Sunday, 6 April 2014

QUALIFIED FOR HARVEST?



READ: GALATIANS 6:7-9
We do not have anniversaries every day. Normally, an anniversary is a period of feasting. The preacher who will preach on that day will preach a very pleasant sermon. Your harvest is coming. God wants you to prepare for a harvest according to Genesis 8:22. It says: “While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” One law that is the most powerful of laws, and has its tentacles spread into every facet of human endeavour in the law of harvest. According to our reading and Hosea 8:7, a harvest is far bigger than the seed that was sown to produce it.
2 Corinthians 9:6 says your harvest is directly proportional to the amount of seed sown. This accounts for why many poor people remain poor. Besides, the harvest is always of the same seed producing it according to James 3:12. Whatever you sow is exactly what you will reap. The question is: What are you sowing? Sometime ago, I was about to travel to Kenya for a conference. My lovely wife said since I had never been there before and was not sure of the kind of food they will serve; she would give me a treat, so that even if I ate nothing for that whole week, I will always recall I had a great meal at home.
She prepared my favorite pounded yam with one large chicken and set the table for me to eat before heading for the airport. Just then some of my friends came from Ibadan. Boy! Were they hungry! They went straight to the table and leveled the mountain of pounded yam. It was too late for my wife to prepare another meal so I travelled. Do you know that every day of the conference somebody came and invited me out? And wherever we went, they served me chicken. If we had not sown that meal I would not have had such a harvest. Many of us want a harvest. We desire and pray for it. Harvest is not by mere desires or wishes. Harvest is not just by praying and fasting. If you truly want a harvest, sow what you want and at harvest time you will reap what you have sown. Sow big, reap big. Sow money, harvest money. Sow clothes. Somebody sowed some ties to some needy brothers. At harvest time, he reaped ties – better ones. Sow pieces of land and you will reap them in prime areas. This principle works always except in a trial of faith situation, when harvest is temporarily delayed.
MEMORIZE: JAMES 3:12 –Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? Either a vine, figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.

Saturday, 5 April 2014

OVERCOMING GRAVITATIONAL PULL



READ: LUKE 24:49-53
“Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).
Jesus not only operated in the Law of Resurrection, He is the Law of Resurrection and the life. When God wanted to reverse the three fold ministry of Satan and restore all that he had stolen, killed or destroyed, He sent the Law of Resurrection and life in the person of Jesus Christ. If you receive Him into your hear and let His law govern your life, He will recover your loss, quicken your dying parts and restore things destroyed. To what extent are you benefiting from the operation of the law of resurrection today?
“And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out their sight” (Acts 1:9). The law of resurrection is stronger and more powerful than the law of gravity. No one can go up and stay up without falling down. When the law of resurrection operates in your life, you will continue to rise without coming down. Just as Jesus ascended without falling, you too will defeat the law of gravity and ascend in every area of life without falling. If you keep rising and falling in your Christian life, the law of resurrection is yet to fully operate in you. If you take one step forward and two steps backwards in academics, work, business, etc., it shows something is hindering the law of resurrection from subduing the gravitational pull of the enemies. Check your life and ensure the law of sin and death is not responsible.
One glorious morning – it could be noon, evening or night – the trumpet will sound. Jesus is our fore-runner in the rapture. He heard a trumpet call for His return home and even though He was still speaking with His disciples, the law of gravity bowed to the law of Resurrection as He ascended. On the day of rapture it will be our turn. After the ascension of Jesus, the law of gravity went into serious research and discovered that sin is very heavy. A sin is a weight while righteousness is very light. To be raptured, you must be very holy – very light. So it brokered a truce with the law of sin and death to operate in as many believers as possible. When the trumpet sounds, the law of gravity will triple his efforts to prevent any ascension. Only believers who operate in the law of resurrection will overcome the gravitational pull. If the law of sin and death is still working in you, there will be no rapture. Make amends now.
MEMORIZE: ACTS 1:9 –And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out their sight.

Friday, 4 April 2014

MULTIPLYING PROVISION



READ: MATTHEW 15:32-38
“And He took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and broke them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude” (Matthew 15:36).
Thanksgiving, beyond being a type of prayer is a type of giving. Any work that is not backed by faith is sin (Romans 14:23). Thanksgiving is an act of faith. Acts of faith are counted to you as acts of righteousness. For instance, Galatians 3:6 says, Abraham believed God and it was counted for him for righteousness. Every time you sincerely thank God for something, it is recorded as an act of righteousness that will earn you some reward. Whenever you thank God, you are acknowledging that God is alive and He is playing His role in your life. Anytime you refuse to thank Him, you are indirectly saying He doesn’t exist and thereby accusing Him of non-performance.
“Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). Do you know anytime you ask God for something without offering thanks, your request may not be properly tabled before the Lord? This is because thanksgiving is the means of making your request attractive to God. If 100 believers come before God with various requests, those whose requests are better packaged will be singled out for prompt attention. Such people are those requests are well packaged with thanksgiving.
Your request is incomplete without thanksgiving. The one who gives thanks to God is a wise giver. Some people pray for the fun of it. Some pray because they are compelled by circumstances to. They do not really care whether they obtain result or not. But the one who packages his request within and without with thanksgiving is praying for results. He is hitting the bull’s eye whenever he prays. From our reading, the provision for the multitude remained limited until Jesus solicited the ministry of thanksgiving. As soon as thanksgiving was brought into that situation, the provision was multiplied in excess. If you have very little when so much is required, do not fear. Through thanksgiving you could multiply what you have to meet your need. Embrace thanksgiving today and enter the era of abundance.
MEMORIZE: MATTHEW 15:36 –And He took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and broke them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.