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...

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...

“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 t...