All posts by Tunde Soniregun

God Remembers

Devotions

FAITH CAPSULE: Calling on God to remember is a demonstration of faith.

Genesis 30:1-24

Among the characters of God is the truth that He is a God who remembers. Since the time of the Genesis, God has always had a reason to remember His children to favor or to deliver them from all of their destructions. In the time of Noah, after the rain of destruction, God had to remember Noah before the water subsided. Genesis 8:1 testifies, “God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.” God is not a God who forgets because remembering is a character of the good God. As a believer in God, have you been stagnated in any area of life that calls for you to get in motion? There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling on God and asking for Him to remember you. King David stated, “According to your mercy remember me, for your goodness sake, O Lord.” (Psalm 25:7)Call on the good Lord God to remember you today and He will not fail.
WHEN GOD REMEMBERS
When God remembers, He favors and restoration becomes evident. Inside of God’s remembering of His children, barrenness gave up for open womb to have its rightful place. The Bible testifies, “Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.” (Genesis 30:22) Rachel, the sister of Leah and the wife of Jacob, did all to have a child, but could not until God remembered her. Also, when God who does not forget remembered the Israelites, He delivered them out of the bondage of over four hundred years. When God was about to deliver the Israelites He stated, “And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.” (Exodus 6:5) The glaring point about God remembering Rachel and the children of Israel is that they called on God; God listened to their call and heard them. The Word of God specifically commands us, “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.” (Matthew 7:7-8) Are you actually asking? It does not matter how long you have been grounded, but it is clear that being grounded can be interrupted by lifting up your voice and calling on Him like Rachel and the children of Israel. Calling on God to remember is a demonstration of faith and when God remembers, He favors and restoration becomes evident.

Prayer for today: Ask God to deliver you from the spirit that bounds man from not asking when situation calls for asking.

Do You Know?

Devotions

FAITH CAPSULE: Do you know with confidence that the Lord is on your side?
 
Joshua 1

Do you know with confidence that the Lord is on your side? If you know that the Lord is on your side, put your confidence in Him. With confidence in God, man is established and becomes a clear target to the enemy of God. Knowing that the Lord is on your side will sometimes cause you to be surrounded by the enemy, but the support of God will cause the enemy to be defeated. Knowing that the Lord is on your side is the truth that you have the name of God to answer for you. Having the name of God is having a shelter under a strong and mighty tower. It does not matter how or who the enemy is using to surround you; the only God who answers by fire shall burn off and consume your enemies.
Without doubt, the enemy will push you violently so that you may fall; trust that the Lord is on your side. The book of Proverbs 13:19 clearly states, “…it is an abomination to fools to depart from evil.” Truly, the enemy (evil one) will not answer to what the Bible describes them to be if they are not attempting our lives. However, the Word of God already sounded a word of encouragement in regard to the enemy’s wicked agenda that is set against man here on the face of the earth stating that, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” (Psalm 34:19) The Word of God does not return to Him void so shall it answer exactly in the life of one that believes that God is truly on their side.
Do you truly know that the Lord is on your side? Allow your belief to answer for you by constantly rejoicing. Joy is the route that connects man to the right hand of God; the presence of God. The Word of God buttress it stating, “In the presence of God is fullness of joy. (Psalm 16:11) Constantly rejoicing is the evidence of peace and confidence that is rooted in knowing that God alone is enough and He alone is in position to deliver and protect His own. Joy is on your side when His joy is inside and outside of you.
Often believers get hit by the Word of God, but most of the time the Word that hits a believer does not heat them up enough to become cooked up and ready to inherit their portion among the sanctified and for God to be glorified over their life. Too much memorization is not an evidence of understanding of the Word of God. However, it is impossible to be meditating day and night as commanded by God and not have God on our side (Joshua 1:7-8)

Prayer for today: Ask God to open your understanding.

You Can Please Him

Devotions

FAITH CAPSULE: Giving God attention is all that pleases our jealous God.

Hebrews 11

Pleasing God is positioning of self for a pleasant life in the hand of God.
How then do we please Him? Pleasing Him is phasing out fear while taking shape in faith. Where fear is not phased out faith sinks and God is reduced in one’s life. Fear can operate loudly or silently; fear is unarguably the opposite of faith. Abel ignored fear, engaged faith and could not doubt when he offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Despite his not knowing what harvest will later produce, he did not reduce in giving to God sacrificially. Noah did not reduce to fear when he received the instructions to build against destruction. Noah could have chosen to give in to doubt and not respond.
Doubt an agent of fear and its specialty is to render man faithless. To exercise doubt is a demonstration of a silent fear. It is written, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” (Hebrews 11:8-9) The Bible declares that it was by faith and not by fear Abraham obeyed God. The choice is either you move by faith or you are moved by fear and there is no neutrality or middle ground. Is lack of faith impacting your advancement? As an acclaimed believer, it is time to let faith rise in you and have fear sink. Until then, your vehicle motion will remain stagnant.
How do we please God? Hebrews 11:6, “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.” You have come to God by His grace, but do you believe that He is the center of your life? To believe Him is to be living the word and that is behaving the word of God. Behaving the word is exercising faith. Exercising faith is giving God all the attention which He deserves from us. Giving God attention is all that pleases our jealous God.
Have faith; seek Him diligently and He will evidently see you. Pleasing Him will make Him to always be with you. Above all, Jesus said, “And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.” (John 8:29) Keep your eyes on Him and not on the fear-generating challenges that are temporal and not permanent in our life.

Prayer for today: Ask for the grace to constantly live in faith and not fear.

April 2013 Issue

Monthly Newsletter

                                GOD’S DESIRE; OUR DESIRE

FAITH CAPSULE: All that we need to desire is the grace to constantly and consistently fear God.

Numbers 14:1-38

It is written, “He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them.” (Psalm 145:19) Any man who truly knows to fear God knows what God wants and what God does not want for His children. Knowing what He wants for us will make it impossible for us to ask or have a desire for what does not line up with His desire for us. All that we need to desire is the grace to constantly fear Him. God alone knows all of our desires; He knows those who fear Him and He is more than capable of fulfilling everyone’s desire.
Everything a man can consider as need is obtainable when we live in the fear of God. Proverbs 19:23 buttresses the importance of fearing God when it states, “The fear of God leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be visited with evil.” (Proverbs 19:23) Are you one who desires not to have His desire for your life? A man who presses for his own desires will get it with persistency.
Often time, getting one’s desire which is not of God leads to self-destruction. The children of Israel, coming out of bondage of over four hundred years, seeing the wondrous work of God, strongly press for their own desire that is outside of God’s desire for them. They could not let go of Egypt but pressed in their asking and complaining for all kinds of food they were eating in Egypt despite the truth that Lord did not allow them to experience any lack. God responded and gave them the food they desired. The Bible records, “So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them their own desire. They were not deprived of their craving; but while their food was still in their mouths, the wrath of God came against them, and slew the stoutest of them, and struck down the choice men of Israel.” (Psalm 78:29-31)
Be assured that God wants the best for you and whatever we do not receive could be because it is out of time or out of place for us. Also, whatever we do not receive is evidence that we are still abundant in His provision. To know that we have abundance in His provision is to hold on with satisfaction. Anyone who loves abundance with increase could possibly become vulnerable to dissatisfaction. As stated above, “The fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be visited with evil.” (Proverbs 19:23) Without doubt, if we fear Him and are able to hold on with satisfaction, there shall be no evil visitation. God will not fail in giving us only what leads to life and not to our self-destruction like that of the stoutest of the Israelites who were destroyed as mentioned in the above verse (Psalm 78:29-31).
Among the dangers of having desires of our own over God’s desire is that it leads to temptation. The Bible makes us realize this in James 1:13-15, “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” Wrong desire (desire that is out of place for us before God) and temptation often lead to sin and with sin is destruction. Are you allowing your desires to direct your focus from what God can do for you?
It is worthy to desire the fear of God so we may abide and become satisfied in God’s desire and not end up in life’s dissatisfaction which always bring evil to man. The point of this write up is for us to live a life that brings desirable good things that are encased in the fear of God. Where there is no fear of God, nothing good will move in the direction of man.

Faith Capsule:
All that we need to desire is the grace to constantly and consistently fear God.

Tunde

Avoid Self-Glorification

Devotions

FAITH CAPSULE: Do not raise self but only praise Him.

Daniel 4:28-36, Acts 12:20-25

Pretentiousness or snobbishness is an act of arrogance and it does not have a place in the presence of God. It is an act against what God demands from every believer. Jesus, our Lord and savior was described, “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” (Philipians2:8)  Every man that claims to be Christ like should constantly be dressed with humility both outside and inside of the church. The opposite of humility is pride. Pride is nothing but a personal ride to self-destruction. Before God, are you consciously paying attention to how you dress yourself? It is worthy not to be ignorant because ignorant only make a destitute of a believer. Have you been lifting up yourself before the name of God instead of humbling yourself? Could it be that people are lifting you to be what you are not to be in the presence of God? Ignorant or not, God should not and will not be limited.
Herod, pumped up by his power and position, failed to recognize God. He was also a major agent attempting to terminate the Body of Christ. The same Herod ordered the killing of James, the brother of John, and attempted to claim the life of Peter, but God moved on behalf of Peter. Whatever it is that is taking away the glory of God through you, ask for the move of God’s divine intervention for your deliverance. The bible recorded the case of Herod’s arrogance, “So on a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them. And the people kept shouting, “The voice of a god and not of a man!” Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died.” (Acts 12:21-23) Pray against a set day to rise in self-glorification against God like Herod. Herod’s set day was the last of his set of days because people placed him ahead of God.
Nebuchadnezzar was humiliated when he began to take glory away from God when he stated in Daniel 4:30, “…Is not this great Babylon that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?” Self-glorification is what has to be seriously avoided. Nebuchadnezzar moved from grace to grass for seven years. After he came back he testified in Daniel 4:37, “…And those who walk in pride He is able to put down.” Avoid self-glorification!

Prayer for today: Ask God to help you that His name will be constantly glorified in your life.