COUNT IT ALL JOY - Dr. Segun Oshinaga

Troubles

, difficulties, and pressures come to all of us at one time or the other, whether we like it or not. Nobody is exempt. What we do before, during and after each crisis is largely determined by our attitude to life. Our perception rather than any singular factor often determines whether we profit from it or waste the efforts, prayers and lessons that results from each ‘crisis experience.’

THE CHURCH UNDER ASSAULT - Bishop Emma Omon

copied from www.emmaomon.com

For some time now the Church of God in Nigeria has been under assault. There are internal adversaries as there have been many foes from outside the Church. From within the Church is periled by impostors who have blended with the flock in our meeting places but whose works expose them as having a mindset that is strange to our common faith in Jesus Christ. Mingling among the faithful members is now a growing number of those that Jesus called tares (Matt. 13:24-30). They neither are born again nor do they appreciate the common tenets of our faith in Christ. With their projecting thorns and thistles they hurt members, deride pastors and make ministers of the gospel the butt of their dirty and silly jokes; they just don’t feel any qualms about the pains of the Church.

LARGER AND LARGER BY REVD MUYIWA OKUSEINDE

The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller" (Proverbs 11:24, The Message). 

Several years ago, I received the gift of a car. While I was certainly happy to have received the gift, I found that for some reasons, I was not really excited about the gift. I drove it twice during the first week of its arrival and for the next six months, the car was parked idly in my yard. Then a missionary came to visit whom I asked if the car could be useful. When he answered in the affirmative, I immediately put the car to work and the missionary drove it away. For a few years afterwards, every time I met my missionary friend, he would tell me how helpful the car had been to the mission work. 

THE GREATEST SYMBOL OF SPIRITUAL POWER

"Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him" (Hebrews 10:38). 

Faith is the greatest symbol of spiritual power on this side of eternity. Walking with God is no joke and it will take a definite measure of spiritual strength to make progress in this walk. That spiritual strength, according to the Bible, is encapsulated in the word 'faith'. Not only is it impossible to please God without faith, it will also be utterly frustrating to walk with Him. Indeed, there can be no other way to relate with the unseen One, the infinite One, who is also called the mysterious One other than by faith. Faith sees the invisible! 

Humans are accustomed to believing only that which could be connected via one or more of the five physical senses. Man wants to see, smell, hear, taste or touch before conceding reality. But spiritual things are rarely perceivable with our natural senses. The arrangement enacted in the spiritual corridor is that you have to "believe to see" (Psalms 27:13). And so, faith believes the physically imperceptible, the totally incredible and the absolutely unbelievable! That is why the suspension of natural laws or the bypassing of physical processes, otherwise called 'miracles' typically happen only where faith is available in one form or the other. 

........TWICE HAVE I HEARD THIS.....

"God has spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongs unto God" (Psalms 62:11). 

Power in any form is transient. You've got to be careful how you wield it. No power is permanent and no one remains permanently powerful. This is not just in the sense of death which brings about the cessation of a person's activities on the earth. We know that when a powerful person dies, his exercise of power significantly dies with him. But beyond that, the reality of life is that man is incapable of exercising power ad infinitum even while he is yet alive. The Creator of man and the owner of power never designed it to be so. Only God, the owner of power is permanently powerful. 

THUS SAYS THE LORD

"Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another" (Romans 14:19). 

Jesus Christ is a man of peace by all standards. He is the "Prince of Peace" who came to preach peace to those who are afar of and those who are near (Ephesians 2:17). When He was about leaving the world, among His parting gifts to His disciples was His peace. He said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you" (John 14:27). At all His appearances after His resurrection, His standard greeting to the disciples was "Peace be unto you". The disciples continued in the same spirit so that virtually all the apostolic epistles commence with a greeting of peace to the readers. It is therefore expected that those who follow Christ must follow peace. 

GOD HAS A WORK TO DO

"Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid" (Isaiah 29:14). 

It's a new day, a new week, a new month, and a new year. God has a work to do. It will be a marvellous work. It will be a wonder. The events that God will permit in this year will leave many mouths agape because God will confound the wise and shame the strong. This will apply to the church, the nation, as well as individual lives. Get ready!