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.
Ephesians 3:20
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
How much power is working in you right now? God’s Word says that there is “power that works in us”. It is a tremendous power that shakes the heavens and the earth because it comes from the throne of God, “who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think”! The problem, however, is that many of us don’t release that power.
God wants us to release that power because there are things that will not happen on earth until we do so. Jesus said that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”. (Matthew 16:19) What Jesus is saying is that what you permit to happen, heaven will permit. What you disallow, heaven will disallow!
So how do we release God’s power in us? One way is to pray in tongues. When we allow His Spirit to make intercession for us (Romans 8:26), miracles happen.
Some time ago, the aunt of a church member underwent surgery to remove a diseased kidney. In spite of the surgery, the prognosis was poor. At home, the church member and his wife were prompted by the Spirit to release the power that works in them by praying in tongues for their aunt.
Back at the hospital, the aunt underwent further observation. When an X-ray of her abdominal area was taken, the doctor was shocked to find two healthy kidneys. Five other doctors were consulted who subsequently examined the aunt. At first, they thought that the surgeon who had performed the operation had made a mistake and did not remove the diseased kidney. But further investigation showed that the kidney had indeed been removed. They could not explain what had happened.
Deuteronomy 28:13
And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath…
One of our church members saw his sales performance hit rock bottom by the middle of the year. As a result, he was ranked 320 out of the 420 financial advisers in his company.
Devastated and on the verge of giving up, he started listening to my messages and claiming God’s promises such as “the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath” and “many who are first will be last, and the last first”. (Matthew 19:30)
He committed everything to God because he believed that only God could turn things around for him. And God did just that.
By the end of that year, he was ranked second in his branch and 10th in the whole company! He qualified for a trip for two to Barcelona, Spain, worth about S$20,000. That was not all. For the first time in his 12 years as a financial adviser, he qualified for the Million Dollar Round Table Award. Only the top six per cent of advisers in the entire industry qualify for this international award.
Deuteronomy 28:7
“The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
Some people think that Jesus and the devil are always confronting and fighting each other. But when I read my Bible, I don’t see fights between the two. What I see is the devil having to flee whenever he encounters Jesus!
Consider the demoniac from the country of the Gadarenes in Luke 8:26–39. The demons in the man begged Jesus not to torment them or send them into the abyss, but to permit them to enter a herd of swine nearby.
You see, neither the devil nor his demons can stand before Jesus. They may be able to torment people for a while, but when Jesus comes on the scene, they know that that is the end of their stay. They will have to flee! All it took was just one word from Jesus, and the entire legion of demons had to come out of the man and flee into the swine.
Exodus 15:26
…I am the Lord who heals you.”
Do you know that the first compound name that the Lord revealed to the Israelites after they came out of Egypt was Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals you? It was as if He was telling them, as they began their new life with Him, that He had already healed them of all the diseases and pains they suffered when they were in bondage in Egypt. Indeed, when He brought them out of Egypt, “there was none feeble among His tribes”. (Psalm 105:37)
Today, just as the Israelites were delivered from their bondage in Egypt and from slavery to Pharaoh, you have also been delivered from the bondage of sin and sickness, and from slavery to the devil, by the blood of the Lamb. And the Lord, who is the same yesterday, today and forever, still says to you, “I am the Lord who heals you.”
A church member, who was experiencing pain in her womb for several months, looked to Jesus as her healer even as she went to see a doctor, who performed an ultrasound scan on her womb. When told that she had two big tumors and several blood cysts in her womb, she continued to look to Jesus as her healer. The doctor then had her blood tested to see if the tumors were cancerous.
Three days later, she saw the doctor again and was told that the tumors were not cancerous. Not only that, but a second ultrasound scan also showed that all the cysts and one of the tumors had completely disappeared! The other tumor had also shrunk. Although she had taken medication, the doctor told her that based on the original size of the tumor, it should have taken months to shrink that much. He commented that this was the quickest healing he had ever seen!
When you are faced with a big challenge, do you automatically look for the most powerful means to solve the problem? Well, my friend, that is not thinking the way God thinks. The Bible tells us that it pleases God to use what the world considers weak, foolish, base and despised to bring to nothing things which are mighty.
“What is that in your hand?” God asked.
“A rod,” Moses said. And with that rod, he performed miracles and confounded the might of Pharaoh.
“Five loaves and two fish,” a little boy said. And with that little boy’s lunch, Jesus fed 5,000 men, and his disciples gathered 12 baskets full of leftovers.
29
Jul
Job 42:5
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.
You may have heard of God from a friend or colleague. Perhaps you continue to hear of Him in church services on Sundays. Like Job, you say to God, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear.” But God also wants you to be able to say to Him, “But now my eye sees You.”
When Job told the Lord, “My eye sees You,” he was not saying that he saw God physically. He was referring to the moment when he had a personal revelation of God.
Why was it so important for Job to have a personal revelation of God? You see, God wanted Job to know that without a personal revelation of Him, the devil could easily steal from him. But from the moment that Job had a personal revelation of God, things got a lot better for him, with God restoring to him double of everything that he had lost. (Job 42:10–16)
There was a lady who was separated from her husband because he had an affair with his colleague. But when she came to our church and began to have a personal revelation of God’s personal love for her, she believed God for the restoration of her marriage by the end of the year. She did not just hear of a God who “so loved the world”. (John 3:16) She came to know the God who so loved her!
Not long after that, her estranged husband started dating her and was soon falling in love with her all over again. God also “took care” of the other woman—she resigned from the company. And on the first of January the following year, the couple moved back into their matrimonial home, their marriage now built solidly on God!
My friend, when you are reading your Bible or hearing God’s Word being preached, and suddenly you exclaim, “I see it, Lord!” that is when your personal revelation of God has come. And you are now in a position to receive all that He has for you!
Thought For The Day
When you have a personal revelation of God, you are in a position to receive all that He has for you!
25
Jul
Genesis 8:4
Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
For 40 days and nights, it rained so hard that the whole world perished, except for Noah and those who were with him in the ark. At the end of 150 days, on the 17th day of the seventh month, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat.
In Hebrew, the word “Ararat” means “the curse is reversed”. The waters of judgment receded, causing the ark to rest on the mountains of Ararat, on new ground where the curse is reversed. And it happened on the 17th day of the seventh month on the Feast of Firstfruits—the exact date that Jesus rose from the dead 4,000 years later!
When Christ rose from the dead, we were raised together with Him. (Colossians 2:12). We who are in Christ our true ark stand on resurrection ground where the curse has been reversed (Galatians 3:13), where diseases, poverty and failures have no right to operate!
A church member shared how God delivered him from cervical spondylosis, a medical condition which causes the neck section of the spinal cord to deteriorate. An X-ray taken four to five years back showed that that area of his spinal cord was deteriorating fast. He was in pain and had to take medicine to manage the condition. And whenever he had a relapse, he would get depressed.
During his last relapse, he went to the doctor, trusting God that he was already healed, had another X-ray taken and was given some medication. He took the medication, still believing God that he was healed. The following morning, the pain in his neck was gone and he was able to turn his head. When he finally collected his X-ray results a week later, his doctor actually told him that his spinal cord looked better than the doctor’s own! The doctor was very surprised because patients with this condition usually don’t get better. God had reversed the curse of cervical spondylosis for him!
My friend, as a believer, you are on no-curse ground. You stand in the blessings zone where it is very easy for God’s blessings to rain all over you!
Thought For The Day
We stand on no-curse ground where diseases, poverty and failures have no right to operate!
But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14
Spiritual bumps and bruises. Inner aches and pains that just don’t seem to go away. Most all of us know what it’s like to suffer from them but too few of us know just what to do about them.
We limp along, hoping somehow those hidden wounds will magically stop hurting, thinking that maybe (with a little extra sleep or an extra helping of dessert) that nagging sense of depression will finally disappear.
But does it ever happen that way? No!
I know. I’ve been there.
But thank God, I’m not there anymore. You see, over the past few years, I’ve faced some fierce spiritual battles. And I’ve found out those battles can leave you bruised and beat up on the inside just as surely as a fistfight can leave you bruised and beat up on the outside.
Before I was born again, I learned just how physically devastating a real slug-it-out kind of brawl could be. Yet as bad as I felt, a few days rest would take care of me.
The healing of a bruised and beaten spirit, however, doesn’t come that easily. In fact, the passing of time often worsens this condition. The reason is this: Instead of putting painful failures behind us, we often dwell on them until those failures become more real to us than the promises of God. We focus on them until we become bogged down in depression, frozen in our tracks by the fear that if we go on, we’ll only fail again.
But there is a way out. If depression has put you into a spiritual nose dive, all you have to do to break out of it is to get your eyes off the past and onto your future—a future that’s been guaranteed by Christ Jesus through the exceeding great and precious promises in His Word.
Chances are, that won’t come easily to you at first. Your mind has probably had years of practice in focusing on the past. Like an old horse that habitually heads for the barn, your thoughts will probably start galloping in that direction every time you give them any slack.
So, don’t give them that slack. Keep the reins tight. Purposely meditate on the Word of God. Replace thoughts of the past with scriptural promises about your future and be diligent about it. Then, instead of being a wounded soldier, you’ll become the conquering warrior God made you to be.
Scripture Reading:
Philippians 3:12-21
22
Jul
Hebrews 10:22
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
I would like you to imagine this scenario: You borrow a huge sum of money from a friend and promise to pay him back in six months’ time. When the time comes, you feel really bad because you cannot repay him as you don’t have the money. A year rolls by without you repaying a cent. Now, you feel extremely guilty. You try to avoid your friend because you are too embarrassed and ashamed to see him.
Let’s say that your best friend hears about your plight. Out of the goodness of his heart, he goes to your creditor and says, “Look, I understand that my best friend owes you money.”
“Yes, he owes me US$50,000.”
“Here is US$100,000. I am paying you on his behalf.”
Your creditor says, “No, no, no! He owes me only US$50,000.”
Your best friend says, “I know. But take the US$100,000 so that you can never say that he still owes you money.”
Now, your debt has been paid, in fact, more than paid. But if you don’t know or believe this, that debt will still be on your conscience. You will still be afraid to see your creditor. And you will avoid him because he reminds you of your debt.
My friend, you need to know that Jesus was an overpayment when He offered Himself as your sin offering, because of the quality and worth of the Man Himself. My friend, He overpaid for your sins when He became your sacrifice on the cross.
But if you don’t know or believe this, you will suffer as your unbelief will rob you of assurance, joy and peace. You will still have debt on your conscience. Even though God is not imputing sin to you (Romans 4:8), sin is still on your conscience. And as long as sin is on your conscience, you won’t dare to draw near to Him.
Beloved, the truth is that your sins have been more than paid for. Jesus was an overpayment. So draw near to God today with no sin on your conscience!
Thought For The Day
Jesus was an overpayment when He offered Himself as your sin offering, so draw near to God today with no sin on your conscience!