FAITH CAPSULE: What is an uncommon act before God will mark one as unique and uncommon to the world.

1Kings 3

God creates all to live for Him. (Revelation 4:11)
It is the will of God for all to exist for Him.
When there is no understanding, claiming to live for God and not knowing how to live a life that pleases Him is a waste of time.
Are you pleasing God as a vessel that is supposed to live for God?
Pleasing God by doing according to the word of God is the signal of faith in the life of one who pleases God.
The book of Hebrews 11:6 buttresses the importance of pleasing God: “But without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”
God wants to be pleased; He is a jealous God. He alone wants to be pleased in how one engages life.
Pleasing God is living life by faith as required in Habakkuk 4:2, “…the just shall live by his faith.”
2 Corinthians 5:7 also states that we watch and stand by faith. Without doubt, one who is standing and watching by the word of God is the one with a character that pleases God.
Are you conscious of how you live life?
Do you pay attention to how you stand and how you watch? Are you hearing enough of the word of God to keep you walking, watching, and standing in faith? 
Adapt your lifestyle to please God.
One who adapts to meditating on the word of God will see that they are bound to see in and do according to the word of God.
Know to exercise faith in all areas of life. 
King Solomon was the son of David and the third king of Israel, who pleased God by his doing before God.
King Solomon is best known for his wisdom and for building the temple. He was able to please God with his speech, and God added to him wisdom as a permanent part of his identity.
It happened to be that Solomon went to sacrifice at Gibeon when God appeared to him. God asked Solomon, “…What shall I give you?” (1Kings 3:5). King Solomon responded to God’s question, “Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge is great people of Yours?” (1 Kings 3:9)
He had the business of God at heart; self was not in place as a result, Solomon asked for what it takes to live his life.
Will your request from God what it means to be a God-serving vessel or a self-achieving vessel before God?
Solomon pleased God.
God moved to bless Him beyond his imagination as recorded: “The speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing.” (1 Kings 3:10)
Please God in all areas of your life, and His blessings will never run out.

Prayer for today: Ask God for the strength to live a life that pleases Him.

FAITH CAPSULE: Have the desire to be content before God.

Deuteronomy 8

Among the ways of life to be blessed by God is a life of humility before God.
A failure to live for God is taking a distance from God.
One who is not humble will be full of pride.
Humility is often depicted as a virtue that aligns with the will of God.
In the Old Testament, humility is exemplified by figures such as Moses, who is described as “a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3)
The New Testament describes Jesus as the ultimate model of humility. 
Philippians 2:5-8 records Jesus as being in the form of God, “humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.”
This act of humility is presented as a model for believers to emulate.
Are you one taking to humility?
One who is not humble lives in pride that is empty before God.
Pride is depicted as a vice that leads to downfall and separation from God.
Humility draws to God, but pride drives away from God.
Pride is characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and a reliance on self rather than on God.
All should be warned that pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” This proverb encapsulates the biblical view that pride leads to ruin. (Proverbs 16:18)
The documentation of King Nebuchadnezzar warns about the dangers of pride. After boasting about his achievements, he is humbled by God.
The book of the New Testament warns against pride, pointing out that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. (1 Peter 5:5)
What is your life before God?
God guides the humble in what is right and teaches them His way.
All should leave before God, to take a position of the blessing of God.
James 4:10 warns all, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”
What is your position before God?
A hindrance is not to experience the blessing of God. 
The Pharaoh of Egypt was a hindrance, as he denied the Israelites from serving God. The Bible records, “So Moses and Aaron came into Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me.” (Exodus 10:3) 
Pharaoh repeatedly denied the Israelites the opportunity to serve God, to experience a curse, but not the blessing of God.
The character of humility is rooted in being content.
Ask for the spirit to be content in life.
Moses was content; he was humble. Exodus 2:21 records, “Then Moses was content to live with the man, and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses.” 
One with content is satisfied regardless of position in life.
The challenge of Moses made him flee from the Palace of Pharaoh in Egypt to Midian.
The spirit of content humbled Moses to be available to answer the calling of God.
Humility cures worldliness!

Prayer for today: With a desire, ask to be enabled to be humble before God.

FAITH CAPSULE: Power prayer always answers and unfailingly.

Daniel 6

Praying as a way of life before God is a sacrifice that entails labour.
The labor in prayer is costly, meaning prayer is not cheap and will not gain the attention of God.
David demonstrated that sacrifice is costly and not cheap in praying before God.
Once, David had to sacrifice before God, and when offered land for free, he refused and did not accept.
2 Samuel 24:24 records of David, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing.”
Costly, David sacrificed before God.
Sacrifice is with labour; it is costly, so is prayer before God a sacrifice, labour with cost.
To pray before God requires understanding and embracing the answer from God with understanding.
Praying before God is not to intimate God for answers.
No one knows better than God.
God is God, the unchanging changer, and God alone reverses the irreversible.
The earnest prayer of Jesus(Luke 22:44) and the prayer of Elijah (James 5:17-18) are the testimony that praying with earnestness is labor that will provoke an answer from God.
Prayer is the power to open heaven.
At the location of water baptism, where people were getting baptized, there was no record of heaven opened, but without prayer.
Luke 3:21-22 records, “When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened.”
Pray with earnestness.
Prayer is a sacrifice with labor that answers for deliverance and preservation in this wicked world. 
Prayer is a labour with a custom approach.
David testifies labor prayer for his deliverance and preservation that is custom: “As for me, I will call upon God, and the LORD shall save me. Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice.” (Psalm 55:16-17) 
Praying with labor, with a custom, will not fail to gain and retain the presence of God.
Daniel is another one with a lifestyle of prayer as a laborer in a custom. 
Daniel 6:10 records the testimony of his deliverance and preservation, “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.” 
Labor can be a custom way of seeking God. Daniel needed the intervention of God when he engaged in prayer as his custom, and could not die before his time.
Do you have a schedule for attending to God prayerfully? 
Study the word of God to understand the power of praying before God as a lifestyle.

Prayer for the day: Ask for the strength of prayer as a way of life.

FAITH CAPSULE: Prayer never fails to open the door.

Daniel 6

Prayer never fails to open the door.
Prayer will not fail; however, a wrong approach does not lead to the right.
To pray before God calls for understanding and to embrace the answer from God with understanding.
The answer to prayer before God is not rooted in forcing God to answer as expected.
Praying before God does not have to be in a multitude of words or a marathon in prayer.
Praying before God is seeking God to find God.
In all ways of seeking God, there is a demand for understanding.
Psalm 47:7 records that praising God demands understanding, stating, “For God is the King of all the earth; Sing praises with understanding.”
If the word demands praising with understanding, praying before God demands praying with understanding.
Asking, seeking, and knocking is praying before God.
Matthew 7:1-12 is a documentation to understand praying before God, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
The key is to understand how to ask with the expectation of getting.
Praying before God is waiting on God.
The word of God promises to act for those who wait on Him.
Isaiah 64: 4 records, “For since the beginning of the world Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, Nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who waits for Him.”
If God will not answer prayer before Him, He would not have asked to seek Him prayerfully.
God answers prayer; He waits to act for those who wait for him.
Daniel testifies to prayer as a labor with a custom approach.
Daniel testifies labor prayer for his deliverance and preservation that is custom: “As for me, I will call upon God, and the LORD shall save me. Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice.” (Psalm 55:16-17) 
Praying with labor, with a custom, will not fail to gain and retain the presence of God.
God is God, the unchanging changer, and God alone reverses the irreversible.
With understanding, pray earnestly when the situation calls for seeking God, to find Him with prayer.

Prayer for the day: Ask that the understanding and strength needed at prayer time become established in you.

FAITH CAPSULE: Know that Jesus, the Word of God, is light.

Psalm 95

Know the word of God.
John 1:1 records, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Jesus is the Word of God.
John 8:12 states, “Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
Know that Jesus, the Word of God, is light.
The destination for the word of God is the heart of all that will open up for the entrance of the word of God.
A heart that does not allow the word of God shall settle for a dark world.
Take to the Word of God as stated in Revelation 3:20, ” Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”
Without doubt, the Word of God is for the heart.
Is your heart with space for the Word of God?
To become for the Word of God is not by force.
God is not a slave master, with the force to gain entrance into one with no interest in allowing God into the heart.
God is a saving master; He knocks on the heart to be open for His entrance.
Proverbs 4:4 buttressed, “He also taught me, and said to me: ‘Let your heart retain my words; Keep my commands, and live.” When word enters the heart, it answers in every way of life by terminating the activity of darkness. With understanding, word is true to terminate darkness as the Psalmist testified, “The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” (Psalm 119:130)
Above all, the word of God should be in the heart in the world of darkness.
A heart that does not allow the Word of God to settle in the heart shall settle for a wicked and dark world.
Psalm 95:7-9 stated,“Today, if you will hear His voice: ‘Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work.”
The children of Israel heard Him with their ears, not with their hearts, and that caused them to be a rebellious generation.
Evidently, not being able to hear God with the heart, the Israelites turned rebellious and tested God.
The Word of God must gain into the heart more than into the head.
Despite all that the word of God accomplished, the children of Israel failed to see in the Word of God.
Psalm 95:10 concludes, “…it is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.” Just like the Israelites, many are not allowing the Word of God to be a direction in the darkness of the world.
A failure to allow the Word of God is causing hearts to go astray.

Prayer for the day: Ask to be enabled for the entrance of the word.