THE HOLY SPIRIT II

MEMORY VERSE: But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him. 1 Samuel 16:14

BIBLE READING: 1 Samuel 28-31

The Holy Spirit is a ‘MUST HAVE’ for every believer. Do you want to excel in your career? You need the Holy Spirit. Daniel through the power of the Holy Spirit excelled in politics. Do you want to excel in your studies? You need the Holy Spirit. A story that comes to mind is that of a Christian sister who was studying for her Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination. Whilst studying a night before her Biology papers, a strange mosquito began to disturb her, and she killed it. As she was about to put it in the bin, the Holy Spirit told her to study the mosquito. She opened her Biology textbook, read about mosquitoes, learnt how to draw and label mosquitoes, and went to the exam room. The next morning when she received her exam booklet, the first question was ‘draw and label a mosquito.’

To be fruitful at your old age, you need the Holy Spirit. To conquer the enemy, you need the Holy Spirit. To fulfil God’s plan for your life, you need the help of the Holy Spirit. Even to create wealth, you need the Holy Spirit. Deuteronomy 8:18 says: ‘But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.’ This brings us to the question, how do I receive the Holy Spirit? You receive the Holy Spirit when you give your life to Christ. Acts 2:38 says: ‘Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.’

NOTE: If you grieve the Holy Spirit, He will leave. As such, you must not grieve Him.  Because nature abhors  a vacuum; the moment He takes His leave, an evil spirit will enter and torment the fellow. 1 Samuel 16:14 says: ‘But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.’ One disturbing fact about the Holy Spirit leaving a man is that you won’t know when He takes His leave. Many a time, it is always too late before one realizes that the Holy Spirit has left.

PRAYER POINT: Holy Spirit, please help me never to grieve you.

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Bro Samuel | Reaching the world.

YARDSTICK FOR SUCCESS

MEMORY VERSE: And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. Luke 12:15

BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Zechariah 8-14

One of the yardsticks we use to measure success in the world today is material wealth. If a brother who hops from bus to bus suddenly buys a very big jeep or a brother who is renting suddenly builds/buys a big mansion, we say he is successful. We Christians will say he has enjoyed divine favor and some will begin to use his life as a point of contact for their breakthroughs. God wants all His children to prosper (3 John 2). He actually delights when His children do well which includes financial prosperity (Psalm 35:27). When Peter said to Jesus, "Look, we have left everything and followed You. So what will there be for us?" Jesus responded saying:” Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life” (Matthew 19:28-29). In other words, all you have lost for the sake of Christ are not lost, they are only being kept for you. One day it will be multiplied and given back to you.Although, material wealth is ONE of the ways of measuring success, it is NOT the absolute way to measure success. A brother can appear to be doing well physically when he is actually going down spiritually. A typical example is Lot. The moment he moved into Sodom and Gomorrah, he began to go down spiritually. On the surface, he was doing well. He was acquiring cattles, sheep, servants and all that. He even became a judge in Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet, he was going down. Friend, not all wealth is God’s favour.

Sister in Christ, you have entered into a relationship with a brother who is an unbeliever. On the surface, people may be congratulating you. He may even buy gifts and make you feel loved and appreciated. It may appear as if you are moving in the right direction because at the end of the day, you are no longer single. However, remember that marrying an unbeliever means you will be having the devil as an in-law. As a matter of fact, the moment you begin to date an unbeliever, you begin to go down. To everyone, Brother Lot was enjoying divine favour until he lost all and began to live in caves (Genesis 19). If you are robbing people or cheating people and you are buying houses, you are not going up – you are actually going down. Also, success in ministry, at times, is measured by the size of the congregation and size of the tithes every Sunday. Well, increase in tithes don’t always mean God is blessing His church. Someone who stole from government coffers may decide to share some of his bounty and give a big offering. Besides, there was a time when Korah’s ministry grew. He had virtually all the princes in the land with him -although they were all rebels. Yet, by man's standard he was doing well. The only way to measure success is by checking how one is performing against God’s standard for one's life. If by God’s standard –considering the fact that you have been a Christian for several years – you should have won at least one soul to Christ and you have not then you are failing.

ACTION: Pray to God and ask Him to help you in areas you are failing.

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THE LACK OF VISION PT1

MEMORY VERSE: where there is no vision, the people perish, Proverbs 29:18a 

 

BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: 1 Sam 12, Rom 10, Jer 49, Luke 17

 

BIBLE STUDY: Genesis 21:17-19

 

What is vision?  Vision is seeing things as God sees them or seeing things through the eyes of God. Hagar was stranded, perplexed, exhausted, confused, perturbed and disturbed because of her lack of vision. She was sitting by well yet she was thirsty and her son also. It wasn’t because she was blind; it was because of her lack of vision. From our bible study we observed that the solution to the problem of Hagar was right beside her but yet she suffered. Until the Lord opened her eyes to see the well , she sat by it crying. The solution to the problem of many is right beside them. All some of us need is make a telephone call and that challenge will be over. A man of God had been looking to buy a church building for several years. The number of the agent to call was stored on his mobile but he never called the agent. One day while eating he heard the voice of God saying make the call and his eyes opened. He remembered a fellow pastor colleague gave him an agent’s number; he stopped what he was doing and made the call. Around six weeks later they were worshiping in their own auditorium.

 

Water represents life. How unfortunate for Hagar, she was sitting by a well of life yet she had no life – she and her son were about to die of thirst. The husband and wife of some singles are in the same church they have been attending for years, but because they cannot see they keep going from singles gathering to another. I pray that if you are in that shoe the Lord will open your eyes in Jesus name, Amen.

 

There are several lessons to learn from our bible study. Firstly when a fellow has no vision or is spiritually blind, he suffers unnecessarily. Hagar shouldn’t have experienced thirst in the first place because right beside her was a well. This woman cried and cried because she could not see the well. If care is not taken the people around a fellow who has no vision or who is spiritually blind i.e. his family and those that depend on him may suffer. If the husband is suffering, it will affect the wife and the children. Ishmael was thirsty because her mother could not see. Secondly, Hagar was originally on a journey but had to cancel it when Ishmael began to cry for water. The time she should have used to cover some of distance was spent crying by the well. If one is not careful, the lack of vision can cause a fellow to remain at the same position for a while. If Hagar had seen the well in time, she would have drawn water out of it and continued her journey but because she could not she had to remain at the same position of a while.

 

PRAYER POINT: Father please open my eyes today.

Bro Samuel - Reaching the world for Jesus

Counsel

Proverbs 11:14 where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.

Proverbs 11:14 highlights the importance of counsel. It is a deciding factor in success. A synonym for counsel is information. A wise man once said "if you are not informed, you will soon be deformed". Proverbs 4:7 says wisdom is a principal thing. What is wisdom? Wisdom is the application of information or better still the application of counsel. From every way we look at it the value of counsel is immeasurable. One the reasons why people make mistakes in choosing the right partner in marriages or business or profession is largely due to lack of counsel. Many have started businesses without getting counsel, they say ‘brother A is selling bag so I must sell bag’. Many sisters have fallen into the wrong marriages because of lack of counsel. All because a brother can speak in tongue or wears suit every Sunday does not mean he is a bor

n again. There are a lot of problems that could be averted if only people ask questions or get counsel. The bible even says Ask and it shall be given to you, Matthew 7:7. Without counsel failure is almost inevitable.

Asides from getting counsel, the quality of counsel we receive determines the pace at which we attain success and the quality of our success. Not all successes are good. There are good and bad successes. The source of our counsel is also important. Taking a marriage counselling from someone who has never been married before will lead to a disaster or business counselling from someone who has never done business. That is why most married women who take marriage counsel from their spinster friends’ end up regretting so also married men who to take advice on how to treat their wives from their bachelor friends. There are various ways to get counsel; they are through the Holy Spirit, people, bible, books, seminars, lectures, conferenences and other Christian literatures. It is very important that we check the source of our counsel or who or where we take counsels from. A counsel from a fellow who does not fear God is bound to lead to problems because his counsel will lack the fear of God. That is why need to be very careful of the success books we read. What does a man devoid of the Holy Spirit know about good success? Any success devoid of living a righteous life is not good success according to Joshua 1:8. Seminars that emphasizes on ten ways to do this and that and not been spiritually filled or the Holy Spirit offers little or no benefit.
ACTION POINT: Check the source of your counsel !

Love will be tested

Thursday 6 September                           Bible in one year :Daniel 7-9

Memorise: Hereby perceive we the love of God ,because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren .1 john 3:16

Read :Genesis 22:1-2

Not only is love expensive, it may also undergo a trial.if you don’t believe ask Abraham. At a time, Abraham was town between his promised child Isaac and God. It became inevitable for God to test whether he still loved Him (Genesis 22:1-2).Whether you like or not ,your love for God will be tested.Usually it will be based on someone or something you really love. Isaac was about 15 years before the test. Abraham had become so fond of him to the point of been inseparable from him. I went through my own test some years ago. It was during a Christ the Redeemer’s Congress which held on the 24th December. It was my custom to spend the Christmas and New Year holidays with my mother because of my love for her.I therefore decided to visit her on the 23rd of December, just to see her and give her some few things before the Congress.I arrived at her house very late . As i knocked, somebody else opened the door and rejoiced that i had come. I was briefed on my mother’s illness and told she was almost at the point of death. At this time, there was no telephone to communicate with others to delegate my assignment. So i prayed for her and told her that i love her but i love God more, that after the Congress i would come back to see her , alive or dead. That  was tough then but after the Congress she was still alive when i returned and she lived for another 15 years. In other words, God extended her life like Hezekiah’s after helping me  through that test of love.

Your love may be tested in the fiery furnace or in the lion’s den.  Since Jesus laid down His life for you, He expects nothing less from you to your brethren (1 John 3:16). It is either you love God to the extreme or you don’t.I once shared with my children that to succeed could be quite expensive because of the requirement to study at night when others are sleeping, or study in the day while others are playing. One may even be called a bookworm and other names, yet that is a far cheaper price to pay than failure. If you fail,you will become a servant to your colleagues who succeeded. Every Christian may claim to be born again and on their way to Heaven ,yet it is only the few who really love Him that will make it on the last day.You can be part of the few!

Action Point: Every disciples of Jesus will be required to take the test of love,Ask for grace to scale through.

Excerpts from Open Heavens by Pastor E.A Adeboye.