POWER TO OVERCOME TRIALS

Trial is a test of one's faith. trial can be a painful experience. Temptation may not be too painful but trial is usually painful. Trial cuts across all gender.

IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT TRIAL

1. Sometimes you don't hear from God during trial because a good teacher does not speak during test.
2. God does not stop every trial that come your way but He will give you power to overcome the trial.
3. Never let trial to bring you down instead let it promote you.
4. God places obstacles along your journey to prepare you for a wonderful end.
5. Be proud of every trial that comes your way because the emotional scars are medals, they stand as a testimony.
6. Whenever trials come your way, you have three choices;1) you let the trial define you, 2)you let the trial destroy you. 3) you let the trial strengthen your faith in God.
7. Your greatest trial today shall be your greatest testimony.
8. By trial God is shaping you for higher things.
9. The only way God can show us He is in control is to put us in situations that we cannot control.
10. Even the people that betray us is in God's plan because without Judas Jesus will not go to the cross.
11. God will not permit any trial to come your way unless there is a great blessing that is coming from that trial.
12. Only God can turn your mess to message, so keep trusting him. (Satan has no power to turn your mess to message instead he will escalate your mess)
13. Never judge someone without knowing the whole story.
14. Don't judge someone for their choice when you don't know their reasons.
15. Those who thank God even in trials turns their burden into blessing. (Refuse to be discouraged)
16. When you look at your trials as problems, it will continue to grow but when you see the trial as a blessing in disguise that is what it will become.
17. Character can not be developed in ease and quiet rather it is developed thru experience of trials. It also strengthens you and your success is achieved.
18. Prayer is the best armour against trial.
19. Trials are medicine which our greatest physician prescribe for us because we need trial to grow.
20. Sometimes trials are intended; 1) to make you to think, 2) to search the word of God, 3) to bring you to your knees.
21. The enemy always fight the hardest when he knows there is a great package from God for you.
22. Your current situation is not your permanent address.
23. Diamond cannot be polished without friction.
24. There is no setback you can face in life that God does not have a bounce back plan

HOW TO OVERCOME TRIALS

1. Trust God's wisdom
2. Refuse to murmur during trial.
3. Draw closer to God, read the bible more, pray more.
4. Increase your faith in God.
5. Repent from any sin and refuse to backslide.

RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

In today's world, one who talks face to face with the president of a country is seen as powerful, wealthy, influential and to an extent a small God. If you cross the path of such a person, the onus is on you to seek pardon else you will be ruthlessly dealt with. Such a person gets whatsoever he wants. In any case he does not get what he wants the tendency to work or speak against the president may arise. This is always the nature of relationship with man, unfortunately man seems to relate same way with God and that has been the challenge of an average child of God.
Good morning friends and welcome to a new day, the second day in the month of April. I pray we continue to rejoice and be glad in this day. Our reading today is from Deuteronomy 34:1-end. Our memory verse is from Deuteronomy 34:4 "And the Lord said to him, 'this is the land I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, I will give it to your descendants.' I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there."
Our memory verse is the last conversation Moses had with the Lord before he died and in this conversation we see clearly that the Lord maintained His position regarding Moses going in to the promised land. This God's position was as a result of Moses flaunting the instruction of God when He told him to speak to the rock for water to come forth instead Moses hit the rock with his staff. God made this pronouncement and maintained it but that did not change anything in His relationship with Moses. On the other hand Moses did not stop serving God neither did he stop obeying God's commandments. Moses was faithful in carrying out his primary role as a prophet of God and as the leader of the children of Israel. He ensured that he gave them all the instructions that God has commanded them to do as they go to possess the promised land. He equally wrote the commandments and commanded them to do and obey. He equally gave the children of Israel the blessings of God according to their tribe. At no point did he renege in doing as the Lord commanded him to do.
This is what a relationship with God is all about; God relates with us as a father and also as a friend, He gets strict with us and punishes us when we go astray and err, He also continues to love us till the end. That God loves us is not a passport for us to misbehave and that He punishes us when we err does not mean He has stopped loving us. They are all part and parcel of the relationship.
I don't know the status of your relationship with God, have you stopped loving God because he allowed some mishap to come your way? Have you searched yourself to be sure you are not the reason for the mishap? Did you just stop loving and obeying God's commandments because He did not answer your prayers?
I have news for you, when the Lord said His thoughts for you is of good and not of evil, He meant it with every fiber in Him. When He said fear not for I will be with you and I will lift you up with my victorious right hand, He was not joking. That He didn't answer your prayers does not mean His words are untrue. All He demands from us is trust. In trusting God, we appreciate His punishment and love Him more, because it is only the one who loves you that will call you to order.
Till I come your way again, remain blessed. 

VICTORY IN THE CHURCH

Good evening friends and happy new month. I pray that God's blessings will locate you wherever you are in this month of April.
Due to power challenge I was unable to post the sermon for yesterday, I am able to post it now and may the knowledge of this word bear much fruit in your life in Jesus name Amen.
Victory means having power or control over things that trouble us. Obadiah 1:17, it is when we have victory over a certain prevailing circumstance that we can say we have won the battle. In the house of God there is room for deliverance, for possessing one's possession and for holiness. People go to the house of God to worship God because of their problems. For all of this the house of God is meant for victory.

SOME IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT VICTORY IN THE CHURCH

• Everybody coming into the church have their unique problems.
• There are spirits responsible for individual problems in individual life and the spirit is the source of the problem. 
• The spirit controlling somebody can influence the life of another person if not careful. Mark 5:7-8
• In the house of God there is evil and good. 
• God expects us to live in love with one another. 
• The power that supply victory in the church is a power that cannot be defeated.
• As much as God is concerned, no person that enters into the church, the power of God is available for you. Psalm 91:1, Matthew 25:31-33
• There is going to be a separation between those that live a holy life and those that don't live a holy life. 
• There is no age limit regarding who will have victory .
• Faith in the word of God is ultimate, believe the word of the man of God. 

Till I come your way again, remain blessed. 

THINGS THAT ATTRACT CURSE

A very happy Sunday to you people of God. I trust you are all doing well in this day the Lord has made.
I come from a society that believes that for any bad thing that happens, it is as a result of witchcraft attack. A society that has been profoundly blind to the natural principle of cause and effect. The word of God today in Deuteronomy 27:15-26 itemized the things that attract curse and I will be sharing this information with you in today's post.
We must acknowledge one thing I have always said in my posts, our God is a God of process. He is a very organized and careful God, that is why it's important for a child of God to always read the word of God and live it. For in the word of God is all the instructions on living in this wicked world and being fulfilled. Outside the word of God is a life of confusion and misery.
The Lord through Moses commanded the children of Israel not to do the following in order not to be cursed;

1. To make a graven or molten in place of God attracts curse. This means to have another God besides the Almighty God. A lot of us have made material things our god and still expects God's blessings .
2. One who dishonours his parents attracts curse to himself. Our parents may be the best or the worst kind of human beings it doesn't matter because God has commanded that we honor them so we must. In honoring our parents whom we can see we learn to honor God whom we cannot see. 
3. One who removes his neighbor's landmark attracts curse. In general one who cheats is a candidate for curse. Be contented with what you have.
4. One who misleads a blind man on the road attracts curse. A blind man here is not necessarily one who is physically blind but also one who is spiritually blind. We see men who claim to be men of God misleading their followers who are spiritually blind just to extort money and material things from them. Be warned for you are attracting curse to yourself. 
5. One who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow attracts curse. We are all sojourners in this life and God has been faithful to us so it is demanded of every child of God to treat the sojourner in your place with kindness, fairness and justice. This also applies to the fatherless and the widow, they are without support and treating them unkindly is inhuman, God abhors it. 
6. One who lies with his father's wife attracts curse. For someone to lie with his father's wife is the height of disrespect and an abomination, God abhors it. 
7. One who lies with any kind of beast. We live in a world where men are driven by different fantasies, some lie with animals, some lie with same sex while some claim they do it for money. The word of God says it is ungodly and attracts curse.
8. One who lies with his sister, be it the father's daughter or the mother's daughter attracts curse. This has to do with the fear of God and discipline. No matter how beautiful and sweet your sister is God doesn't permit you to lie with her, be warned. 
9. One who lies with his mother-in-law attracts curse. The immorality of the end time is so bad that there are cases where a man lies with mother and daughter and yet sees it as normal. God says it attracts curse, be warned. 
10. One who slays his neighbor in secret attracts curse. To slay your neighbor in secret does not only mean to kill, it also mean to destroy your neighbor's reputation. A lot of times we go in secret and destroy the image of our neighbor and pretend we don't know the weight of what we did. Sometimes that action costs our neighbor the opportunity of a lifetime. This attitude attracts curse, desist from it.
11. One who takes bribe to slay the innocent attracts curse. No matter how desperate you are in need of money, taking a bribe to slay the innocent is not an option. Be warned. 
12. One who does not obey the commandments of God attracts curse. 

The next time you want to blame anyone for your misfortune, look inside of you to be sure you are not the one causing your own problem because of your negligence of the commandments of God.
Till I come your way again, remain blessed. 

THE GLEANER

Good morning friends, it's so good to reconnect with you my dear friends.
As a little girl my mum will always warn me to be careful not to end up a dropout eating leftovers from the table of my mates. That always caught my attention and made me strive to be the best I can be.
Our topic today deals with what I call the gleaners and it will interest you to know that God acknowledges two sets of people as far as harvest is concerned; the reapers and the gleaners. The interesting part is that we have the privilege to choose which we become.
Our Bible reading is from Deuteronomy 24:1-end and our memory verse is from Deuteronomy 24:21 "when you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterwards; it shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow." 
To glean means to gather stalks or ears of grain left by reapers.  It simply means to gather leftovers. Our memory verse clearly states God's instruction to the children of Israel regarding what happens to the leftovers on their field. The children of Israel are people chosen by God to be His people in accordance to the covenant He had with their fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Being God's chosen people they are landowners, God single-handedly brought them out of the the Land of Egypt where they sojourned for 430 years and brought them into the promised land, a land that flows with milk and honey. While settling them in the promised land God specifically commanded them to allow their leftovers to be gleaned by the following people;
1. The Sojourner; the sojourner is one with no control over things because he is not in his territory. So the sojourner is constantly dependent on the help he can get from the natives of the land where he finds himself. The Lord will always remind the Israelites that they be kind to sojourners for they were once like them in the land of Egypt.
2. The Fatherless; the fatherless are those who have no parental cover and support. The father represents a cover, a support and when the father is absent in someone's life the person looses balance and feels unprotected.
3. The Widow; the widow is someone who has incurred a loss. The loss of a husband to a woman is the loss of everything one can think of. It is the loss of support, the loss of companion, the loss of strength, the loss of income etc. 
The categories of the people mentioned are the gleaners and I ask you my readers; are you a reaper or a gleaner? If you are a gleaner which category of gleaner are you? It will interest you to know that if you have made the Lord your father, the author and finisher of your faith, then you should not be a gleaner but a reaper.
I hope to deal with the Reaper topic some other time.
Till I come your way again, remain blessed. 

CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS

Growing up, as a child when my mum is not at home, we play and sometimes we forget to do our domestic chores. At hearing the sound of her vehicle at the gate we begin to run helter-skelter trying to do our chores and ensure that the whole place is clean because woe betide you she comes in and finds the place in a mess. The remaining part of that day will be miserable for you.

My experience as a kid is likened to the relationship we often have with God regarding cleanliness. We get busy in life and do as we please not minding what the word of God says but once we encounter problem we try to live a holy life just to have access to God for deliverance or restoration. That is the only time we remember the word of God and what it implores us to do. May the Lord help us in Jesus Name, Amen.

Today's Bible reading is from Deuteronomy 23:1-end and our memory verse is from Deut. 23:14 "Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to save you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, that He may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you." The memory verse is interesting in that it clearly indicates that God is always in the midst of His people fighting seen and unseen battles and as such we are mandated to always be holy so as to let God dwell with us because at the sight of indecency God departs. The word of God also warned that God cannot behold iniquity meaning that God abhors it and cannot set His eyes on it let alone come in contact with it.

The message today looks to identify what it takes to be clean and attain godliness. The moment we hear cleanliness we think it means wearing a clean cloth, driving a clean car, living in a clean house etc. All of that counts but the cleanliness that is most important is the cleanliness on the inside of you. Through the guiding of the Holy Spirit am lead to make some wonderful discovery in the Bible reading of today regarding the possible dirts that can be found inside of a man and i will take them one after the other.

1. DYSFUNCTIONAL IDENTITY: In verse one of Deut.23, it says that if a man's testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he should not be admitted into the assembly of the Lord. The testicle of a man is the functional identity of the man, it is what make him a man because first he is a living being then by virtue of possessing testicles is a man. The spiritual connotation of this is identity. Your identity is very essential in our relationship with God. Be careful with what you do to your identity because it matters to God.
2. ILLEGITIMACY: The verse 2 of the passage again direct that a person begotten out of wedlock shall not enter into the assembly of God. A person begotten out of wedlock is called a bastard or an illegitimate child. This therefore means that God abhors every form of illegitimacy be it business or relationship. Also in Deut.23:18 it says, when you are bringing an offering to fulfill a vow, you must not bring to the house of God any offering from the earnings of a prostitute, whether a man or a woman for both are detestable to the Lord your God. God is not interested in earnings from illegitimate means.
3. IDOLATRY: The verse 4 of the passage says that because the Ammonite and Moabites did not meet you with food and water, they hired Balaam to curse you, they must not enter the assembly of God. This verse shows how God detests wickedness and idolatry. Thus idolatry breeds wicked devise and so the Lord abhors it.
4. INGRATITUDE: Verse 7 of the says; "Do not detest the Edomites or the Egyptians, because the Edomites are your relatives and you lived as foreigners among the Egyptians." Its crystal clear that the Lord demands we live a life of gratitude. In so many cases we have people complaining of how they were treated by relatives when they were living in their house forgetting that there are other relatives that refused to harbor them when they were in need of accommodation. Gratitude means appreciation and if one does not appreciate the least of kindness shown towards him/her in time of need then it will be difficult to expect gratitude from the same person when blessed for nothing.
5. GREED: In verse 19 of the passage it says, "Do not charge interest on the loans you make to a fellow Israelite, whether you loan money, or food or anything else." This verse says that you are free to engage in business transactions but do not be greedy for profit, let your profit be considerate.
6. DISTRUSTFUL: Verse 21 says, "When you make a vow to the Lord your God, be prompt in fulfilling whatever you promised Him. For the Lord your God demands that you promptly fulfill all your vows, or you will be guilty of sin." There is need for a child of God to always keep his/her word. God demands that from His children and the truth remains that if we can keep our promise to God whom we don't see then it is easy for us to keep our promise to our fellow human beings.

Till i come your way again, remain blessed.

POWER TO LIVE A PEACEFUL LIFE

By all means pursue peace with all men remains a standing order by God to man and adherence to this order determines how truthful we are as children of God.
Good morning friends, it's a wonderful day the Lord has made and I bring you this Sunday message from one of my father's in the Lord, Pastor Samuel Oguche, be blessed as you read thru.
Our Bible reading in today's service is from 2Timothy 2:22 and Hebrew 12:14. The Bible from the two portions we read clearly indicates that there are categories of people; the righteous and unrighteous.
What is peace? Literally speaking, peace is a state of not being troubled, a state of being free from the trouble around. To live a peaceful life, it borders on all other things. We seek peace in every area of our life; finances, marriage, health, relationship, family, ministry, academic etc.

SOME FACTS ABOUT LIVING A PEACEFUL LIFE 

1. To be a child of God, you must be a peacemaker. Matthew 5:9
2. Living a peaceful life does not close door of challenges but how you handle the challenges confirms you are a peaceful child of God. 
3. In many instances, living a peaceful life can be keeping away from utterances.
4. There is no unity where there is no peace. God wants a relationship that is peaceful amongst us. 
5. Jesus is the only source of enduring peace, John 14:27
6. The world also give their own peace John 16:33
7. There is always a price to pay for peace to be available. 
8. Don't delay in settling disputes with anyone who offends you lest the devil uses it against you, Matthew 5:25.
9. 2Samuel 24:1-4 your peace can be manipulated by the devil, Job is a clear example. Job didn't suffer all that he did because he sinned rather it was because of the wickedness of the devil to subdue him and make him turn away from God. 
10. When you live a peaceful life, you attract people to yourself. Genesis 34:21

At the same we must be conscious of things that can erode peace in our lives and mind them. These are;

• Refusing to follow Jesus prescription for handling disputes. Jesus prescribes dialogue. 
• Walking by assumption instead of making proper enquiry. 
• Refusal to make enquiry .
• Keeping wrong information bottled up. 
• Giving room for unprofitable gossip. 
• Ungodly fear. 

Till I come your way again, remain blessed.