Sunday Mornings

Author: Horatio Gates Spafford  (1873) In November, 1873, Horatio Spafford sent his wife and four daughters on the French ship  Ville du Havre  from their home in Chicago to a vacation in France, planning to set out a few days later himself. Somewhere in the Atlantic, the  Ville du Havre  collided with a British ship coming the other way, and sank in just 12 minutes. Of his family, only Spafford’s wife survived.  Spafford took the next boat over, and as he passed the spot where the ship went down, began to write, “When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll,” and continued until he had the text, “It is well with my soul.” His good friend, Philip Bliss, composed the tune for his words, naming it after the ship, VILLE DU HAVRE.  In this hymn, Spafford has given all of us words of comfort and assurance in times of physical and spiritual crisis, paraphrasing those familiar words of Julian of Norwich: “And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all m

But the people were displeased. "He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner," they grumbled. Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the LORD and said, "I will give half of my wealth to the poor, LORD, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!" Jesus responded, Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost. Luke 19:7-10 By God's grace today we will be concluding our study on the Jericho encounter. I trust that it has been an awesome time at the feet of Jesus. Glory to God for the success of the previous studies and for bringing us to today's study. One thing of significance about people who ever encountered God is that they left something behind after the encounter, or they had to forgo something. The woman at the well left her jar pot and rushed to the city to tell others about Jesus. Pet

When Jesus came by, He looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. " Zacchaeus!" He said. "Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today."  Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. "He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner," they grumbled. (Luke 19:5-7) Thank God for His grace to continue this study. In our  previous study , God helped us to practically and deliberately identify things that stand between our savior and us and God's grace we saw practical steps to live above these barriers that prevent us from seeing Jesus. Today God will continue speaking to us from the story of Zacchaeus. May the entrance of His Word bring light and understanding to our hearts. Amen. The gospel and the bible at large can be summarised in this phrase: the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.  And we will be going into today's study in the l

Jesus entered Jericho and made His way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way. Luke 19:1-4 Blessed be the name of the LORD for granting us another opportunity to study His Word this week. By His grace, this study will be broken into 3 parts in order to understand the 3 major stages of the Jericho encounter that caused a remarkable turn around in the life of Zacchaeus. It is so wonderful to note that Luke 19 is a sequential continuation of the story in Luke 18, which ended with Jesus healing a blind man outside of Jericho. It must have been from the praise of the people that Zacchaeus heard of Jesus. It must have been the testimonies from this miracle that made the short man to be curious. He wanted to see J

Just when you think you’ve got life all figured out, an extremely weak wind pulls your life–structure to the ground. However, to withstand hurricanes, you have to get the blueprint for your life from God. Matthew 16: 24-26 24-26  Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat;  I  am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for? If you don’t allow God to be the manager of your life, you then put yourself under unnecessary stress, pressure and confusion when making life’s decisions. Also, you end up picking the wrong choices (career, life partner, place of habitation etc). You have to allow God to give you the direction for your life. It is however not that eas

About eight days later, Jesus took Peter, John, and James up on a mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white...Peter and the others had fallen asleep. When they woke up, they saw Jesus' glory and the two men standing with him (Luke 9:28-32) NLT Blessed be the name of our LORD Jesus who has granted us another opportunity to glean at His feet on this platform. As a form of background, we know that Peter, James and John were disciples of Jesus. They knew a lot about Jesus because they were practically following Him everywhere. This is true for many of us: who were brought up in christian homes, brought up in the church assembly, brought up to a habit of meeting with God daily through scripture reading and prayers. However, this particular day, the Jesus that Peter, James and John saw, was not the Jesus they had always known. It was not business as usual. They saw Jesus in His glory. Have you ev

Isaiah 35:1-10. ( MSG ) 1-2  Wilderness and desert will sing joyously,     the badlands will celebrate and flower— Like the crocus in spring, bursting into blossom,     a symphony of song and color. Mountain glories of Lebanon—a gift.     Awesome Carmel, stunning Sharon—gifts. God’s resplendent glory, fully on display.     God awesome, God majestic. 3-4  Energize the limp hands,     strengthen the rubbery knees. Tell fearful souls,     “Courage! Take heart! God is here, right here,     on his way to put things right And redress all wrongs.     He’s on his way! He’ll save you!” 5-7  Blind eyes will be opened,     deaf ears unstopped, Lame men and women will leap like deer,     the voiceless break into song. Springs of water will burst out in the wilderness,     streams flow in the desert. Hot sands will become a cool oasis,     thirsty ground a splashing fountain. Even lowly jackals will have water to drink,     and barren grasslands flourish richly.

Samson went out and caught 300 foxes and tied them together in pairs with oil soaked rags around their tails. Then Samson took the foxes into the Philistine wheat fields that were ready to be harvested. He set the rags on fire and let the foxes go. The wheat field went up in flames, and so did the stacks of wheat that had already been cut. Even the Philistines vineyards and olive orchards burned. Judges 15: 4-5 We are trusting God to do a new thing in this generation. However, throughout history, whenever God would be making a move on the earth, it would be through a vessel that was willing to be used of Him. The story of Samson and the foxes paints a picture of how God intends to do that in His wisdom. Samson tied the foxes with oil soaked rags: In order to set the foxes ablaze, he had to put a torch on them. In the move of God, this is the place of the Spirit of God Himself which He has given to every believer. I Cor 2:6-16 tells us that it is because we have the spirit of

Some say coffee is great when served hot and it is tasty when iced, but anything in between is disgusting. Lukewarm is the word for things that are barely warm. Most people get disappointed when served lukewarm food in restaurants. Lukewarmness also refers to lack of excitement or being unenthusiastic. Spiritual lukewarmness can be seen as an act of not being interested or enthusiastic about spiritual issues.   This may manifest as coldness, indifference, insensitivity, reluctance to attending fellowship or spiritual gatherings, loss of hunger for the word of God or loss of interest in soul winning. Being lukewarm displeases God; this is clearly seen in Revelation 3:16 So because you are lukewarm (spiritually useless), and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth [rejecting you with disgust]. Revelation 3:16 Amplified Bible (AMP) This kind of life attracts rejection from God, punishment, plundering and demolition of acquired wealth, dissatisfaction wi

We bless God for thus far that He has led us in this study. In closing the study, we would like to see more practically and particularly how these stories relate to us living in this generation. May God grant us insight as we plunge deep into His Word. Amen. The best way to read Hebrews 11 which everyone recognises as the hall of faith in the bible is to see it as a continuation from Hebrews 10 and a pretext for Hebrews 12. We will spend a few lines to discuss about the ending of Hebrews 10 and the beginning of Hebrews 12 to gain more insight on Hebrews 11. Heb 10 Hebrews 10 started with the sacrifice of Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice that solved the age long problem of sin which was a dent to the relationship between man and God. The chapter concludes with verse 38 quoting a verse from Habakkuk 2:4. Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. BUT the righteous will live by HIS faith. So we see here that the righteous one will live by HI

It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old. She believed that God would keep His promise. Hebrews 11:11 Praise the LORD for another opportunity to study scriptures together. Today we look at the final character in our giants of faith series. Sarah stands out in scriptures as an example to women even in the context of faith among several other virtues she had. Sarah found herself in a very impossible situation. She had been waiting for a child of her own her entire life. She was obedient to her husband when he told her about the call upon his life to go to a far away country that he did not know. Sarah had also come to believe in the God of her husband. She must have been waiting patiently for the day that God would hear her heart desire and give her the child of her dreams. It came to a point that she gave up and she felt that probably God was going to give her a son, but not through her bosom and so she offered her maid

It was by faith that Moses' parents hid him for three months when he was born. They saw that God had given them an unusual child, and they were not afraid to disobey the king's command. It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to share the oppression of God's people instead of  enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward. It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king's anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible. It was by faith that Moses commanded the people of Israel to keep the Passover and to sprinkle blood on the doorposts so that the angel of death would not kill their firstborn sons. (Heb 11: 23-29) We bless God for another opportunity to look into scriptures and glean at His feet. Today as we

Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitudes innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, "In Isaac your seed shall be called," concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. (Heb 11:12; 17-19) Continuing the account of Abraham's faith from where we left off last week, we learn more from the life of Abraham. The writer of Hebrews 11 writes these narratives to pass one message across: it is easy to miss the point when we read about these characters in the bible. In summary, they all did what they did because of faith in God. They were flesh and blood like you and I. They had family, they had feelings, they were rational beings, they were not robots, but the faith they had in God made th

It was faith that made Abraham obey God when God called him to go out to a country which God had promised to give him. He left his own country without knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as a foreigner in the country that God had promised him. He lived in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, who received the same promise from God. For Abraham was waiting for the city which God has designed and built, the city with permanent foundations. Hebrews 11: 8-10 Glory be to God for another opportunity to study at His feet. Today we will be looking at the life of father Abraham. Abraham, someone we know a lot about and probably overlook the fact that he was a man like us, but his life walk with God can challenge our faith in God. May God give us insight as we briefly discuss the faith of Abraham. Abraham was an old man when God met him. He was a settled man at his age. He had already accepted his fate. He knew he would not be growing any taller, he would not be growing any stronger,

God said, "I’ve taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt. I’ve heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of Egypt, get them out of that country and bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces, a land lush with milk and honey, the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite." ( Exodus 3:7‭-‬8 MSG) Thank God for another opportunity to glean at His feet. Today we will particularly be looking into scriptures to study the human condition and what God did to bring a lasting solution to it. The first thing God will be helping us to understand is the need for a saviour. When we talk of the salvation project, the picture should be about a saviour and someone who needs to be saved. In the absense of any of these parties, salvation would not make sense. If everything is going on well

By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found, because God had taken him"; for before he was taken he had a testimony, that he pleased God. Heb 11: 5 Thank God for the open heavens He has graciously granted us in our study in this series. Today God will be challenging our faith from the life of a man that scriptures again does not say much about, but the little that scriptures have said concerning him is sufficient to edify us. Enoch was a very important character in the descendants of Adam. At least we know that he and Elijah did not taste mortal death. The bible says that: After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years...and Enoch walked with God; and was not, for God took him. Gen 5:22-24. Enoch was a man of habitual communion with God. For 300 years, Enoch was in constant relationship with God. The book of Hebrews tell us that while he was on earth, he pleased God. And talking about pleasing God, the next verse s

By faith [with confidence in God and His word] Noah, being warned  by God  about events not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his family. By this [act of obedience] he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith. Hebrews 11:7 The Lord saw the great wickedness on the face of the earth and was bitter. So He decided to wipe out mankind from the face of the earth. But Noah found favor in the eyes of God. (Gen 6:5-8) This is not different from our story of Salvation. The whole world was staged for destruction but Jesus Christ came to our rescue. Just like Noah, we have been chosen as sons of God to correct the decadence that is in our present day society. Noah, by faith and obedience to God made a difference for his family, his generation and for God. He ended up saving his family and generations from extinction. Just like Noah, you can make a difference for your family, generation and for God. Therefore, si