FAITH CAPSULE: Ability is a choice, a desire to listen and gain an understanding of God.

Proverbs 4

The ability to hear the word of God is not enough as the evidence of listening to gain understanding to be faithful in God.
Listening to gain understanding is rooted in paying attention by hearing and hearing by the word of God (continually give yourself to non-stop from hearing the word of God). Romans 10:17 counsels, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” 
Listen to gain understanding is the ability to see in the word of God to gain and retain the presence of God.
Listening to the word of God will understand the word of God to live life abundantly to the glory of God.
Keep in mind that the word of God is in the documentation for all to learn and gain understanding. 
Romans 15:4 buttresses, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”
When there is no listening, there will be no understanding.
The word of Jesus in John 8:43 rhetorically questioned and answered, “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.”
Are you listening enough with the understanding to be able to see what God says to you in His word?
All that God wants to do for you is always in His word if you will listen and gain understand to see in what He says to you.
For example, the victory for Jeremiah was rooted in the word of God when God said, “See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, To destroy and to throw down, To build and to plant.” (Jeremiah 1:10) 
God spoke to Jeremiah, and he listened with understanding to see the manifestation in the spoken word of God. 
To Ezekiel, God spoke direction: “See, I am giving you cow dung instead of human waste, and you shall prepare your bread over it.” (Ezekiel 4:15) Ezekiel also listened with understanding to see and received the direction by the word of God.
Every of your hearing and hearing (listening) in the word of God is the evidence of listening to see, which is the key to gain understanding.
Are you listening to understand the word of God?
Are you with understanding to see your victory in the word of God just like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and many others in the pages of the Bible?
Pay attention to the word, know how it works, and you will live life for the word of God, by the word of God. Proverbs 4:20-23 records, “My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.”,
Listen to the word of God to gain an understanding of God.

Prayer for today: Ask to be enabled in listening to the word of God.

FAITH CAPSULE: In all your getting get understanding.

Psalm 106

The Bible admonishes the importance of understanding in the pages of the Bible. Proverbs 4:7 speaks out, “…And in all your getting, get understanding…” Whatever one does have without understanding is bound to be short in all getting.
Jesus, in His speech He questions, and answer the reason for the lack of understanding in John 8:43 records, “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.”
In your journey of life, are you with the understanding of God?
Lack of understanding of the wonders of God is so critical to terminate arrival at the promise of God.
With the lack of understanding of the wonders of God, one will not remember the mercies of God. 
One that does not remember the mercies of God is bound to become rebellious to the word of God.
Psalm 106:7 records the testimony of the lack of understanding of the wonders of God by the Israelites, “Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders; they did not remember the multitude of your mercies but rebelled by the sea-the Red Sea.” 
Does the word speak to you?
Are you one with a lack of understanding of the wonders of God?
Lack of understanding of the Israelites is the root of rebellion and the complaint, particularly a negative confession.
Forgetting the works of God cannot be separated from the lack of understanding of the doings of God. 
Psalm 106:13-14 refers to the Israelites, “They soon forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tested God in the desert.”  
To be forgetting the works of God and lacking understanding will position such not to arrive at the expected journey of life.
One that is not mindful of the works of God will forget the doing of God to become of sin before God. The Israelites forgot; they could not wait on God but died in the sin of doubt with negative confession before God and did not get to the Promised Land.
One with a lack of understanding of God will not remember, forgetful but will fail to believe in what God has done to question what God can do. 
Listen to what the lack of understanding of the Israelites did to them, as regards their failure, “Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe His word” (Psalm 106:24) 
They despised to disobeyed the meaning of the words of God and took the wrong way outside of the plan of God. 
God promised to take them to the Promised Land, while the negative testimonies of the spy provoked an unbelieving act in their life. 
Failure not to believe God is a sin and not to claim His promise.
God is holy, and with sin, no man can reach God to gain the promise of God. 
Do you understand the wondrous acts of God?
Are you forgetting the works of God and with failure to believe God, taking to the route of sin to an untimely death?
Get the understanding of the doings of God, not just to know about the doings of God.

Prayer for today: Ask to live life with the understanding of God.

FAITH CAPSULE: Where or who are you looking to in the challenges of the world?

Exodus 33

Are you looking up to God or looking down from God?
Look up to God continually, give Him regard, the antidote for a jealous God, the evidence of not seeking any other god. 
Leviticus 19:31 records the word of God against seeking another god, “Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.” Know God and not look outside of Him at all times.
Looking up to God is the character of waiting on Him without a doubt. Know that God is a caring God that will not ignore such that waits on Him. Isaiah 64:4 testifies that God “…acts for the one who waits for Him.” 
Let it be that you will be looking up to God continually and shall not become wasted in ways of life.
Looking up to God is the way of acknowledging Him for all He has done, all He is doing, and all He will do.
Are you looking up to God or looking down from God?
Looking up to God is living life with the fear of God. 
With understanding, look to God to find the knowledge of God. (Proverbs 2:5) 
Looking up to God is action (faith) that God sees all and measures as weight. 1 Samuel 2:3 testifies of God as, “…For the Lord is the God of knowledge; And by Him, actions are weighed.”  
Ask God to enable you to be living life by His word.
One that looks up to God is seeking God. Seeking God will know to call upon the Lord God consciously consistently. Psalm 18:4 encourages, “I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; So, shall I be saved from my enemies.”
One that is looking up to God will know to keep eyes on God to experience His hand.
Looking up to God is seeking Him diligently for His way, not assuming the way to go. Moses, a man great in the hand of God, demonstrated the evidence of looking up to God for direction in the calling of God. 
Exodus 33:12-13 documents about Moses looking to God, asking, “Then Moses said to the Lord, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.’ But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.’ 13 Now, therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.”
Exodus 33:14 records the answer of God, for Moses, “And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Who are you looking up to consciously or unconsciously?

Prayer for today: Ask that you will know and understand to be looking up to God.

FAITH CAPSULE: Sin before God does not move forward. 

Joshua 7

The covetous character is a greedy, acquisitive one with a strong desire for, especially material possessions. 
Covetous implies inordinate desire often to possess what belongs to others. 
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)  
Covetousness will stand against one from going forward in the journey of life. 
Covetousness is a sin before God.
It is a sin to deny or hinder one from moving forward in all endeavors.
Are you one with covetousness?
What is it that is hindering you consciously or unconsciously from going forward in your journey of life? 
Covetousness is also a sin to deny one from obtaining promises in the word of God.
The obedience of the Israelites to the word of God not covet gave them victories over their enemies as disobedience is the reason for 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 was before God, to deny them victory.{
Are you assuming right in the place of being wrong before God?
Are you with sin that is enough to deny your victory where victory should not be your portion?
The loss of Israelites was the result of sin before God.
Joshua before God as stated, “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 7:7) 
Joshua did not know that sin was their fall but was curious why their past situations were better than their present challenge.
Are you feeling that your past is better than your present, not knowing that sin replaced you? 
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 as God told him about the sin of Achan of covetousness. 
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?
Consistently, obediently engage the word of God that does not fail.
Know that the obedience to the word of God yesterday will not count for the disobedience of today. 
The victories of the Israelites in the past were the result of obedience, while defeats suffered later was the disobedience which denied them victory over the people of Ai.
Do not embrace covetousness and not be denied from the presence of God.

Prayer for today: Ask against covetousness in your life.

FAITH CAPSULE: What do you desire? 

Psalm 27

The desire for God must be in the mind of all and not just in the mouth.
If you have a desire for God in your heart, God will deposit the grace to become devoted to Him and become decorated by His presence in your life. 
King David knows what is best to desire when he said, “One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His temple.” (Psalm 27:4)
As an acclaimed believer, search for yourself to know if you have the desire for God.
Let your desire be of seeking God.
Seeking God leads to serving Him. 
Are you serving God fully?
Are you serving God for your material gain?
Search yourself to identify how you are serving God.
Serve God diligently the evidence of fear for Him.
Apostle Paul encourages, “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.” (Romans 12:1)
With understanding, know to serve God sacrificially and let your serving God be acceptable before God alone. 
It is costly to serve God sacrificially, not at the convenience but demands commitment. 
Does your heart sincerely desire to seek God?
Will you question yourself if you are serving God in truth with all your heart?
God has done great things, doing more, which is the reason to have the desire for God, with heart. 
God only sees and moves by the action rooted in the heart of all. 
God saw Samuel with his attempt to make the brother of David as the king and spoke to him: “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) 
Without doubt, the heart of David is what God saw when His word declared, “…The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people” (1 Samuel 13:14) 
God saw the desire of David. 
What do you desire? 
The desire for God must be in the mind of all and not just in the mouth.
If you have a desire for God in your heart, God will deposit the grace to become devoted to Him and become decorated by His presence in your life. 
Do not serve God casually but serve God by following God fully as Jesus requests: “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me…” 
Following Jesus means putting all away to follow Him is evidence of having a desire to serve God. 

Prayer for today: Ask to live life with a desire for God.