Why God Keeps On Doing Great Things?

Recently I was invited to a church member's thanksgiving service. Sometime ago he was bedridden and his illness was not promising to a point that he eventually lost his job. However, God's grace was upon him and he was healed, got another job and continued with his life. He has a home (which he continued to establish in spite of his illness), a family and a job. He wanted to give thanks to God for answering his prayers and hence the service last Sunday.

When he personally invited me two months ago, I immediately knew I was not going to miss this occasion. As I thought and prayed about this function, I could tell that my faith was soaring. I recalled all the times this man pushed himself to church and how he would cry out to the Lord in prayer and how he would sing and dance for the Lord, forgetting about his health condition - fast forward to today, he preaches the Word of God with a meaning.

I asked myself why God continues to do wonders for us. Why God performs miracles? I realized that He does not do it just for fun. He does not do it just to please the person receiving the miracle. He does it for a specific reason. That is the message God imparted in my heart. Somehow I knew God wanted me to relay this message. That is why I was least shocked when I learnt on the day I am one of the selected individuals included in the programme to give a testimony. After all we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

So, why God keeps on doing great things? This is what Joshua told the Israelites, "For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over, that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever," (Joshua 4:23-24).

God does not want us to be just a reservoir of His blessings. He wants us to be a flowing river of His blessings so that all the people who get to know of our blessings may turn to Him. The hand of God is powerful and all people should know that so they may glorify Him.

What does fearing the Lord mean? David said, Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Who is the man who desires life, and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it." (Psalm 34: 11-14).

In other words, the fear of the Lord means living a righteous life. God is always ready to listen and answer the prayers of the righteous. The Apostle James says the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. The Apostle Paul says the kingdom of God is righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

God has promised that he will dwell in us and walk among us. He has promised that we will be His people and He will be our God. He has promised that if we do not touch anything unclean and separate ourselves from the evil, He will receive us. He has promised that He will be our Father and we will be his sons and daughters.

"Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God," (2 Corinthians 7:1). My lovely friends let us seek His kingdom and his righteousness first. It calls us to be pure in heart. We have to ask God to cleanse us from anything that separates us from His face and that is sin. We often say nobody is perfect but God has told us to be perfect because He is perfect. Let us strive for the perfection of His holiness in fearing him. We can never see God without holiness. Jesus said blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

We all desire to enter his kingdom, which is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is amazing how much peace you have when you know your heart is clean. In the book of the prophet Isaiah 32:17 the Word says the work (or fruit) of righteousness will be peace and the effect of righteousness will be quietness and assurance forever.

My friend let us make it a point that we align ourselves with the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ and keep endeavoring to be righteous. My prayer these days to the Lord is that "Create in me a clean heart oh God". Let us seek Him with a clean heart. Let us seek Him in truth. He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Let us acknowledge Him for every blessing he pours unto us and that way the gospel of Christ will spread and many people will begin to fear Him. Bless His holy name!

From Absence of Inner Peace to Inner JOY

There is nothing that hurts like a troubled heart. You may feel like you have everything under control. On the outside you look happy and you seem to be successful in everything you do… but there is only one problem, your heart is not at peace!

You go to church and you come back feeling empty. You read the bible and you understand nothing at all. You pray and you cannot find the words. You feel the urge to go on but there are strong forces pulling you away. The more you think about, the more you get anxious.

Trust me, this is a very painful moment. You feel so sad on the inside and you start blaming yourself for this and that. You start pointing and naming things you are not doing well instead of counting your blessings. You sink deep into the sticky situation. The sad thing is that you never understand what is happening, You just become a slave of these forces.

From my experience, it takes courage to humble yourself and open your heart for the Lord and he will set you free. There is always that gentle whisper, that voice within you that tells you what to do and your role is simple, just listen and do what that voice is saying. The Lord will set you free.

It’s amazing how you feel the inner peace and joy inside. Someone wrote JOY can be described as putting Jesus first, Others second and Yourself last. I have realised how much this is true. There is no point therefore to go back. Galatians 5 : 1 says “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”