Thursday, February 24, 2011

Meet the Winner Man!!

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.......Heb 4:15

"No one has ever gone through what I am going through!"

This might sound like you and many more millions around the world who feel their problems are unique to themselves, and that no one is able to help because nobody understands. Owing to this, many have even rejected every form of assistance and help choosing rather to deal with their problems all on their own.

The above scripture speaks of Jesus, the high priest who was tempted in ALL points and yet without sin. This simply means that He was tested in every way imaginable and passed in every sense of the word. Can you fathom that? Some may say, "well but Jesus was only tempted by the devil three times in the wilderness". Indeed! But the Bible continues "the devil departed from Him for a season", meaning the devil never gave up tempting Him in every area possible until the final cry, "It is finished".

Understanding that the world will present us with a million problems, Jesus comforted His disciples saying, "in this world you shall have tribulations. But be of good cheer, I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD!" Hallelujah!!

How is His victory of any effect to me, you may ask. It's simple. When Fiji won the 7's world cup in 2005, in Hong Kong, every house in Fiji was shaking with the shout of victory. Yes, we may not have trained like our 7's gladiators; we may not have sacrificed like them, woke up as early as them, fasted like them, run like them, but when they won WE WON.

When Jesus overcame, He opened the path for us to overcome in every area of ours lives.

God Bless You

Saturday, February 19, 2011

SHAME- Failed To Live Up To!

SHAME is also a result of not being able to live up to the expectations others have of you.

Children may have failed their parent's dreams and expectations.  Stars may have let their followers and fans down. Some father's or mothers may have lost their source of income, and it pains them to see the expectant eyes of their children because there's nothing they can do about it. Some are in this state with themselves to blame, and others are victims of circumstances beyond their control. Sadly this failure drives thoughts into the mind and makes the problem appear much bigger than what it really is. Hence, shame!

Expectation is what others think you should always be, and surely they will be hurt to some extent when you fail, but no hurt can compare to the agony of losing a loved one who left this world feeling needed no more. No matter the mistakes you've made you will always be loved by your dear ones.

Some may not be included in the example above, having really no one to love them after they've failed. God loves you and as trivial and impersonal this may sound, this is a comforting truth. The Bible tells us that Adam blamed Eve for his nakedness. "The woman whom Thou gavest me" is the cause of my nakedness(shame). Wow, who else could poor Eve look to, but to pass the blame onto the serpent, since the only one she could look to for comfort was turning his back on her. But what a wonderful God we have. He covered their shame with skin and promised them a seed that would crush the serpent.

Dear reader, if you're ashamed because you failed in your obligation and let people down, pick up yourself and run to the Lord. He won't run away! The Psalmist says he will cause the crown to flourish and he will clothe the enemy with shame.




What Is My Life Worth?

Many are depressed asking, "What is my Life worth?

Just to put things into perspective, NASA is allocated around 2 billion dollars for every project of detecting, not life, but signs of life on other planets, and even after many years of this endeavour there is still no positive results. Despite this failure, the US government still pours in billion upon billions of dollars to this organisation in anticipation of success, and we may also live to witness that amount go into the trillions.

We see a mosquito and kill it. NASA sees  a mosquito on Mars and they'll call for a public holiday.

So what am I saying here? If NASA were to spot YOU on any of those planets, even in your worst state and on your worst day, they would agree that YOU are the find of all ages. Whether you're fat, short, ugly, frail, grey-headed, toothless, dark, sick, sad, retarded, crippled, hunched or whatever, YOU are worth every single penny spent on research and more because the bottom line is LIFE IS A MIRACLE!!

Jesus said "what will a man profit if he gain the whole world and yet lose his own soul." Yes dear friend, you are worth more than just this world, but the WHOLE WORLD. Oh let's praise our Maker!

God Bless You!!!

Friday, February 18, 2011

SHAME-Hiding Something?

Shame is another cause of suicide today.

Shame comes when people fear being exposed for the evil they've done. They hide it for as long as possible, and for some, when it is no longer possible, suicide is the only escape. This trend of covering, habouring and hiding has existed even from the beginning.

After eating of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve hid themselves among the trees and tried to cover their nakedness with leaves. But the Lord asked them point blank "hast thou eaten of the tree...?" What they tried to cover was plain in the sight of God and as judgement they were expelled from the garden.

After Cain slew Abel, the Lord came asking him for his brother, to which he replied "am I my brother's keeper?" Without skipping a beat, God responded "thy brother's blood crieth to me from the ground". Alas what he tried to hide was thrown in his face and with it, judgement from God.

In both scenarios both did evil in the sight of God. In both scenarios God asked them for what they did. In both scenarios they made efforts to mask what they ACTUALLY did.

I wonder, what would have transpired if Adam simply said, "Lord, I have sinned. Please forgive me"? What would have happened if Cain just said "Lord, I don't know but jealousy got the better of me and I killed Abel"?

Let's travel a few thousand years down the line where David was confronted by Nathan the prophet for a double felony of adultery and murder. As King he had all the means to cover up his deeds, silence the seer and maintain his untarnished reputation as the sweet psalmist of Israel. But look at the beauty of this man who cared less for name and glory. He immediately and penitently acknowledged, "I have sinned against the Lord". For this immediate confession there was immediate forgiveness. 2 Samuel 12:13 says, "the Lord hath also put away thy sin: thou shalt not die."

Dear reader, if you are burdened by shame for things you have done, there is pardon for the penitent. Man's applaud and esteem is not worth it because your own conscience will testify against you. If David received pardon for such heinous crimes, there is sure release for you today. No evil deed is greater than the power of God's love for it can reach down to the depth of your shame and lift you up.

David did not lose popularity, instead he was loved even more by the people, and finally had a blessed end when God took him home in His own time. Yes, if you feel that you will lose friends when you come clean, you will be surprised how many better friends you will have.

Seek out a mature minister of the Gospel and relay before him to God the things you have done. Surely there will be forgiveness for you and above all a new lease of life to live for His glory.

An Adage: It is better to be cursed for who you are, then to be praised for who you are not!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Be There For Our Children

Statistics show a rising number in teen suicide. I would like to highlight the influence of parents on these statistics. There are many children feeling forsaken by their parents. Others feel they have been discriminated against or ignored.

Though every child would dream of being born into a wealthy home, the undeniable truth is that most heirs and heiresses  of great fortune would trade all that wealth for recognition and love from their mommy and daddy. Children come home with their stories, successes, jokes, pains, failures, questions etc. hoping to share it with siblings and folks alike. Yet sadly for some, no one's home! A mansion with its glitter and glamour loses its splendour when void of its shepherd, and so it is many homes.

Fortunately for some children, they are able to amuse themselves by themselves while others see an opening to another world where voices are speaking. Now before reading any further, I must warn you that some may not have the stomach for what I am about to share. So consider yourself cautioned.

I will share with you an experience I had while in Chennai, India  as a trainee for a church organisation. We had with us a group of boys from the age of 12 to 18, who were very helpful in short errands. Among them was David, about 18 years old, who had left his home about 200 miles away to come stay with us. Now most of the boys were just from around the area, so to have David come all that way, there must have been a story behind it. David was very helpful and implicitly obedient. The one thing that stuck out was that he always strove to impress us foreigners and we were all too ready to politely acknowledge.

Anyway, one night, at around 11pm, he came to my room and woke me, and what he said blew me away. He confessed to often having suicidal thoughts.

He told me "brother, please help me. When the water truck is reversing, a voice tells me, "put your head in between the tires"". He was referring to the ten-wheeler truck that shuttled water between our main centers. Guess what? - he had actually obeyed the voice twice but pulled his head out in the nick of time. The voice also condemned him as an utter failure and one that would amount to nothing. 

I wasted no time and took him immediately to a senior minister who spent the rest of the night praying with him till that voice subsided. 

It later came to our knowledge that, although David was from a very spiritual family, he desired from his parents a love and companionship they could never give since they were rarely there. They were too busy doing "the Lord's work". This left him with the scar of loneliness and drove him at times to wrong places until he came to the mission house. 

This lad enjoyed impressing us because he finally found the audience his parents failed to be. I am happy to say that David now leads a happy and normal life with his new family. 

But there are still children hurting and crying for attention, love, affection and time from their parents. I appeal to all such parents and guardians to act soon, because you are sitting on a time bomb. Take time and examine your attitude toward your children. If you feel pricked, it's never too late to be there for them. 

Be there for them to hear their stories and jokes
Be there for them with their questions and doubts
Be there for them in their victories and defeats
Be there for them in their joy and sadness
Be there for them whenever they hurt, cry or call
Be there for them even if it means standing up to your employer
Be there for them even if it will cost you a few dollars at work
Be there for them though your buddies will call you the lady of the house
Be there for them even when they don't seem to need you
Be there for them before anyone else, yes even before the first tear-drop hits the carpet

For in being there for them, we lavish them with satisfaction that no amount money can buy, and no thief can steal. We may not raise Divas and Biebers, but our children are guaranteed a place of rest at the end of the day. They will whistle away and they stroll home "my folks are waiting on me".


Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Suicidee God Loves You

Life is such a precious gift that most will fight to keep and prolong, and yet we have all around us occurrences of disturbed individuals who cannot wait to get out of this world for reasons we may never know nor understand.

We think that only the non-spiritual or those that have no connection with God can come under such stress that propels them to hate this life and take their own lives. I tell you that that is not so. Suicide is a spirit that, like sin, looks for a host to dwell in and does not discriminate between those that pray and those that don't.

Suicidal spirit will take a gloomy experience and turn it into darkness. It will turn a voice of reprimand into shouts of condemnation. It will turn failure into inferiority complex. It has the ability of taking your little flaw, magnifying it a thousand time, packaging it and throwing it back at you. Suicide is a spirit, and his voice is your own perception of yourself and your surrounding situation. It is up to us to choose whether we will listen to it or not.

Elijah was a mighty prophet used of God to bring revolution to the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the paganistic reign of Ahab and his whorish wife, Jezebel. God honoured Elijah in ways that we can only dream about today. He summoned fire from heaven, stopped rain for 3 years, commanded an unceasing supply  of oil and wheat for a widow, raised the dead to life, and slaughtered those that had defiled the land of Israel. Spiritual, mighty and bold are tags we can label this man by.

Nevertheless, even such a man fell prey to the spirit of suicide and "requested for himself that he might die". Why? He was afraid of the very queen he had challenged just a few days earlier, and whose prophets he had slain. What mistake had he done to suddenly turn from hunter to hunted? The answer is simple. Please note this answer as the most important so you can detect the subtle nature of how this suicidal  demon begins its work.

The scripture notes in 1 Kings 19:4 that "WHEN HE SAW THAT". Dearly beloved ones, this is the beginning work of the spirit of suicide. Even before Elijah got discrouraged, or before he travelled to his retirement home. Long before he contemplated and requested the end of his life, he saw that.


What did he see? The previous verse tells us what he saw - the weightless threat in Jezebel words. Her threats were all bluffs, since Elijah had proven to her and the whole realm, that he was untouchable. Elijah enjoyed immunity under the wings of Almighty God. He brought down fire and consumed armies that were summoned to bring him captive before the King. But oh what weakness a mighty man can be reduced to when he directs his eyes and attention to see the bluff of the enemy.

Many are driven toward ending their God given lives because they have trained their eyes at the bluffs hurled at them by the enemy. It starts with a whisper and gradually develops till all they can hear is boisterous sound of the lies of the devil. If this is you today, know that you have a God yearning for you.

Every human being on this planet possesses a special place in the heart of Almighty God. He has already mapped out a plan concerning your life individually from beginning to end. He is not a God a far off, but He is personal and knows your name. He says "my thoughts for you are thoughts of peace and not of evil". He says "I  have graven you in the palms of my hand". He says "I will never leave you nor forsake you". He says "when your mother and father will forsake you, I will lift you up". He says "eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms".

In God, there is hope, joy, peace, security, love, assurance, comfort, consolation, answers, and life. So whatever else your circumstances may tell you or whatever people may level against you to contradict what God has said, don't see it. You have an immunity to enjoy, because our God is mighty to save.