I am sure I cannot endure to the end!

I love reading letters of christians who lived in the past because i get inspired by how deeply they understood the gospel. It humbles my heart as i read about their extraordinary life and how they lived out their faith.

Today, i would like to repost a letter written by John Newton. He is famous for his hymn Amazing Grace. Hope you get inspired as much as i was.

Letter of John Newton
“I will put My fear in their hearts, so they will never turn away from Me.” Jeremiah 32:40

Jesus, to whom I have been led to commit myself, has engaged to save me absolutely, and from first to last. He has promised not only that He will not depart from me but that He will put, keep, and maintain His fear in my heart; so that I shall never finally depart from Him! And if He does not do this for me, I have no security against my turning apostate! For I am so weak, inconsistent, and sinful; I am so encompassed with deadly snares from the world; and I am so liable to such assaults from the subtlety, vigilance and power of Satan that, unless I am “kept by the power of God,” I am sure I cannot endure to the end!

I do believe that the Lord will keep me while I walk humbly and obediently before Him; but, were this all, it would be cold comfort! For I am prone to wander and need a Shepherd whose watchful eye, compassionate heart, and boundless mercy will pity, pardon, and restore my backslidings!

For, though by His goodness and not my own I have hitherto been preserved in the path of holiness; yet I feel those evils within me, which would shortly break loose and bear me down to destruction, were He not ever present with me to control them.

Those who comfortably hope to see His face in glory, but depend upon their own watchfulness and endeavors to preserve themselves from falling must be much wiser, better, and stronger than I am! Or at least they cannot have so deep and painful a sense of their own weakness and vileness, as daily experience forces upon me. I desire to be found in the use of the Lord’s appointed means for the renewal of my spiritual strength but I dare not undertake to watch a single hour, nor do I find ability to think a good thought, nor a power in myself of resisting any temptation! My strength is perfect weakness, and all I have is sin.

In short, I must sit down in despair if I did not believe that He who has begun a good work in me, will carry it out to completion.

“Hold me up and I shall be safe!” Psalm 119:117″I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules!” Ezekiel 36:27

Who told you? Part 1

Introduction to the study: Fall of Man

Just about every Christian has heard at least once in their lifetime a sermon about the fall of man. It is actually almost impossible to truly understand why we are sinners and our need for Christ without first being told about the origin of sin. But the fall of man doesn’t only tell us about the origin of sin, but also reveals to us our need for Christ. Furthermore, through careful study of what transpired on that day that changed human history for an eternity, we begin to understand the daily battle we as Christians are subject to from the moment we accept Christ as our personal saviour.

See being born again doesn’t magically sweep the devil off your back. No! The actual opposite happens. His attacks become more vigorous and strategic. But just like the fall of man shows us that we all inherited sin from Adam, it also discloses the traps and snares of the enemy.

I want to encourage you to carefully read the whole of chapter 3 of genesis and meditate especially on those passages that seemed trivial to you in the past. Ask God to reveal to you a message you could have missed or overlooked previously. For no verse is in the Bible for no reason. Each has a specific message ready to be heard by the person open to hear. I intentionally did not try to tell you what I am learning about the first commited sin because I want to encourage you to read these verses and meditate upon them, allowing God to give you a revelation instead of me just influencing what you pick when you read the scriptures. Please feel free to share in the comment section what you learnt as you read the verses in Genesis 3.

In this post, we have been briefly reminded of the story of how sin came into is world and what role our understanding of fall of man plays in our path to salvation. In the next post, we shall study what the fall of man teaches us about our daily battle with the enemy. It will be a pleasure to have you join me as I study and share these series.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”⁴ “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. ⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hidfrom the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” ¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” ¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me,and I ate.” ¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock

and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.” ¹⁶ To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” ¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it

all the days of your life. ¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken;
for dust you are and to dust you will return.” ²⁰ Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living ²¹ The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. ²² And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ²³ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ²⁴ After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” – Genesis 3

Always ready to give an answer

Through faith, God reveals to us mysteries.

Have you ever asked a question and the only answer you got was “there are things we will never know” basing on Deuteronomy….

Yes. God did leave some mysteries unknown to man. But does that mean he can not reveal to whom he wants the things he wants to reveal? The carnal mond will never comprehend the things of the Lord. For sin has no fellowship in God’s presence. But God promised to reveal his intentions to his children. The things not seen and that can’t be understood by the carnal mind, he chose to help us understand.
Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. – Matthew 13:11

When we received Jesus Christ in our hearts as our personal saviour, we passed from death to life. We died to our carnal selves and now walk in the spirit. More so God gave us his Holy spirit to dwell in us and reveal to us the mysteries that were once hidden from us. He is willing and wants to share with us the fullness of life and reveal to us His plans and intentions and will. All we need is to cultivate a personal relationship with Him, study and meditate upon his word. And he will reveal to us mysteries beyond what our wildest dreams could have ever imagined.

But in your hearts set Christ apart [as holy—acknowledging Him, giving Him first place in your lives] as Lord. Always be ready to give a [logical] defense to anyone who asks you to account for the hope and confident assurance [elicited by faith] that is within you, yet [do it] with gentleness and respect. – 1 Peter 3:15

So being able to defend the gospel a lot to do with how much we honor Christ in our hearts. So we do not have to settle for less. God has given us so many opportunities to help us know the things we need to know. We can study his word and also cultivate an intimate relationship with him where we see life through his eyes. Let us as Christians be ready to walk in the oath God called us to and to answer questions people will ask about our father so that his name will be glorified.

Faith is sight

Faith is sight! It almost seems impossible to believe that faith can give sight especially in the world where we are taught that we should believe without seeing. It makes the idea of faith being sight sound like am oxymoron. we have been taught that we ought to believe before we see.

Yes! Jesus told Thomas, that blessed is that man who believes without seeing. In this verse. He was referring to someone who waits to see with their physical eyes before they believe. More so, Thomas had walked with Christ and had witnessed so many miracles, even the resurrection of Lazarus, yet he failed to believe Jesus could be alive just because he didn’t see it.

Faith that enables us to see the unseen

See we should not confuse believing without seeing and seeing because we believe. The world will say seeing is believing. But God says believing is seeing.

Elisha prayed to God, asking Him to open the eyes of his servant. See Elisha had faith even though they were sorrounded by an army. And yet it took the revelation of the angels to the servant for him to believe that God was by their side. Do we see how through faith, Elisha saw clearly? This is the perfect example of why faith is sight. His servant on the other hand, first saw and then believe. Without Elisha’s faith to see even the unseen, it would have never been possible for the servant to have an opportunity to also see, so that his faith too might be triggered.

Opportunities to help our faith grow

See God is not out there to set road block for us to stumble upon. He will give us numerous opportunities in life to have reason to trust in Him, his word, and believe that what he says, he has the power to fulfill. He doesn’t ask us to just believe without giving us – by his grace – just enough motivation that will push our faith to the next level. No! He does not expect us to come from zero faith and shoot up to 100% the day we hear about him. He is willing to walk us through it as we grow and get to know him better. And on this journey, we see his goodness, we see who He is, not only with our physical eyes but also with our spiritual eyes. And it is by this faith and trust we put in the Lord, that he reveals to us even things that we otherwise wouldn’t have known and gives us answers to questions that are unexplainable.

THE LIGHT OF LIGHTS

If you take way the light from the sun, moon, stars and manmade light, would there be darkness? No! God created light before he created the sun,moon and stars. (Genesis 1:3,14) Imagine this light. What do think it looks like? It may be hard for us to relate to this light because we have never lived a day without the sun, moon and stars, and some of us, a day without light from electricity and fire. So we think these are the source of light.

To take it a notch higher, the light God created on the first day, is created light too. There was a light even before this genesis 1:3 light. It’s source is God himself. Because we know that God is light. (John 8:12). This the light from God’s glory is of completely different characteristics. (Which we will look at later on in this lesson)

See God was the light from the beginning. And yet he created a world that is almost self sustaining and can almost exist without him. That can have light in the natural sense without his constant intervening. Because he is a God of love. (Of course we know nothing runs without God.) The light we have on this planet have served us greatly and enabled life as we know it to thrive. But when we take away all the light we know in the physical realm, the result there of is not darkness. But rather a beauty of God’s own sufficient light. His light existed before we were created, it will even after. Because he is the light. we see in revelation that God will be the light. There will be no need for any created things providing light. Because God’s glory will be our light. And the lamb our lamp (Revelations 21:23)

So why is light so interesting? Well the natural light that was created enables us to see anything it shines upon. It only can travel in a straight line and casts shadows on any obstacles it meets. It does not shine in all places and must be sustained or it can go out. It is temporary and the life it sustains is just as it is, also for a time.

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. – Psalm 119:105

But there is a greater light. The light that comes from God.

• This light enables us to see even in the dark (John 1:5).
• Not only see but it takes the dark out of us. It sustains us.(psalm 27:1)
• It is a way of life, we walk in it (1 John 1:7).
• We let it shine.(Matthew 5:16)
• We believe in it (John 12:36)
• It is everlasting (John 8:12)
• This light does not shine only on some parts and leaves others dark. No! It drives out darkness all over. No Shadows. (1 John 1:5)

This light is from God. For God is light.

The fear of the Lord

Of recent, I was listening to a sermon and the pastor said that he got a revelation about the fear of the Lord.

He said one night as he read Psalm 19:9, he got the revelation that Lucifer fell because there was no fear of God in him.

I had never looked at the fall of Lucifer in this light. This got me thinking more about the fear of the Lord. Quetioning my heart in thefear of the lord. So many times I have heard of the reverancial fear that we should have for God but somehow, I had taken for granted that a lack of fear for God leads to disobedience towards God. I had always thought it was pride that made Luficer fall and here I was, seeing how his lack of fear for God made him think he could actually compare himself to God, to make himself a god of some sort and eventually led him to riot against the most high and wage a war on heaven, whose outcome was obvious from the beginning.

But how could Lucifer having known God, thought he even had a chance? Somehow I feel that in the abundance of God’s goodness, he took for granted the authority and power, of the almighty God. And yet, we Christians, have lived so much in God’s grace that we have chosen to take it for granted. Paul asked, “shall we sin so grace might abound? God forbid” yet how many of us live by this principle, me being the chief of them all.

This leaves me humbled by all the times I have displayed a lack of fear for God. Where I have decided to despise him or without any sort of remorse just ignored his instructions only to fulfill the desires of my flesh,even for a moment. But if this lack of fear is going to separate me from my God, it is not worth it.

Once I understood what was at stake if am ignorant about fearing God, I was triggered to study more. As I continued to study about the fear of God, I realised the Bible has so much to say and to teach about the fear of the Lord. Surely this must be so important if it is so much stressed in multiple verses in the Bible.

The difference between fearing God and fearing God

First we have to differentiate between fearing God and being afraid of God. God is love and we are his Children thus we must neither be afraid nor scared of God. But we need to approach him with the respect and in owe of his glory and magnificence. When we are afraid of God, it is like we are processing that he is evil. We should approach God with a confidence that his good and wants the best for us, yet with humility because he is the almighty God, holy and above all things.

WHY WE SHOULD FEAR THE LORD

Here are some of the key reasons I find why every Christian ought to have the fear of God in him at all times.

1. It is in the fear of the Lord that we are sustained eternally.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the judgements of the Lord are true and righteousness altogether. Psalms 19:9

2. The fear of the Lord is a shield against evil forces.

The fear of the Lord tendeth to life: and he that hath it shall abide satisfied; he shall not be visited with evil. Proverbs 19:23

See in the fear of the Lord, our God given life is sustained. It is tended to. Built up as we grow more and more until we are full to overflowing.

We know that the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy. But here we see that in the fear of God, we are not visited by evil. And our life is ours to the fullest. It can’t be stolen from us by the devil.

Psalms 85:9 continues to say that salvation is close to those that fear God.

3. It is when we fear God that we are willing to depart from our sin

By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil proverbs 16:7

Have you ever wondered why you take so much delight in sin even if you have been saved and believe God to be your saviour? You just can’t get yourself to stop doing what you know to be wrong!

Much as part of the reason being we still live in a fallen body and the devil and his demons are constantly trying to steal our abundant life from us, a lack of fear for God does not help the situation.

I can assure you, as long as you do not fear the lord, you will not let go of your sin. As long as you take God’s grace for granted, which too is a sign of a lack of fear, you will make excuses to continue living in your sin.

Paul calls us to lay down the old man who was crucified and live a life that is dead to sin. Your fear of God must partner with His Holy Spirit to enable you to move according to his will.

In the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death – Psalm 14:27

Usually when the Bible uses the word fountain, it is in the context of a flow what has no end which comes from within and can’t be affected by outward circumstances.

See the fear of the lord, helps you to -from within your heart- keep away from anything that might pervert your body, soul and spirit. It is like the desire to take part in some of the things you once delighted in is purged out of you. In this new life, all traps of the devil to try to lure you into temptation, even unto death, cease to entice you.

4. We are blessed by God when we fear him.

He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great – Psalms 115:13

There are multiple examples of how so many people in the bible gained favour in the eyes of God because of the fear they had for Him. This fear was expressed in so many various ways. But we see as a result, God was pleased with them and abundantly blessed them, the greatest blessing being him having a close relationship with them.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his lovingkindness towards those who fear Him – Psalms 103:11

So as we continue to give our hearts to God, let us also cultivate hearts that fear the lord. Because God is worthy of our love, worship and reverance.

What do we allow our eyes to see?

Today let’s talk about TV.

Many of us underestimate the power of Television. We take for granted that we believe what we see. That comes naturally to us. Even if we know now that our eyes can believe an illusion or be tricked.

Of all senses, the eye seems to guarantee the truthfulness of an aspect. We believe it is true if we see it with our own eyes. That is why TV, while being good, can be deadly if we don’t intentionally with wisdom choose what we will watch. See we might hear things, and not believe them. And yet if the same things are shown to us, they all of a sudden becomes real antld true.

Seeing overpowers hearing

Remember Jesus said blessed are those who believe without seeing. He was challenging us to believe in Him, even without having to see. Why? Because sometimes we want to see something in order to prove it is true. But let us turn the tables. What if what we are seeing is not even true?

We have what we call eye witnesses for a reason. It seems like their report is more reliable than that of someone who was just told something. It is proven that humans always change the message if the hearing chain is so long. The more people hear something and pass on the information, the more the message will be perverted. We know this. And we have learnt, not to relay on just what we hear, at least, for the bigger part.

See radio has never been half as influencial as Television on our minds. Much as radio leaves the listener the freedom to create the image of what they hear in their mind, TV will obe that ht away us. Television will create that image for you and you will believe it, if you are not careful.

A resent example which I laughed over was the royal wedding. After it was done, they immediately showed a movie about the couple, how they met up to the wedding. It was such a good strategy to sell the movie. But after it was done, a few hours later,the person I watched with told me how the prince was almost eaten by a lion while he was in Africa. 😀😀😀. I laughed and told her that was the movie, not the news😀. She realised and said “I keep confusing the two.” Now much as we had watched the movie together, I realised her image of the Duke and duchess had changed.
Even I, who watched from the word go telling myself it is a movie, it ain’t true, sometimes tend to remember what I watched and wonder If maybe some bit of it was true.

News

Now TV is great for information. Let us talk news. News are meant to be true. But it would be really foolish to just believe all the propaganda in the news. Because at the end of the day, the news might be true, but the way they are presented will seek to communicate what either the government wants, or what the TV manager or the financially powerful people want. News can be used to lead the masses into a certain direction.

Those of us who have done interview that were to be shown later on tv know that only half of what they say is truly shown. And that sometimes, all of a sudden the meaning changes. It is through news that whole nations can try to wipe away others. So as we watch our news, let us also check ourselves if we are not moving with the masses into a certain mentality that we are supposed to break free of. This must not just be political, tribal, racial, sometimes the influence can be about the morals and suppression of rights or poverty mentality, rebellion or government dependency that’s being spread through news.

Check yourself and compare yourself with the people around you. If half the time you find that you, as a Christian agree with more than half of views of the common popular, maybe you are being influenced by something else other than God.

Where does the influence on Christians come from?

First of all God can not be in the same boat as the world, nor sin and righteousness, likewise you are a Christian should not have a world view. God doesn’t suppress our uniqueness. But he works with our different talents to bring his will done by different people in different ways. Even in the church, u r not supposed to be the “same” in all your ways. Unity doesn’t mean being same. But yet we try to imitate what we see even in churches. Imitating how we pray, how we talk, all because we saw someone we esteem of high spirit rank do it that way.

Christian movies

Let us take a look at Bible movies. The worst is the movie of Noah. How the fallen angels helped him build the ark n then God forgave them and as men killed them, they went to heaven. I mean imagine a person who ain’t conversant with the Bible watching that movie before reading the text.

The same goes to all those movies of Jesus as a child. Likewise the Hollywood movie the passion of Christ. Of which I must admit, I just can’t put my finger of the small details that were changed in the movie but reading today’s devotion, I was confronted with one which is true but not biblical. The saying “This too will pass” has picked ground from the movie but it is not a biblical text. God defines clearly what will pass and what won’t. Some things are a constant in the Bible because God is never changing and His word shall never pass away.

The question is, as Christians, do we let even Christian movies affect our faith? Have we believed them blindly without checking what the Bible says? Let us be vigilant. You don’t want to believe a lie when God has given us the truth.

Healing the Scars

Last year, I got an oil burn on my hand. The wound was huge and the scar it left after 2 weeks was evident. I remember going to a pharmacy to get something that would prevent this wound from becoming a scar just 2 days after the accident and the pharmacist told me “it will not go, maybe with time it will get lighter and less visible but a scar will always be there” I went away and thank God for life and busy schedules for I never had a chance to worry about the scar or give it any attention.