on the bed and he didn’t have that physical ability to rise as he was being commanded to do. But he made the effort and the power of God healed him. 9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked” (John 5:9). God had come! In His marvellous sovereign way, He had chosen the man out of the multitude to demonstrate His wonderful love and power. The crippled man didn’t even have the faith to ask. But God performed the impossible. All the man had to do was to obey the command, take immediate action, and receive his healing. He was miraculously and instantly healed from his affliction. Later, the Jews couldn’t understand how a man who had been crippled for thirty-eight years could be healed on the Sabbath day. If he had not attempted to obey the command, he wouldn’t have experienced the healing power of God, and be made whole. When Jesus went to the pool, He went to change the crippled man’s life. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6). He already knew his yesterdays. He knew the man at the pool and He knows you and me. Jesus had a supernatural knowledge of the man’s condition. There are so many things in this world which try to defeat us. So, what’s stopping you? You may be asking; can I really change? I know people ask this a lot of times. “Can I really do this”? You may not believe things could ever change in your life, but God does. The Holy Spirit believes you can and that’s why He’s leading
God Is All Sufficient
David rightly said the Lord is my portion, which means if you have God, you have all sufficiency. God’s word is sufficient, and His love is sufficient, so we have all we need. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Mat. 6:33). The Bible says seek the kingdom and all other things shall be added to you. Not some things but all things. So, we should give God our best; our best time, and our best of everything. He is God of more than enough: spiritually, materially, physically, emotionally, and He is an all-sufficient God to deal with every situation that you are facing or may be facing. Believe Him to fulfil His purpose in your life. Jesus came to give us abundant life because He is more than enough. When dealing with God, the sky is the limit, but sadly we limit God by our small thinking. We limit God by our misunderstanding and lack of faith. We have been taught to limit ourselves to only what God can do in the physical natural realm, and we don’t go beyond that. God is all sufficient, don’t limit Him to what you see in the physical. Let me give you an example in the gospel. The feeding of the five thousand men described in Mark 6 where thousands of people were coming to hear Jesus. They had been with Him all day long. 35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. 36 Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?” (Mark 6:35-37). His disciples came to Him and said it’s too late, send them away. But Jesus said you feed them. With what Jesus? You are asking us to feed thousands of people but with what? We have to work for months to earn enough money to be able to feed these people. “And they said to him, shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworths of bread, and give them to eat? (Mark 6:37). Immediately when God gave them command, they limited Him to the physical resources that they had. A penny was a day’s wage, so two hundred pennies were worth two hundred days wage to feed the multitude. They limited God because they only looked at their own resources. What they should have done was to recognise that they had God right there in their presence and He was Sufficient. He was limitless and He could supply their needs beyond their physical financial ability. God is all sufficient, don’t limit Him to what you see in the physical. The disciples had been with Jesus, and they knew Him 24/7. They had seen Him do miracles before. They had seen Him do incredible things. He talked with them, He ate with them, and they knew His values. They witnessed the amazing things He did, yet they needed to learn to put their trust in Him. What’s God asking you to give? What’s God asking you to let go? What’s God asking you to do? Are you frightened to put your trust in Jesus wholeheartedly? They told Jesus the crowd must be hungry. They said Jesus, let them go and find something to eat. Jesus then turned to them and said, you feed them. This seemed impossible. How could they feed the multitude with nothing? This was why there were so many responses from the disciples if you read all four gospels. All their responses summed up to the fact that, they wanted to get rid of the problem by sending them away. Let’s send them away, they said. Let’s release them to go and find their own food. One of them said the cost is too much, we can’t feed them. It’s impossible, it will take more than six months wages to feed them. We don’t have enough. They kept thinking logically about how to overcome the situation. How many of us act the same way? Whenever you are faced with what seems impossible, do you try to always work it out logically? The disciples had walked with Jesus and seen many miracles, but they were trying to work this particular situation out logically. When you put logic into the picture, you push the supernatural out. You push the miracle out. There cannot be any logic where there’s supernatural. The problem with many of us is, our first thinking is logic: our own resources, and our own strength. You see, faith and logic cannot work together. The disciples were coming with their logic, but Jesus was saying, you feed them. God is all sufficient. If He is asking you to do big things for Him, don’t limit Him by looking at your resources. By saying God, I don’t have enough money, you are limiting Him by looking at what you have the resources to do. You need to believe that God can provide you with extra. “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Eph. 3:20). He can make you sufficient in all things so you may abound in every good work. “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8). I know that there are people that God has more for. God wants you to reach out and touch people’s lives and make a difference and yet many times we limit God because of our small thinking. Many times, we think of poverty and yes, it
Look To The All-Sufficient God
“ 41Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand” (Mark 6:41-44). Look to God and see past the physical. Many of you know that God has more for you than what you are experiencing. You know it, you have heard from God, some of you know the details, some of you know the business that God wants you to do and yet you are far from accomplishing it. Part of that is because you are not allowing yourself to see yourself successful. This is just like Jesus taking the five loaves and two fish and just stopping there. If that was the only resource He had, He wouldn’t have seen it multiply. But He looked up. He saw past the physical into the spiritual. He saw what was possible. “4 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves” (Mark 6:41). If you can see it on the inside, then you can see it on the outside. That was what Jesus did and because of that this miracle took place. God has a plan for you and it’s bigger than what you think. You must take the limits off. Look to the all-sufficient God and just allow yourself to start seeing God’s will coming to pass in your life. I know that there are so many people that God has more for. God wants you to reach out and touch people’s lives and make a difference and yet many times we limit God because of our small thinking. We look at our physical natural resources instead of looking at the all-sufficient God who can produce exceedingly, abundantly beyond what we imagine or ask (see Eph. 3:20). If you own a business, don’t imagine the business struggling and failing even if it is. I’m not denying that things happen in the natural. But go beyond that, like Jesus did. Lift up your eyes, look beyond what’s in your hand and see it the way God wants it to be. Discover what God can do in you and through you. Look to the all-sufficient God. Cast all your cares on Him and believe that He can take care of them. Take the word of God and see yourself succeeding in that business, see yourself prospering, see yourself healed, see your marriage working, see your children transformed. Jesus took what was meant for one person and used it to feed the many. God gives us His revelation to broaden our view of who He is. We need to be totally dependent on God. We need to look to the all-sufficient God. We need to depend on His word and promises. His word is sufficient. Whatever you are going through, God wants you to come to His throne of Grace and open your heart to Him. He will lead you and guide you. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105). Our steps are ordered by the Lord. God wants to order your steps right now. Don’t bring logic into the situation. He wants you to trust Him. He wants you to move in faith. Logic is not what you should be looking for at any point in time. Faith is what you need. Trust God, hold onto His word, be obedient to the word of God, and He will direct your steps. His name is above every other name. There’s nothing that’s impossible for Him. All we must do is to totally depend on Him, by placing our lives in His hands. At the end of this miracle, there were leftovers, huge amounts of surplus. “42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish” (Mark 6:42-43). Put your doubts aside and align yourself with the word of God. God will bless whatever is in your hands and multiply it to overflowing. You were called to serve God and to serve the world. When you give Him what you have, God will touch your natural and make it supernatural. You will be walking in big open spaces. You may be feeling rejection and low self-esteem, but suddenly you will be walking in completeness, knowing who you are in God. Knowing that you were called of God, and that you’ve got a destiny on your life. Knowing that you’ve got a hope and a future. Because you gave what you’ve got in your hand, you aligned yourself with the word of God. Then you just experience an overload of abundance in your life because God has blessed you to overflowing. You are limitless in Christ. Life is about who you are connected to and not your circumstances. It doesn’t matter how you see yourself limited or how people limit you, you are limitless in God. God’s word spoken over your life is sufficient. God’s word is sufficient, and that’s all we need. When Jesus says yes nobody can say no. “Who is he who speaks, and it comes to pass, When the Lord has not commanded it?” (Lam. 3:37). His word is powerful and sufficient for us. “Is not My word like a fire?” says the Lord, “And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:29). David was seen as a shepherd boy, but he was a king even though His family didn’t honour him. It doesn’t matter if they discriminate against you. God’s word on your life is sufficient to make you succeed. All you need to do is to be obedient and cooperate with God. Abraham was seen as an old man incapable of having children, but God
Keep Leaning On God
Leaning on the Lord simply means we relying on Him and we trusting in Him. He answers our prayer, He directs our paths, and we keep leaning on Him. We should live every day trusting God, depending on Him and acknowledging Him. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths” (Pro. 3:5-6). By saying ‘Lord, I’m trusting you for today’, what you’re saying is I’m leaning on you to give me wisdom, guidance and direction for my life. That reminds me of what the bible says in the 37th psalm: “Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity”. “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass”. “Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret – it only causes harm” (Psalm 37:1, 7, 8). Three times the psalmist says: ‘do not fret’, ‘do not fret’, ‘do not fret’. As believers we have the Spirit of Christ living in us and as we lean on Him or rely on Him, we trust Him so that’s what God wants us to do. He wants us to lean upon Him, He wants us to rely upon Him. He wants us to trust in Him. He wants us to come to Him acknowledging that we are dependent upon Him because He wants to be everything for us that we need in our lives. God intended to direct our lives. “O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jer. 10:23). If you read Jeremiah 10: 23 in context, Jeremiah was lamenting the fact that the Israelites were going into bondage and captivity. He was talking about total destruction of Jerusalem because they had rejected God. Therefore, the nations were going to conquer them and send them to captivity. He was talking about terrible judgment and right in the middle of the prophesy, Jeremiah asked a question; How could this happen? How could the people who were the apple of God’s eyes, and who were once favoured than nobody else on the planet and so blessed by God ever come to a position where they were to be put into slavery in Babylon? And he answered his own question in Jer. 10:23 and said “Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps”. The reason we get into trouble is because we don’t lean on God, we do things our way. Nearly every problem that we have comes because we do things our way, we don’t listen to the voice of God, we don’t seek His direction, we lean on our own understanding. The only exception is persecution. “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). You can be persecuted when you are leaning on God and doing everything God’s way. So, you could have some problems and some troubles and persecution but most of our troubles come from the fact that we are not leaning on God and hearing His voice and following His leadership. Our feet need direction, else we would not know our way or how to walk in this dark world. And this is how tragedy comes. It’s because God did not create us to be self-directed. He wants us to lean on Him so He can direct our paths. God gave us that choice, He doesn’t force us; we are not robots. But God never created us to function independent of Him. And there are so many scriptures to support this: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths” (Pro. 3:5-6). If we don’t lean on our own understanding but personally appropriate God’s word and practically use it by acknowledging Him in our daily routines, He will direct our paths and we shall surely light up our cities and communities. Hundreds of other scriptures show that God intended that we depend upon Him, to seek His guidance, to be led by Him and to be directed by Him. This is the way that God created us to be. And nearly all our problems come from being self-motivated and doing things our own way. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). The word is our lamp and light. We must never turn away from it. By leaning on His word and meditating on it day and night, we will always walk in the light of His word, and by so doing, we will be led to wise decisions to bring glory to God. Let’s allow the light to lead us to shine, prosper and have good success. Our best light is like darkness without the word of God. Our ways without it will lead to disastrous consequences. You can go all the way back to the garden of Eden where God gave Adam and Eve instructions about the way He wanted them to live. He said I do not want you to eat of the tree of knowledge and evil. They chose to do the very opposite, they thought they knew better than God. They thought that if they ate the fruit of knowledge and evil, they would be better off and so they did it their way and went against what God spoke to them and ushered the whole human race into all the problems that we have. The root of all the problems that we have is that we do things in our own way, we don’t follow God’s directions. “My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands; 2 For length of days and long life and peace they will