Jesus-theMessiah.com

A poem about the wonderful Jesus. I hope you enjoy.

Be blessed.

God is my rock, my home
In His presence is where I belong
He’s all faithful, my entire hope
He’s my shelter from the storm

My God provides all I need
He sees all and watches over me
My God of great comfort
The God who broke my chains and set me free

When He called me that’s when life begun
Now I live, I live for Him
I am His servant
I pray I won’t leave His will undone

God works for the good of those who love Him
All glory to the eternal King
More praises to Him my heart will sing

His mercy endures to everlasting
I just want to be like Him
So more worship, more honour I can bring

Devoted to You LORD am I and many more like me
We live for You Oh God
You Jesus are our home, our life, our all.

Simply speaking, prayer is talking to God; having a conversation with God. It involves crying out, petitioning, listening, waiting, praising, worshipping, asking, interceding. Wow, why does it include waiting? Well, it ought to be continuous and God works in His own timing. While we wait, we continue to serve God, we continue to ask Him for deeper intimacy with Him. We might think that we’re all prayed-out; that there’s not much more we can ask for as God already knows and sees all we and the people around us need. Yes, God knows everything, but we should still continue communicating with Him. Only God is independent in nature, we  are eternally dependent on God, otherwise we cease to live, believe it or not. Having said that, we can see why we need to talk to Him about everything. Here are some prayer points that we can take to God:

1. Pray for desire of God’s Word – Pray that a desire to read God’s Word will overshadow our souls, pray also that His Spirit will open our eyes to understand His Word. Psalm 119:18

2. Pray for our hearts – Pray by the power of God’s Spirit our hearts will be inclined to receiving and applying God’s ways in our lives. Psalm 119:36

3. Pray for immediate obedience – Pray that we will not do what Jonah initially did, run from God and His command, but instead do what Jonah eventually did. When God told Peter to cast his net, Peter though through his experience didn’t see how he’d catch any fish at that hour of the day, obeyed Jesus’ command. The Bible shows no evidence of Peter grumbling at Jesus’ command, and though this does not mean he did not grumble, due to the silence of the Word in this regard I choose to accept Peter’s response was immediate. Ultimately, it is important that we obey God’s command. So if there is an area in our lives we know we are disobeying God, today we can ask God for forgiveness and heed to His Word now.

4. Pray for our fellowship group or church – Pray that we will not give up meeting together as some are in the habbit of doing. Pray we will build up and encourage each other.

5. Pray for those who do not know Christ – Either at your place of work or study, family members or friends. Pray for their salvation. Pray that they will respond to God’s callings and will not harden their hearts towards His opportunity of grace.

6. Pray for the persecuted siblings in Christ – And there are many. North Korea and Egypt are some major ones. Find out more at http://www.worldwatchlist.us/. Pray that they will not give up hope but will remain steadfast in their faith in Jesus Christ.

7. Pray for boldness – A boldness that the Spirit of  God granted the Apostle Paul. Pray that we will use our gifts to share the gospel with others. Remember what Jesus said in John 9:4 (“As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.”), also remember His last words to us before going back to heaven (Matthew 28:19). To be frank, I believe He means to say: go tell everyone about Me!

8. Pray for Bibles – There are actually people who are craving a copy of the Bible, craving for His Word. Pray that those with the means (even ourselves) will not hesitate to donate Bibles to those needing to hear the truth that comes from Him. [Read more]

That is by no means a finite list. Every area of our lives is completely dependent on God. We cannot do anything without Him.

Ultimately, let’s just pray that we will understand how much God loves us and we ourselves will love Him more. The more we love God the better servants we are to His people which brings about His glory. God is truly worthy of all our love and devotion. He is our entire hope..and I do not say this lightly. God IS our ENTIRE hope.

May the peace of God be with you all.

The Bible says the prayers of the righteous availeth much (James 5:16). Recently, I have been reading about North Korea, and other places in the world where Christians are persecuted and oppressed. Open Doors states the following: “In practice, civilians do not have any rights. There is no freedom to build churches or to worship in homes. Possession of a Bible or Christian materials is illegal and punishable by death. The proclamation of the Gospel is strictly forbidden. Christian parents can’t even share their beliefs with their children until they are old enough to understand the dangers. Christians are viewed as ‘a danger to society’ or ‘spies of the traitorous West.’”

“For Christians inside North Korea their fear has increased as the government has mandated all the people to bow down to the gods of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un and participate in the celebration,” says Open Doors USA President/CEO Dr. Carl Moeller. [Full story]

Many Christians are thrown into prisons with deplorable conditions. However, the church is still growing there. It has been estimated that there are about 200, 000 – 400, 000  underground Christians there (some of which are in prison)^[1].

In Nigeria, the pastor, as well as 20 worshippers were killed during an attack ^[2]. In Egypt, countless of our brothers and sisters there face persecution by their Muslim neighbours.

I am thankful to the Lord that I am not under such trials (maybe not yet), but that doesn’t mean I must sit back and just feel sorry for my brothers and sisters around the world, there is always something we can do and the best I can think of is prayer. Jesus, God Himself, prayed while He was on Earth. Jesus set an example for us that we must live a life of continuous prayer. Let’s pray that God’s will be done in not only our lives, but also the lives of our brothers and sisters who are under such heavy trials. Pray for those doing the persecuting, pray that their hearts will be arrested to receive God’s grace. Pray that the examples of our siblings in Christ will minister to the hearts of those doing the persecuting.

I was reading today some chapters in Psalms and I found that these particular verses reached my heart. I also pray that God will:

Psalms 119: 34 Give me understanding and I shall keep Thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make me to go in the path of Thy commandments, for therein do I delight. Incline my heart unto Thy testimonies, and not to covetousness; turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity, and quicken Thou me in Thy way. Establish Thy word unto Thy servant, who is devoted to the fear of Thee. Turn away my reproach which I fear, for Thy judgments are good.

I am again reminded that God is the One doing the changing, causing us to live for Him. Due to our sinful nature we are not naturally inclined to do so. Let’s ask God to incline our hearts toward His statues and not toward selfish gain. It is important that we pray according to His will. James 4:3 says “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” Having read that, we see that we can ask for things out of His will or not according to His purpose.

Abraham Lincoln once said “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go.”

Best place we can reside is in His presence, talking to Him as part of our daily lifestyle ensures that we become more like Him. How do I know that, well, think about the terms or phrases you often use in your speech. They probably reflect Bible passages or phrases from close friends. God says for out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34). When we spend time with God, His Spirit deposits truth into our hearts. So let us not neglect our prayer life which is spending time communicating with God. Pray for our siblings in Jesus, pray for those who commit works of inquity, pray for ourselves. In other words, let’s talk to God about what’s going on around us and with us.

A sister says “When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles, When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devils shouts for joy.”

Now that doesn’t sound very good. Let’s not forget to live a  prayer filled life. Let’s not talk to God only when we feel like it. Remember, the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective. Pray for me also that I myself will heed these words.

May the Spirit of God be with you all.

Read more about our persecuted siblings in Christ Jesus at: http://www.opendoorsusa.org/ , http://www.persecution.org/

At fellowship today, a brother said something that indeed reached to my spirit. He said that we should tremble at the thought or knowing a Holy God wants to dwell in us. God promises His Holy Spirit to all those who believe in the Name of Jesus Christ. It is truly a privilege to be chosen by God. As another brother puts it, it is unfair for us to go to heaven because we are all wretched sinners who deserve to go to hell, but God in His abounding mercy redeemed us! Praise Him, praise His Holy Name!!

Reference: Romans 9, 1 Peter 1:1-2, Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians 4:30 et al (too numerous to list)

It’s 2012! Another year to serve Him Who gives life. I pray this year instead of growing weary in our walk, that we will see this new year as another opportunity to have deeper and more meaningful fellowship with the Lord God. Today I was moved by the Spirit of the Father speaking through the pastor today. What remains with me was the reference of a famous race horse who runs faster and faster the further and nearer to the end he got. The pastor implored whether we ourselves (even in our old age) want to “grow stronger and better and more faithful to God; year by year to grow in grace and exceed in the year we’ve done before”. Should we “dear to be satisfied with last year’s results?” The pastor went on to beseech us: “by the grace of God to run faster in the next quarter mile or however long God gives to us”. The sermon was based off the Biblical account of Enoch, the faithful one who walked with God for 300 years! Wow. Isn’t that amazing? May we be challenged to endure as Enoch did.

Listen to the sermon Life and Death (Genesis 5:1-32)

I haven’t come across anyone who’d prefer their friends to keep troubling matters to themselves. We often want a person to feel comfortable in confiding with us; opening up their hearts to let us know their deepest hurts. And many times it may be something that we ourselves are going through or went through. But what if it’s not? What if your friend comes to you and says they lived in an abusive home, drink to sleep because of the grief caused from the past; what do we say then? Sometimes, there’s nothing we can say. If a friend is telling us of a loved one who has passed away, sometimes it’s just best to listen. But many other times, that friend is looking for answers, and we ourselves better be open to what God wants us to say to that person.

What I’ve noticed is that often times we tend to try to give solutions to the symptoms without listening to God for a solution to the core problem. So let’s say you have a friend who says they want this and they are not going to be happy if the particular want doesn’t come to pass. What do we say then? Do we offer books or guides on how to be content with not getting that particular want? I think that’s giving a “solution” to a symptom of a greater problem. If we listen to that person carefully, they’ll reveal things to us about their relationship with someone else, often someone from the past, like a mother, father, and other relatives or maybe even a close friend. Either way you can be sure that this great desire to fill up a void was intensified due to some broken relationship. So we don’t offer the person solutions to the symptoms. Let me give a real life scenario. Say a friend says he wants to find a girl and get married. He says he will not be happy if he doesn’t have a wife to call his own, he has been praying to God but “no answer”. Let’s not be quick to offer “be content while single” guide books. Let’s not only say: “Trust in God, He loves you, He’s there for you”. While that is the truth, it’s hardly helpful if the person thinks that they are doing just that. Keep listening, that friend will surely reveal the underlying reason for this “I will not be happy without it” want. Almost always it is because of a want to feel loved, accepted. And that desire to be loved is now stressed as a result of something painful from their past or possibly, present life. Let me say that we all want to feel loved, but when we start thinking that “we must have and will not be happy without” we’re setting ourselves up for hurt and disappointment. So when our friends start talking like this, know that what they think they want is hardly the issue. We know it’s God they really need, but there is something that’s preventing that relationship from happening or blooming. So find out if this friend has any grudges towards anyone who might have hurt them. Let the person know that we must forgive and let go; that true forgiveness comes without condition. It doesn’t give the offender licence to continue hurting us, but it frees us and allows us also to be forgiven by God (Matthew 6:14-15). Depending on what was said, we’ll also want to let the person know that God is NOT a vending machine; that we can’t expect Him to do things on our terms and in our time. Remind the friend that we don’t get Jesus to have as a personal genie, we get Jesus because we are in need of a saviour, because we need His righteousness to wash us clean from sin (all rebellious actions against God; fornication (sex before marriage), homosexuality, lying, stealing, cheating, adultery, prostitution, murder, covetousness, drunkenness, slander, blasphemy (like using God’s name as a curse when trying to express disgust) and the list goes on). Also, that we need to seek Him, and the other godly desires of our hearts will be given us. Of course, in everything we do we petition to God in prayer. We can offer to pray for the person, and ask God to reveal things to that person, but I think we should also offer ourselves to be even more used by God on behalf of that individual. Here’s why. As a believer, if I’m going through a particular struggle often times I’m too consumed in the problem to actually realise that God has already answered me. I often need another brother or sister in Christ to bring me revelation from God. It will then occur to me that this was actually shown to me already.

So let’s be a lot more there for each other. There are times when we talk to God, He answers us and we know He answered. But when someone’s too consumed with the present problem, they often miss out on the answer from God. So at times we really need to get as involved as the Spirit will allow us to. Let us also get to the problem and not give solutions to symptoms of. The symptoms help to confirm our Spirit given suspicious of the real problem. May we pray that God gives us the wisdom and discernment to speak words that the Holy Spirit will use to get to the person’s heart.

We want to be used by the Spirit to get to the problem of heart; we want to be used by the Spirit to speak the Word to the heart. We need to get there, we need to be there.

A short video that will inspire the highest ideals, the clearest and most noble biblical values, and which do so with a commitment to holiness.  This is the salvation message and you got to get it!

Visit their website: http://juststopandthink.com

Life like a corn harvest can be challenging as well as tiring. Today, I as well as some other mates had the privilege to harvest corn at the Bethel foundation, which is a home for blind orphans in China. Without a good system in place, the task could have proven to be an unnecessarily tiring one. Our group decided instead of chopping all the corn stalks down and then picking out the corn cobs in the heap of chopped down corn stalks, while one chopped the other would pick and another would also bag. We did this in a row like fashion, and by time we knew it, we had harvested hundreds of corn in just a couple of hours. Our system was effective and it kept us on target. Life too has an effective “system” for its challenges, whether good or seemingly bad, that works every time. What I am referring to is faith, faith in Jesus Christ. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, but you often feel drowned in heart ache or tasks of life, then it just could mean that you feel that way because you are not using that God given privilege to go to God in prayer. It doesn’t matter what you’re facing, could be an exam, financial issues, marital issues whatever; prayer is your most effective system in overcoming any problem that you may face. If you do not know what to pray for, just pray that the Lord’s will be done and you are ready to accept the outcome of His will.

I myself for the past two days was down in my spirit. I was broken hearted by the actions of a friend and was just not my usual “up to beat” self. We all have these kinds of days, and though the Good LORD does not cause them to happen, He can and will use them for good. All we have to be is ready for Him to do so. In the past two days I have been crying out to God for strength, crying out to Him to give me a forgiving heart and asking Him to bless the friend that had hurt me. The latter of my prayer was not easy, but it’s necessary and I trust God to bring forth a good harvest having humbly petitioning it. It’s always necessary to call out the name of anyone we may have a conflict with. No one likes mentioning the name of someone that they are in some way or another not pleased with. You will even notice parents, even though they love their children dearly, will say to the other spouse “your daughter/your son did this or said that…”. During the easy days it’d sound more like “our daughter Jane/son John… ”. There’s more intimacy when things are good, but often a disconnection otherwise. So with that being said, when we pray for someone who has hurt us in some way or another, it is best to mention the person’s name or at least petition the matter with words like “God, please bless my friend”. This in no way gives the person license to what they may or may not have done, but it’s an effective “system” that harvests good character. Spending time with God in prayer is something we need to do daily, good days or not. The Bible records many times when our Lord Jesus prayed. If God the Son prayed, then we too should see this as pertinent in our lives. Don’t go another day without talking to your God, better said: don’t go any day without talking to your God, our God. Just like today my buddies and I harvested corn with an effective system which kept us on target, so too do we need to commune daily with God in order that we too remain on target, which is in His will. Praying in spirit and in truth keeps us geared towards the will of our LORD. Praying and believing that God will answer any prayer within His will, is simply known as trusting God, hoping in Him or waiting upon Him. We know what the Word says about this:

Isaiah 40:31

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

We should delight in the LORD always, in this way He will harvest His good character in us.

After reading a chapter in Stormie Omartian’s book, The Power of a Praying® Woman, God has shown me that I have been sinning against Him, and I didn’t even realize it. There is a dream in my heart, and though it is a godly dream, I’ve come to understand that I must surrender my dream to Him. All along I was trying to make my dream happen instead of trusting God to make it happen. I’m going to stop there and make this very short and to the point. Lack of trust in God is a sin, doubting God is a sin! If we don’t trust someone, we’ll hardly trust what they have to say. God speaks to us through His Word and even through others as He did with me through chapter 14 of Omartian’s book. If we display lack of trust in God, are we really putting our lives in His hands? Remember God only has plans to prosper us (Jeremiah 29:11). All we need to do is surrender all to Him, keep focus and delight in Him and He shall give us the desires of our heart. Easier said than done, but God wants us to cling to Him completely and not on our own understanding. God is good!

Trust God, and say no to any doubt that will cause you to sin against Him!

Wake up! So you say that you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, wonderful! You sing songs “I have the blessings of Abraham”. Hey, did you know that Abraham when called by God just obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going? Many of us just tap our feet, clap our hands and think that’s about it. We pray: “Father, raise up labourers to preach the word to the lost souls.” Guess what, you’re that labourer that God has called. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you should know now that you have work to do. It isn’t just about gathering, we need this to equip ourselves, for encouragement but do not forget why we gather, and what task that Jesus has left us with. While Jesus was returning to the Father, He could have said many things to us, but we can safely say that His focus was on setting us off to continue the good work.

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.”  Jesus left us with this work. If it were just for the people of that time He would have probably said to make disciples of these nations. Instead Jesus said all nations which we can see to mean as all people, all generations. I remember not too long ago my own self feeling drained out in my walk; I then prayed to God to draw me closer to Him. He sent one of His servants that has brought me to know the same thing. The Great Commission still very much applies to all believers today. We must do the work of Him who sent us, while it is still day, for the night cometh when no man can work. Do not be like that wicked servant that hide his mina in a piece of cloth, God has given each believer a gift. Put your gift to use and seek after the lost sheep. The Father is not willing that any one soul be lost (Matthew 18:14). Currently, there are billions still not reconciled through the blood of Jesus. Be a witness for Jesus today; the rich man begged Abraham that Lazarus would return to his father’s house to warn his 5 brothers of what is yet to come, the eternal fellowship with God in heaven or the eternal torment in hell with the devil and his demons. Abraham said no, they have Moses and the Prophets. Today, we are the ones whom this applies to. How can the lost believe in Christ without having heard the Gospel (Romans 10:14-15)? God’s word must be fulfilled, He said that His word shall be preached to all nations and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14).

Worried that you will face persecution? Well, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” (1 John 3:16). We have to be willing to lay down our lives. To die preaching this Gospel of Christ is one that we must all be prepared to face. There are no buts, ifs and exceptions about it, Jesus said to go! So go!

We want to be like Jesus? Here’s what Jesus said: “I must do the work of Him who sent Me while it is day, for the night cometh where no man can work.” –  John 9:4. We ought to have the same attitude towards sharing the Gospel with others. Anything otherwise is just plain disobedience. I now know this, you now know this. No excuses.

James 4:17 “To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”

May the Holy Spirit continue to convict our hearts, may the church wake up, there’s work to be done; the Great Commission.