REPORT DON’T MURMUR For Today Saturday June 6th 2015

Theme: REPORT DON’T MURMUR

Memorise: Plead my cause, O LORD, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me. Psalm 35:1

Bible Text: Luke 18:1-8, Bible in one year: 1^st Kings 11:1-12:15, Luke 3:23-4:13

One of the sins that God hates so much is the sin of murmuring. During the mass exodus of the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land, the reason why God destroyed some of them was due to their incessant murmuring. They kept on murmuring instead of discussing their problems with the One who has severally demonstrated the capacity to solve them. A reoccurring scene in their journey is described in Numbers 14:1-2. The consequence of this demonstration of faithfulness in God was that He denied them the joy of making it to the Promised Land. They all died in the wilderness, according to what they had said against themselves while murmuring. We must be careful of what we use our mouth to say in times of challenges (Numbers 14:28).

When confronted with the challenges of life, we should learn from our Bible reading and our memory verse what our attitude should be. In our memory verse, the Psalmist asked God to come to his aid against enemies that fought against him. He chose the correct Ally for the battle of life he was confronted with – the One whose Name is the Lord of hosts. He would rather report his enemies to the Captain of his battle rather than murmur about them. When you consider the end of David and the posthumous glory accorded him till date, you will see a man whose Ally was the Almighty God. Also, the widow in the parable of Jesus did not go to the house of the judge to murmur. She knew what she wanted: that the judge should fight her cause and grant her justice. Nobody knows what her adversary did to her; probably the adversary killed her husband and took their properties away. We are not even told for how many days, weeks, months or years she had been going to the judge for justice. But one thing we know is that, she kept on saying to him. “Avenge me on my adversary” (Luke 18:3). The judge had no choice but to avenge her. Hear the Lord’s conclusion from this parable in Luke 18:7-8^a:

“And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.”

This is so confronting and reassuring. I therefore urge you to cultivate the habit of reporting your adversaries to your sure Ally: the All-powerful God. Don’t engage in murmuring which you think you are praying. My prayer for you is that the Great God of heaven will avenge you of your adversaries this season, and you will know peace in Jesus’ Name.    

Prayer Point: Father, You are the All-powerful One, arise and avenge me of all my adversaries in Jesus Name. 

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THE OTHER SIDE OF PROSPERITY For Today:Friday June 5th 2015

 THEME: THE OTHER SIDE OF PROSPERITY

Memorise: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: proverbs 30:8

Bible Text: 2^nd Chronicles 18:1-3, Bible in one year: 1^st Kings 9-10, Luke 3:7-22

Prosperity is good, and it is far better than poverty. As a matter of fact, God wants His children to prosper (3^rd John 2). However, we cannot wave off the words of Agur’s prophesy in today’s memory verse. One may wonder why he would make this strange utterance. The answer lies in Proverbs 30:9

“Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.”

The first part of his reason for this statement is what I consider to be the other side of prosperity. When you become so prosperous that you forget the God who prospered you in the first place, you are in very serious trouble. My prayer for you is that the prosperity that will make you forsake God will not come your way in Jesus’ Name.

In our Bible reading, we see how God prospered King Jehoshaphat with abundant riches; but after he experienced prosperity, he made a military alliance with the wicked King Ahab. He would have lost his life through this evil association with Ahab, but for the mercy of God (2^nd Chronicles 18:31). You must be very careful of the people you associate with as you climb the ladder of prosperity (Proverbs 19:4). Some people suddenly become clubbers after they start commanding wealth. They now enjoy the world of vanities, and no longer value time for fellowship with the brethren. The story of King David in 2^nd Samuel 11:1-2 is an example of what prosperity can do to a one-time valiant warrior. David had no time for extra-marital affairs when he was running for his dear life from cave to cave. But after the crown came, at a time he was supposed to lead Israel to battle as he used to do, he was busy enjoying a sinful holiday.

Should we then conclude that prosperity is evil? Not at all; all we need to do is to fellow the pattern of prosperity management used by the fathers of faith like Abraham. No matter how wealthy you become, keep standing out as a lover of God who trembles at His commandments. Your wealth has a purpose, which is to serve the interest of God and His Kingdom through the machinery of the Church. You cannot imagine that God will bless someone with a car, when the motive is to use it for seducing innocent girls to defile them. This is the reason why some children of God are yet to receive their promised prosperity: God knows they cannot handle it yet.   

Prayer Point: Father, grant me the wisdom and the spiritual maturity to handle wealth.

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GET RID OF THE AMALEKITES For Thursday June 4th 2015

Topic:  GET RID OF THE AMALEKITES 

Memorise: And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. Matthew 5:29

Read: 1^st Samuel 15:1-3, Bible in one year: 1^st Kings 8:12-66, Luke 2:41-3:6

Who or what is an Amalekite? An Amalekite is a symbolic representation of whosoever or whatsoever stands as an enemy of God or His plan. In our Bible reading, God opened the book of remembrance to the page where the wickedness of the Amalekites against His chosen people was recorded. 1^st Samuel 15:2 says:

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THE TRUE WORSHIPPERS For Wednesday June 3rd 2015

Topic: THE TRUE WORSHIPPERS 

Memorise: God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:24

Read: John 4:21-24, Bible in one year: 1^st Kings 7:1-8:11, Luke 2:22-40

It is not all acts of worship that God accepts, because not all worshippers are true worshippers. The truth was revealed by Jesus in His conversation with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He also revealed some other great truths about worship that we should pay close attention to if we want our worship to be acceptable to God. The first of these is that any “God” that is limited or restricted to particular place is false and not worthy of worship. Worship directed towards such contraptions of men is counterfeit worship. The worship of the true God does not involve going to a junction where three roads meet to put food items for God to come and eat. Paul came across worshippers of such gods at Mars’ Hill Athens (Acts 17:22-31). The true God is described thus by the Psalmist in Psalm 8:1:

“O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Who hast set thy glory above the heavens.”

Another truth about worship which Jesus revealed is that any god that does not have a fatherly relationship with his worshippers is not worthy of our worship. Anyone worshipping such gods is not a true worshipper. This is why Jesus came to make us children of His Father. Also, when He was teaching His disciples how to pray, He described the true God as “Father” (Luke 11:2). Furthermore, Jesus revealed that our worship of God is not true worship if we do not know the God we are worshipping. This is the reason why Paul tried to introduce the Athenians to the God they were ignorantly worshipping (Acts 17:23). He tried to teach them that they were wrong to think that the Godhead could be represented by gold, silver or stone graven by art and man’s devices (Acts 17:29). No worshipper should ignorantly think that a Holy God will accept worship from a life laden with the sin of falsehood, pretence and all manner of immorality and wickedness.

True worship involves worshipping the true God in spirit and in truth, we must worship God in spirit because God is a Spirit, and only through the spirit can we relate meaningfully with His Spirit. To worship God in Sprit means to do what He bids you to do with a spiritual mind of faith. These are things the Holy Spirit of God would ask us to do what viewed with a carnal mind, are difficult to understand. For example, when God asked Noah to build a big ship on dry ground, to men of his generation, this was not a sensible thing to do. That a person should stick to one spouse “for better, for worse” may not sound reasonable, but that is what the word of God says. A true worshipper of God will not tell lies even if there is no risk of being found out. To a true worshipper, being truthful is not about man but about God who is all-knowing.   

Prayer Point: Father, grant me grace to live a life of acceptable worship through Your Spirit in Jesus’ Name.

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DON’T CLOSE YOUR MOUTH II for Tuesday June 2nd 2015

 TOPIC: DON’T CLOSE YOUR MOUTH  II 

Memorise: Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye  should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the father in my name, he may give it you. John 15:16

Read: Matthew 28:18-20, Bible in one year: 1^st Kings 5-6, Luke 2:1-21

In addition to opening our mouth in prayer, opening our mouth as witnesses of Jesus is another obligation we must perform. Evangelistic outreach is for all children of God; not for God’s ministers alone. We must all bear fruit of souls into God’s kingdom as commanded by our Lord in today’s memory verse. To back us up in this obligation, our Lord Jesus Christ assures us that all power in heaven and on earth belongs to Him. It is therefore a settled matter that no power on earth or in the spiritual world can stop us from carrying out His instructions. We are therefore inexcusable if we fail to win souls. He instructed us to go and teach all nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The Great Commission therefore involves teaching. Let us pause and think about what this assignment of teaching means.

To teach is to expound truth that will bring about change in the taught. We are faced with a two-pronged problem in the area of fulfilling this assignment today. One aspect of this problem is that the teacher who is supposed to expound the truth is often afraid of what the reaction of the student would be to a demand for change; hence, he shuts his mouth. But the Bible in 2^nd Timothy 4:2 says:

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”

The other aspect of this problem is that the people to be taught are not comfortable with the cry for “change”. They do not want to be “intimidated” by the “dos and don’ts” of their new found faith in Christ. Such people are deceiving themselves because the Bible does not say we called into lawlessness. As a matter of fact and whether we believe it or not, a yoke of “learning and change” is attached to our calling into the faith. Jesus in Matthew 11:29a said:

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;”

It is our duty as children of God to open our mouths wide to this perverted generation and teach them the counsel of God without fear or favour. I was in a church sometime last year and I heard a sister teaching on tithes. In order to make people accept the doctrine of tithing, she said they could start by giving 5% of their income and gradually increase it! What an erroneous teaching! We must not hold back the truth from those we are sent to. This is the only way our fruit can endure, and then our prayers will be answered.

Action Point: Determine to properly disciple your converts through sound teaching of the Bible from today.

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DON’T CLOSE YOUR MOUTH I for Monday June 1st 2015

Topic: DON’T CLOSE YOUR MOUTH  I

Memorise: Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. James 4:2

Read: Daniel 9:1-19, Bible in one year: 1^st Kings 3-4, Luke 1:57-80

Our Bible reading shows Daniel, a great man of prayer, interceding for his nation, Israel. In his prayer, he asked God to remember His promise to restore the nation of Israel. He was determined to seek the face of God for mercy, through prayers and supplications with fasting. He mourned for the despicable condition of the Jews who were scattered all over the world and for the ruins of Jerusalem. There are great lessons of life we can profit from when we ponder on this example of Daniel.

One of these lessons is from this statement: “I Daniel understood by books” (Daniel 9:2). It was Daniel’s discovery and understanding of what the Lord has said through Prophet Jeremiah 29:10, concerning the time of His visitation to restore Israel as a nation that motivated him to intercede for his people. Recognise the fact that in this period, there was no Bible collating all the writings of the Prophets in one volume. The writing of the Prophets were on different scrolls spread across various locations. Therefore, it must have been a lot of hard work for Daniel to search for the relevant scrolls of the Prophets, and then read through them to know what God had said about the situation he was bothered about. Reading, studying and meditating on God’s word is hard work, but the extent to which you know the Bible is the extent to which you will know the mind of God concerning you. When you know the mind of God concerning a situation, it will build your confidence as you approach your Heavenly Father in prayer.

Our Lord Jesus Christ assured us of answers to our prayers in Matthew 7:8. He followed up this assurance by asking this question in Matthew 7:9:

“Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?”

In answer to Our Lord’s question, a father indeed would not do that. How much more our Heavenly Father who is more benevolent than our earthly fathers (Matthew 7:1)? I therefore encourage you to study to know the mind of God, so as to pray aright at all times. This alone can guarantee express answer to your needs. It will not be good for you to engage in an exercise in futility. Pray according to God’s mind in His holy word and you will be happy you did. Do not keep your mouth shut and suffer in silence.

Prayer Point :Father, help the leaders of my country to be alive to their responsibilities in Jesus’ Name.

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