FAITH CAPSULE: Are you obedient to God?

John 11:1-44

Obedience is a costly sacrifice. 
Obedience with thanksgiving will be a powerful combination to gain life in the place of death.
Once, at the time of Jesus’ arrival to Bethany, Lazarus was dead. 
Mary, Martha, and people were into mourn when Jesus’ commanded, and the people obeyed, Jesus gave thanks to God and Lazarus came out of the grave of death. Obedience and thanksgiving is a sacrifice, a combination of the power to gain life.
Bible records, John 11:38-44, “Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. “Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” 
Are you one as Martha, with a lack of hope and not obey God’s word of command?
Jesus responds to the unbelief of Martha:
“Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” Martha does not believe, but the people obeyed Jesus, “then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”
With understanding to obey God’s word and giving thanks to God will live life to the glory of God.
Are you experiencing a wilderness journey of life, the representative of the lack of provision with painful experience?
If you will give self to obeying God with a heart full of thanksgiving, God in His mercy will not look away from seeing you through.
Jesus, in the wilderness of the lack of provision, people that followed Him obeyed His command and His thanksgiving turned lack to plentiful for the people.
Mark 8:6-9 records, “So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude. They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them. So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments. Now those who had eaten were about four thousand. And He sent them away.”
Are you giving thanks to God without living life of obedient before God?
With understanding, an acceptable sacrifice to God is with the combination of living a life of obedience with continual thanksgiving before God.

Prayer for today: Ask God to enable you to be giving Him a sacrifice thanks.

FAITH CAPSULE: In your thanksgiving, let it be pleasing to God but not pleasing man.

Psalm 100, 116

With understanding, it is a man’s responsibility to be offering sacrificial thanksgiving to God.
Understanding comes when one gains wisdom in the word of God.
Gained wisdom will activate the knowledge to do right before God.
Are you giving thanks to God without praise or you are praising God without giving thanks? 
Praising God and thanking God cannot be separated.
It is thanksgiving and praising God that will locate one in the presence of God as Psalm 100:4 encourages, “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.”
Are you returning to God with the heart of thanksgiving?
With understanding, all His creation should be giving Him thanks continually. 
One with the understanding of thanksgiving to God for all things, at all times (regardless of any issue), will provoke all things to work for good over one’s life, to the glory of God.
Giving thanks to God should be a reasonable sacrifice.
In your thanksgiving, let it be pleasing to God but not pleasing man.
Word of God identifies sacrificial thanksgiving:
“And when you offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, offer it of your own free will. (Leviticus 22:29)
“Let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare His works with rejoicing.” (Psalm 107:22) “I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.” (Psalm 116:17)
Jonah buttress, “But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.” (Jonah 2:9) 
With understanding, give a sacrificial thanksgiving to God instead of thinking thank that is not acceptable before God.
Once, King David’s sin of counting the Israelites against God’s word not to count (engage census) provoked plague from God to kill thousands of the Israelites. The sin of David demanded a costly sacrifice of burnt offering before God to withdraw the plague. 
Are you offering a costly sacrifice instead of sacrifice that does not cost you?
2 Samuel 24-25 records about David’s demonstration of costly sacrifice, “Then the king said to Araunah, “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.” David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord heeded the prayers for the land, and the plague was withdrawn from Israel.”
With a costly sacrifice, King David provoked God’s visitation for the plague to be ceased.
Learn to know that a sacrificial thanksgiving is costly, it must be engaged if there is an expectation for God’s visitation.

Prayer for today: Ask that you will continually give God a reasonable thanksgiving.

FAITH CAPSULE: Be responsible to KNOW GOD, a life of responsibility before God!

2 Corinthians 5

Living life with responsibility before God is the key to greatness, to the glory of God.
God is a perfect creator, He is a saving Master, not a slave master with the power to force any to live life with responsibility before Him.
One that lives life with responsibility before God is bound to be mindful of God. 
A man that is mindful of God is set to be full of God.  
As a believer, are you truly mindful of God or mouth full of God?
What does it mean to live life with responsibility before God?
RESPONSIBILITY IS TO KNOW GOD AND NOT JUST KNOWING ABOUT GOD
Getting to Know God should be one’s desire to know the truth of God by studying the word of God, in the pages of the Bible. John 8:32 inspires to know God, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” How are you studying to know God? Are you listening to a man to know about God? 
Responsibility is to KNOW GOD not by KNOWING ABOUT GOD. 
The story of Daniel’s life of responsibility in the word of God is for learning for all. Daniel 11:32 records, “but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.” 
Daniel was responsible before God when he purposed not to defile himself with the delicacies of an unbeliever king. The Bible records, “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore, he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.” (Daniel 1:8) Daniel was mindful of God; he knew God and he responsibly purposed his heart for God. 
Daniel’s life with his custom prayer life before God testifies a life of responsible. As a captive, he became elevated as one of the governors in the land. Daniel, as the responsible one before God, eventually became a target for an untimely death in the den of the lion. The Bible records, “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.” (Daniel 6:10) The death sentence against Daniel was because of responsibility before his God. Daniel had a custom way of praying since his early days. Daniel knew God in his days; he was responsible before God and could not become a victim of an evil agenda.
Be responsible to KNOW GOD, a life of responsibility before God!

Prayer for today: Ask God for His grace to guide you to live a life of responsibility before God.

FAITH CAPSULE: God is the only God that is mercy-full.

Psalm 116

Mercy belongs to God.The Mercy of God is the love of God. 
The mercy of God can answer to one in an unexpected or unmerited way.
Among possible ways to attain God’s mercy:
Mercy is attainable when one asks or plead before God for His mercy.
Job, a man God declared as none like him on the earth; a blameless and upright man who fears God and shuns evil found himself in a position to plead for God’s mercy when he said, “For though I were righteous, I could not answer Him; I would beg mercy of my Judge” (Job 9:15). Despite God’s testimony of Job did not excuse Job to receive the mercy of God without pleading for His mercy. 
Just like Job, pleading for the mercy of God, Psalmist did the same saying, “Have mercy on me, O LORD! Consider my trouble from those who hate me, You who lift me up from the gates of death.” (Psalm 9:13). 
Sometimes, there is a need to ask for God’s mercy to receive from God.
The mercy of God is attainable when one trust God 
The Psalmist declared, “But I have trusted in Your mercy; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation” (Psalm 13:5). Trusting God to meet our needs is a way of living by God’s word, looking up to God. Praising Him or thanking Him will provoke God’s mercy in one’s life. One that looks up to God, keeping eyes on Him provoke His mercy. The Psalmist buttresses, “Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God until He has mercy on us” (Psalm 123:2).
Just as looking up to Him is trusting in Him, so is lifting our voices in crying to Him for His mercy. Luke 17:13 records, “And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” God is merciful and never runs out of mercy.
Mercy is attainable when one asks God for forgiveness
Sin activity that calls to God for forgiveness will receive God’s mercy in return. It is written, “For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You” (Psalm 86:5). God is good and merciful; there is no iota of evil that can deny God’s mercy on one that calls on God. Asking for forgiveness is a very sure way of obtaining mercy as it is obvious all through the pages of the Bible. The Bible encourages, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsake them will have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). 
God is merciful to respond with mercy for one that pleads for God’s mercy, for one that trusts God and one that knows to ask for forgiveness will receive God’s mercy to live life for God’s glory.

Prayer for today: Ask that you will live life to attain God’s mercy.