FAITH CAPSULE: Do you have an excuse to avoid His calling?

Exodus 4

When God was set to use Moses for the deliverance of the Israelites, Moses could not block his ears from hearing to avoid and answer to God if it was possible for him.
Moses does not want to answer God’s calling.
However, Moses had no choice but heard and repeatedly refused God with different excuses, claiming to be incompetent for the calling of God.
Moses responded to God’s calling with excuses, to avoid giving him for God’s calling as stated, “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.” (Exodus 4:1) God answered to each of Moses’ question with encouragement for Moses not to avoid God’s calling.
Moses responded to God, the Creator of all that he was not eloquent; he was slow of speech and slow of tongue. (Exodus 4:10)
The excuses of Moses before God is his agenda to avoid answering God’s calling.
Are you avoiding God’s calling just like Moses?
With God, no man’s excuse counts to deny God’s calling.
God alone is God; He creates all and He knows all more than one knows self.
God responded to Moses’ excuse about his disable with speech and his slow of the tongue, “So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and He said: “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do.” (Exodus 4:14-15)
For Moses, none of his excuse was enough for him to escape God’s calling, but made him available for God.
Are you still avoiding God’s calling?
When God called out Jeremiah, there was no enough excuse to avoid the calling of God. Jeremiah considered himself a youth but God responded, “…Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you…” (Jeremiah 1:7-8) The calling for Moses was with God’s direction, the calling of Jeremiah was set to be well established by God’s direction.
Whatever one is using as a ground of hiding to avoid God’s calling is definitely within the reach of God’s calling.
The same God that called Moses with speech and slow of the tongue also called young Jeremiah. God is having an appointment for you; go and ask Him where you are to go and what you are to do.
Today, where you are is not too late to deny you from answering to God’s calling, His plan for your life, for His glory.

Prayer for today: Ask God to deliver you from the excuse of failure.

FAITH CAPSULE: Your choice is to allow or disallow distraction.

Job 2

Samson was pressed by his wife when he revealed the secret of God upon his life to his enemy.
Judges 16:18-20 records the distraction of Samson, “When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up once more, for he has told me all his heart.” So the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hand. Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” So he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.”
Samson’s wife as his distraction was not an excuse, but his choice.
During the challenges of Job, his wife was an agent of distraction with the device to derail Job from living life for the glory of God. Unlike Samson, Job’s choice denied his wife from derailing him.
Bible records Job’s wife’s device of distraction, “Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9)
Unlike Samson, Job resisted his wife’s device of distraction by responding to his wife’s distracting device, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10)
Are you avoiding devices of distraction before you?
Continually, give attention to deny distraction from the inside or distraction from the outside that is set to deny your divine assignment in the journey of life.
Deny distraction in your life.
Many accepted to welcome Jesus into their hearts as Lord and savior but the agents of distraction are in place to deny the attention of many from living life for God.
Does that sound like you?
With Jesus in your heart, you must be living life like Him, behave the word of God, to avoid an unfruitful life. For anyone who has welcomed and received Jesus into one’s life, there is a need to maintain His presence.
Martha welcomed Jesus into her house but could not avoid distraction from denying her to gain from the presence of Jesus. Luke 10:38 records, “Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house.”
Are you like Martha?
Have you welcomed Him into your house by receiving Him?
Martha welcomed Jesus into her house, “But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help me.’” (Luke 10:40) Distraction denied Martha from Jesus’ presence in her house.
There is nothing wrong in serving God but distraction can derail a believer from arriving at God’s divine assignment.
Martha welcomed Him into her house but became distracted.
Who or what is your distraction?

Prayer for today: Ask for God’s intervention not just your determination.

FAITH CAPSULE: Search self to know if you are a wicked one.

Psalm 73

Are you living life as a wicked one?
Do you know if you are wicked one or not?
Stealing, or hurting others is not the identification of a wicked one.
Jeremiah in his curiosity about what it means to identify a wicked one is in his word, “Righteous are You, O Lord when I plead with You; Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously? You have planted them, yes, they have taken root; They grow, yes, they bear fruit. You are near in their mouth But far from their mind.”
Among wicked ones are ones quoting and making noise about the word of God but far from God.
Search self to know if you are a wicked one that is comfortable of doing evil.
The wicked, despite their wickedness, are living a life that makes a man wonder why and how it could be for the wicked ones to be having a life that appears better and glamorous. However, no man should focus on how wicked ones are living life but to only be careful and have heart directed to the love of God. None is judge except God and all should allow God to do as He pleases. The book of Ecclesiastes 8:11-13 stated, “Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, and his days are prolonged, yet I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him. But it will not be well with the wicked; nor will he prolong his days, which are as a shadow, because he does not fear before God.”
Are your ways rooted in wickedness?
One thing is clear, God sees it all and He will only move against the wicked at His appointed time.
Wickedness has its seat in the heart of man. Jeremiah 17:9-10 made it known about the seat (heart) of wicked stating, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart; I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” The deceitful heart can be the unbeliever’s heart or the acclaimed believer’s heart.
Can you identify if you are wicked or not wicked?
Any man that claims to be a believer should not be mistaken for a heart that is not deceitful and desperately wicked. Among man, Psalm 73 identified some glaring wicked heart:
Pride serves as their necklace.
Violence covers them like a garment.
Their eyes bulge with abundance.
They have more than heart could wish.
They increase in riches.
They scoff and speak wickedly concerning oppression.
They speak loftily (arrogantly)
They set their mouth against the heavens and their tongue walks through the earth.
Are you an acclaimed believer that knows the word of God but not live life by God’s word?

Prayer for today: Ask God to take charge over your life not to be a wicked one.

FAITH CAPSULE: Call on God from the depth of your heart.

Numbers 14

One that knows to call on God will provoke God’s response at all times.
God wants all to be calling on Him and not calling on Him is the evidence of the lack of faith in God. Isaiah 65:24 testifies, “It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.”
Are you one that calls on God?
David’s word is for the wise to know the importance of calling on God.
2 Samuel 22:4, Psalm 18:3, testifies to David’s calling on God “I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; so, shall I be saved from my enemies.”
Regardless of all that goes around the life of man, God will hear before one call on God.
Are you having doubt calling on God?
Learn from David as his word demonstrated that there is an answer in calling on the only gracious and merciful God that hears before we call. Just as the Lord promised to answer before they (we) call, He also stated that He will hear while they (we) are speaking.
In your calling on God are you positive or negative?
In the journey of the Israelites to God’s Promised land, their calling on God was negative, and God responded, “…I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me. Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you” (Numbers 14:27-28). Often, man forgets that God that gives ear does have an ear to hear. It is important to know that God answers call and He also pays attention to hear while we speak.
Are you allowing challenges to dictate or provoke negative calling on God?
Most times, the life of a man can be affected by the words of our mouth.
The Bible buttresses, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Proverbs 18:21) Often, the positive answer will respond to positive communications while negative answers will respond to negative communications.
One should believe that God that hears does not stop hearing at every calling seeks for Him.
Avoiding negative such as rebellious is the reason why the book of Ecclesiastes 5:6 states, “Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error…” As much as there is nowhere to hide from God, indeed, our spoken words cannot be hidden from God without Him hearing us.
Why not abstain from speaking negative words but speak positive words to His hearing?
Do you believe that God gives ear to the calling of all man always?
Begin to speak a positive word with expectation knowing that He hears and answers all.

Prayer for today: Ask God to give ears to the calling from the depth of your heart.

FAITH CAPSULE: Live in the word of God daily.

Genesis 19

If you are in the word of God, and the word of God is in you, keep on looking forward by giving self into the word of God that is power by asking, thinking as the Bible admonishes, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” (Ephesians 3:20)
What are you thinking or asking?
One that knows to think will know to thank God.
One in the word of God will know to ask in the place of worrying.
Are you looking forward but not looking into the past?
Give attention to the truth, know that your past month is not current. Your life today is a journey of relocation to move forward. Moving forward demands setting sight on the word of God which is will bring one to the expected end journey.
God’s word is His command, the word of God can be challenging. It was challenging for Lot’s wife to obey God’s word when she could not look forward but looked back to her past, against God’s word. The Bible recorded that Lot’s wife looked back behind Lot and she became a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:26) Could it be that your relocation is God’s way of repositioning you for better? What is it in your past that cannot be forgotten? What is it that is causing you not to see God as one that orders your step?
Looking back can become a way of worrying instead of worshiping God for His glory. Profitably, God is moving you forward to a different ground which is His blessing for you. Today, disallow past from overtaking your present. Do not be bondage to the past.
When the Israelites came out of the bondage of over four hundred years but could not let their past be in the past looking back, complaining and comparing the past with their present. The Israelites set themselves for self-destruction. It is written, “Now the mixed multitudes who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: ‘Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!’” (Numbers 11:4-6) The children of Israel vigorously complained instead of glorifying God for His merciful kindness and His truth which endures forever. You must know that complaining does not count before God for any man. Give all the glory to God for where you are today. Continually remember that the grace of God brought you past yesterday, to see today and will see you further as it pleases God.

Prayer for today: Ask from God to continually found in His word.