Sunday Mornings

“So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, “Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.” And when those who came who were hired about the 11th hour, they each received a denarius.” (Mathew 20:8-9) Jesus tells his disciples a parable, narrating the story of a land owner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for His vineyard. He agreed with the laborers to pay them the normal daily wage which was a denarius and sent them into his vineyard to start working. He went out the 3rd hour and met others standing idle in the market place. He called them to work as well in his vineyard and agreed to pay them a fair price. He went out again the 6th and the 9th hour and repeated the same thing. At the 11th hour, he still met others standing idle, and the excuse given was that there was no one to hire them. He hired them immediately and sent them into his vineyard to join the others as well. Now it was pay

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Mathew 3:11) I’ve been going through the book of Mathew for a while now and you won’t believe what I saw. Well, you may have seen it before, but as for me, I had just seen this for the first time in my life. I sure had read this verse a couple of times in my lifetime, but I just never saw what I had just seen. This was what I saw, “…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire”. The word that struck me was the ‘and’ between the Holy Spirit and Fire. Questions began to run through my mind like; Is the baptism of the Holy Spirit different from that of Fire? But Isn’t The Holy Spirit fire Himself? For days I looked upon this verse; I couldn’t forge ahead until I got light.  In the midst of my search, I fell ill; seriously ill that I couldn’t do anything, not even to pray or stu

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb 4:16) God is constant. If anyone is variable, then it’s us.  God always plays His part. What is left is that we play ours. Help is always made available. It is we that determine whether or not we get access to it. For one to access the help of God, God must have shown that person mercy. So when we say that we’ve been helped by God, it’s because God has shown us His mercy; for in God’s mercy lies help. Mercy has been made available but one must come to the throne to obtain it. The problem is never from the help that is made available but from men that have failed to access that help. There is a criteria however, which men must observe to access God’s help; 1. Recognizing where your help comes from. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3). These are men that are sentenced to a lifetime of neediness and dependency. Me

Psalm 121 1  I lift up my eyes to the mountains—      where does my help come from? 2  My help comes from the  Lord ,      the Maker of heaven and earth. 3  He will not let your foot slip—      he who watches over you will not slumber; 4  indeed, he who watches over Israel      will neither slumber nor sleep. 5  The  Lord  watches over you—      the  Lord  is your shade at your right hand; 6  the sun will not harm you by day,      nor the moon by night. 7  The  Lord  will keep you from all harm—      he will watch over your life; 8  the  Lord  will watch over your coming and going      both now and forevermore. Matthew Henry’s Bible Commentary We must not rely upon men and means, instruments and second causes. Shall I depend upon the strength of the hills? upon princes and great men? No; my confidence is in God only. Or, we must lift up our eyes above the hills; we must look to God who makes all earthly things to us what they are. We must see all our help in God; from him we must expec

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.” (1 Cor 3:6-9) What then can we do? Having established that the mandate to go out there where the people are is the duty of every believer, we’d like to take a look at the kind of believer that goes out there and ways in which the believer can reach out to others. One primary thing to take note of is that God can use anybody. He’s ever willing to use any vessel that is empty, available and yielded for His use. The vessel may be the same at different times, but the method or strategy may not always be the same at different times. A believer that will embark on this mission is a believer that is wholly dependent on the voice of the Holy Spi

“To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col 1:27) What is stopping you? A preacher once told his congregation that they were not living right and he’d be far more interested in a quality church rather than a quantity church. I wondered if he was giving his members the leverage to leave the church if they were not willing to grow. But love never gives up, it believes the best, and that’s why even God Himself never gives up on us; it’s His desire that all His children come to the knowledge of Him and grow in this knowledge. I however do not think that there can be a quality church without a quantity church because, the one’s whom we call quality would definitely be equipped to go out there and bring in the quantity. And when the quantity comes in, they also can be transformed into the quality and hence go out again and bring in more quantity, and the train continues. On

“But you shall receive power (ability, efficiency and might) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends (the very bounds) of the earth.” (Acts 1:8 [AMP]) I once heard a preacher say that the reason his church was not growing in size over the years was because the members were not living right; if they lived right, many would see the evidence of Jesus in their lives and follow them to church. That’s partially true, but not 100% true. I once heard another preacher say that the reason they were depreciating in number was because evil was looming around the church and preventing new members from coming in. Well, that could be true to some extent, but not 100% true. I sat wondering year after year why it was the same people I saw in church every Sunday. There was no single new member and the only difference was that these people were getting older and dying while children were born to others to rep

4Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessings come to someone. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. 5Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. 6Love joyfully celebrates honestly and finds no delight in what is wrong. 7Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.  [1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (TPT)] Love falls into two major categories: The Divine love and the Human love . The Divine love is unselfish while the Human love is selfish; The Divine love has no limitations while the Human love has much limitations; The Divine love is independent of circumstances while the Human love is dependent on circumstances; The Divine love is the very nature of God while the Human love is the n

 Matthew 6: 25-34 25  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  26  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  27  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life [ e ] ? 28  “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  29  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  30  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  31  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  32  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that

Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. Everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And the door will be opened for everyone who knocks.  Would any of you give your hungry child a stone, if the child asked for some bread? Would you give your child a snake if the child asked for a fish? As bad as you are, you still know how to give good gifts to your children. But your heavenly Father is even more ready to give good things to people who ask.  Matthew 7:7‭-‬11 CEV. By God's grace we will conclude the series today with this profound infinite and magnificent display of  love and benevolence by God in the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:7-11. In these 5 verses we can find perhaps the most assuring invitation from God to pray. May God grant us insight as we dive in and take a brief study. Amen. Action and Reaction: 3 times Our LORD invites us to pray in this bible text (Ask, Seek/Search, Knock). This is an eye op

So this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, we pray that your name will always be kept holy.  We pray that your kingdom will come— that what you want will be done here on earth, the same as in heaven. Give us the food we need for today. Forgive our sins, just as we have forgiven those who did wrong to us. Don’t let us be tempted, but save us from the Evil One.’ Matthew 6:9‭-‬13 ERV As Jesus continues teaching us about prayers, he gives us a blue print, a model that our prayers should look like. May God grant us insight as we study briefly the different sections of the prayer in order to guide us in the other times we pray. So this is how you should pray: Our Father in Heaven: Relationship and communication enhance each other. Communication enhances a better relationship and you communicate better with someone whom you have a [closer] relationship with. This beginning phrase in the model prayer creates that environment. It soothes and brings to cognisance the relationship we

“When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.  Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! ( Matthew 6:7‭-‬8 NLT) Thank God for the success so far in this study. As we look into the text for today, building on what God has already began with us, may these building blocks lead to a turn around in our prayer life. Amen. The prayer of a believer in many ways differ from what the idol worshipers (or as today's text calls them - Gentiles) call prayer to their deity. Very quickly we will look into the various strokes of the paint brush that Jesus uses to paint this guideline for us when we pray : 1. Why should I pray?: We will start from the ending of verse 8 for our discussion today. Why should I pray in the first place when God already knows what I need before I even ask? I have struggled with this question for a lo

“Whenever you pray, be sincere and not like the pretenders who love the attention they receive while praying before others in the meetings and on street corners. Believe me, they’ve already received in full their reward.  But whenever you pray, go into your innermost chamber and be alone with Father God, praying to him in secret. And your Father, who sees all you do, will reward you openly."  Matthew 6:5‭-‬6 TPT Last week we left off with Jesus knowing for sure that we would pray (because we are like Christ) and He is here to guide us further in this kingdom lifestyle. When you pray (because we will), a fundamental question must be answered: are you praying to God or to man? The obvious answer to this question is that prayer is communication to God and not man. And it is in this light that Jesus admonishes us today; if you are praying to God, then get alone with God, be alone with Him. He says this in two points: 1. Men do not need to see you:  Jesus

“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get.  Matthew 6:5 NLT Prayer is the key. We sang this as we grew up in the church. However there is so much about prayer that we take for granted or probably don't know of while engaging in it as growing adults. Being a spiritual exercise, there are spiritual guiding principles and understanding that a believer needs to know to pray . By God's grace, we will be taking a study on prayer in a series. Our focus will be on the teachings of Jesus as scribed by Matthew (6&7). Our focus today is the first 3 words of our scripture text: " when you pray... ". The very words of our LORD and saviour. We know he lived a life of prayer and talking to us today about prayer, He begins with these three words: " when you pray... ". May these words take ro

Let my prayer be as the evening sacrifice that burns like fragrant incense, rising as my offering to you as I lift up my hands in surrendered worship! Psalms 141:2 In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a new normal in place. We look back to the days when Sunday mornings were times we looked forward to because we would be meeting with the brethren in God's holy temple. But to mitigate the spread of the virus, churches have been closed. This in itself is a pointer to what really matters. The psalmist in today's text was in the same condition as we are in. This psalm was written by David in one of his exiles away from civilization and from the Jewish normal; hiding from Saul who so desperately sought to kill him. He could not join the congregation in the morning and evening sacrifice. He could not even afford to be making sacrifices and burnt offerings too as it may attract the attention of Saul's vigilantes. He made a simple request to God. He

Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. (Psalms 91:1 NLT) In these past days, while obeying the compulsory lockdown order by the Federal Government in compliance with the health expert's advice, there is a picture that keeps playing out in my mind: that "outside" is dangerous; there is an evil outside; and the safest place is "inside". On this premise, the word of God for today finds relevance. Both in these days of the covid 19 pandemic and beyond if God grants us long life to see the end of the pandemic. There is a fortress in God's presence. In the day of trouble you can run into it and be saved (Proverbs 18:10). But God's ultimate plan is not for us to run to this fortress only in the day of trouble because though we are in the world, we are not of the world (John 17:6-26). So we have to shield ourselves from the evil in the world habitually. God