The word FOCUS is a big deal that sounds so complacent and with so many questions,
Mr Akpan: Be focused...
Daughter: Ok Daddy but I have tried my best.
I am tired of doing things over and over with no results...
What is focus?
Focus is a central point of attraction, attention, or activity, a resolute point to keep pressing on.What fears creep into your heart most often?
Are you worried you might never get married? Or if you’re married, that your marriage may never get better? Are you afraid of failing at work or losing your job? Do you have fears about your health, what illness you might have or how you might die? Do you worry regularly about your children — their health, their relationships, their faith? When are you afraid?
What you fear most may be exactly where Satan is targeting you most. He preys on insecurity, anxiety, and distress. He pours the gasoline of lies on our fears — trying to persuade us that God is powerless, indifferent, or distant. Even King David, a man after God’s own heart, asks, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalms 13:1).
God is not powerless; his power is immeasurably great (Ephesians 1:19). God is not indifferent toward you; he cares for you as a Father for his child (1 Peter 5:7). And God is not distant; he is “near to all who call on him” (Psalm 145:18). But he can feel far away when we are afraid.
Sometimes God feels far from us in trials because we have put ourselves out of earshot from his word.
Every Reason to Fear
David wrote Psalm 56 when he was seized by the Philistines while running from Saul’s army. David thought he might find refuge there if the Philistines had forgotten who he was, but some servants of the king soon said, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances, ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?” (1 Samuel 21:11). So they seized him.
David, running for his life from one murderer with an army of soldiers, runs into the arms of another jealous and dangerous enemy. Those are his “trials of various kinds” (James 1:2) when he writes,
Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; all day long an attacker oppresses me; my enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly. . . . All day long they injure my cause; all their thoughts are against me for evil. They stir up strife, they lurk; they watch my steps, as they have waited for my life. (Psalms 56:1–2, 5–6)
He lived each day wondering not just if he might die that day, but if today might be the day someone would kill him. Yet, more than once in this psalm, he says, “I shall not be afraid” (Psalm 56:4, 11). How can he say that when he is on the run and in captivity?
When I Am Afraid
David could face horrifying trials because he knew where to turn in horrifying trials.
When I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can flesh do to me? (Psalm 56:3–4)
He begins by saying, “When I am afraid . . . ” He acknowledges that the danger, the trial, the fear is real. He does not deny being afraid in Philistine confines. Or in hiding from Saul. “I am afraid,” he confesses.
But for not long. “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. . . . in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.” I am afraid for the moment, but I know where to turn when I am afraid. And when I cast my fears on him, he casts away all my fears. “I shall not be afraid.”
Anytime you see someone move from “I am afraid” to “I shall not be afraid,” you should ask how. Knowing David overcame fear might mysteriously inspire someone who is afraid, but unless he tells us how, his story will not help us face our own fears.
How to Trust in God
What happened for David between “I am afraid” and “I shall not be afraid”? He put his trust in God. So, put your trust in God when you are afraid? Yes, but does David say more about what it looked like to trust in God in the caves, in captivity, running for his life?
When I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can flesh do to me? (Psalm 56:3–4)
When David put his trust in God, he put his trust, even his praise, in God’s word. He didn’t pray vague prayers of hope, but anchored his pain and longing and fear in specific promises of God. When I am afraid, I cling to you in your word. Instead of dwelling on the terrifying mountains in front of me, I set my mind on what you have said to those who love you. Suddenly, the threats no longer seem threatening because they’re being drowned out by a louder voice.
The Word on the Word
If you want to know what it looks like to treasure God’s word in the ups and downs of life, linger in Psalm 119. Nowhere else is Scripture exalted and celebrated like it is in Scripture’s longest chapter. Maybe most precious of all in those 176 verses, though, are when the psalmist talks about the power of God’s word to calm our fears and carry us through sorrow.
“My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word!” (Psalms 119:28).
“I am severely afflicted; give me life, O Lord, according to your word!” (Psalms 119:107).
“You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word” (Psalms 119:114).
“I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words” (Psalms 119:147).
“Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words” (Psalms 119:161).
Princes persecute me without cause — I suffer for no reason — but your words are still sweet to me. When I don’t know what to say because the trials are so heavy, I cannot get enough of your voice. My only hope for healing and strength and protection and help and deliverance is written in your book. My heart stands in awe of all that you say.
God Is for You
David almost repeats himself near the end of Psalm 56:
This I know, that God is for me.
In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can man do to me? (Psalm 56:9–11)
What does it mean to trust in God? It means to trust what he says. And what does God say in his word? I am for you. And if God is for you, who can be against you (Romans 8:31)? What can man do to you?
When fears come — and they will come, even today — you know where to turn. You know the voice you need to hear, the voice that instills a peace that surpasses all understanding. And he says to you, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And because you are in him, and he lives in you, through faith, you have overcome the world (1 John 5:4–5).
You can say with David, “I shall not be afraid.”
Marshall Segal (@marshallsegal) is a writer and managing editor at desiringGod.org. He’s the author of Not Yet Married: The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness & Dating (2017). He graduated from Bethlehem College & Seminary. He and his wife, Faye, have a son and live in Minneapolis.
What makes a pastor persevere in ministry?
The Lilly Endowment invested $84 million over 10 years to study and support the practices that allow Christian pastors in America to sustain excellence over the years. They funded 63 projects across 25 different denominations and traditions. Each organization made a similar discovery: relationships with peers are the key factor to pastoral longevity.
I’ve worked with and provided pastoral care for pastors in various forms for the last seven years. For the last five I’ve helped nearly one hundred pastors develop the characteristics they need to stay happy and healthy in ministry. My results aren’t as scientific as the Lilly study, but I concur: Pastors need real, intimate, vulnerable friendships, if they are going to last in ministry.
Yet pastoral isolation is common. Sometimes it’s self-isolation, either out of a fear of being known or a fear of being hurt again by those he considers friends. More often, though, it’s a public isolation, caring for and befriending many, with very few friends to care for him. A pastor can seem like he’s known by many — he reveals a bit of himself each week to hundreds or thousands — while he’s really known by few. Revelations of himself during sermons are often like revelations over social media: Controlled vulnerability that keeps people at a distance either through over- or under-sharing.
It’s tough to blame them. Pastoral work can be dehumanizing. People know and appreciate you for the work you do — the sermons you preach, the care you give, the prayers you pray, the visionary leadership you provide — more than who you really are. Since you perform publicly every week, appreciation can be a fickle thing. Good counselors guard against dual relationships, knowing it’s nearly impossible and often unethical to have a personal friendship with a professional client. Pastors experience some of that reality as well.
The author of Hebrews reminds us that loneliness and isolation impact our spiritual health as well: “Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:1). We weren’t meant to live in isolation; we — pastors included — need daily, meaningful affirmation from others if we are to be successful in fighting sin.
In Psalm 25:16, David asks God to be near him, for he is “lonely and afflicted.” David models the right response to feeling lonely: a longing for intimate relationships. That longing is not a sign of selfishness or weakness. It’s simply an acknowledgement that you are human. God never intended for any of us to live in isolation. God doesn’t live in isolation; there is perfect communion within the Trinity. Created in his image, we are made for relationships, with him and with others. That’s true of all of us, including pastors.
We — pastors included — were made for relationships, with God and with others.
Like anyone else, a pastor’s relationship with God must be primary. If a pastor doesn’t have a relationship with God that is continually growing in intimacy, he will demand more from his relationships with others than they are capable of giving him. Therefore, a pastor must constantly work to deepen the intimacy in his relationship with God.
The Bible, prayer, and the sacraments are the means God gave his people to grow closer to him (Acts 2:42). They are not only tools a pastor uses to do the work of ministry; they are also the God-given means to deepen the intimacy in his relationship with God.
But God didn’t create us to live only in relationship with him. He created us to also live in community with others. That larger community is found in the local church, which the pastor leads. And this leadership can often seem isolating; it’s really tough to be both a friend and a leader. This leaves the pastor with a relational need — a relational need that is too great for a wife to carry by herself.
A pastor needs his wife as his friend, but not his only friend. She often feels isolated and alone, carrying ministry secrets and her husband’s secret doubts and struggles, ones that are not disqualifying sins, but also are not things that should be shared indiscriminately.
A pastor also needs more than ministry partners or co-workers. They are helpful. They can provide companionship. But you can have a lot of co-workers and still be lonely. Friends don’t just partner on projects; they partner in life.
I’ve found the people best suited to be a pastor’s friend are fellow pastors, most often those in a different church. It’s easy for pastors to look at other pastors and borrow the phrase C.S. Lewis says is at the start of every friendship: “You too?” Pastors are usually willing to take the next step of vulnerability with another pastor and continue, quoting Lewis, “I thought I was the only one.”
For a friendship to grow from there, it requires intentional effort.
To put in that effort, you must view friendship not as a luxury, but a necessity. When David writes, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” (Psalm 133:1), he is both celebrating the gift of friendship and encouraging us to think back to Eden when everything — including friendship — was good, just as God designed it to be. The Psalm ends with “life forevermore,” encouraging us to think forward to eternity when everything will forever be as it should be (Psalm 133:3). Friendship isn’t a luxury; it’s a blessing God gives us now because he loves us. God is, as Lewis wrote, the one working behind the scenes to make our friendships happen and help them last.
Not only are friendships good for our health and longevity in ministry; they also are essential to our perseverance (Hebrews 3:12–13). It is wise to have friends (Proverbs 17:17; 27:9–10, 17). It is right to need friends. Paul, in the midst of an incredibly hard time, found real comfort when Titus arrived (2 Corinthians 7:6–7). At the end of his life, Paul lamented his loneliness and asked Timothy to come visit him before he died (2 Timothy 4:9–16). The greatest man who ever lived, Jesus Christ, experienced the gift of friendship with John. John was more than just a partner in ministry; he was the friend Jesus loved (John 13:23).
The intentional effort required for friendship can be described as making room in your life for others. It means you will make room in your schedule, budget, ministry goals, and family life for friendship. Friendship can’t be squeezed into an already tight schedule; it requires intentionality and it requires sacrifice.
Pastor, friendship will cost you time, money, and the opportunity for more ministry achievement. And it will require vulnerability, which means you probably will get hurt. Vulnerability can come as you admit your need for friendship: take a risk to give and receive the gift of friendship. It will be worth it. Blessing — for yourself, your family, and your people — is bound up in your friendships.
Well, the Bible says in the last days the world will be overrun by people who will be lovers of self. Perhaps it’s not a stretch to say that in the end, people will be lovers of selfies and selfie-sticks? But really, when do our social media project a corrupt self-love at work inside of us? That’s today’s question. “Hello, Pastor John, my name is Ed, a 22-year-old Filipino. I read in the Bible, ‘But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty, for people will be lovers of self’ (2 Timothy 3:1–2). Based on this passage, do you believe vlogs, selfies, and self-focused social media are a cultural sign of this self-love emerging in our culture? What warning would you sound to Christian smartphone users tempted in this self-promotive way?”
Let me answer with a double yes and no — two yeses and nos.
“God gave us a self, not so that we would have something to exalt in, but something to exalt with.”
First, yes. Vlogs, selfies, and self-focused social media are often (not always) an expression of the self-exaltation, self-preoccupation, and self-fascination of these last days. But no, these new technologies are not the emerging of such final experiences of sin. They’ve always been there. The new technologies are giving new ways to express old sins.
That’s my first yes and no: Yes, these are the manifestations of the end-times self-love, and no, they’re not just now emerging.
Here’s the second yes and no. Yes, these are the last days, and we should be looking keenly and expectantly and hopefully and joyfully for the coming of our precious, longed-for, all-satisfying Lord Jesus. But no, these are not yet the very last days. But they are very much like the last days that began two thousand years ago in the first century.
Now, let me try to explain. When Jesus came into the world as the long-expected Messiah, he declared the arrival of the kingdom of God, which the Old Testament anticipated as part of the last days.
“The judge is standing at the door. Be ready. Be alert. You’re going to be called to account.”
When Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost and tried to explain the extraordinary events of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he said, “This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh’” (Acts 2:16–17). In other words, these events that you’re looking at right now (AD 33) are the fulfillment of promises made for the last days.
The last days were there in the first century right after Jesus had come. Take Hebrews 1:1–2, for example: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”
The coming of Jesus is the beginning of the last days. First Peter 1:20 reads, “He [Christ] was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.”
Ever since the time of Jesus, 2,000 years ago, we have been living in the last days, looking expectantly to Jesus, who stands at the door. We know this is the way that Paul was thinking even in the very text that Ed quoted about self-love.
Paul says, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty” (2 Timothy 3:1). Then he says to Timothy, “Avoid such people” (2 Timothy 3:5). Whoa — I guess they’re here. They’re not just coming 2,000 years later.
In other words, Paul is talking about Timothy’s own situation. This kind of person comes in the last days. Now, Timothy is to avoid them because these are the last days, and the people are there.
You shouldn’t be surprised or swayed by them. Well, besides saying that the judge is at the door, we should be always alert and ready to give an account to the Lord Jesus when he comes. Ed asked me what I would say to people on vlogs. That’s what I want to say. The judge is standing at the door. Be ready. Be alert. You’re going to be called to account. That’s the first thing I’d say.
Then here’s the last thing I’d say. God gave us a self, not so that we would have something to exalt in, but something to exalt with. He gave us a self, not to be the object of our joy, but the subject of joy. That is, not to be the focus of happiness in front of the mirror or the selfie, but the furnace of happiness in front of Jesus.
“Our desires are meant to lead us to God, in whose presence is fullness of joy.”
He gave us a self not as an instrument of self-worth, but as an instrument of worship. The self is and is meant to be a desire factory. The point of all those desires is that there is a joy outside ourselves that they point to.
Our self is an endless manufacture of desires for something beyond the self. This factory of desires is not the dream. This factory has a dream. It isn’t the dream. It is producing all these desires because, out there somewhere, there’s a dream.
They’re all meant to lead us outside ourselves — indeed, outside the world, because nothing in this world finally satisfies. The desires of the human self are meant to lead us to God, in whose presence is fullness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures forevermore.
That’s what I’d say to the self-absorbed user of social media. The self was never meant to satisfy us. The self was never meant to find satisfaction in the perception or promotion of self. The self was made for God.
FIVE LAWS OF GROWTH IN RELATION TO CHOIR.
1. Discipline: The great Structure any choir has in this world is based on discipline.
2. Constant Training: There must be a frame work that will help the Church music minsters to input special session of training in their activities. At the long run guest instructor must be called for check and balance.
3. Constant Programs (Monthly worship concert and also quarterly Choir Fiesta): Growth begins when an external party comes to any of our well organized program, what they see might make them stay to be a full time member of the church. As it were constant programs increases the growth of a church.
4. Rehearsal: Constant rehearsals helps every music team of a church, it helps and it gives the team a better strength
5. Prayer: a key note to every successful being is prayer in any form. We have inherited the supernatural grace of God through Christ Jesus to pray and to receive answers. It is very paramount for every choir member to be subjected to Fasting and prayers which is our strength has Christians.
In 1677, twenty-seven-year-old Henry Scougal wrote this to a friend: “The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love” (The Life of God in the Soul of Man, 20). It is among the most penetrating sentences in the English language (or any language).
It is a devastating sentence. It lays us bare. For, as John Piper says,
The soul is measured by its flights,
Some low and others high,
The heart is known by its delights,
And pleasures never lie. (The Pleasures of God, 4)
Pleasures never lie. We can fool ourselves and others in many ways, but pleasure is the whistle-blower of the heart, because pleasure is the measure of our treasure. We know that what we truly treasure is what we truly love because Jesus said, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). So it’s “not what we dutifully will but what we passionately want [that] reveals our excellence or evil” (The Pleasures of God, 4). Pleasure is the joy we experience over a treasure we love that makes us willing to sell everything else to have it (Matthew 13:44).
Henry Scougal was wonderfully, devastatingly, biblically right: the object of our love, the treasure we passionately want, measures the worth and excellency of our souls.
Search Me, O God
If we agree with Scougal, his penetrating sentence forces us to do some soul-searching. What do our pleasures really tell us about what we love? What do our loves tell us about the condition of our souls? What do we passionately want?
These are necessary questions, but the truth is, our own introspection and self-evaluation are typically not enough. We are usually poor physicians for our own souls, often failing to see the root causes or symptoms clearly. We swing from thinking far too highly of ourselves one moment to beating ourselves down with condemnation the next.
What we really need is to allow — to invite — Jesus to search our souls. We need the diagnosis and treatment of the Great Physician. We need to come to him and say with David,
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23–24)
What Jesus Asks of Us
Jesus is the master soul-searcher. It’s what he did with Peter after their post-resurrection seaside breakfast (John 21:15–19). Just days before, Peter had tragically failed to love Jesus, denying that he even knew Jesus three times. And so that morning, after lovingly serving him a meal on the beach, Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” He asked this question three times.
Jesus accomplishes so much in this brief, but life-altering conversation. We watch him beautifully restore, commission, and prophesy over Peter. But we also see him expose Peter. Peter’s denials were real and horrible failures. Jesus repeating his question three times wasn’t merely to allow Peter to affirm his love for every denial. He was also probing deep into Peter’s soul, into the painful place of shame, and calling forth a love stronger than before, one that would endure the future opportunity for Peter to fulfill his pledge to lay his life down for Jesus (John 13:37). I think Peter’s grief after the third question is evidence that Jesus was hitting home (John 21:17).
Have We Lost Our First Love?
And we, like Peter, have also failed to love Jesus. Perhaps we have denied him publicly at times. We certainly have denied him thousands of times privately, choosing to pursue other treasures because we believed they held greater pleasures. These failures are real and horrible — worse than we might realize.
The question is, how true is this now? Are we living in failure, allowing the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of sin to choke out our love for Jesus (Matthew 13:22; Hebrews 3:13)? Have we grown accustomed to talking abstractly and dutifully about loving Jesus while passionately wanting and pursuing other things? Have we given ourselves permission to consider our lack of love for Jesus to be normal because lots of other Christians seem content living this way?
If so, if our pleasures are blowing the whistle that our hearts are not enthralled with Jesus, that we don’t love him supremely, it’s time to come to him and repent and invite him to search our hearts and ask us his probing question, “Do you love me?”
Whatever It Takes, Lord
The wonderful thing is that we don’t need to be afraid, for Jesus knows exactly where we’re at, just like he knew where Peter was at. He knows our failures to love him. He knows that they are sin. But he also knows his death and resurrection purchased the full forgiveness of those sins and the power for us to be changed from lukewarm to white-hot lovers of God. And he wants this for us — he’s eager to give it to us!
Our Lord Jesus,
We confess our horrible failures to love you. Our pleasures have not lied, and they reveal how we have not pursued the triune God as our greatest treasure. We don’t want another day to pass allowing our love for you to languish in a tepid place in our hearts.
So we ask you, Great Physician, to come search our souls and know our hearts. We present them to you; address every grievous way in us. Ask your probing questions. We will hold nothing from you. Do whatever it takes to revive our love for you! We do not want to give our souls rest until you are our first love (Revelation 2:4).
We want this more than anything: to love the triune God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength (Matthew 22:37). We believe the greatest affection is love, and we believe you are the greatest object of our love (1 Corinthians 13:13). And we believe we’ll never be happier and the excellence and worth of our souls will never be greater than when we love you supremely. For you are the wellspring of all that is truly life (1 Timothy 6:19; John 14:6).
So we ask you to revive our love for you, O Lord, whatever it takes. And we ask it in your name, Jesus, and for your glory, Amen.
The Christian life is not a sprint. It is a journey of ten million steps.
Day after day, and year after year, we put one foot in front of the other as we flee the wreckage of our sin and follow Jesus on the path of life. We step away from self-protection toward love, away from darkness toward light, away from foolishness toward wisdom. Step after step after step — ten million times.
“The Christian life is not a sprint. It is a journey of ten million steps.” Tweet Share on Facebook
But unless we stop every so often, and take a careful look backward and forward, our feet will gradually drift from God’s paths and stumble onto others. Like a hiker who never checks his compass, we’ll set out in the right direction and end up miles off the mark. Slowly, subtly, and perhaps imperceptibly, we’ll exit the narrow and hard path that leads to life and merge onto the wide and easy way to destruction (Matthew 7:13–14).
The new year is a time for course correction — a time for taking out the map, consulting the compass, and heeding Paul’s command to “look carefully . . . how you walk” (Ephesians 5:15).
In Ephesians, Paul commands his readers five times to “walk” — in good works, in a manner worthy of their calling, in love, in light, and in wisdom. As we consider three of Paul’s “walk” commands, take a look backward and forward: Where have you drifted off the path? What steps might you take this year, with God’s help, to follow Jesus down these hard but happy roads?
Walk in Love
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:2)
For Jesus, love meant nails through his hands and feet and a spear through his side. Love meant climbing onto a cross and offering himself up as a sacrifice. Love meant inconvenience and sorrow and an excruciating death. This is the love that breathed life into our dead lungs (Ephesians 2:4–5); the love that is broader, longer, higher, and deeper than the galaxies (Ephesians 3:18–19); the love that is washing every stain of sin from our souls (Ephesians 5:25–27); the love that God commands us to imitate — even if our strongest love is a whisper compared to his symphony.
“Jesus knows how to repay everything you lose on the path of love.” Tweet Share on Facebook
Therefore, walk in love — go low to lift others up. Spend your time with the lonely. Bend your body to bear burdens. Ransack your imagination to meet needs. Give your presence to the grieving. Fix your attention on the forgotten.
Such love will cost us, of course; we’ll have to relinquish handfuls of time and comfort and convenience. But in the end, Jesus knows how to repay everything you lose on the path of love, “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord” (Ephesians 6:8). Go low in love, and Christ himself will lift you up. Walk in love this year.
Walk in Light
At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. (Ephesians 5:8)
When the light of Christ broke into your life and dispersed your constant midnight, he shone on you so that his light might make its home in you. The God of light made you a child of light — a little candle lit from the sun of Christ.
Therefore, walk in light — drive out the shadows from your soul. Train your tongue to heal others instead of cutting them up. Relish the deeper pleasure of purity instead of giving yourself over to sexual immorality. Grow in gratitude for all that God has given instead of stewing over all that he’s withheld. Ache for “all that is good and right and true” (Ephesians 5:9).
You can walk in these paths of light this year because you already are light in the Lord. The dark version of you died with Jesus at the cross, was laid with Jesus in the tomb — and will never rise again. Even if you feel like a smoldering wick right now, if you are in Christ, your destiny is to “shine like the sun in the kingdom of [your] Father” (Matthew 13:43). And that transformation will happen as you keep on stepping out of the shadows, repenting of the specific darkness that still grips you, confessing it to God and others, and shining the light of God’s word upon it. Walk in light this year.
Walk in Wisdom
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15–16)
Every path in this world cuts through our enemy’s backyard. We don’t yet walk in the safety of the new heavens and new earth; we walk in “the present evil age” (Galatians 1:4), an age where the devil stalks the earth with a quiver of burning arrows, his eyes keen for careless travelers (Ephesians 6:16). If we do not apply God’s wisdom to how we are walking in every area of life, the devil will be more than happy to chart the course for us.
“Grow in gratitude for all that God has given instead of stewing over all that he’s withheld.” Tweet Share on Facebook
Therefore, walk in wisdom — seize your days from the devil’s hand. Clutch onto every opportunity in your life, and turn it in a Godward direction. Make a plan for your marriage this year. Go to work on your parenting. Gauge the health of your friendships. In each of these areas of life (and every other), ask, In this part of my life, how can I live like Christ is precious, the gospel is powerful, the Spirit is inside me, and eternity is coming?
God has already broken the devil’s spell on you. He has already handed you a shield to extinguish his arrows and a sword to swing back (Ephesians 6:16–17). These days may be evil, but you don’t have to be — no part of your life has to be. With a lot of careful looking, and the Holy Spirit’s help, you can make the best use of these evil days. Walk in wisdom this year.
God’s City of Joy
One day soon, you will not need to look carefully to how you are walking. Perfect love will course through the veins of your resurrected body. The light of God’s righteousness will radiate from your every thought, word, and action. Unclouded wisdom will rest upon your immortal shoulders.
Until that day, 2018 is another year to “look carefully . . . how you walk” (Ephesians 5:15). Walk in love — go low to lift others up. Walk in light — drive the shadows from your soul. And walk in wisdom — seize your days from the devil’s hand. These are three roads that lead us to God’s city of joy, where our journey of ten million steps will finally end.
Do it differently
It’s a saying that only a fool would keep trying the same thing over and over again without getting any result. You don’t have to stick to one single method to achieve a particular goal or dream. Because your friend or colleague tried it and it worked out for him or her doesn’t mean it will go the same way for you.
Wake up from your dream world into reality. There are different paths to that destination you have in mind. All you need, is the right information. Get hungry for the right information and pay the necessary price for it. Sometimes all we need to arrive at that goal is hunger. If you are really hungry for something, you would go all the way to achieve it.
David used a different method to kill Goliath and he still won the battle, a new method was used to conquer the land of Jericho and victory was the outcome. God decided to use another method to redeem mankind when the first Adam failed by sending Jesus and it was a great success. It’s high time to think differently, act diff
erently and try another method.
So if you have in the past Seven(7) months and few weeks tried achieving something with the same method and you are not getting any result, it’s time to try another method. It’s time to achieve those goals in your heart. Make these 4 months and two weeks count.
I’m Israel Oriaku
I Inspire | I Train| I Caoach
“Look at all these people!”
As my dear 97-year-old grandmother was brought into the room in her wheelchair, it was clear that she did not recognize that “all these people” were her family. I reintroduced myself as her oldest grandson, along with my wife and the three great-grandchildren we brought to see her.
It was difficult to believe this woman could have lost so much. She had been an avid reader, but her failing eyesight gave her difficulty with even the largest print books. She had played the piano and the organ for decades in church, but her failing hearing prevented her from enjoying the music that played overhead in the nursing home room.
Armed for the Final Fight
“The world wants you to forget one very obvious, unavoidable thing: you are going to die.” Tweet Share on Facebook
And yet, buried deep within the recesses of her mind, my grandmother still had a sweet communion with Jesus. And this communion was rarely so evident as when she began to sing hymns. The ravages of memory loss had somehow missed the part of her mind that held hymn lyrics and melodies so near. And out they came.
Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
Oh, how bright the path grows from day to day,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
The family sang together, and her voice slid to the alto harmony. Here, during the last days of her fight of faith, she was not unarmed. She had treasured up the truth of the gospel in the hymns that were etched in her mind and heart.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Trying to Ignore the Obvious
Our world is spending untold dollars this year to try to make you forget one very obvious, unavoidable truth: you are going to die. Countless ads and cultural touchstones will attempt to convince you that youth is eternal, you are immortal, and death is something that no one should think about.
And the forces distracting us from death are not just commercial. Socially, mentioning death in small talk is incredibly awkward. People often look away and change the subject, as if talking about death were itself a death wish.
“The Bible teaches us to let the certainty of our death in the future shape how we live now.” Tweet Share on Facebook
But the Bible will not ignore death with the hope that it will simply go away. Indeed, Scripture actually goes the other direction, asking God to “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). Biblical wisdom longs to think about death rightly, to let the certainty of our deaths shape how we live now in the present.
What Truths Are We Etching on Our Souls?
As a worship pastor, I wonder how our churches are doing in this. Do we follow the world’s thinking here? Or do we believe that “it is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2)?
How are we preparing for our last moments of life? Or our final years? Among other things to consider, are we preparing our hearts now for our last days by learning and singing songs that etch gospel truth deep into our hearts? John Witvliet reminds us, “As we sing, we learn the songs that we will hum to ourselves in moments of deep despair. Our songs of lament and hope form us as people of faith and hope.”
As we contemplate and inevitably encounter death, songs are one way that God graciously enables us to persevere. Death certainly seems like something each person faces alone, but memories of corporate worship remind us that we are not alone. We are part of Christ’s glorious, worldwide church. “Singing together,” Witvliet writes, “is the one act that protests this solitude of suffering.”
Re-Mind Yourself Through Song
Many of us can testify of times when facing intense grief, a song lyric has bubbled its way into our minds. But what song lyrics have etched into the deepest memories of our souls? Will the songs we know help us in our fight for faith? Will they remind us of things we’ve forgotten, even re-minding us when the strength of our minds departs?
“If you spent your life leaning on Jesus, consider how happy those last days will be. He will be closer than ever.” Tweet Share on Facebook
In large and small ways, many of us are already experiencing the effects of age. Unless Jesus calls you home earlier, you will end your life with a faltering body and mind. And if your life has been about your accomplishments, your vigor, and your fame, your final days will be very sad ones. But if your life has been one of leaning on the Lord Jesus, consider how happy those days will be. Jesus will be closer than ever.
With a song on your lips and joy in your heart, you will take your final steps of faith into his everlasting arms.
“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: For without me you can do nothing”
John 15: 5
No branch survives without the vine. A branch that is cut off may maintain its greenness for a while but it is dead from the moment it is cut off.
God never said, “Without me you can do some things” but, “You can do nothing.”
Without Him we cannot succeed but with Him we can do all things (Philippians. 4:13).
If you want to know the helplessness of a branch cut it off from the vine. Likewise, if you want to know the nakedness of a man cut him off from God.
Only those who cleave to the Lord remain alive (Deuteronomy 4:4).
Accomplishment is only possible through permanent relationship with God.