God is in control

Inspiring Words of Encouragement.

"Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven trustworthy in our own minds."

“You may pray for rain and for good harvest, in the end you must still intelligently cultivate and farm the land.”

We may not understand God's process but we can trust His heart.  One day, all of our question marks will be yanked into exclamation points ...  and we will get it.  Until then, we walk by faith and not by sight.

Let's listen to the words of our Abba Father, let's just relax in the moment and trust God to "bring the rope to us." If it's His best for us, He will do just that.

Storms will come.  Storms are a reality of life.  We will either become storm survivors or storm statistics. The choice really is ours to make.  We can stop telling God how big our storm is and start telling the storm just how big our God is. The key to enduring storms is to embrace each one that comes, knowing it contains and can yield a seed of victory.

Pearls are formed when a piece of grit, sand or shell get trapped inside an oyster. It protects itself from irritation by secreting a nacreous liquid around the particle which eventually builds into a pearl.

Weaknesses give way to strengths and failures lead to successes ... and God use it all for His glory and my good.  In God's economy, a mess is the perfect setting for a miracle. At the center of every dark moment are a sliver of hope and a seed of victory.  God has gone before you, and in every trial or difficult circumstance you will face, He has buried a treasure. When the tough times come, look for the pearls.

Excerpts from various Girlfriends in God Devotionals.

WHAT ARE YOU HOLDING ON TO?

Growing up as a young girl back home in Nigeria, I had two boyfriends because I felt if one of them gets serious then I can ditch the other one. I found out the folly of this logic when both of them decided to go play the field at the same time with other girls and I ended up loosing out. As it is in the natural things so I found out it’s happening in spiritual things also. Many believers sometimes find themselves playing the same game with God [current company included].

Sometimes we feel that we should have a plan B just incase God is too slow in acting the way we want and at the time we want. We claim the promises in the scriptures, confess our faith in God almost everyday, quick to quote Heb. 11:1 and Phil. 4:19 but come crunch time we are seeking another solution to the situation, we feel if God delays, we can always check out other alternatives but there is futility in those alternatives.

The bible says in James 1:8 “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. I give this example all the time that when you are standing in the middle of the road, any oncoming vehicle from both directions will hit you, so you either to the left or to right, there is no middle way. You either believe God and wait for His visitation or go with the alternative.

We believe God for various things, jobs, children, promotion, marriage, finances etc, but how many of us are really waiting upon the Lord or are we holding onto our understanding on how to find a solution suitable to us in our own timing? Hence my question, what are you holding on to? God’s promises or your alternative?

One of the perfect examples in the bible is Anna the prophetess and Simeon in the temple Luke 2: 25-38 who believed what God, told them concerning the coming Jesus. Remember the prophets prophesied his coming years before their time but they kept believing, Simeon had a revelation from the Holy Ghost [this was before the Holy Ghost was poured out on the early believers] that he will not see death before he had seen the Christ. Anna served God in the temple with fasting and prayers night and day and when she saw the manifestation of what God has promised she gave Him thanks.

Do we still have people like these or do we have a microwave generation that will rather believe in their abilities or talents rather than believe God. We have preachers/believers who are ready to manipulate the word of God rather than take some time to hear what God is saying to their congregation or concerning a situation facing them? These days we don’t fast and pray to hear God anymore, we just go “with the flow”, no fresh manna or fresh songs from heaven anymore we just copy what the world is doing and sprinkle God on it and pass it off as “revelation”.

I remember being in the choir back in my church in Nigeria, LRA, we had to pray to birth new songs from heaven, sometimes we are standing in God’s presence for hours just worshipping and waiting for His visitation and boy did we have a visitation or what!!!. I will never forget our Minister then, Sis Funlola Craig, she truly impacted a lot in my life which I will be forever grateful to God for her ministry. But what do I see these days?

Choristers are in a hurry to leave choir practice; musicians are hopping from church to church, playing instruments for the highest bidder. Where is the love for God and His work in our hearts? Congregations/believers are in a hurry to leave His presence, we are more conscious of time more than before, we are constantly in a hurry to leave to go do things we have no business doing, so we can come back and beg for God’s forgiveness and as the graceful and always forgiving Father, he does forgive and cleanses us, but how long are we going to keep God as an afterthought in our lives?

I am challenging myself and anyone who will be reading this to BELIEVE GOD regardless of how late we feel His timing might be, remember He is the Lord of the time and seasons and if he has promised, he will surely bring it to pass. Our alternative plans have a tendency to add more to our waiting time, believe me I know. Serve Him with all your heart not expecting any reward from man in return and see if He won’t show up for you. God does not owe any man. God is a rewarder and in due time He will reward if you faint not or get discouraged.

God does not need our help in making His word come to pass in our lives. HE IS GOD ALMIGHTY!!! What we need to do is just believe in Him and stop straddling between two fences, we will tear ourselves apart. Phil. 1:6. “Being confident of this very thing that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ”. I have never seen God abandon a project and I don’t think He is going to start with us.

The Importance of Influence in a Relationship

The Importance of Influence in a Relationship

To Live Free: The Way

Just wanted to share this, it truly blessed me.

T. Suzanne Eller

Faith: Knowing Christ

What if a footprint appeared in front of you today? One after another. Leading you to higher ground. Or through a dark place where there is no light.
What if there were roads all around you. Crossroads. Turning points. And yet those footsteps faithfully appeared.
According to scripture, those footsteps are there. Jesus is called the Way.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. John 14:6
If He is the Way, then staying close to God means you will stay on course. . . all the way to Heaven.
What does it mean to stay close to God?
To consider your faith as a personal relationship. One in which God listens, God speaks. You listen. You speak. The Word comes alive as it becomes a conversation.
To respond to what you hear, even if you want to run the other way, stay put, or charge on in your own strength.
He may say “wait” or “stop” or “don’t go there” or “come close during this storm”. Or He may say keep walking and trust Me.
We don’t have to live without direction. We might not have the whole picture or the complete plan, but we have the next step.
Just you and God:
To live free: God is the Way; walk in His footsteps.
Scripture: John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. Colossians 2:7
Today: Make it personal. Close everything else out and look for the next step as you follow the Way.

WHAT WILL JESUS DO?

I have a sign hanging on my cubicle at work that says “What will Jesus Do”. I tend to ask that question every few minutes during the course of the day. Why? You may ask it’s due to the “sandpaper” people amongst people I interact with on a daily basis. Sandpaper people you may ask, are the ones I find it hard to get along with due to differences in opinions, lifestyles and work ethics, denominations, religion.

Sandpaper is paper with sand or another abrasive stuck to it, used for smoothing or polishing woodwork or other surfaces. It is used to refer to something that feels rough or has a very rough surface. I feel the sandpaper people in our lives are there to fulfill the role God has destined for them, they there to smooth en our rough surfaces, we need them in our lives in order to fulfill destiny. Most of tend to ignore such people, keep them at arm’s length, avoid them, make sure we are as far as them as possible but I don’t think that is what Jesus would do in such a situation.

Let’s take a look at the life of Jesus, who is our role model. When he was 12 he was already in the temple disputing the scriptures with the scribes and Pharisees [They were seen to be the spiritual know in all in those days] Luke 2:46-47, He touched a leper [which was a taboo in those days] healed him and angered the Pharisess Luke 5:13. He even had secret disciples amongst the Pharisees, of whom one of them was Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night. John 3: 1-2. One of his disciples was Zaccheus who was a tax collector Luke 19: 2 [Remember in those days, tax collectors were hated] and how can we forget the woman that anointed his feet with the alabaster box of precious oil Matt. 26:7. The woman at the well of Samaria John 4:10-12 the woman whose daughter was possessed by demons Matt 15:24-28. Simon Peter’s betrayal. Matt 36: 33-34. Pontius Pilates at His sentencing. John 18:33-38. The children of Israel who cried Hosanna on palm Sunday and crucify Him 3 days later.

OpEd: What We Must Learn From the Zachery Tims Tragedy

OpEd: What We Must Learn From the Zachery Tims Tragedy