FAITH CAPSULE: Until you begin to live a sacrificial life for God, you cannot live a holy life.

Deuteronomy 6
 
Satisfaction has taken place over your sacrificial living for God. Being conformed to the world around you has taken over your commitment unto God. What is your destination in the journey of life? Day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, have you really considered that serving God is why you are alive? Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
The scriptural passage did not say, ‘Present your bodies a living satisfied.’ You know exactly what it says. Living satisfied is to have eliminated a sacrificial living for God. In the name of God, and by designed interpretation of the word of God, some believers have found a way out to justify a satisfied living that suits them. Many are being carried away by their way of life rather than by the ways of God. Psalm 145:17, “The LORD is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works.” God does have a required and specified standard in living for Him. The standard is to serve Him, and to serve God is to love God. Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Agreed, you know about this word, but it is not enough if you know but do not do. Living satisfied with the world around you is to have eliminated a sacrificial life. Until you begin to live a sacrificial life for God, you cannot live a holy life. Living a sacrificial life will take you out of the world of sin because all that is considered as fun and free cannot add up for you. Living a sacrificial life is living in the fear of God. Psalm 97:10 makes us to realize that, “You who love the LORD, hateevil…!” Also, the book of Proverbs 8:13 buttress it that, “The fear of the LORD is to hateevil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.” Are you one that loves the evil world while claiming to be living in the fear of the Lord? There is none that can claim living a sacrificial life and yet be in love with the wicked and evil world. Living a sacrificial life is the only acceptable way before God and there is no lowering of standards. What God sees is reasonable service, not seasonal service. Make the choice and give unto God a reasonable service becoming a living sacrifice, which is holy, acceptable to God.
 
Prayer for today: Ask God for the grace that makes man to live wholly unto Him.

FAITH CAPSULE: Challenges in the journey of life are the make up for growth in man’s life.

Deuteronomy 8
 
In life journey, nothing that happens to man is accidental before God. God alone sees all that man goes through in life journey. Going in the way of wilderness, is not a habitation, it is a passage.
The children of Israel, by virtue of disobedience, inability to wait on God, inability to let the past be in the past so the future could emerge in their life, and inability to focus on God for direction, lost track in the wilderness. The journey was to take them eleven days, but they journeyed for forty years. All that started the journey above the age of twenty did not get to the expected end except for Joshua and Caleb.
The way of wilderness that you are in is not to kill you, it is to heal you and get you to where you are going. Are you one that has been experiencing many challenges in your wilderness journey? If you will only let God take control, it shall come to light that the challenges are your make up for growth. Nothing is accidental for you as a child of God. Deuteronomy 8:2, “And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you will keep His commandments or not.” Today, trust God as the only God that will always remember with favor and always visit with salvation. You are not alone in your journey to the promise land, to the place where He wants to place you for His glory.
In the way of wilderness, one that lose focus, will gain the spirit of complain and giving attention to the life in the past will easily contaminate one’s present. Complaining is what leads to rebellion against the people whom God has put in place in your life as a shepherd just like when Korah led rebellion against Moses and Aaron. (Numbers 16:1-35) God has positioned help for all in the wilderness journey; abstain from looking back like Lot’s wife. Lots wife looked back violating the God’s command for her deliverance and she became a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19) Allow God to be in charge, pay attention to the word of God in Philippians 4:19, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Focus on where you are going. Where you are now is your building process. Believe that God is with you and He shall see you through if you are focused on Him.

Prayer for today: Ask for God’s light and truth to lead you and bring you to God’s Promised Land for Your life.

FAITH CAPSULE: Are you on the way to God’s Promised Land?

Exodus 13: 17-22
 
The children of Israel were lost and down in bondage for over four hundred years before God visited them with favor and salvation.
They were lost and found; they were set for the Promise Land. If you have been found by the grace of God from the depth of sin, He wants to take you to an expected end–a Promised Land that was purchased for us by the blood that was shed on Calvary. He did not find you for untimely death or failure. The God that found and brought the children of Israel out of bondage did not mean for them not to get to the Promise Land. For one to be free from bondage is incomplete until one’s arrival to the Promised Land is realized. Many ways lead to the Promise Land, but the only way that will enable one to get there is the way of the wilderness.
It is not one’s own choice of way. The way that leads to Promised Land is the choice of the one who called all. To get to the Promise Land, one will have to go through the wilderness. The way of the wilderness is a way of no return. Exodus 13:17, “Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, ‘Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.’”
The way that seems right to man is a short distance. However, it is important to realize that a short –cut will always cut man short from getting to God’s Promised Land. Proverbs 14:12 buttress,“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” 
The purpose of the wilderness way is for one not to return, but to keep one going. It is the way that God has put everything in place for one to travel within a reasonable amount of time. It is a way where one is going to be equipped on how one will live and enjoy where God is leading one to. Are you on the way to God’s Promised Land? Getting to the Promised Land is the reason why Jesus came and went on the Calvary. On the way to the Promised Land, one will bump head with the enemy because the enemy does not want to see no one to prevail. However, if the way you have taken for yourself is smooth, with no ups and downs, no head-on collision with the enemy, it may become a way that seems right to you, but you may also be in the same direction as the enemy. You are no threat to the enemy because you are heading in the same direction.

Prayer for today:Let Your word be a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. 

FAITH CAPSULE: Begin to see in the word of God then you will begin to receiveby the word of God.

Deuteronomy 1
 
When God says go it means it is well and settle. When He says it is good it means it can never be bad. However, when He says go or good, a failure to see it as good is an act of rebellion. Before God, rebellion is sin and that is exactly what the children of Israel did when their spy gave them and negative report about the land of Canaan. Moses was speaking after their rebellious act, “And the Lord heard the sound of your words, and was angry, and took an oath, saying, ‘Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see that good land of which I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and his children I am giving the land on which he walked, because he wholly followed the Lord.’” (Deuteronomy 1: 34-36) Those spies saw negative in the place of positive; sounded out (confessed) negative and they could not enter into God’s positive provision.
Can you imagine disaster caused by a negative sound? After getting out of bondage of over four hundred years, into a wilderness journey that should not have taken more than eleven days, took forty years. Passing through the wilderness was exchanged for their Promised Land.
Are you experiencing stagnation in your journey? Is it true that what is supposed to take a couple of years is taking you more years? Wilderness is a passage not a habitation. Is it possible that your sound has taken over the driver’s seat of your journey in life? You will have to change the sound you often produce. Your sound is delaying and denying you.
The bible describes faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1) When you begin to see things that are not there as being there; when you begin to look at your mountains of hindrances as being leveled; because of your stand in the Lord God then miracles will begin to answer for you. The word of God says the just shall live by faith. Everything that we do should be by faith and without faith, God is not pleased. Today, pay careful attention to Hebrews 11; you will identify that all the giants of faith that were mentioned from the time of the Old Testament to the time of New Testament operated by faith. Understanding was by faith, offerings, sacrifices, moves, obedience, waiting, subduing enemy, seeing, receiving; all were obtained in faith by faith.  
When one begin to see by faith, motion will come to life and stagnation will cease. See, move and receive by the sound of your mouth. Your mouth is the channel of your miracle. Begin to see in the word of God then you will begin to receiveby the word of God.

Prayer for today:Ask God to take charge of you at every time you open your mouth.

FAITH CAPSULE: What you see determines what you receive.

Numbers 13
 
What you do not see you will not receive; what you do not receiveyou do not become.
When Moses directed men to go and spy on the Promise Land, it was with understanding that God was going to give them the land because God already promised them with the land. It is written, “Then Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up this way into the South, and go up to the mountains, and see what the land is like: whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many; whether the land they dwell in is good or bad; whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds; whether the land is rich or poor; and whether there are forests there or not. Be of good courage. And bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes.”” (Numbers 13:17-20)Moses knew when God says go, it is good. Take note that in his direction, he specifically asked them to see what it looks like. It was for the spy to see for themselves and make the choice of positive and not negative confession, knowing that God is able to give them good and not evil. For the people to see positive and not negative, Moses also encouraged them by reminding them to be of good courage. Despite the fact that the hand of God saw them through great miracles in and out of Egypt; despite the fact that God has never failed them of His promises in their life, the spy failed to see their Canaan as a take-able for their possession.
It is more than important but very crucial that you begin to see by faith in all that God has ordained for a believer that is seeking God. Those spies failed to see the positive that God has placed for them but negative. They saw inability, defeat, hindrances, and failure that were unmovable. It is time for you to begin to see through the lenses of faith and receive by the grace of God. The spy’s inability to see through faith provoked all kinds of negative confession and discouragement. As a result of negative confession, Caleb responded by faith, “…let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.” (Numbers 13:30)   
In the place of challenge, Caleb and Joshua saw victory by faith and they sounded it out. The sound which Caleb and Joshua pronounced (confessed) came to be and they were able to receive their confession.
As much as it is important to see, so it is important about the sound you produce if you are to be receiving just as promised in the word of God. See right, sound right and receive it just as it is written.
 
Prayer for today:Ask God to take over your ways of seeing.