FAITH CAPSULE: Increasing trouble will result in troubling challenges.  

Psalm 3

When trouble increase it becomes challenging trouble. 
Challenging trouble is a growing trouble that persists but with no sign for it to cease. 
Challenging trouble often graduates to permanent trouble.
Challenging trouble is intending to terminate the troubled ones. 
In a time of challenging trouble, faith will be constantly questioned, wanting to know the existence of your God. 
Are you worrying instead of worshipping God?
David had increasing trouble when he said, “Lord, how they have increased who trouble me! Many are they who rise up against me. Many are they who say of me, “There is no help for him in God.” (Psalm 3:1-2)
TWO WAYS AMONG WAYS DAVID APPROACHED HIS TROUBLE.
One of the testimonies of how David dealt with increasing trouble in his life records, “But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up my head.” (Psalm 3:3)  
David acknowledged the awesomeness of God instead of allowing his trouble to overtake his life. He refused to be reduced or excused himself from worshiping God. 
Acknowledging God in a time of increasing trouble is a way of thanking God; it is a way to provoke the hand of God for His intervention.
Acknowledging God in a time of troubling challenge is expressing what the Lord God can do, as David states, “One who lifts up my head…”
Acknowledging God in a time of troubling challenge is an action that God cannot ignore. 2 Samuel 2:3 testifies, “For the Lord is the God of knowledge, and by Him, actions are weighed.” Acknowledge God in your troubling challenge and God will look unto you to acknowledge you.
Second testimony of how David dealt with his troubling challenge records, “I cried to the Lord with my voice, and He heard me from His holy hill.” (Psalm 3:4) 
Crying is not a sign of weakness. 
The crying of David in the time of his increasing trouble was not hidden before God, it was not a silent cry. David cried out with his voice; it was not just a cry in his heart but a cry that went out loud to God at His holy hill. 
It is worthy to cry out loud to God and not be quiet to become victorious. 
The word of God requests that we open our mouth wide. (Psalm 81:10) Open your mouth wide and God will fill your open mouth. David testifies that the Lord heard him from His holy hill. God is not a partial God, Romans 2:11 points it out, “For there is no partiality with God.” 
In your challenging trouble, do not count on crying out to any man, but cry out to God and He will hear your cry as He heard to attend David. 
Regardless of how long your challenge persists, you make it a point to resist and insist on worshipping God for His divine intervention. Be encouraged He is faithful to perfect that which He performs on your behalf.

Prayer for today: Ask for the wisdom of God in approaching a troubling challenge.

FAITH CAPSULE: Maintain yourself with God alone.

Jude 1

Maintaining self with God demands seeking God diligently.
Maintaining self with God is knowing God, to continually keep track in the line of the word of God, not compromising the word of God.
Maintaining self with God is not knowing about God, the evidence of not mindful of God.
Maintaining self with God demonstrates love for God by way of living life.
How can a man know God, to love God?
To know God starts by listening to the word of God.
With listening to the word of God comes understanding of the will of God God for all. The word of Jesus testifies to the importance of listening to gain an understanding of knowing God in John 8:43, “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.” 
The word of Jesus represents Jesus. To know Him and love Him is listening to His word, to gain an understanding of God.
No man was born with an understanding and knowledge to know God but except in the written word of God to encounter, to understand and know God. The bible buttressed: “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” (Romans 15:4)  
The Bible points out what it takes to be maintaining self with God:
Acts 6:4, “but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
Acts 20:32, “So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”
Jude 20-21, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”
Give yourself to the written word of God that will build you up to maintain you with God.
With no exception, all should continually but not casually give self to the word of God.
Maintain self with God by praying the word of God that is the power of God for direction not to fall.
Allow the entrance of the word of God that gives light not to become a victim of the darkness of the wicked world.
The entrance of the word of God will fill you to be faithful.
Are you an acclaimed believer of God that is claiming to be maintaining life with God but yet remains at the same spot, with no upgrade which is the sign of growth in the things of God?
Search yourself to identify your growth in God to maintain self with God.
God is a good God that waits to act for those that wait on Him.
Maintaining self with God is waiting on God not to be wasted in the journey of life. 
Give self to God’s word continually. 

Prayer for today: Ask for you to be enabled to maintain with God continually.

FAITH CAPSULE: Gain understanding and knowledge to serve God continually.

Daniel 6

Walking with God demands to have faith in the word of God to remain continual to do according to the command of God.
With continuity, Joseph served God faithfully, by walking away from the sin that is hidden from any man but not hidden from God. At the time of Joseph’s journey of life, Joseph could not yield to the pressure of the wife of his master that wanted to lay with him. Bible records the response of Joseph to the wife of his master, “But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:8-9) Abstaining from sin that is hidden to man but not hidden from God is a way of continual avenue to avoid sin before God. Joseph testified his stand before God, “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God.” 
Continuity should be constant with consistent to walk with God.
Daniel continually served God as his character when an unbeliever king recognized Daniel as one that serves the living God.
At the time of King Darius’ sentencing of Daniel to an untimely death in the den of lions, the king stated: “Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you.” (Daniel 6:16) The Bible documented the loss of the sleep of King Darius, waiting for morning hour to check the demonstration of the faith of Daniel. Daniel 6:19-20 records, “Then the king arose very early in the morning and went in haste to the den of lions. And when he came to the den, he cried out with a lamenting voice to Daniel. The king spoke, saying to Daniel, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” 
King Darius, an unbeliever of God, recognized in Daniel that those who give self to God continually shall not go wrong to become a victim of wicked agenda. 
Just like Daniel, one that gives attention to God continually will gain deliverance and preservation attention of God unfailingly.
After all night for Daniel among hungry lions, he responded to the king Darius as the Bible states, “Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they have not hurt me because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you.” (Daniel 6:21-22) 
The continuity of Daniel in serving God provoked heaven to give him unfailing attention of deliverance and preservation over his life.
Learn from the word of God, to gain understanding and knowledge to serve God continually.

Prayer for today: Ask to be enabled, to serve God continually.

FAITH CAPSULE: Negative confession is a complaint before God.

Numbers 14

It was the complaint against God that set the Israelites for a painful journey of life.
The Bible records the complaints of the Israelites, “So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why has the LORD brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?” So they said to one another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.” (Numbers 14:1-4) 
The complaint of the Israelites before God was a negative confession when they reacted to discouraging reports of the spies on the Promised Land. (Numbers 13:26-29) 
Are you complaining to confess negatively before God?
One with the complaint will rebel before God.
The Israelites at the coming out of the bondage of over four hundred years complaint and rebel before God.
As a believer, avoiding compliant before God is rooted in trusting and hoping on God. One that knows to trust and hope in the Lord shall experience the blessing of God as Jeremiah 17:7 states, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.” Calling on God for His intervention is trust; waiting on God, without doubt, is the evidence of having hope in God.
Do you have faith to wait on God without complaint not to become a victim of derailment from the promise of God?
Avoiding complaint before God is the discipline to wait, knowing that God waits to act for those who wait on Him. Isaiah 64:4, encourages all, “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.”
Every failure to wait on God will complain and become rebellious.
Pharaoh and his chariot could not stop Israelites from coming out of bondage, the Red Sea could not deny the Israelites journey to the Promised Land, while Jericho wall could not deny their advance journey to the Promised Land, but a complaint with negative confession denied the Israelites from getting to the Promised Land.
Numbers 14:28 records the response of God to the complaint of the Israelites: “Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you: The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.” 
Complaints with negative confession should be avoided in the journey of life. Give yourself to complementing God to avoid complaining, God is a living God that hears at time. 
Do not complain anymore.

Prayer for today: Ask that you will not be a vessel of complaining before God.

FAITH CAPSULE: Covetousness is rooted in the lack of contentment.

Joshua 7

The character of a covetous one is a greedy, acquisitive one with a strong desire for, especially material possessions. Covetous implies inordinate desire often for the possessions that belong to another.
Covetousness is rooted in the lack of contentment.
One with covetousness is in sin against the word of God, the evidence of the lack of fear for God.
The Bible records, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17) 
Is covetousness your way of life?
Covetousness is critical to complicate the journey of life.
Consciously or unconsciously, the sin of covetousness before God can be the reason for the delay or derailment in the journey of life.  
Covetousness is a sin to deny one from obtaining promises in the word of God.
The obedience of the Israelites to the word of God was the reason for their victories over their enemies while their sin of covetousness was the cause of their loss against the people of Ai with lesser might of the military.
The Israelites assumed victory against the people of Ai, not knowing that their sin of covetousness was before God, to deny them victory.
Are you one with sin that is enough to deny your victory when victory should be answering for you?
The falling of the Israelites was the result of their sin of covetousness before God that prompted Joshua to go before God, as Joshua 7:7 records, “And Joshua said, “Alas, Lord GOD, why have You brought these people over the Jordan at all—to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? Oh, that we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan!”  
Joshua did not know that the sin of covetousness was the cause of their defeat in the hand of their enemy but was curious why their past situations were better than their present challenge.
Just like Joshua, are you curious about why your past is better than your present? 
It could be that God has departed from you just as He departed from the Israelites due to their sin of covetousness.
On behalf of the Israelites, Joshua pleaded before God when God told him about the covetous sin of Achan. 
The indiscipline of Achan is in covetousness and his disobedience before God counted against all the Israelites.
Achan transgressed the command of God that was rooted in deception. (Joshua 7:10-11) 
The sin of covetousness brought the Israelites down, not able to stand before their enemies but turned their backs before their enemies. 
In your challenging battle, are you turning your back before your enemies?
Are you an acclaimed believer that answers as an overcomer in times of challenge? What is it that is overwhelming you?
Consistently, obediently engage the word of God that does not fail.

Prayer for today: Ask that your faith will not fail before God.