Our Sovereign God! (poem)

Where most people in this world blink,
Is in the thought that God only knows many a thing.
They seem to find it hard to think,
That God even decrees the action of their sins that stink.

If you were to ask: would God decree that what He speaks against?
Think then of the Pharaoh who kept His people as slaves fenced.
Did God not ask Pharaoh to let His people go?
Yet He made him stubborn to make known His All-Might so.

This Pharaoh did to His people all things of gory,
And then God’s justice brought down this mighty nation to the state of sorry.
So there you have it all in one story,
That God does all things for His own glory.

Now for those whose minds are a little curious,
May wonder is it therefore ok to do things with intention spurious,
For if all things are his will,
Then how can it ever make Him furious.

Do you know the time when Jesus was tempted?
Satan told Him something scripturally demented.
For scripture stated that if He plummeted from that huge height,
God’s will, would ensure the angels upheld Him that His foot may not be hurt even slight.
So what did Jesus have to say to that Satan of pest?
He said for scripture says you shall not put God to the test.

So my friend, if you are a believer,
Then know that from God we are just of mercy a receiver,
God loves Himself and He has full right,
For besides Father Son and Spirit
There is no perfect being in sight.
So let’s not blasphemously of Godly equality speak,
But give Him that deserving worship He has taught us to seek.

Believing, as Abraham did!

The true essence of faith is something that is known only to a believing Christian. When Jesus warned His disciples to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:6), what He may have been cautioning them against is very much what the world sees today as faith. The Bible says in Hebrew 11:6 that it is impossible to please God without faith but the spurious faith that the world has taken a grip of is a condescending joke that nobody wants to laugh at. This is precisely what the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees is all about, just as yeast makes a batch of dough rise, in the same way the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees is what works to raise and magnify: not God, but the person himself. We see so much of this in the world today, which sees the strength of a person’s belief/faith, in the person’s fasting, dietary regulations, physical mourning and rigorous praying. When the world looks at this so called faith, who exactly is exalted, it is the doer, the people doing it themselves more than the god/gods they worship. This is the yeast effect where the people are exalted and God; oh what about Him? The world thinks: He already has all the glory as God but it is not right, never was and never will be, that people use God for the convenience of exalting themselves: the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Let us take a look at faith going back as far as Abraham. The Bible refers to Abraham as the Father of many nations (Genesis17:5) and says that it was because he believed (had faith in God) that it was credited to him as righteousness (Romans 4:3). Let us look at some scripture.

Genesis 22:6-8
6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together.
7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.
9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.
10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

We see from the above, that this is a citation of the sacrifice God commanded of Abraham. Well, if you take a closer look, you will see that the faith that justified Abraham before God was the faith with which Abraham could foresee the Lord Jesus Christ and His redemptive work on the cross. You see! The actual word in Genesis 22:8 i.e. “provide for Himself the Lamb”, the actually Hebrew word used here is “seh say”, which literally means that God would push out of Himself a Lamb. It gets more interesting here, the word “God” in Genesis 22:8 is written as the Hebrew “El-O-Heem”, which is the name of Supreme God but El-o-Heem is a name denoted in Plural taken from the Singular El-o-Ah. This not only makes you see a Triune God in the faith story of Abraham but from the term “seh say” like the Hebrew “shaw-aw” meaning to rush to wastage making desolate, you see the very essence of why Jesus cried out on the cross in Mark 15:34 “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” One can thus vividly picture the faith Abraham had in the promise of justification that would be worked out for him on the cross (Galatians 3:6).

Wait! There is even more. We know according to the Bible that Isaac was born to Abraham in his old age (Genesis 21:2-3), considering at this time that Isaac was at an age where he could talk, carry the wood and climb the mountain (Genesis 22:2) himself upon which he was to be offered as a sacrifice, we can safely assume that Isaac had the strength to resist Abraham, while he got Isaac ready for the sacrifice but we see no mention in scripture of Isaac’s resistance, with which we can only more clearly see it’s reflection of Jesus’ work on the cross, where the Bible says that Jesus was taken like a lamb to the slaughter where he did not resist to the extent that he did not say even a word (Acts 8:32).

It must be understood that “time” is also a part of God’s creation and just as God is never bound by His creation so is He never bound also with time. The difference between the Saints of the Old Testament from Saints of the New Testament is that the people of the Old Testament were justified through the faith in which they held to the promise of Salvation that God would work out for them Himself (Psalms 119:123). While the saints of the New Testament are justified through the faith of God’s handiwork carried out on the cross (Romans 5:1, 9). The deliverance a Christian has from his sin can be compared to the deliverance of the Old Testament Saints from Egypt and the reason a Christian is commanded to remember in faith the saving work of the cross (Ephesians 2:12-13) is the same reason the Old Testament saints were told to remember the handiwork of God’s deliverance of His people from Egypt (Exodus 13:3) i.e. that the people may have a fearful reverence (Exodus 14:31) in their reconciliation to God (Ephesians 2:16).

We therefore see here that trusting in God in the midst of trial not only yields carnal quietness but magnifies and exalts our God over us. This truly is the faith of His Church: the believing body of people starting right from the Spiritual father of every Christian i.e. Abraham.

Armour of God!

Though this world may seem to move from bad to worse, I know that God is as much as in control now as He ever was and as He will be forever. For as much as He is glorified in being a creator over creation, he is glorified is being a redeemer over His vessels of mercy and also glorified in His anger over His vessels of wrath. It is not for God or the Christian to worry as to what the world is coming to because God is Sovereign but it would be of much help to the Christian to wear the full armor that God has given him, to withstand days of peril.

Eph 6:13-17
13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;
17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,

The “belt of truth” in verse 14 is something that fastens the armor of God upon the believer. Let’s read Rom 1:18.

Romans 1:18
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Just as if I were to say that my glass is only filled half way or that my glass is still half empty would both be true, hence from Romans 1:18 we can also say “God’s mercy has been made known from heaven touching godliness and righteousness of men, who by their righteousness stands firm in the truth.” We therefore see that the breastplate of righteousness that is held-fast to us by truth protects our bosom so that our hearts entertain nothing else (Proverbs 6:24-27) other than God (Deut 6:5 and Jer 31:33). This, my friend is the mark of a people and belong to God.

From Eph 6:14, we see that the believer is called to have readiness to preach the Gospel as Jesus says in Matthew 28:18-20 that All Power has been given unto Him and we are therefore commanded to go into the nations and bring in the good news of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of peace! That the people may adhere to the One God in the Father, Son and Spirit, as He promised to remain with His people till the end of age.

Romans 10:13-15
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

About the shield of faith in Eph 6:15 that extinguishes the fiery dart of Satan. We know God Himself promised to shield Abraham (Gen 15:1) and it was because Abraham believed that it was credited to him as righteousness (Gal 3:6). The Bible also tell us in 1John 5:5 that it is in believing in Jesus in which we have the shield of faith that quenches the fiery darts of the enemy (1Peter 5:8-9).

Also, you are not fully sheltered if your head is not protected. For in this battle that happens for the time that God has decreed, a blow to head can prove to be fatal and if God has called you to receive His helmet of salvation (Psalms 140:7) then it implicitly implies that He will give you His full armor, which is a privilege the world has not seen.

Habakkuk 3:13
You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. Selah.

Finally, you also need a device of attack and what we have been given is the sword of Spirit i.e. the Word of God – The Bible, which is a weapon given to us by His Spirit in His wisdom.

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

I kept this for last; Brother/Sister now that you have seen the splendid Armor presented to you, here is its purpose:

Ephesians 6:11-12
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

If you think the opposition is big then this should console you: God controls the opposition! Do you know how some vaccines are made in the field of medicine? The actual virus is taken, made handicapped and injected into the body. The virus cannot really do much harm but what happens is that the body starts producing antibodies, which builds up the immune system against that disease and this is probably how God Sovereignly uses Satan and all his dominions to build God’s people.

Intimacy with God!

When you hear the word “intimacy”, who is it that comes to your mind? Is it your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend? The world seeks its love from a partner and sees the climax of all love going nowhere beyond than in a man and woman relationship. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can see it in the movies, where the ideal concept of love doesn’t seems to help the movie makers and stars themselves, because they are always picking up the pieces from their last relationship or marriage, at least that is what I read in the news papers. If I were to talk of intimacy and love, what enters the head of most people is sex and sensuality. This perversion of something as pure as intimacy and love has its consequences, which show up in the unhelpful relationships these people have and they really cannot do anything about it because they are literally enslaved to their desires.

Genesis 4: 1, 25
Now Adam KNEW Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.”
…
And Adam KNEW his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.”

The word “knew” mentioned above comes from the Hebrew “Yada”, that refers to intimate love. It must be understood in all cases that what we enjoy to satisfaction, happens because God decrees it that way. For example: I enjoy the Snickers candy bar and it’s my favorite but there are times I am not satisfied by it as much as I am most of the time, which is because, even the satisfaction that comes from your favorite action comes from God and maybe he doesn’t always give it to you even when you are doing your favorite thing so that the believer may know that his joyous satisfaction is actually in the Lord and nowhere else.

Well the world is surely blind to this because they don’t see their pleasure coming from God but solely from their own actions and so the world continues to seek pleasure and satisfaction in their actions alone till burnout, and then they ridiculously claim there is no God!

To refrain from heretic doctrine, I would like to tell you that I am in no way implying that sexually orgies await the people of God in paradise. While here on earth ‘sex’ was designed by God to be enjoyed only within the confines of a monogamous marital relationship, in heaven things will be different: in fact the word “which” in Mark 12:25 (below) in the original Greek is “ho he to”, and this has a “genderless” reference.

Mark 12:25
For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels WHICH are in heaven.

The Bible says that God goes beyond just loving, He goes to the extent of being love himself (1John 4:8, 16) and this makes quite a lot of sense because the people who reject God are mostly those who have all kinds of relationship trouble.

Getting back to the topic, let’s read Roman 8: 28-29
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (SECURITY – SAFETY – HOPE —THIS IS WHERE “JOY” IS DEFINED). For those whom he FOREKNEW he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

It ought to be noted here that “foreknew”, used here should not be mistaken as foreknowledge. The Greek word used here for “foreknew” in Romans 8:29 above is “proginosko”, which is foreknowledge when considering a relation to events but when considering a relation between beings, it ought to be seen as “pro-ginosko”, which is literally pure foreordained-intimacy between God and His people. Below are a series of “ginosko” occurrences highlighted in CAPITAL for you to get the message.

Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
And then will I declare to them, ‘I never KNEW you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

John 17:3, 25
And this is eternal life, that they KNOW you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
…
O righteous Father, even though the world does not KNOW you, I KNOW you, and these KNOW that you have sent me.

John 10:14-15
I am the good shepherd. I KNOW my own (sheep) and my own (sheep) KNOW me,
just as the Father KNOWS me and I KNOW the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

John 8:28-32
So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will KNOW that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.
And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”
As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
and you will KNOW the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

So the highlight of what I am trying to tell you is that, in the life of believer the only thing that really matters is his intimacy with the God who loves him/her, everything else can be arranged but the love between God has His Church can never be arranged, purely because it is already foreordained.

Matthew 6:33
Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things.

Ephesians 5:25-30
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
because we are members of his body.

From Eph 5:25-30, one can see that the relationship between Christ and His Church is as intimate in love as that of a marital relationship. This intimacy and love between God and His people, referred to as “yada” in Old Testament Hebrew and “ginosoko” in New Testament Greek, is what KNOWING God is really about, which is something that the Church can take pride in.

Jeremiah 9:23-24
Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches,
but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and KNOWS ME, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”

A Complete Revelation!

Have you ever pondered on the word “revelation”? How does it feel when you have an epiphany moment, when something is made known to you i.e. your understanding is enlightened. It is something that makes you pause for the moment to grasp the reality you have encountered.

Have you ever admired a beautiful sunset? Or maybe had your breath taken away by a beautiful landscape? Have you ever looked with smile at a flower or have you dived in tropical waters and been overwhelmed by the beauty and color of the corals and fish? Have you remained silent in a quite countryside and admired the starry sky? These are some of the many heart stopping moments but the reason we are left speechless is because we are admiring the handiwork of Someone. The human subconscious is such that it takes continuous pleasure in what constructively delights its senses and the amazing thing is, on this planet only man can stand in awe of artwork, whatever kind it may be, because that is how man is wired. People are made in such a way that their appreciation last for things that are only worked/made in earnest. This is why when man sees the handmade of God he stands in awe, many times without giving God the full credit because the ability to grasp the revelation of the creation was not granted to all.

Creation as beautiful as it may be is not a complete revelation by itself because it needs to be conjunct with the revelation of God in order to be complete since creation owes its existence to God. The revelation of God was made known in Christ and like the revelation of creation, the revelation made known in Christ was also not granted to all.

John 1:18
No one has ever seen God. The only Son, who is the same as God and is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

Colossian 2:2-3
2 that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The unique thing about the revelation that Christ brought is: 100% deliverance done 100% by God. You see there are many who staunchly believe in the existence of God but most of them feel left to themselves to work out their own righteousness before God because God has not touched them with the Salvation worked out completely on the cross.

Hebrews 2:9-10
But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

After Jesus worked out our salvation on the cross came the sustenance of the Holy Spirit, which was to bring the revelation of Christ into people of all kinds, going down generation after generation, those who have been called by God before the foundation of the world.

If you would like to look deep then the Word (Christ) came into human existence (John1) through the Holy Spirit (Luke 1), who came from the Father (John 14), if you are able to figure this out then you will see that these (Father Son and Spirit) are three distinctive Persons of Deity who are the same God.

John 1:1, 14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
..
The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father’s only Son.

Luke 1:35
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.

John 14:26
the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Now coming back to the revelation of the Spirit, do you know that the “word of God” known more commonly as the Bible, is a 100% product of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 6:17
the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

2Peter 1:19-21
19 So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. 20 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 FOR NO PROPHECY WAS EVER MADE BY AN ACT OF HUMAN WILL, BUT MEN MOVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT SPOKE FROM GOD.

So you see that the Bible is a complete revelation for the believer to know God, allow me to back this statement with scripture.

2Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

1John 2:27
But as for you, Christ has poured out his Spirit on you. As long as his Spirit remains in you, you do not need anyone to teach you. For his Spirit teaches you about EVERYTHING, and what he teaches is true, not false. Obey the Spirit’s teaching, then, and remain in union with Christ.

So you see of the revelation of the Holy Spirit is complete in the Bible which fully (100%) delivers the revelation of Christ to the believer, who also fully receives the revelation of creation from the same Bible. In fact this revelation is so perfect (Psalms 19:7) that Bible ask the believer not to exceed what is written (1 Cor4:6) and those who teach outside the Bible are actually in darkness (Isaiah 8:20).

The Right Pride

“Pride” in today’s world is misunderstood. The Bible however does bring clarity into this topic as it does completely (1Cor 4:6) with everything else. Many godly people resent the very word “pride” but frankly zero pride only means zero respect. Let us take a look into a few scriptures that show us the type of pride that God resents.

Psalms 10:4
The wicked do not care about the LORD; in their pride they think that God doesn’t matter.

Isaiah 13:19
Babylonia is the most beautiful kingdom of all; it is the pride of its people. But I, the LORD, will overthrow Babylon as I did Sodom and Gomorrah!

Jeremiah 50:29
“Tell the archers to attack Babylon. Send out everyone who knows how to use the bow and arrow. Surround the city and don’t let anyone escape. Pay it back for all it has done, and treat it as it has treated others, because it acted with pride against me, the Holy One of Israel.

Obadiah 1:2-4
The LORD says to Edom, “I will make you weak; everyone will despise you.
Your pride has deceived you. Your capital is a fortress of solid rock; your home is high in the mountains, and so you say to yourself, ‘Who can ever pull me down?’
Even though you make your home as high as an eagle’s nest, so that it seems to be among the stars, yet I will pull you down

Do you notice here that the pride that God despises is the pride a man takes in himself and the work of his own hands? This was the very reason for which that mighty angel (Satan) was condemned (1Timothy 3:6).

So what do you think? Should the people of God totally do away with pride? I don’t think so because the Bible says so. Tell me, would you have cough syrup anytime other than when you have a cough? If you did, that would be a perversion of the medicine’s purpose to suit you for whatever reason….mostly probably to get high but we see so much of that in the world today. Another instance of such a case can be seen in the beggars of my city, who actually hire doctors to amputate their healthy limbs or have their eyes scooped out, so that their pitiful state will get them more money; which here is clearly a perversion of charity. The funny thing is what the world considers a new trick to pervert the ways of God is not new at all (Jeremiah 4:22). After all how far can a man go when everything he does centers around himself?

Habakkuk 1:7
They spread fear and terror, and in their pride they are a law to themselves.

Coming back to the topic of pride, if you say pride is to be fully rejected in view of God and his Law then I would like to ask you: Is it wrong for a father to be proud of his son (Proverbs 23:24)? Or is it wrong for a spouse to be proud of their faithful partner (Proverbs 12:4)? Are you now beginning to see the right application of pride and not the perversion of it?

There is a difference between being puffed with conceit and being filled with godly pride but here is the punch line: The best use to which a person can put their boasting is taking pride in knowing and exalting God. Allow me support my statement with scripture.

Jeremiah 9:23-24
Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches,
but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”

Have you be ever been blessed with this kind of righteous pride? Let me tell you then that this blessing is a gift from God this is not the work of your own head and heart. For Jesus says that only His people hear his voice (John 10:27) and only they will confess Him before men (Mat 10:32) i.e. take pride in Him. At the end of it all: man should exalt only God and be humble concerning everything else, including himself.

Isaiah 2:17
Human pride will be ended, and human arrogance will be destroyed. Idols will completely disappear, and the LORD alone will be exalted on that day.

To conclude I would like to quote what the greatest man of God (Luke 7:28): “John the Baptist” said about Jesus Christ in John 3.

John 3:27-30
John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.
You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’
The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.
He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Purchased by His Blood

Hello people, how are you doing today? With Resurrection Sunday (Easter) just around the corner I would like to write something appropriate for the season.

Just as Abraham was tested, Abraham’s faith spoke of things that God would bring forth, which was spiritually inherent in Isaac too.

Genesis 22:7-8 (Old Testament)
And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.

Here is a small study; Isaac’s words: “is the lamb” is translated from the Hebrew “seh, say” which refers to the adjective of the lamb being pushed out. Now not only does Abraham confirm this but he adds more to that information, Abraham says “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering”, the beautiful thing about this is that the word “God”, here refers to a Hebrew plural, which is “El-O-Heem”. “Will provide” comes from the Hebrew “raw-aw’” which literally means “to see”. So Abraham’s words i.e. “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering” can be literally written as “God (plural but referred singular) sees to push out of Himself a lamb for a burnt offering (sacrifice)”. This is exactly what happened on the cross, Jesus bore (sacrifice) the reproach of His Father (push out- Eli Eli, Lama Sabactani) that the descendants of Abraham (Gal 3:7) may be accepted (Col 1:21-22) not for His peoples sake (Ezek 36:22) but for God’s Own Name sake (Isaiah 48:11) because God is Sovereign even in keeping His promises (Psalms 119:123).

Coming now to the book of Hosea, God spoke to His people Israel through the life of this prophet. Hosea’s marriage to unfaithful Gomer was an expression of God’s relationship with His people and then Gomer leaving Hosea for her lovers is reflected in the idolatry of Israel at that time. It so happens, that Gomer is finally left to sell herself as a slave that she may at least have food and shelter, her shame keeps her from going back to Hosea. As much as Gomer was soiled now, Hosea was tarnished but more than the tarnish what lay heavy on Hosea was loving an unfaithful woman. This was how God used Hosea to let His people know His anguish (Jeremiah 4:19; Luke 22:44) over them and their condition.

Hosea 3:1-5
1 And the LORD said to me (Hosea), “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love to take them offering cakes of raisins.”
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.
3 And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.”
4 For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods.
5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.

You see Gomer was worth nothing when Hosea bought from her from the market and that is in likeness to the Church being purchased by God by His own blood (Acts 20:28). After which God decrees that there will be faithfulness in the relationship between God and His people just like Hosea said to Gomer in Hosea 3:3.

Acts 20:28
Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

It is however important to understand that the term “Church” actually refers to the believing body of people in Jesus and these can be from any country of any language and race. Further if you look into Revelation 7 mentioned below, you will see the fullness of Hosea 3:3-5 of the Old Testament coming to bloom in the New Testament’s Revelation 7. You will see the people’s post-purchase faithfulness in Rev 7:10, 12, 15; you also see the goodness and faithfulness of God towards His people (Hos 3:5) blossoming in Rev 7:16-17.

Revelation 7
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?”
14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

To conclude this Good Friday Article, I would like you to remember that your belief in Jesus Christ stands exactly as how God decreed it to be for you at any given time. So if Jesus is your Lord and Savior then may you value His sacrifice and the price He paid for your salvation, may His Spirit then bring you to the fruitfulness of His Sovereign glory.

Romans 8:29-30
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Quietness and Trust

Hi, how are you guys doing? Hope you all are fine. Today I would like to write on a topic that is very challenging at its heart, which is trusting in God in our quietness.

Isaiah 30:15
For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,

Let me first give you a little information on Israel. The Bible says that Israel was the apple of His eye. They were a people chosen not because of their own brilliance in any way but because they were the smallest of people. Almost whole of the Old Testament is about the love of God in action over Israel. They are a people who are dear to Him and it is to them the Messiah came. The Bible has a lot of history of the world hating the people of God, that however is more out of subconscious envy than anything else because the world does not see a brilliant Israel but still wonders how they can be the apple of His eye. The truth is that it is not about a brilliant people but rather about a brilliant God. It is like “the fox and the grapes”, what the fox couldn’t have, he made believe they were sour and that is same with the world and Israel, what the world knows they can never be a part of, they write-off.

May God bless Israel as a people and also as a nation!

Coming back to Isaiah 30:15; we see that the returning and rest refers to repentance and patiently waiting for God’s deliverance. God and His redemption came in the human form of Jesus Christ centuries after and it was not on their own strength but in quietness and trust that the strength of God was granted unto them. This is the same applied to us now, sometimes we go so far ahead in action on what we think is a one way street. Our repentance then is in a 180° turn, that being a U turn on that road of life and then moving ahead in a direction that will set you against the flow of this world. If you ask me from where am I to expect that this will work then the answer is in the quietness and trust that shall be given your strength.

Ecclesiastes 4:6
Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.

How many of you have witnessed God’s deliverance in a situation. Is it not like an Oasis feeling in the desert where on a road of hardship and thorns you can find soothing relief? When such deliverance has come your way, how much of your effort was counted then to that credit? It is the same with the Salvation that came through Christ (2Timothy 1:9), the oasis of God’s goodness set against the backdrop of man’s damnation. There is no condition to which the subject is applied in order for the deliverance of God to come forth. The deliverance of God comes not because of what man does or who the man is but because God chooses. In fact the storms in our lives are purposefully set there by God (Psalms 107:25-28), because the relationship between God and His people can be likened to that of a parent and child. The parent sends the child for sports and the child is rigorously trained and in that comes the time when the child ask the parent for the equipment he needs, the parent provides and therein lies the two way relationship. So when the deliverance of God comes it is like plentiful rain falling on a scorched dry region. The God we have is such that the needs he places in our lives are enough to swallow us a hundred times over but then when He acts in deliverance that need is the filled to the extent that it wipes away our tears (Rev 21:4) for that is the Lord’s calling upon those who call to Him for redemption (Joel 2:32).

So the next time you have a situation where the more you act towards it only worsens the scene, may you then aptly remember and apply Isaiah 30:15.

Free will of man ~ Sovereign will of God

Hello people, how are you doing today? It’s been a long time since I have written and I will however be writing more frequently now as I am back home for good in Mumbai. Today I would like to write on the Sovereign will of God and free will of man.

In the world today, even the mostly godly of people consider that their free will is outside the Sovereign will of God. It seems that either they are subconsciously trying to protect God from the blame of all the bad stuff that happens in the world or may be these people consider their lives as times when they meet up with God and let his will be done in worship and other times in their everyday life where they feel they have the choice to follow God or not. The sad thing about this kind of thinking is that man raises himself above God without knowing it. Man feels insecure about God’s Sovereignty and so man tries to seemingly defend God saying that God has no hand in the bad stuff that is happening in the world and this same man will also feel that man has the power to choose God’s will in his life.

Let’s read; Romans 9:10-16, 18-24
10 And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; 11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, 12 it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.” 13 Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”
14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel [l]for honorable use and another [m]for common use? 22 [n]What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

If you need any more convincing then here is more scripture to show you that God’s people are not God’s people by the peoples own so called free will but by God own unconditional Sovereign will.

John 1:12-13 (Him refers to Jesus)
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

The reason we have trouble understanding this is because, the world considers God as something isolated from creation. Creation has come from God and the very reason creation exist is because it is sustained by God. So creation acts as God decrees. However what is right and wrong applies to man not to God, because the Law was something God gave to man, with which sin was made known but sin does not apply to God because sin primarily comes from disobedience to God and that can only apply to man but never to God and that is why we have Romans 5:19-21.

Romans 5:19-21
19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. 20 [o]The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

You see time and the effects of time comes from God and so when a man dies, in most cases we say that God has taken him away but we don’t apply the term murder to this because in the case of man when man takes away what is not rightfully his, even if it is his own life, he stands convicted because he is a tenant in his own body and the creation around him and so as accountability deals generally with responsibility of what man is a steward of. So the accountability that applies to man cannot be applied to God because everything is from God and belongs to Him exclusively (John 1:3). What I am trying to say from all this is that the right and wrong that is applied to us cannot most certainly apply to God. You see God gave man the Law so that man’s nature of sin/disobedience may be made known to man and that was precisely the purpose of the Law. Even though the Law came from God, it cannot be applied to God (Luke 6:1-11) because God has no sin; and disobedience does not apply to God. The difference between the actions of man and the actions of God is that the actions of man are based on current situations and a resolution that emerges from his own/derived knowledge but in the case of God, He is knowledge Himself, He foreordains situations, He builds rebellions and tears them down (Romans 9:17). He is like an ecosystem from which his creation is not separated. There is no transgression if a lion devours a zebra but instead it works towards and not against the purposeful ecosystem.

Isaiah 45:6-7
6 That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun
That there is no one besides Me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other,
7 The One forming light and creating darkness,
Causing well-being and creating calamity;
I am the LORD who does all these.

Yes man is made in the image of God but man practices humility before those whom he considers superior but humility does not apply to God because he is the first and last in Superiority and Authority. Do you know, what is the ultimate purpose of man according to the Bible? It is glorifying God and delighting in Him forever. You see man is called to be humbled and God is to be glorified.

In the case of Jesus, He is fully God and fully Man, His humility, tiring and hunger were as much his human aspect as is His glory, granting Salvation and forgiveness of sins aspects of his Deity.

John 10:7, 11 (Jesus’ Humility – Man)
7 So Jesus said to them again, “..I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep…

John 17:1 (Jesus Glorified – God)
Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You,

Glorifying God comes from obedience to Him and I am not talking dietary restriction or appearance regulation, I am talking about fulfilling God’s call in your life and if God has called you to do something then he will also give you the exciting desire to get it done. Fulfilling God’s purpose and delighting in it will make you feel the very essence of God’s pleasure in your being and that is what will take you on a high.

God’s will is done by those who are for Him and even those who are against Him. Consider the atrocious penalty that came against Jesus on the Cross, God made that too work in His favor, resulting in the Salvation for mankind. In fact you will see the extent to which God is in control that even the rebellion that comes against Him, cannot happen unless He raises it against Himself (Rom 9:17). Consider this, you and I know that it was man who severely tortured and crucified the Lord of Glory (Jesus) (1 Cor 2:8), yet the Bible says that it was the wrath of Father that Jesus consumed, the wrath which was due unto the world (John 18:11). As I said earlier creation is not separate from God, which goes to the extent that even Satan works, probably unknowing but surely hateful, towards fulfilling the purpose of God. Though Jesus was sinless He bore the sins of the world that the Father may punish sin for which Jesus paid the price. Do you see what am getting at, the Bible alone show God is such control that what is for God is from God and what comes against God is also from God, which all works to fulfill His eternal purpose.

If you would like some more scripture that shows God using the people against Him, to fulfill His purpose, then you should read Isaiah 10:12-15. The difference between God’s will carried out in God’s people and God’s will carried out in those who are against Him or don’t even believe in Him, is that only in the case of God’s people, only they can feel God’s pleasure in their actions, as he grants them what it takes to do what He has called them to do (Eph 2:10) and that is why with compassion He calls them as His people.

Psalms 34:8
O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!

Do you see any room for free will in all this? The concept of free will in a person’s mind only shows that he is inclined towards Dualism, which is more cultish in thinking about the world as battle ground for good and evil, God and Satan. If there was any truth in this popular school of thought, then this so called god would never be able to tell the outcome of such a battle because being able to tell/make the outcome in his favor means he controls the battle but then that does not leave much room for free will does it? The concept of free will actually inhibits a person from seeing God in all His Splendor and Majesty.

Freedom in God!

Hello people, how are you? Hope you are all doing well. It’s been quite sometime since I have been able to come home to Mumbai and so I spared sometime to write something for you wonderful people. I will be writing on freedom today as Indian Republic Day is just round the corner.

So what is freedom and what really is the essence of being called a free people? Allow me to give you an idea, when you are doing something out of your free will and not because you have to or you must that is called being free. My country India has lost many dedicated lives for her freedom and yet the most prominent freedom fighter of them all is Mahatma Gandhi, who was inspired by the teachings of Christ in regards to winning the freedom struggle using the fundamentals of Non-Violence.

If you look at the concept of God that the religions of the world are pursuing, it seems a free people are seeking bondage to some polytheistic gods or a monotheistic god. Somehow people find bondage good, it seems being caged up creates an outlook that you are abstaining from things created out of religious requirement. Religiosity dictates quite a list of things to people among these a few are dietary regulation, attire and personal appearance, prayer schedules, fasting regimes, pilgrimages etc.

The world is so busy doing what it is doing, that it sometime does a few things that makes a statement of a total absence of mind. What the world knows of God is what death knows about life, absolute ignorance from which comes absolute religion. The enlightenment that comes from God is missing in the world, the world is dead (Matthew 8:22), dead but free. Sometimes however people get inculcated with a notion that there is something far superior to them and this is probably where people get the notion of UFOs, super-beings and advanced alien technology. Well I do agree that creation has a Supreme Being but unlike most of world, I feel that if coming to Him is a good thing then I shouldn’t be going from the freedom of world into the bondage of this god. When unfortunate people have such religious encounters they don’t go from being dead in their being to being alive, they go from being dead and free to being dead and in bondage. Do I need to tell you which is better?

Religion does not really solve problems be it monotheistic or polytheistic. It is created with an intention to make society seem better but a religious solution brings its own set of problems into the picture to which religious people seem to turn a blind eye. What religion does is that it suppresses freedom of the people from doing quite a lot of what is actually a part of life, which makes the religious followers feel like they are doing quite a lot but the truth is they are only doing quite a lot of NOTHING. This suppressed freedom is vented out by these same religious people into true wickedness and the funny thing is that these religious people feel totally justified to act wicked because they have given up their freedom to act that way.

Religion and God are like oil and water, they don’t mix. Belief in God is about taking hold of the hope that He offers you and you don’t see this in religion, which is more of people being made subject to regulations; power hungry politics if you ask me. There was never a hope in bondage and the sooner the world comes to terms with this the better because hope in God is far from bondage in religion.

So my friend do you know where to find this hope? The answer is in letting a relationship in God take root within you, then you will go from being dead and free in the world to being alive and free in God. However the freedom of the world is subject to external factors which in turn are subject to God. So the freedom that is in God is far superior to the freedom of the world, in fact it makes the freedom of the world seem like bondage. I hope you are seeing how advanced this line of thinking is. Do you want to know where this comes from? It comes from the teachings of Christ.

Romans 3:24
But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free.

Knowing Jesus is knowing you are a sinner and accepting Jesus is accepting that He took upon Himself this inequity of your being. If you say you know Jesus Christ and that you don’t need Him because you think you are doing OK by yourself or you feel you have an alternative then my friend you ought to know that the only reason you are doing ok by yourself is because he is enabling you to do so and you seem like a person who just knows he ought to fuel his car and run it, Christ’ workings in the life of this person is as oblivious to this person as is the engine running his car. As for the alternative, that alternative would only be hell, would Christ sacrifice His Life if there were ever an alternative. Is life so cheap, even if that were the life of just a man? For those who deny Jesus died and rose again, they may not admit it but in their hearts they have turned into the enemy that is against the Salvation offered by God the Father and worked out through God the Son. God has already spoken to people like these, it is like God saying he is going to pour out His wrath on them at His set time and in the mean time these people are free to act on their own. And this is precisely what the religions of the world teach, self empowered action to save yourself; this is also what Atheist Ideology is about. One can clearly see that the Atheist and the Religious see themselves as different as leopards with different spots. They may identify themselves uniquely but in essence they are the same rebellious being against God.

This is a rebellion which pushes away in bitterness the Salvation worked out by God because the Spirit of God has not stirred them. There is a Latin idiom “Stagnant water can poison you”and so these people who are not stirred by God the Holy Spirit turn contagious and ravage the world. This rebellion is made so dull in their thinking that their work to save themselves is unknowingly a work to seek to save themselves from God. But who or what can save a person from God? This is precisely what God is to them: a God of wrath not a God who saves because separated from deliverance that is in Christ, this is the message of Judgement that has been made known by God Himself unto them.

John 3:16
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

You can see from the above scripture that there is no self empowered gate crashing into eternal life with God. It is on the basis of invite for those who believe in Christ, that is how it is because that is how He wants it to be. After-all a person ought to know that this Heavenly House belongs an Entity that calls the shots in everything that exists.

Cheers!!