GET READY FOR RESTORATION

"And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and womenservants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife" (Genesis 20:14). 

In every place where restoration occurred in the Bible, it is usually associated with additional provisions that will enhance the value of the item restored. It is like an interest added to the principal to compensate for the loss or denials you have suffered. But the beautiful thing is that in the economy of God, the added interest typically exceeds the value of the principal.

KINGDOM ADVANCEMENT 3: THE UNPROFITABLE SERVANT

KINGDOM ADVANCEMENT 3: THE UNPROFITABLE SERVANT

TEXT: MATTHEW 25:14-30

The kingdom work to every believer should not be treated with kids glove, the message today should make us have a very deep thoughts enroute genuine kingdom exploits.

The three servants were given the same seed for the same mission but one of them thought otherwise.

He was sad because the seed is small, the scope of his work is small, the master is unfair.

The master is partial, He is greedy, how can He expects him to do what others are doing with little.

The servant wants to dictate to the master how He should do His bidding.

HONOUR YOUR VOWS

"When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed" (Ecclesiastes 5:4).

According to the above Bible verse, a typical attitude of a fool is that he makes vows and delays or neglects to pay. Making a vow is like entering into a covenant. It is binding on you to fulfill your vow. A vow is an expression of who you are, what you believe in, and what you want. Thus, when you back out of a vow, you are denying who you are, what you believe in, and what you want. But a fool does not understand that to defer a vow is to deny himself.

LAYING FOUNDATION FOR A BLESSED GENERATION

"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1).

Our God is a God of generations. This is why He refers to Himself as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (Exodus 3:6). In a very major sense, God deals with people according to their generations because all generations are forever alive to Him (Matthew 22:32). Generations are important to God because without generational applications, covenants lose a huge chunk of their meaning and relevance. 

CRUSHING THE PUNCHES OF EXPERIENCE

The beautiful thing about our world is that, it is one which have phases; no wonder, the wisest man in history spoke about time in Ecclesiastes 3:1-10. The phases are the past, present and the future, this week edition of winning ways shall be sharing with you the accurate tools to overcome the problems your experience of life might have planted in your destiny.

TRIUMPHANT LIFESTYLE - Revd Muyiwa Okusehinde

"Then the Lord spoke again. 'Do not be afraid. Do not think that you are weak', he said to Joshua. 'Take the whole army with you and go to attack Ai. I will give the king and all his people and the city and its land to you" (Joshua 8:1, Easy English Version).

Life is full of battles. Indeed, the entire process we call life and living is one long stretch of war. While it is true that you will win some battles and lose some, it is important that you don't lose the war called life. It is also important that you progressively minimize the proportion of battles in which you are vanquished by the enemy, ultimately getting to a point that you don't lose battles anymore. From the words that God spoke to Joshua in our Bible verse for today, we can learn a number of lessons on how to be consistently triumphant in life.

BE STILL

"Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth" (Psalms 46:10).

Many have been put into serious problems just because they will not keep their tongue in its right place. I once read of a physician who could no longer endure his talkative patient. After a while, he came up with an idea, telling his fair patient to put out her tongue as though he was going to examine the chattering instrument. Then the doctor continued writing out the prescription without even as much as glancing at the woman. When he had finished, he turned to her and said: “There, that will do, take it to the pharmacy”. “But, doctor,” protested the lady, “you never even looked at my tongue”. And the doctor replied: “It wasn’t necessary. I just wanted you to keep quiet while I wrote the prescription”.

Sometimes, we also need to keep quiet so as to allow God sort out the issues of our lives. The quietness I am talking about goes beyond refraining from making speeches. I am talking of a calmness of the total being - mind and body. That, I believe is what God is demanding from us when He ordered, "Be still, and know that I am God". God is saying, "I work best for you, in you and through you when you are quiet and calm". I believe that it will be of a great benefit to your whole life if in the next couple of days, you would make time to spend some real quiet moments before the Lord.

DIVINE INTERVENTION, EVERYBODY SHALL SAY AMEN

"Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses" (Psalms 107:28).

Divine intervention always leads to divine lifting. God cannot intervene in a man's situation and leave the man the way He met him. If you have called on God to intervene in your situation, get ready for a definite improvement because when God steps into any matter, He does so with His transforming power.

The children of Israel were once in bondage in the land of Egypt. As slaves, they were severely oppressed and afflicted. Their earnest cry to God provoked heaven's intervention. That intervention did not leave the Hebrews in Egypt. Rather, it lifted them out of bondage into the land of liberty - the Promised Land.

NOW IS THE TIME, YOUR HELPER IS RELEASED

"And he said, if the LORD does not help you, from where shall I help you?" (2 kings 6:27, Modern King James Version).

The Bible says that "none shall be alone in his appointed times" (Isaiah 14:31). The picture projected here is that of a military situation in which no soldier fights alone or is isolated in battle. God’s program is that no one should stand alone in their moments of adversity. God never intends that any man should fight life's battles all alone. Indeed, according to the Preacher, "woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he does not have another to help him" (Ecclesiastes 4:10). The issue of having helpers is crucial in life.

Can Christians Have Sex If The Wedding Date Is Set? John Piper Weighs In

Can Christians cohabit and have sex if their wedding date is already set? That was the question put to famed US pastor John Piper this week on the Ask Pastor John podcast, published at Desiring God today.

Piper said the idea was 'merely fleshly, worldly pragmatism' and that those wh

IDEAS WILL PROMOTE YOUR DESTINY - 1, Dr Segun Oshinaga

INSPIRE With Segun Oshinaga

BREAKTHROUGH SEEDS - 13 - IDEAS WILL PROMOTE YOUR DESTINY - 1

Ideas will change your status in life. Dig for ideas and you will come up with something more than gold, more than oil. You will come up with your tremendous potential that will contribute meaningfully to the world.

"The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto they land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow."

Deuteronomy 28:12

TOTAL RECOVERY 4 - A.T JOEL

The second in the 4Ps series is PURSUIT.

Spiritual pursuit takes place when you put your prayer into action by moving upon what you believe in. David prayed and then he acted in faith.

In Aramaic, the word for faith is faithing, which means ‘faith that is acting.

Faith acts, faith is not faith unless it is moving and living faith, Heb 11:1.

David pursued his enemies by acting upon what God said to him in 1 Sam 30:9, following through with what God had spoken for Him to do. He didn’t not sit idly, hoping for something to happen. He pursued his enemy, and God gave him the victory.

God girds us with strength to the battle, and He will subdue those who rise up against us  Psalm 18:39.

TOTAL RECOVERY 3 - A.T Joel

We start off with the 4P’s of Recovery, first of which is praise.

David’s decision to praise the Lord, even in the midst of his troubles, and even while surrounded by his unlikely 3D army, became a crucial turning point in his life.

How bad did it get? After the struggles in the cave and the battles with Saul, things kept getting worse.

David experienced emotions that overwhelmed him, and he faced great trouble to the point that he wept with sorrow. But when his crying was done, something mighty happened, 1 Sam 30:6.

When David remembered to praise God, regardless of the situation, everything began changing.

David was in a desperate place, but David did not focus on his trouble, instead, he looked at what God could do through it. In other words, he began praising God in the midst of his trouble, the psalms are filled with praise and worship, despite his often dire situations.

BREAKTHROUGH SEEDS - 3 - OPPOSITION IS THE TEST OF A GREAT VISION - 3

INSPIRE With Segun Oshinaga

(A Revelational & Inspirational Devotional)

Mockery is a wicked and mean strategy of opposition. Men that cannot stand mockery cannot see their vision prosper. If you have a vision, get ready for mockery and for opposition. But bless God for Nehemiah. The more they mocked, the more he worked.

"So built we the wall and all the wall was joined  together unto the half thereof for the people had a  mind to work." Nehemiah 4:6

My God, my God, their minds were not discouraged or even give up. They had a mind to work.

OPPOSITION IS THE TEST OF A GREAT VISION - 2

INSPIRE With Segun Oshinaga

BREAKTHROUGH SEEDS - 2 - OPPOSITION IS THE TEST OF A GREAT VISION - 2

We can see this truth illustrated in the life of Nehemiah. Nehemiah demonstrated that a man of vision must confront opposition to keep his dream a reality.

"But is came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews."

Nehemiah 4:1

There are always opposition to every idea that God gives you. Sanballat was "wroth" when he heard that Nehemiah had a great vision - the rebuilding of the wall. He took great indignation to a great vision.

HAMAN MUST FALL

"And Haman told Zeresh his wife and all his friends every thing that had befallen him. Then said his wise men and Zeresh his wife unto him, If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him" (Esther 6:13). 

It is interesting how much is known in the camp of the enemy about the measure of grace and power God has bestowed on His children. If you are a believer, understand that Satan knows you more than you know yourself, and he will always try to exploit your knowledge deficit. Of course, the enemy will not readily acknowledge the good things he knows about you. 

THE GREATEST CHRISTIAN ALIVE - DAVID BAKER

If you were asked to suggest the greatest Christian people alive today, who would you put into your 'top five'?

And if you were given the enormously difficult task of singling out one of them above all the others, what name would you come up with? Billy Graham? Pope Francis? Desmond Tutu? Joyce Meyer?

I won't keep you in suspense – I will tell you who I think the greatest Christian alive today is a little later on in this article!

But when we come to think about what Jesus considers to be greatness we are in for a shock, as so often. Because Jesus subverts and upends our human notions of the idea. The Kingdom of God, it turns out, has rather different values from how most of us instinctively tend to think.

BREAKTHROUGH SEEDS: OPPOSITION IS THE TEST OF A GREAT VISION - Dr Segun Oshinaga

INSPIRE With Segun Oshinaga

BREAKTHROUGH SEEDS: OPPOSITION IS THE TEST OF A GREAT VISION

It is amazing how many people expect to accomplish great things with little or no opposition. Because they are not expecting opposition, they usually overact or blow it completely out of proportion when they encounter opposition.

Nobody talks about a nonentity. No one opposes a nobody, There is no opposition as long as you are not doing something substantial with your life.

"Ye are of God, little children and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world"

1 John 4:4

BUILDING YOUR FAITH: WHEN STORM COMES, WHERE IS GOD?

Mark 4:35-41

The crises of life have often been compared to stormy seas. They come upon us whether we like it or not. They terrify us. They knock us around and threaten to destroy all our stability and security. We don’t know whether we can survive them. And we don’t know how long they will last. At least, that’s how a storm at sea would be for most of us. For Jesus, it was just a chance to grab 40 winks.

IN TOUCH WITH THE REAL POWER - A. T JOEL

Mark 7:33 And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue.  Jesus takes the man aside from the crowd to show tender consideration for the feelings of one for whom life was very difficult. Once they are alone, the first thing Jesus does is to put His fingers in the man's ears. They must be healed if the tongue is to work normally, since the man was mute because he could not hear. This symbolic action sends a clear message to the deaf man, helping to awaken his faith and to alert him to the expectation of healing. Since he could not hear encouragement, it had to come from a compassionate touch.