I lost my time!
By admin | March 1, 2010
This week I’d like to share a practical experience with you that I hope you’ll be able to learn from.
Recently whilst the kids were on half term, I came back from work at the usual time and sat down and watched TV for 5 hours straight. I was watching a game of football, which took about 95 minutes, sat through the commentary;at the end of the match, saw highlights of the same programme on another channel and then listened to the commentary on the other channel. Before I knew it, 5 hours was gone. I know the scriptures in Ecclesiastes 11 that there is a time for everything under the sun. I know that watching TV is not of itself a bad thing and I do enjoy watching TV programmes but I knew that this was not a time for leisure but time wasting. What’s interesting about this experience is the fact that I intermittently told myself to get up and do something more fruitful with my time.
I eventually got up, did a few things and headed straight to bed. Then something interesting happened. The following day I found it difficult to pray. To cut a long story short, before I knew it, I had to repent to God for wasting the time He had given me. I realised that time, resources and talents have been given to us to use wisely. We are custodians of time and time is one of the few things in life that once lost can never be regained. Of course, God can restore to us the things that should have been done (following repentance), but time as an entity (24 hour cycle) cannot be regained. It is not a resource that you can store and use later. Therefore cherish time. Sensitivity to God’s timing is crucial on a daily basis.
For some of us, time wasting can involve social networking sites or just surfing the Internet for hours. For others it might be meaningless chatter on the telephone for hours or even watching endless hours of TV,
This post is not about you thinking of how you spend every moment of your time but to identify, through the guidance and sensitivity of the Holy Spirit (and this is the important thing) - know when we are wasting time.
I am praying for the grace to use my time more wisely and hope that this post has been a source of blessing to you to think about how you use your time. Where we have lost time, let’s ask God to help us redeem the time i.e. redeem what we would have achieved during that time.
So until I appear again in your inbox, stay blessed
Ola
www.christianbusinessmagazine.com
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Have you made this connection?
By admin | February 13, 2010
Recently I asked myself a question ‘why do I want the anointing? At the time I was meditating on Numbers 13. After careful consideration of the question (you know when God gets your attention), my honest answer was that I wanted God’s power live an empowered and victorious life. Whilst this is a noble answer and indeed I think that the answer is right but God wanted to show me another perspective, I believe that when we call out for God’s presence, His glory, anointing or even gifts of the Spirit, the primary purpose should be so that we can serve God.
Let’s consider a few scriptures to this effect. I have underlined the ‘connection’ in these scriptures.
Numbers 33:11-12.
12 Then Moses said to the LORD, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.’ But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.’ 13 “Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation [is] Your people.” 14 And He said, “My Presence will go [with you,] and I will give you rest.”
The conservation that took place between God and Moses which ended with Moses asking to see God’s glory, started with Moses wanting to serve God (verse 12 – i.e. leading God’s people into the Promised Land). Moses already had a good relationship with God but now he was asking for God’s empowerment so he could serve God better.
Second example: Mark 16:15-18
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they[b] will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Here the Lord Jesus is giving last minute instructions to His disciples. Look again at the word at beginning of verse 17 ‘And’, Jesus is saying here that we an go out and preach the gospel by the power of God. This view is further reinforced in Acts 1:8
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me[a] in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Coming back to the question that we started with, when you ask for God’s supernatural assistance, is it for the purpose of serving Him? What I have tried to show through these scriptures is that the anointing is for service. Basically God empowers us to serve Him.
Whatever the reason that you are seeking God’s presence, make sure that serving Him is one of them.
I trust that this post has also been a blessing to you, so until I appear again in your inbox, stay blessed
Ola
www.christianbusinessmagazine.om
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What we can learn from the way Moses handled criticism
By admin | February 3, 2010
The Moses way of handling criticism
One of my favourite bible characters in recent years has been Moses. His knowledge and experience of God and His glory encourages me to know God more.
Reading through the book of Numbers recently, I was struck by how Moses reacted to the constant complaints and criticism by the children of the children of Israel. What I found particularly interesting was that whether the criticism was justified or not, Moses’ response was always the same. He would take it to God in prayer. When the people were wrong and God wanted to judge them, he would stand in the place of intercession for them. He always prayed to get a Godly perspective and in some cases Godly instructions. He never acted alone.
Let’s consider a few examples:
Numbers 12:1 Here his own brother and sister rose up against him because of the Ethiopian woman he had married. So angry was God at this revolt that he caused Miriam to have leprosy. To have leprosy in those days was to be an outcast. So you can imagine Miriam the prophetess being an outcast in the house of God. So what did Moses do? He prayed (Numbers 12:3) and God removed the leprosy. Remember, Moses was the guy who was wronged.
So on to Numbers 14 – this time the turn of the leaders. The Israelites in disbelief, because of the bad report of the spies, had refused to proceed into the Promised Land. So the people complained against Moses as if it was Moses’ idea in the first place to take them out of Egypt. The people then decided to turn their backs on God, return to Egypt and before they went, decided to stone Moses and his brother (Numbers 14:4). Stoning Moses could well had resulted in Moses death, if they had gone ahead. Moses’ reaction is exemplary. In response to this, Moses and Aaron prayed and bowed before the Lord (Numbers 14:5, 11-20)
Moses prayed a prayer of intercession: “Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of your mercy, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now”. How often do we pray for those that have wronged us, especially when we are in the right?
Fast forward to Numbers 16:1-3 – the sons of Korah were now up against Moses. The sons of Korah were responsible for the tabernacle, the house of God. Remember the ark of covenant, representing the presence of God, was in the tabernacle. The sons of Korah stated that Moses had exalted himself above the people The people responsible for ensuring ‘God’s presence’ was carried in the right manner ,were fighting for more position. They did not realise what an honourable position they actually had.
So they complained against Moses and what did Moses do? Yes, you guessed, he prayed to God (Numbers 16:4). This did not avert the judgement of God as the ground opened and swallowed them up.
You would have thought that by now, the people would be in awe of God and Moses and stop their complaining, but after seeing what happened to the sons of Korah, they complained against Moses, stating that Moses had killed their leaders (Numbers 14:41)., As was his custom, Moses turned to God in prayer.
Unfortunately the people’s criticism and complaints were too much for Moses, so much so that he acted in anger when God told him to speak to the rock. Instead he struck it, thus leading to him disrespecting and dishonouring God before the people. As a result, he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land.
Moses is a great example to us today. We need to examine our reaction to criticism. The question is whether we pray before we do anything? And when the people who criticise us are wrong, do we stand in a place of intercession for them? This is what it means to be partakers of the divine nature.
May the Lord cause and enable us to walk according to these truths. Let’s learn from Moses and ensure that people’s constant criticism does not wear us down or get us to the point where we jeopardise the best that God has for us. I pray that the Lord will help us in Jesus’ name.
Just a thought for another day, but until I appear again in your inbox, stay blessed and feel free to share this with anyone that might be blessed by it
Ola
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Your divine assignment - the journey
By admin | January 26, 2010
Thank you for all the comments received from the post ‘assignment, purpose, destiny….somebody help me’. Your comments were overwhelming and I must admit some of them brought tears to my eyes.
If you are new to the newsletter or didn’t have an opportunity to read it, I recommend that you do. The post is on our two websites: www.christianbusinessmagazine.com and www.purposeforchrist.com. I am trying to put my detailed understanding of the subject into an ebook, so watch this space.
In my last post, I mentioned the importance of ensuring that your natural skills has God’s supernatural enablement or ‘grace’ as it is referred to in Romans 12: 5-8
In this post, I want to share another perspective on our divine assignment. I find that so many times, we are encouraged and told to find our assignment but oftentimes, we are not told how to find it. In the post mentioned above on assignment, I stated that it comes by revelation. We must remember however, that whilst we would have an overall notion of our assignment (after God reveals it to you), there are steps that we need to take to get there. It is a lifelong journey.
So the next question is how do I know that my daily activity is taking me towards my destiny? Once again the scriptures are not silent on this and this is the subject of today’s post.
The text is taken from Romans 12:1-2
Living Sacrifices to God
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Notice the word ‘that’ in verse 2.. We are commended to do certain things in verse 1 so that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God – this is what I call ‘The Requisite’. Could it be that many of us are not walking in our assignment or even know what it is because we are not fulfilling the conditions of verse 1.
So let’s take a loser look at this verse. We are commanded to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. We are to present it in a holy and acceptable way to God because this is what God wants – the scriptures call it our reasonable service..
The language of worship in the Old Testament was sacrifice. In coming to God, the worshipper brought a sheep, a bull or a pigeon and sacrificed it on the altar to God. In the book of Romans, Paul is encouraging us to develop a lifestyle of daily worship and a daily laying down of our lives – as long as we are ‘living’. The offering of our bodies is not the offering of our bodily parts but our bodily behaviour.
This verse therefore means that our daily act of worship, of surrender, of focused thoughts, of Godly behaviour, of being separated unto God (being holy) positions us to a place where we can know His will. This is echoed in Colossians.
Colossians 3:2 encourages us ‘to seek those things which are above, where Christ is , sitting at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on things of the earth’. BY focusing on God, we will have a Godly perspective on things.
Secondly, we are not to be conformed to the standards of this world but instead renew our minds through the word of God. We are to let the word of God influence our lives. In order words, the word of God has the power to transform our lives to His flow
A holy lifestyle and mindset and a life dedicated in sacrifice to God is the prerequisite to the ongoing revelation of what God wants for our lives. This is what positions us to hear God’s instructions
All of this might seem like a tall order. We almost want to ask the question, do we have to be perfect before we can know His will. Is it not impossible to live such a lifestyle?
The answer is No. One thing I have learnt about Christianity is that God wants us to come to Him as we are. As we do, He in turn will empower us. Remember ‘His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which we have been given great and precious promises, that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust’ (2 Peter 1:3-5)
I am praying for God’s grace to live a holy and sacrificial life. Won’t you join me? Please read and re-read the bits that speak specifically to you, and pass it on to your friends. All I ask is that you include the link where they can also subscribe to the newsletter.
The link is www.christianbusinessmagazine.com and www.purposeforchrist.com
I hope that you have been encouraged and blessed by this article. Until I appear again in your inbox, stay blessed
Ola
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Skills versus spiritual gifts
By admin | January 13, 2010
Still reflecting on the theme of ‘supernatural living’ (and many thanks to all those who wrote in following the last post on assignment), in this post I want to concentrate on the subject of skills and spiritual gifts.
Most of the work we do either in the church or out in the world involves a certain degree of skill. I meet many skilful people, who have worked at developing their skills. Whilst this is important, I believe that the scriptures encourage us to seek God’s empowerment on all we do. Let me explain.
We need interpersonal skills to be an usher or greeter, listening skills to be a counsellor, flower arranging or balloon skills to beautify the church, teaching skills to be a teacher, administrative skills to organise the church, music skills to play an instrument, even good reading skills to read the scriptures in an engaging way and the list goes on.
Most of our work and church activity involves using various skills and rightfully so, but I am increasingly concerned that people are encouraged to develop their skills and almost nothing is said about spiritual gifts or spiritual empowerment. Without spiritual empowerment, a lot of what we do becomes hard work and our effectiveness is limited.
Spiritual gifts are supernatural assistance given to us to make our work easier. If you are a counsellor, having revelation gifts e.g. the word of knowledge or wisdom makes the task easier, if you go out on evangelism or find it difficult to witness, having a word of knowledge or the gift of healing would make the work easier.
By spiritual gifts I am referring to scriptural references in :
- 1 Corinthians 12:14-27,
- Romans 12:3-8
- 1 Corinthians 14:1-40
- Ephesians 4:7-16
- 1 Peter 4:7-11
These scriptures refer to a number of spiritual gifts but of particular relevance to this post are the gifts mentioned in Romans 12:3-8. These include serving, teaching, encouraging, contribution to the needs of others, leadership and mercy. These gifts can also be considered to be skills. We refer to teaching skills, leadership skills et. We say that some people are encouragers, are merciful etc. I would like us to pay attention to the text. The book of Romans informs us that these are gifts given to us by the grace of God. The word grace here refers to spiritual enablement or assistance.
To establish whether we are referring to a skill or a gift, you need to ask yourself whether you experience the supernatural assistance of God when the ‘gift’ or ‘skill’ is being manifested.
I believe that we can only obtain these gifts by waiting on God and asking for it. The simple truth about Christianity is that all we need to do is ask.
Knowing that spiritual gifts make our work a lot easier, we should be actively seeking them. Walking in the gifts of the Spirit would require that we stay in constant communion with God and we can only do that by maintaining a prayerful life. We are responsible for the use and development of the skills He has given us. In other words, there can be no laziness in the kingdom of work. There can be no short shorts. Let’s not be tempted to go and use our ‘skills’ without seeking for God’s divine empowerment.
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Spiritual gifts are given to us to enable us to fulfil His will on earth.
God wants to empower us supernaturally to get His work done. The qualification to get spiritual gifts is quite simple- all we need to do His ask. Skills alone are not enough, otherwise God would not have given us gifts.
I have started to review my own life and ask for more of His ‘empowerment on my skills’ and I want to encourage you to do the same. Remember, supernatural empowerment makes life and His work a lot easier. Skills are not enough
Just some more thoughts to share with you, but until I appear again in your inbox, stay blessed
Ola
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Purpose, destiny, assignment….somebody help me!
By admin | December 20, 2009
There are so many words that we find ‘floating’ around and sometimes we mix the meaning of these words up. Words such as purpose, assignment, destiny, desire, goals, talents, gifts and the list goes on. We use these words interchangeably sometimes, without pausing to think about the true meaning.
Recently, I found myself asking one question, all said and done; do I know the reason why I am here on earth i.e. what is my assignment on earth? By knowing, I mean knowing beyond a shadow of doubt what God has called me to do.
I have been asking many people this question and it seems a lot of people are hoping that through the use of their gifts and talents, they will fulfil their destiny. But the question still remains, what exactly are you here to do? I believe that if you can’t articulate this in a matter of fact manner, the chances are you really do not know. If you cannot tell your basic assignment in a sentence or two, you probably do not really know your assignment
I am not asking about the gifts and talents you have. The more I have studied this subject and thought on these words, the more I have come to the conclusion that a lot of us are hoping we get to our destiny and fulfilling God’s will, without actually being sure of what it is.
I believe that everyone has a purpose. Purpose is the assignment you are called to born to deliver. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that we are born for a purpose.
Substitutes for assignment
Of course, there are certain things that can give us an idea or clue to our destiny, but remember, they are only clues and you still have to find out the destination. Clues only point towards a destination. So, we have clues or indicators such as:
- Desires of our hearts. God said that He would give us the desires of our hearts. Our desires can tie in with our assignment but it is not our assignment.
- Things we like/dislike and would like to change
- Your past
- Things we have a passion for
- Circumstances
- Things that have humbled us
- Things that inspire us
- Experience and education
- Things that make us proud
In addition, God has also given us talents. We are meant to use our talents to fulfil our destiny. However, talents are not the same as an assignment. The recognition and use of talents is not the same as knowing what your destiny is. Talents are destiny helpers. Talents, anointings and others are clues to our destiny. Spiritual gifts also help you fulfil your assignment.
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A lot of us have substituted the clues for an assignment. You use your gifts, talents and treasures to complete your assignment.
Revelation of the assignment
So how do we know our destiny? How do we know beyond a shadow of doubt what God has called you for?
Let’s start with Jesus. Jesus came to do the will of His Father and He knew what that Will was. What exactly was God’s will for Him? His Will was to ultimately die for the sins of the whole world.
John the Baptist recognised Jesus as the Lamb who will take away the sins of the whole world.
After serious consideration of the scriptures, I have come to the conclusion that only God can tell you what your assignment is and you owe it to yourself to find out what it is. Your purpose can only come about by revelation.
Ephesians 1:11 in the message says “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are looking for”. You discover your identify and purpose through a personal relationship with God. You have to spend time seeking God for it (even if it takes month), so you are assured that your life is aligned with God’s eternal purpose.
Destiny is moving toward a purposed end. Destiny is imparted individually (Jeremiah 1:5). Ask God what He wants you to do and don’t let go, until He answers. Life is too short to take chances with it. Destiny or purpose is not guess work. If you don’t know your destiny, you will not fulfil it. You have a responsibility to find out what your assignment is.
Only the creator of a thing can say why he or she created something. Only God can tell you why He created you.. You need to spend time seeking your assignment. John 17:4. Jesus completed the assignment that His Father gave Him to do.
Some of the ways in which revelation comes include:
- Direct communication from God – divine communication
- Prophetic utterance
- Confirmation from other people
- Laying on of hands
- Generational pronouncement and blessings
- Visions
- The word of God
- Inner witness
You can only develop life goals i.e. the direction your life would take and planning for it, after you know your purpose. Goals are set to help fulfil the assignment
God forbid that we get to the end of our lives and think, if only I had known that I was born for this.
In conclusion, seek, find and fulfil your life’s assignment. David served God’s purpose in his generation, may you also serve God’s purpose in your generation.
Until I appear again in your inbox, stay blessed
Ola
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Don’t forget……….God keeps a record
By admin | December 6, 2009
You know what it’s like. You have read a portion of scripture many times and then suddenly, a fresh revelation hits you. That’s precisely what happened to me and I want it to share it in this week’s post. Simple concept but one that’s worth repeating.
I was reading from Genesis 18 recently, where God talks to Abraham about the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. God said that if there were 10 righteous people, He would not destroy the city. We know that there weren’t 10 righteous people, so the place was deemed for destruction. We may never know on this side of planet earth, why Abraham stopped interceding at 10 (perhaps his faith could not carry any more), but we do know that God would have kept his word and not destroyed the city if there had been 10 righteous people.
We also know that a righteous man called Lot lived in Sodom and Gomorrah (2 Peter 2:7). Because of His righteousness, God was not going to destroy Lot with the rest of the city, so God planned a way of escape for him.
What’s interesting as I think about the story is that whilst the righteous (individuals) are secure in the safety of God (Proverbs 18:10), God also honours our prayers so that the rest of the city might be saved. God keeps a record of those who cry out to Him because of the abominations that take place in society – Ezekiel 9:3-6.
‘Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub where it had rested to the threshold of the temple. 1 He called to the man dressed in linen who had the writing kit at his side. The Lord said to him, “Go through the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of the people who moan and groan over all the abominations practiced in it.”
While I listened, he said to the others, Go through the city after him and strike people down; do no let your eye pity nor spare anyone! Old men, young men, young women, little children, and women – wipe them out! But do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary!” So they began with the elders who were at the front of the temple’
Sometimes, we are so overwhelmed by the ‘darkness’ around us that we find it almost impossible to ‘believe’ past the darkness. In full assurance that God would deliver the righteous, let’s take comfort from the scriptures knowing that the fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much. There are no ‘small’ prayers; there are only fervent and effectual prayers.
Our collective prayers avail much as the scriptures state that one shall put a thousand to flight and two ten thousand. Like Elijah, there are many believers or righteous people in the city - some we know and some we may never know.
Standing in the gap in the marketplace is one of the ways we can fulfil our priestly function. God always hears our prayers. Never give up, who knows whether your ‘marketplace’ is waiting for your prayers. Let’s not take our individual safety as a means of being negligent about the marketplace. Sometimes, I find that we spend so much time praying for our own needs and forget to lift up the marketplace. Let’s ask God to help us lift up our ‘marketplace’
Just thought I will share my thoughts with you. Until I appear again in your inbox, stay blessed
Ola
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God’s original environment
By admin | October 15, 2009
Dear All
I hope that you all had a good summer break. I am sorry I have been off the radar for a couple of weeks and thanks to all of you who have asked about the newsletter. I took some time off over the summer holidays and took a well-deserved break.
Summer for me has always been a time for reflection. A time when I go over the life goals I have set, evaluate the success of my action points and set myself new challenges. I review my progress against last year’s objectives and make sure that my goals are moving me towards a successful and significant life. Summer is also the time when I tend to experience ‘spiritual rest’ – again evaluating my spiritual life and have a time of refreshing and waiting before the Lord. I hope that you do the same from time to time.
Whatever you did over the summer holidays, for those of you whose seasons are like mine, I hope it was an enjoyable one.
Just before I went on holiday, I was thinking of sharing with you some insights about a subject that I had been studying on the Garden of God. I started to think about what God’s original environment for man to live in must have been like. What were some of the characteristics that made it so special? I started to ask myself whether I was living in God’s original environment. I believe that God wants to reconcile us back to the living conditions that God initially wanted us to live in.
Many people mistakenly believe that God’s original environment where man was expected to live was a place where there was an absence of sin. We believe that because the world has been tainted by nearly 4000 years of sin and therefore it is impossible to live in that environment again. In reality the Garden of Eden was a place where the potential for sin was always present, because the enemy had access to the place.
Having cleared up this misconception, we an now ask ourselves, whether we are living in God’s original garden as He ordained us to. We need to know the original plans of God, in regards to what type of place the garden was and how God wanted to us to dwell.
I will continue to study the subject in depth and In my next post, I will send you a list of 31 things that I found out about the garden. The list will help us highlight whether we are living according to God’s original environment or whether we are living according to the natural environment of the world. One of my favourite prayers at the moment is for God to enable me to EXPERIENCE the truth in His word and not just know the ‘letter’. Why not make this your prayer also.
I would be sharing further thoughts on my social networking site www.purposeforchrostians.com. If you are reading this post on another site, then I suggest that you sign up to our social networking site
May the Lord keep you and guard you and continue to make His light and glory shine upon you.
Until I appear again in your in-box, stay blessed
Ola
Topics: Christian, Work | 1 Comment »
Lord, teach me
By admin | June 24, 2009
I believe that our success in life, business and career is directly related to our relationship with God. Success (true biblical success) is linked to God. That’s why, if you have been a subscriber or reader of mine for a while, you would have realised that I apply biblical truths to the business and work environment.
This week’s post is therefore an extension of this concept. Lord, teach me. Teach me what I hear you say? The answer is teach me …’whatever I need but I am not experiencing’. Let me explain.
The disciples came to Jesus (Luke 11:1) and asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. This is a strange request. By this time, the disciples had seen Jesus do mighty miracles, teach them extensively through the parables, and witnessed His prayer life and communion with the Father etc. They had a close relationship with Jesus. So they could be forgiven if they had thought that they knew how to do all these things, after all, they had a close relationship with Jesus BUT we know that ‘knowing’ is very different from ‘experiencing’. They did not assume that they knew how to pray. They humbled themselves and asked Jesus to teach them.
Recently, I asked God to teach me how to praise and worship Him. That might be a strange request, particularly as this is an area that the church has grown in for the last decade , but I decided not to assume.
My prayer style or my praise and worship style has to be the style that God expects from me. I believe that we all need to keep on coming to God and asking Him to teach us to run our Christian businesses, love our work colleagues, tender for contracts, conduct business meetings, look after our customers etc, or whatever your specific need is.
To teach means to ask someone to show us the way to explain things to us, so that we can understand and begin to apply these concepts. Spiritual teaching however, goes beyond that. With spiritual teaching, we not only learn the way to apply these concepts but we also have divine enablement to enable us to walk in and experience biblical truths in our lives.
Asking to be taught is a way of humility on our part and also a sign of dependence on God. We spend so much time and money on things that we believe would make us successful and that has its place but we also need God to teach us how to live Godly lives. I know that the bible teaches us on how to live Godly lives, but we need to go beyond the ‘knowledge’ to ‘experience’ the bible.
When the disciples asked Jesus to show them how to pray, He was only too happy to help them. Perhaps, there are areas in your lives where you need the Lord to teach you or perhaps there are areas where things are not quite working, despite your best efforts. Why not ask Him to teach you today. He is also willing to answer our prayers as we ask ‘Lord, teach me’.
Once again, than you for the opportunity to share with you this week. Until I appear again in your inbox, stay blessed
Ola
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What do you do when……………………..
By admin | June 11, 2009
you have no specific message from God and you need to send out your post or blog?. Writing is my vocation and I am very passionate about sharing God’s word with His people, so that they can also grow up in Him. I look forward to sending you a post as often as I can. Getting emails from readers’ week in, week out, about how my posts encourage you, also encourages me. By the way, the last mail – Coping with the crisis of life, had a huge response. Thank you both to those who wrote and those who thought of, did not get round to writing.
Getting posts out therefore brings a ‘pressure’ to write or ‘perform’, especially as I intend to make these posts as regular as they can be. If you have been a reader of my posts, you would know that I like to write by revelation only. The messages always have to be fresh and specific.
So what do you do when you have no specific word to share? When you feel God is silent? Aaaargh!
It’s easy to try and go into the archives of articles and ‘bring out’ something to write. I feel the temptation to conjure something up something to send out. The process of waiting almost becomes frustrating.
I learnt something though this and this is what I want to share with you this week– you have to let God be God. I learnt that if God does not speak, then neither do. That does not mean that I would not communicate with you, which is what I am doing now, but simply that I don’t conjure up a message for the sake of it. My aim is to be relevant and useful to my generation and I can only do this, when I have God’s word.
What do you do when God is silent? Do you feel under pressure to ‘keep on performing’? It might be that you had prayed about something that has not come as quickly as you expect. Do you what seems best, rather than delaying the decision till you hear God? We see this so many times in the marketplace and in our Christian business. Decisions have to be made today, as if the world will fall apart if we don’t make that decision. Let God be God. Remember the story of Saul who did not wait for Samuel.
I had a funny but serious thought when I was writing this – can you imagine our pastors coming to church one day and saying I tried all week but have no word from God. Think for a minute about how you would feel? Well, I don’t think I would be too happy (sorry, confession time) but it could be that God wants to do something great instead. , that would only be revealed at the ‘last minute accordingly to our timetable’ – let God be God. Perhaps, this silent move could be the beginning of something great in our lives, when we have to pause for a minute and focus all on Him.
Therefore this week, I am letting God be God. Let God be God in your life and not fall into the pressure to perform.
The interesting thing is that God has now given me a message to share on the glory of God in the marketplace, so don’t miss the next post. But for now, perhaps the message that God wants us to hear is that we should ‘Let God be God’.
Remember that the site www.purposeforchrist.com is the platform where you can leave your comments and submit your articles. As I have been blessing you, why not bless others by writing about what God is doing in your lives?
So until I appear again in your inbox, stay blessed and Let God be God in your life.
Ola
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