The Echo Called Life

Author Unknown

A son and his father were walking in the mountains. Suddenly, his son falls, hurts himself and screams: “AAAhhhhhhhhhhh!”

To his surprise, hears the voice repeating, somewhere in the mountain: “AAAhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Curious, he yells: “Who are you?”

He receives the answer: “Who are you?”

Angered at the response, he screams: “Coward!”

He receives the answer: “Coward!”

He looks to his father and asks: “What’s going on?”

The father smiles and says: “My son, pay attention.” Then the father screams to the mountain: “I admire you!”

The voice answers: “I admire you!”

Again, the man screams: “You are a champion!”

The voice answers: “You are a champion!”

The boy is surprised, but does not understand. Then the father explains: “People call this echo, but really this is life. It gives you back everything you say or do. Our life is simply a reflection of our actions. If you want more love in the world, create more love in your heart. If you want more competence in your team, improve your competence.

This relationship applies to everything, in all aspect of life; life will give you back everything you have given to it.”

Meditation: “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.” – Genesis 8:22

You will succeed in Jesus Name!

They Missed Him!

Author Unknown

He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. – John 1:11

They were looking for a Lion, He came as a Lamb, and they missed him.

They were looking for a Warrior, He came as a Peacemaker, and they missed him.

They were looking for a King, He came as a Servant, and they missed him.

They were looking for Liberation from Rome, He submitted to the Roman cross, and they missed him.

They were looking for a fit to their mould, He was the mould maker, and they missed him.

What are you looking for? Lion? Warrior? King? Liberator? What are you looking for?

They were looking for their temporal needs to be met. He came to meet their eternal needs, and they missed him.

He came as a Lamb to be sacrificed for your sin. Will you miss him?

He came to make peace between God and man. Will you miss him?

He came to model servanthood for all mankind. Will you miss him?

He came that we might have true Liberty. Will you miss him?

He came to give you eternal life. Will you miss him?

When we submit to the Lamb we will meet the Lion. Join with the Peacemaker and we will meet the Warrior. Work with the Servant and we will meet the King. Walk with the Submitted and we will meet the Liberator. Concern ourselves with the eternal and we will have the temporal.

If Jesus is not fitting into the mould you have, then come to the mould maker and get His new one. Submit to His plan for your life and you will see the eternal need met first, then all the other things you have need of will be taken care of as well.

You will succeed in Jesus Name!

The Will of God

Author Unknown

The will of God will never take you,

Where the grace of God cannot keep you.

Where the arms of God cannot support you,

Where the riches of God cannot supply your needs,

Where the power of God cannot endow you.

The will of God will never take you,

Where the spirit of God cannot work through you,

Where the wisdom of God cannot teach you,

Where the army of God cannot protect you,

Where the hands of God cannot mold you.

The will of God will never take you,

Where the love of God cannot enfold you,

Where the mercies of God cannot sustain you,

Where the peace of God cannot calm your fears,

Where the authority of God cannot overrule for you.

The will of God will never take you,

Where the comfort of God cannot dry your tears,

Where the Word of God cannot feed you,

Where the miracles of God cannot be done for you,

Where the omnipresence of God cannot find you.

Meditation: For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God. – 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5

You will succeed in Jesus Name!

What Will You Do?

– Author Unknown

As you read this think about what you would do!

A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night’s dinner. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of the men mistakenly kicked a table which held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or bothering to look back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.

ALL OF THEM, BUT ONE!

He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned. He told his buddies to go on without him and told one of them to help call his wife to inform her that he would be taking a later flight. He waved them goodbye and then returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor. He was glad he did.

The owner of the toppled apples was a blind 16-year-old girl! She was crying softly. With hot tears of frustration running down her cheeks, she helplessly groped for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping to help her, and no one showed any concern care about her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table, and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.

When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, “Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?” She nodded through her tears. He added, “I hope we didn’t spoil your day too badly.”

As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, “Mister….” He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She said, “Are you Jesus?”

He stopped in mid-stride totally bewildered. When he regained his composure, he slowly made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his mind: “Are you Jesus?”

Do people mistake you for Jesus? That’s our destiny, is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world that is blind to His love, life, and grace.

If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church.  It’s actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.

You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by a fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit.

Meditation: For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps. – 1 Peter 2:21

You will succeed in Jesus Name!

Nail in the Fence

Author Unknown

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally, the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.

The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.”

That is the reason the Bible admonishes us that we should “be swift to hear, slow to speak, [and] slow to wrath;” because “the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).

Meditation: So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; – James 1:19

You will succeed in Jesus Name!

An Effective Insulator from Sin

Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.
– Psalm 119:11

Sin costs us a lot of things. Although it may seem pleasurable at the point of committing it, but the consequences of sin is usually undesirable, the harvest more grievous than the seed, and the impact of the consequences far-reaching. “Had I known…” is the common statement that follows the consequences of sin.

A whole nation has been wiped away in biblical or classical history because of their wrongdoings, not to talk of people dying by the day because of sins. God had decreed that the wages of sin is death; not that He rejoices in the death of sinners, His heart’s desire is always that all may come to repentance and be reconciled to Him. Oftentimes, the death that results from sin may not be physical. It could be spiritual, emotional, marital, academic, career, death of a dream, financial, etc.

However, because God does not desire the death of anyone in whatever form, He has offered us a lifeline to help us live above sin. True, it is very hard for a mortal to live without sinning. But, it is not impossible. That is perhaps the reason God inspired the Psalmist to affirm that by diligently internalising the word of God, he would not sin against God.

In other words, he is saying that by making time and effort to ingest the word, he had apprised himself with the knowledge of the moral will of God concerning various matters of life, so that when he needed to take an action, he would not sin against God. By having a working knowledge of the word, thereby knowing the will of God, he was insulating himself from the lures of sin. That means he was insuring himself from the different forms of death that come on account of sin. The Bible is the book where the total will of God can be accessed, maybe we should treat it as the Psalmist did.

You will succeed in Jesus Name!

To Create Anything, You Need this!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
– John 1:1-3

Archaeological researches have shown that the earth has been in existence for billions of years, although it was formless and empty, just as the Bible says it was “in the beginning.” It has also been revealed that that life started appearing on the earth only some million years ago, when God started to populate it with living things. What transpired between the interlude of earth’s creation and its population with living beings are still subject of debate. But, if you consider the vastness of the universe and everything in it; how big, how deep, how high and how wide, you will agree that God must be quite awesome to have created all these.

Yet, the above passage tells us God does not create anything without first saying it. Genesis 1 vividly captures the account of creation, one recurrent clause that runs through that chapter is, “And God said…” thus corroborating the passage above that ALL THINGS are made through the word, and NOTHING was made without the word.

That means the Word has the power to create. Things, environments, circumstances, conditions and everything you can imagine are first created through the spoken word before they come to be.

Are there things lacking in your life that you want to be? What are the desirable but non-existent conditions in your marriage, business, career, ministry, society or other affairs? The first way to go about having them is to speak them forth. You should then back your confession with appropriate actions. Never forget that God created all things by first speaking them; there is no one smarter than Him around. So, if you want it, you have to speak it too.

You will succeed in Jesus Name!