Adventures of Faith

  “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” Matt. 1:23 (NKJV) …I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matt 28:20b (NKJV) One of the most consistent themes of the entire bible is that God loves you and He is with you. In like manner, one of the most persistent tactics of the devil is to make you loose confidence in the love that God has for you, and in the reality of His presence with you. Over and over, the scriptures emphasize that God loves you and His presence will continue to abide with you. Indeed, this is the very essence of the coming of Jesus. He did not only come to pay the ultimate price for you, but to be with you till the end. This may sound really simple, but it is a major area of failure for some believers. When the devil can get you to begin to feel that perhaps God is not with you, then he can get you to be apprehensive or afraid, which in turn will lead to...

After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and in this way He showed  Himself:  Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the  sons  of Zebedee, and two others of His disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We are going with you also.” They went out and immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing. But when the morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.  5  Then Jesus said to them, “Children, have you any food?” They answered Him, “No.” And He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find  some. ” So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the L...

  I am sure that you are familiar with the thoughts of doing great things if only you had the means or you had more resources. This certainly is a noble thought, however, the challenge with such thought is that it has the power to keep you in that loop for as long as you allow. I have emphasized in some of my previous writings that God usually increases His people steadily and consistently, such that if you are not very conscious of it, you will still be waiting for a big bang increase when the increase is taking place already. The question is what will you do if you had more? You may not have much now, but what you are doing with the little you have is laying precedence for what you will do when the big break comes, and may even determine if the big break will ever come. Don’t just be fixated about getting more money, more power, and more resources, rather, ask yourself if you are already maximizing what you currently have. Even when we live for a hundred years and more, life is...

  The foundation scripture for the thought I share in this short piece is a popular scripture verse in Prov. 16:7 - When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Firstly, the believer is faced with the all-important question of how to please God. Secondly, some people think that pleasing God simply means obeying Him, and once you obey God, then He will automatically make your enemies love you and be at peace with you. How interesting! Of course obeying God is very important but it just doesn’t end there and I will show you why as you read on. Looking at the scripture more carefully, and connecting it with another popular scripture in Heb. 11:6 But without faith  it is  impossible to please  Him, it makes a whole new meaning. Fundamentally, it is impossible to please God without faith, and this faith sometimes may go crosswise of human logic, while at other times, faith appears to be arrogant. This is the reason many people...

  Growth is an inevitable desire for everyone, and this desire for growth cuts across various areas of life. No one wishes to remain stagnant, even though it seems to eventually turns out so for some. In actual fact, no one remains really stagnant, it is either you are making progress or retrogressing. For believers, our hope of making any meaningful progress in this life is hinged on the finished work of Christ. As we say, the work is finished; it means that God has done all there is to do about your success or your progress in life. The question then may be, if God has done all there is to do, and all that is required for your success in life, why does it seem like you are not making real progress? There are different things that can be discussed in this regard, but my focus in this piece is to point out a salient point that is sometimes not considered a major factor – creating space for God. In our text for this piece II Kings. 4:1-7, the widow had a small jar of oil which s...

I believe that most believers are conversant with the words miracle and blessing. They do not mean the same thing. People sometimes use them interchangeably, though more often you will find the word blessing used in more general terms. The Blessing as I have learnt is the empowerment of God to prosper. That empowerment is without prejudice to your skin colour, tribe, sex or any other factors that differentiates people. A miracle on the other hand is God’s supernatural intervention in human affairs. The children of Israel were sustained by the miracles of Jehovah as they journeyed from Egypt to Canaan. Manna fell from heaven daily for them to have enough food to eat, that was clearly a miracle. But when they arrived at the border of Canaan, the Manna ceased, and they had to cultivate their land to get food to be sustained. The Manna did not cease because God stopped loving and caring for them, but because a miracle was no longer necessary for their sustenance. I imagine that if th...

The subject of financial prosperity has become one of the most controversial, and perhaps the most ill-spoken subject in the kingdom, yet it remains an all-important subject that we must continue to discuss as long as we remain on this side of eternity. I am aware that some do not like to hear anything on this subject, but if the bible speaks on it, then we can’t but also speak about it as messengers sent forth to preach the message of the kingdom. My major premise of writing this piece is not to point out the misconceptions on the teachings on this subject, but to objectively share the basic principle by which God increases His people. There are many supposedly faith juggernauts who are just barely getting by when it comes to their personal finances. When you look at this sometimes, you are tempted to wonder why in spite of their spirituality, there isn’t much substances to show. But before I go on, let me first answer the question on whether or not God wants us to be financially pr...

  I am not unaware that many believers are already conversant with the all-important subject of righteousness. Indeed as E. W. Kenyon puts it, this message is one of the most important message ever taught to the church. However, even with the much teaching on the subject, the reality of it is taking time to manifest as it ought. There are still many believers who having been taught by excellent bible teachers are still not different from the elder son of the rich father whose story is narrated in Luke’s gospel chapter 15. The challenge with the young man wasn’t just that he remained conscious of his own righteousness, which would have been a problem in itself, it was also that by his self-righteous thoughts, his father could not do anything for anyone better than what had been done for him, otherwise he would consider it to be unfair, even though he never placed a demand on his position or his father’s ability. In like manner, there are believers today who are in the exact same s...

When we reflect on the events that led to the crucifixion of Jesus, and the implications of these events, we cannot but think very highly of God as having perfectly aligned every of these events to the end that man will be forever free, and never have to be bound by any string of the evil one. Of all the events that led up to the death and resurrection of Jesus, my concentration in this piece is on the tradeoff that saw Jesus heading for the cross, and Barabbas heading home a free man. We know from scriptures that the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time took him to Pilate to pass the death sentence on Him. Pilate having examined the case, saw no need for Jesus to be imprisoned, much more to be executed. In an attempt to release Jesus, Pilate reminded the people that he had the prerogative to release a prisoner to them to mark the Passover. I think that Pilate himself did not understand the turn of events that day, and he underestimated the resolve of the Jewish leaders at that time who w...

In my life experience as a Christian, I have always taken time to do some introspection, and one of those areas that I have had to reflect on over and over, is why it seems like the word of God isn’t working for some believers. If you have also ever wondered whether the word really works or not, then I encourage you to read through the entire piece. To begin with, we know that the scripture says that the word of God has been tried and it never fails (Ps.12:6), so you must first come to terms with the truth that it isn’t the word that is under trial, but you; it is your faith in the word that is being tried, to see if it comes out as gold. This is a very important shift to make if you are desirous of getting the word to work for you. Settle first in your heart that the word of God cannot fail, if it doesn’t work for you as expected, the challenge could never be with the word. Again, once you have this in the right perspective, you have already made a significant leap in the process of...

Love is a fruit of the spirit as described in Gal.5, but the bible also describes God as Love. Love then is the core essence of our Christian faith. In other words, you can’t get it right as a Christian if you haven’t figured out your love walk. One key element of the manifestation of Love is in the way you see others. You can choose to see people through Love’s eyes or otherwise. When you fail to see people through Love’s eyes, it is easy to know that your faith needs a check. Jesus said in Matt.7:5 that it takes a log in your eyes for you to notice a spec in your brother’s eyes; what a statement! In other words, if you always find fault with others, or always see their downside only, it is because there is a bigger issue in your own life crying for attention. It is just a simple case of a log compared to a spec. This is rather a simple lesson of life, but it is one of the most important subject and key to a fulfilled life. Bro Hagin narrated an experience that happened while he w...

  The seed defines a new beginning, and the potential for greatness. In Mark 4:30-32, Jesus describes the kingdom of God as a small seed which is sown in the ground. The system of God gives credence to the seed principle, so we can clearly say that God’s default system of birthing anything great is to begin with a seed. However, there are challenges that the seed bearer must overcome to allow the seed realize its full potential. For most people, the biggest of these challenges is not; trying to recognize the seed, or paying close enough attention to prevent the seed from getting lost after recognizing it; the biggest challenge is keeping the seed planted in the ground. This sounds like it shouldn’t have been a challenge at all, but it is. The ability of your seed to fulfill its great potential lies not just in you discovering that seed, but in sowing that seed in the ground, and letting that seed stay planted for as long as is required for the course of nature to set in for...