A psalm after my heart.

Psalm 139 is undoubtedly one of my favorite scriptures in the Bible. From the first time I discovered this psalm of David, (which was quite a number of years ago) I fell in love with it. Whenever I read it, my heart gladdens with joy at the love that God has for me, yet it also marvels at the exceeding goodness of God.

Psalm 139 vs 1-3 reads, "O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways." God knows all my ways and thoughts; whether good or bad...He knows them all. He knows the words I would speak before I even think of them.

Verse 16 states that: "Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. " Hmmm. God knew everything I would do, even before I was born. He designed all my days before He even formed me. He knows my substance: what I can handle and what will break me down. No wonder He said He will never allow us be tempted beyond what we can bear. Furthermore, He knew the mistakes I would make, the bad decisions I'd take, and the sins I would commit. Still, He loves me. And this is because God knew that one day, I would make a choice to forsake my ways and follow Him. That is why He sent His son to die for me...for He sees farther than man sees. He's the beginning and the end, but He sees our end before our beginning.

Further still, this passage of scripture gives me peace because I know that God is always with me. Examine Verses 7-10: "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me." Wow! What blessed assurance.  When things are good, and even when things are bad. Through the darkness, down times and moments of confusion, He is always with His loved ones and He will always bring us out.

Even as I write this, my heart warms up. God indeed loves me. God loves us all. He loved us before we were formed. He loved us before we were His. He loves us now that we're His and He will love us forever. No wonder the Apostle Paul said in Romans 8:38-39, "nothing can separate us from the love of God." God is always with us.

In conclusion, I leave you to meditate on verses 17-18: "How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand."

 

Humble Yourself!

I’m quite certain that every Christian who is familiar with the key men of God in the Bible knows that David is the only person who was described as “a man after God’s heart.”  We all know too well the story of David, how God called and anointed Him to be King when he was just a shepherd boy, and of course how he slew the Philistine giant Goliath with a mere pebble to the amazement of all. The book of Psalms written primarily by David, is one of the most widely read scriptures in the Bible.

For quite a number of months now, I’ve been pondering about this honorable man of God and have been trying to understand why He was so loved by God, so much that our Saviour Jesus Christ has His earthly heritage in the lineage of David. This is confirmed in the book of 2Samuel 7, where God makes a covenant with David, promising to establish his kingdom forever. David was not a perfect man, just like none of us (even those that are God’s righteous) are. He had his weaknesses, and he committed two notable sinful acts….adultery and murder.  But God’s love was continually upon this man after God’s heart all the days of his life. My thoughts on this issue compelled me to spend ample time reading about the life and times of David.  Its been months since I started, but it was today, as I read through 1Samuel 7 that it finally dawned on me one of the reasons why David touched the heart of God so much. He possessed a character trait that God expects from everyone who professes to love Him: humility.

David was a genuinely humble man. He always saw himself as nothing, as much as he was revered and loved by all of Israel.  For instance, Saul had spent years wanting to kill him but when David had the chance to retaliate, he spared Saul’s life. Because he still saw himself as a servant in Saul’s kingdom (since Saul was still King), he didn’t deem it right to avenge his master. In fact, I don’t think in his heart, David ever thought of Saul as an enemy. This act also portrayed that David had a forgiving heart…and true forgiveness requires humility. David even openly mourned when Saul died, proving that his loyalty to Saul was genuine.

As successful as David was as King of Israel, as many victories God gave him, as many cities as he conquered, he never let pride enter his heart. This is in complete contrast to Saul whose pride was ultimately his undoing. David’s humility also showed when he praised God and danced until his clothes fell off as the Ark of the Covenant  was being taken back to Jerusalem (2Samuel 6). David’s wife Michal even despised him for this, because she felt it was a show of shame for a king to behave that way in public. David’s response to her was, “it was the Lord who chose me…to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore I will play music before the Lord, and I will be even more undignified than this and will be humble in my own sight” 2Samuel 6:21-22. David didn’t allow his position as King, affect how He expressed his praise and worship to God. Even when he sinned against God and was confronted by the prophet Nathan, he admitted his sin to Nathan, and God forgave him (see 2Samuel 12:1-15). I bet David must have felt ashamed when Nathan came to him; however, he did the right thing by confessing.

David may not have been a perfect man, but he sure had a perfect heart. His humility stands out for me because the word of God states that, if you humble yourself before God, He will lift you up (James 4:10). This explains why the glory of God was evident in his life. The scriptures also state that God detests the proud, but He gives more grace to the humble (Proverbs 3:34, James 4:6). And we can clearly see the grace of God at work, even in that God forgave David for all his sins. It is evident by the words David used in writing the Psalms, that he never attributed his success and fame to his own effort, but rather to God’s favour, grace and love.

Pride is completely antagonistic to the nature of God and having examined closely the life of David, it is now my prayer and desire that pride remain as far away from my heart as possible. I know that if I can get my heart in the right place by God’s grace, then my actions will be right as well. May God help us all be men and women after His own heart.

A page from my walk with God

I always try not to get too personal in my blog posts mainly because I really value my privacy. However, I’ve decided to be sharing some of my personal experiences relating to my Christian walk. My desire is that by so doing, other believers may be encouraged in their own relationship with God.

I first accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour when I was about 13years old. Prior to this, I vividly remember my mum once asking me when I would get saved, and my response to her was, "when I understand what being saved is all about." I always wondered what thoughts went on in her mind as a result of my statement, but she recently told me she was quite satisfied with it. Well, I later responded to an altar call one Sunday in church after a sermon that moved me.

However, as I grew older and began to handle life on my own, I found it tasking keeping up with being born-again. The fact that after High School, I left the shores of Nigeria to the United States to pursue my University education, further compounded issues for me. The life I lived in America (being a student and working) hardly left much time for me to get engaged in church activities the way I'd wanted to. As years went by, I started to become lukewarm in the things of God. Not that I denounced my faith, but it took a backseat to everything else in my life.

A number of years down the road, certain events happened in my life which made me sit back and question everything I’d understood about salvation. By this time I was back home in Nigeria and had a family of my own. I found myself having to go through some unpleasant experiences which made me doubt my faith in God. I wondered if He really had been watching over me like His word says. I wondered why He didn't speak to me before I made certain decisions that led me to this moment. I was seemingly confused as to whether I was truly born-again. This was roughly four years ago.

What I want to share today is the fact that it was in the midst of this very turbulent storm that God began to reveal certain truths about salvation to me. It was then I got the understanding that in order for you to really embrace God, you have to get to the end of yourself. You have to come to a point where everything you know, fails you. I got the revelation that for you to be truly saved, you have to actually need salvation. You must come to a point where your only option is complete faith in God.

I have now understood that being a born-again Christian is about being sold-out to Jesus. It is about placing God first in your life, above everyone else. It is about dying to yourself (your needs, your wants, your feelings, your wisdom & knowledge), and living for Jesus. This is what Jesus meant when He said we must take up our cross and follow Him…we must sacrifice our lives on the altar of the cross and receive a new life which is totally yielded to His will and purpose.

Being saved is not just about reading your Bible once or twice a day, but it is about allowing the word of God to take residence in your heart. It is not about going to church once/twice a week. Yes, we must not forsake the gathering of the brethren. But fellowship with other believers and serving God should be done out of our love for Him, not as a legalistic ritual or religious routine. We should do these things; (pray, obey the word, and participate in church activities) because we want to please God. Even our giving of tithes and offerings should be done as an act worship and love for Him, not as a legalistic practice.

This is the first of a few posts I’ll be writing on yielding to God’s purpose. The truth is that until you surrender wholly to God, you will never really enjoy the salvation Jesus obtained for you by His death and resurrection.

 

This thing called Love...

The world over, love is something that has been so severely misunderstood, misconstrued and abused. For many, love is often equated with attraction, lust or a desire to be with someone. Because of this fact,some have entered into relationships based on how good or excited they feel about a person. Such liaisons are purely based on attraction. Sadly, for those who get into such relationships, nothing seems to remain after the attraction, feelings of euphoria and the imaginary "butterflies in the tummy" fade away. The end result is that the relationship eventually falls apart. For others, love is confused with lust, which is nothing but physical or sexual desire for someone else. And once lust is acted upon, there is nothing left to keep the relationship going. All these perversions of love are simply the tricks of the devil and his plan to keep as many people as possible from experiencing what true love is.

One might then be led to ask: what is love? Well, because i am a Christian...i tend to look to the word of God for answers to all of life's questions on different issues. This is simply because God's word is truth. Of course there are quite a number of bible verses which talk about love and after meditating on several of them, i came to my own understanding that:

1. You cannot truly love someone else if you don't love yourself and you cannot love yourself if you don't first love God. Love flows from God because God is love and love is God. The love you receive from God enables you love another human being.
2. Love is not an emotion or feeling. Real love transcends emotions. For instance, if you love someone, you'll always do your best to please him/her, even when you don't feel good about it.
3. Love is acceptance. When you truly love, you accept someone for who they are. You don't judge them based on their past, weaknesses or mistakes. Neither do you try to mold them into who you think they ought to be. But if the person loves you in return, he/she will naturally try to work on areas in their life that aren't so praiseworthy.
4. Love isn't love until it is expressed through actions. It is not enough to say the words, you have to prove love by the things you do. Even God proved His love for us by sending His son Jesus to the cross. John 3:16
5. Love is sacrifice. A sacrifice always involves you emptying of yourself in some way. When you love someone, you will inconvenience yourself for their sake without thinking twice.
6. Love sees uniqueness, not weakness. Love understands that no two people can have the same attitude and personalities. Love appreciates and celebrates the differences in these areas.
7. Love sees what is hidden to the rest of the world. If you love someone, you can almost sense how they're feeling without the person having to say anything.
8. Love respects. Yes! Whether male or female, if you love someone, you'll show them a great deal of respect in all ramifications. You respect their ideals, values and even their personal space.
9. Love always gives. If you love, you must give of yourself, and your time when the need arises. Love gives without being asked.
10. Love is friendship. Real love is genuine, committed & loyal friendship between two people. In fact, friendship is the foundation that keeps love intact. A true friend will always be there, even when it hurts to do so. As the bible states, "greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for a friend." See John 15:13.

I urge you to take a close look at the scriptures in 1Corinthians 3:4-7 where Paul gives God's definition of love. It will give you an even clearer picture of what love entails.

This is the first of many posts I'll be doing on the subject matter. My ernest hope and prayer is that more people get to enjoy a lifelong love relationship with that one special person. This is what God purposed for us from the very beginning.

RELATIONSHIP 101: Do's and Don'ts

If there's one issue that everyone will be faced with at one point in time, it is that of relationships. Because every person has an innate desire to belong, to relate with the opposite sex and to experience love, relationships are part of the human experience. If you look to the creation story in Genesis 2, you'd see that Adam was lonely in the garden, even though he was technically not alone (as there were other animals on earth). However, Adam didn't have someone of his kind (human) and type (compatible) to relate with. We can therefore see that the need for relationship with the opposite sex was in man from the beginning. Of course, most adults who enter into relationships desire for such to end in marriage, which is still in line with God's purpose. When God saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone, He created Eve and she became his wife.

However, we must understand that not every relationship is meant to end in marriage. Some relationships are just meant for the moment, or to put it more aptly, for a season. There are people God brings into your life for a purpose, and when this purpose has been fulfilled, He removes them.

For those that aren't at that point in life where marriage is desired, exercise caution and wisdom when embarking on close relationships. There are people that will not add any value to your life, but rather subtract from it. Just because you like a person, doesn't mean you need a relationship with the person. Many relationships are simply time-wasters while some people will only help destroy your destiny or distract you from it. Furthermore, avoid being involved with someone who makes you compromise your faith, values and ideals. The worst mistake we can make is to constantly get mixed up with people who make us conform to their own image or ideas of who we should be. Never lose yourself and your identity because you want a man/woman to love you. Learn to guard your heart from unnecessary heartbreak and hurt.

If you desiring marriage, then believe that just like God tailor-made Eve for Adam, so has He created a spouse for you. There is someone that is your perfect match, one who compliments you in every sense of the word...someone with whom you will build a lifelong relationship. By faith, you can ask God to bring this person into your life. And when you find the one God made for you, you'll be accepted for who you are...even your weaknesses won't be an issue. As a Christian, always remember that you have the Holy Spirit and the word of God to guide and counsel you in every aspect of your life, even as regards relationships.

Be productive with what you have

In "The parable of the talents" in Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus gave an illustration of a master who apportioned talents to three of his servants before embarking on a journey. Upon his return, he found that two of them had invested and made a profit on what he gave. The one that he gave five talents now had a total of ten, and the one he gave two talents had a total of four. The man was pleased with these two and blessed them. The third servant had received one talent and didn’t do anything with it; instead he buried it in the ground and presented it back to his master. The master chastised and punished him for this…verse 28-29 says "So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away."  
As I spent some time meditating on this scripture, these are the lessons I learned from it:  

1. It is not how much you have that makes you successful, but it is WHAT YOU DO with what you have. The servant who received two talents and gained two more, was just as successful as the one who received five. I understood this from the fact that the master pronounced the same blessing on both of them. He said to them in verses 22 & 23 respectively, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord." They both had a different number of talents, but were equally blessed in the end. The master was displeased with the servant who didn’t do anything with what was given Him. By so doing, he didn’t achieve success and also missed out on the master’s blessing.

2. When it comes to talents and gifts, it is not about how many things you're able to do. It is about being productive with them. The servant who got one talent may have felt he was at a disadvantage than his counterparts, so he decided to just bury it, rather than invest it. This was the wrong attitude to have. Even if you are gifted at one thing, make the best of it. Do the best you can with it.

3. God rewards us for our faithfulness in using what He gives us. Being faithful at something is about putting effort into it. The master here said he would make the first two servants faithful over much because they were faithful in the little they had. He rewarded them for their effort, their diligence.

4. I believe that God doesn't show favoritism/partiality when it comes to our talents. Because He loves us all, He puts gifts in us according to our ability to handle them. In the parable, one servant got five talents, the second got two but in the end, they were both commended in the same way by their master. In the eyes of God, someone who can sing and act is not better than someone who can only sing. Remember that He loves us all equally.
5. Letting your gift lie dormant (buried) in you, shows ingratitude to God. Ungratefulness closes the door for more blessings to enter your life. You bring glory to God when you put to use what he has placed in your hands. God promises to bless the work of our hands (see Deutoronomy 28:12). Don't be lazy with your talents. Put them to use, work with them (to glorify God)...and He will surely reward you!

Managing your time daily

We live in such a fast paced world. People have work deadlines to meet, business meetings to attend, daily errands to run among other things. Throw socializing in the mix and you’ll discover that most people are hardly able to keep up with all they have to do daily and even weekly too. Even if you’re not part of the working class population, you likely still have a number of duties to perform every day. Whether it involves household chores, school runs etc., and time would definitely be involved in all of these.

Many of us are unable to accomplish all that demands our attention and even have time for ourselves. Yet, it is quite pertinent that every person has some time every day, no matter how little, for rest and relaxation. The human body is like a machine, which can breakdown if it is overworked or stressed. You cannot function properly if your body is not well maintained.
However, because there are roughly about 18 hours in every day with which we can be active, one must learn how to employ time management skills in order to accomplish one’s tasks effectively.

The first thing I believe one needs to understand and accept is that our bodies must be in a healthy state to function properly. So before you start off your daily routines, be sure to have a proper meal at breakfast. Even if you’re one of those diet fanatics, breakfast is definitely a meal that shouldn’t be skipped. It is better to eat a small/light breakfast than not to have anything at all. This will help to rejuvenate your body and give you the boost of energy required to work.

Next thing I’d recommend is to have a daily to-do list. On here, you write down every task that needs to be done that day. You can make this list while you’re having your breakfast. But if you’re a busy mom for instance, and have early morning school-related errands to carry out, then write this list before bedtime the previous night. The list should be comprehensive and of course doable, not impossible. Be sure to also include very important phone calls that need to be made. The idea of writing a to-do list may sound so elementary to you, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to forget stuff. Even if you have a 9am-5pm job; you may still have other things to do.

The next thing to do would be to prioritize every item on that list, with the most important things at the top. This will give you a clear idea of which tasks to begin first. Again, if you’re a stay-at-home mom, everything that involves the kids’ school should come first, then stuff like cleaning, laundry and preparing lunch can come next. You can then list out-of-the-house tasks next, so that way you end up picking the kids from school before heading back home for the day. If you work a regular 9am to 5pm job, then you’re pretty much not free till after close of work. You can plan to make any important phone calls on the way home (if you ride the bus) or when you get home (if you drive yourself). Leave lengthy social activities and family leisure time for the weekends.

Once you’re done prioritizing, you can begin to do the tasks one after the other. Do them in as timely of a manner as possible, knowing that every minute counts. Parents should find ways to swap days when it comes to helping the kids with homework. Fathers shouldn’t throw that responsibility entirely to the mothers – they are your children too. Try and cultivate the habit of not doing anything tasking after dinner time. You can instead use this time to relax, watch television, read a book or maybe catch up with your pals on social media. Relaxation is very important for your mental well-being. However, remember not to keep very late nights if you have to wake up early the next morning. Every adult needs between 6-8hours of sleep every night in order to be well-rested.

I’m in no way saying that these are the only ways to properly manage your time every day, but I do believe they can be quite helpful. I use to-do lists and believe me; they make life a lot easier. Fortunately, most mobile phones have this app, so you can carry it with you everywhere. You can even set reminders in your phones if need be. I do this a lot as well!

I do hope you get to try out these methods in the hope of having more productive and stress-free days!