Sunday Mornings

  Set on the donkey,  Fears hunting the indepts of my heart,  The cold winter breeze chewing my skin,  The struggle to hold on to hope.  The first census in what seemed like forever  My unfortunate predicament of journeying with a swollen stomach,  Swollen with another life,  The world's greatest miracle,  I smiled to myself,  Willing the beauty to remain.  Oh, he would be born in his home town,  The land of my very beloved...  The pains of the journey weakened my bones,  Every muscle screaming for help,  The constant battle to stay calm and strong.  For my beloved and unborn child.  The night stole the sun  And the moon, its glory.  I lay facing the stars,  The journey of the first day had come to an end.  With fears still breathing inside my heart  Unsure of what is to come,  I drifted into a beauty sleep.  But It lasted only for a moment.  And in what seemed too short a time, Morning light screamed at me.  The journey needed to be completed.  Yes,  it was a struggle to get by, 

  Ima limped painfully out of the wadi into which she fell earlier. It was not her fault. She fell in trying to protect me from a thornbush. Now there was a pebble stuck in her foot. But the Boy took it out. Ima must rest now. I am allowed to remain with her though I am old enough to be separated from the other young Rams. They are rough and tease me saying I will turn into a Ewe just like Ima, but Ima said it is not possible. I believe her. She is soft and smells of sweet grass. I lie next to her in the pen. Her breathing is slow and steady. I start to fall asleep. “You were always a queer little one, weren't you?” There was a smile in her voice as she said it. I turned my ears to Ima's voice as she spoke. “When I held you in my womb, my dear, the shepherd thought I was carrying twins! I was so heavy with you. I could not move like the other sheep. So, the farmer delayed our herd's migration until I had given you birth. I am eternally grateful. Yours was a difficult one. B

  The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death, Light has dawned! ( Matthew 4:16 ) Christmas draws nearer and as we continue to look through scriptures on Christmas themes, may God open our eyes to the realities of the season. Amen. Light has dawned! Hallelujah!! But before then, the people sat in darkness. In this passage, Matthew is alluding to a poem in Isaiah; Isaiah 9 . Yes, the same chapter with the famous " for unto us a child is born ". I will encourage you to read the chapter in your spare time. Because one must ask; what is it about this child that is born? Why is this Son that is given to us important? The answer simply put is in the echoes of dark times. You will find out that in vs 4 , Isaiah said God would deliver them, but when he went on to describe how that would happen, it would be through a child being born; through a son being given. And that is Christmas. O the famous dark ages - the time

  Say to those who have an anxious heart, "Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you." Isaiah 35:4 What year it has been in 2021. And as usual, the year ends with a Christmas theme. Today, in view of the christmas season, we would like to glean on what the birth of Jesus meant for a 1st century Israelite. To set the text in context, Isaiah had spent majority of the previous chapters pronouncing woes on Israel and Judah for forsaking God and His covenant with them. Isaiah 35 comes along to proclaim that God's wrath will not have the final say; He would yet again have compassion on Israel. So, Isaiah told the people: Be strong Fear not Behold! Your God will come He will come and save you. For me living after the biblical era, I cannot wrap my head around this verse without seeing Jesus in every word. That night, as Mary birthed her first born son, it was God fulfilling His promise to Israel about a

  Psalm 44 I have often wondered: ‘If we’re all made in the image of God, God must really have an interesting appearance; His face to begin with.’ The word of God in John 4:24 however tells us that God is spirit, and as such does not literally have a face. So, by this we know that God’s face in today’s context is merely anthropomorphic, and represents His presence and favor in a life. We would notice the blessedness of God’s face from Aaron’s blessing for the children of Israel in Numbers 6:24-26, where it says: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.” How beautiful can this be? What then does it mean for God to hide his face? God’s face is said to be hidden when it is obvious that His divine presence and favor can no longer be felt. It is a feeling of deep sadness and spiritual emptiness, which often arises in the heart and stems out to affect output. The Psalm

To combat Satan's seduction, Jesus relied on Scripture rather than some mysterious spiritual power unavailable to us. Jesus waged this struggle as a complete human being, and He used no "special resources" that we don't have. Matthew 4:1-11 Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit to a desert. There He was tempted by the devil.  2  Jesus went without food for forty days and forty nights. After that He was hungry.  3  The devil came tempting Him and said, “If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to be made into bread.”  4  But Jesus said, “It is written, ‘Man is not to live on bread only. Man is to live by every word that God speaks.’” 5  Then the devil took Jesus up to Jerusalem, the holy city. He had Jesus stand on the highest part of the house of God.  6  The devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. It is written, ‘He has told His angels to look after You. In their hands they will hold You up. Then Your foot will not hit against a stone

  And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him. ( I John 5:14-15 ) What a blessed gift God has given us in prayer - an avenue to make requests. But why are all my prayers not answered? Why do I get the exact opposite of my requests? I pray for God to preserve the life of a loved one, and after many days of sincere uproars, the person still dies. Let us face the truth, this has definitely been our story at one point. So what happened to our open cheque (prayer)? You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:3-4 I believe that every request will be granted but there is a condition: the only requests th

  "If you are the Son of God..." Matthew 4:3&6 Today's episode is a sequel to the previous blog post on the serpent's lies that makes our heart turn in rebellion to God and His laws. Matthew 4 gives an account of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. Unlike the children of Israel in the wilderness, Jesus was not persuaded by the devil's lies to doubt God and what He said; and unlike the first man - Adam, Jesus did not fall to the tricks of the devil. May God grant us similar victory as we rest in Jesus and His faithfulness to deliver us from the tricks of the enemy. Amen. "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." Matthew 3:17 It is so fascinating that just before we begin chapter 4 of Matthew's gospel, chapter 3 ended with a declaration from God. This was heard at least by Jesus Himself and probably all who were standing there. But it is precisely the same thing that God spoke of that Satan was attacking in the temptation narrati

  ...so that we are not outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs. II Cor 2:11 That old serpent who has been deceiving the world from the beginning has been using some old tricks ( Rev 12:9 , John 8:44 ). The bible instructs us not to be ignorant of his designs. Today we visit the Garden of Eden to uncover 4 of the tricks he uses to turn our hearts away from God. It has worked severally, but God wants us to be aware of it; so that we can detect it and overcome him ( Gen 4:7 ). 1. God is withholding something good from you: If Satan can succeed in making God look wicked in your eyes, it will be very easy to rebel against His laws: "Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?" ( Gen 3:1b ) This question begins a lot of mental analysis. You count what God says you can do and cannot do. And suddenly you realise that God is limiting your freedom in some sense. But this is not true. There is freedom in Christ, but godly freedom always has hea

  And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Gen 25:28 By the grace of God, today we will be looking at the Esau syndrome that plagues many of us who desire earnestly to do God's will, but oftentimes, our passion comes in the way. To set the context of today's key verse, if we go a few verses behind, we see that Rebekah was barren vs21 . Isaac prayed for Rebekah vs21 . God answered his prayers and Rebekah is pregnant with twins vs21 . Before they are even born to have done anything right or wrong to win God's favour ( Rom 9:10-13 ), God tells Rebekah that the older would serve the younger vs23 ( Malachi 1:2&3 ). It is plausible that Rebekah must have told her husband what God had revealed to her. It is also plausible that Isaac must have probably got a revelation from God too on this matter. (These are not explicitly said in the bible and so we must be careful how we use these plausible scenarios). But our anchor text says that Isaac love

  Pursue holiness, without which, no one will see the LORD. Hebrews 12:14 Dear brothers and sisters, I found it necessary to write a follow-up to a previous post on this blog ( gutsy guilt ) because like I mentioned in that particular post, in scriptures, God is portrayed as eternally just in punishing all evil, but at the same time, He is eternally loving and ready to always forgive and be merciful to us when we err. These two extremes of what I call the God spectrum can be found everywhere in the bible, for example in Exodus 34, when God was introducing himself to Moses, this is what He said: And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation." Exodus 34

Psalm 100 Amplified Bible (AMP) Shout joyfully to the  Lord , all the earth. 2  Serve the  Lord  with gladness and delight; Come before His presence with joyful singing. 3  Know and fully recognize with gratitude that the  Lord  Himself is God; It is He who has made us,  [ a ] not we ourselves [and we are His]. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. 4  Enter His gates with a song of thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, bless and praise His name. 5  For the  Lord  is good; His mercy and lovingkindness are everlasting, His faithfulness [endures] to all generations. ·          Thank and praise God for everything in your life.  Thank Him for even the difficulties. It is a sacrifice to do this. But He can turn troubles to triumph. "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise -- the fruit of lips that confess his name" Hebrews 13:15. ·          Don't allow yourself to complain about anything.  Duri

  Beloved...I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Jude 3 Calvary greetings beloved. If there is a theme for believers in this generation it will be the importance of maintaining our salvation status to ensure that in the end, we make it to heaven. And if there is any book in the bible that talks elaborately about this topic, it is Jude. His epistle is a 1 chapter epistle. But as it was relevant to the believers that he was writing to through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it is more relevant to us living today. I invite you to take the time to read the book by yourself. This is just a summary of the epistle. We will just take a brief study on the book of Jude today. May God grant us insight as we dive in. From vs 3 , which is our anchor text, Jude makes it clear the reason for this epistle. He initially wanted to write about the glory of our salvation - this should have been a happy text, but he felt