FAITH CAPSULE: Allow fear of God and make satisfaction your abiding position.

Ezra 7

The Psalmist testified “You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” (Psalm 145:16)
Is the satisfaction in His hand your abiding place?
If the fear of God is man’s portion evidently, satisfaction becomes a man’s abiding place. Proverbs 19:23 stated, “The fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be visited with evil.” The right hand of God is all that we need to ask to for. In the hand of God there is deliverance, preservation and all that it takes to be satisfied. It was with His mighty and outstretched hand that brought the children of Israel from slavery of over four hundred years.
God spoke when the Israelites were in the hand of Pharaoh of Egypt, “So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My wonders which I will do in its midst; and after that he will let you go.” (Exodus 3:20)
“And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them.” (Exodus 7:5)
The hand of God is power and no force under heaven is able to deny God’s hand. Indeed, through Moses as a vessel, the hand of God delivered mighty deliverance for the Israelites.
Ezra testified the hand of God as the agent of being granted every request during their quest of rebuilding Jerusalem (Ezra 7:6) Ezra also testified to the hand of God as gracious (good) when they were able to get to Jerusalem. (Ezra 7:9) In Ezra 7:28 the word recorded, “…So I was encouraged, as the hand of the LORD my God was upon me…” Ezra could not stop but testified again, “And the hand of our God was upon us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambush along the road.”(Ezra 8:31)
What would one do without the hand of God in life?
Allow fear of God and make satisfaction your abiding position.
The book of Ecclesiastes also testified, “Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.” This testimony of Ecclesiastes 2:24 add to the truth that everything that has to do with living life abundantly is in the hand of God.
Jesus’ position must be the right hand of God. It is written, “So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” (Mark 16:19) Let the right hand of God be your portion.

Prayer for today: Ask for the hand of God to reign and rule in your living life.

FAITH CAPSULE: Allow positive word of testimony to become your constant confession.

John 10:1-30

Jesus declared, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” (John 10:9-11) In His word there is positive to meditate and to make it a testimony. Jesus said in Him we shall go in and out and find pasture; in Him there is life to have life abundantly; He is the good shepherd that gives for the sheep. It is clear that if deliverance and preservation in the word of Jesus have a place in your heart by meditation day and night, it will not depart from your mouth for confession.
What man confesses is a declaration. It is a declaration that sounds as testimony.
Do you have the word that you diligently meditate in your heart?
What are your testimonies in the face of wicked world?
King David, by the word of his testimonies, had a great and mighty deliverance when he overcame Goliath. In his attempt to go and fight Goliath, King Saul was discouraging when he said to David, “…You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.” (1 Samuel 17:33) David refused to be discouraged, but gave account of what he was able to do as he responded to King Saul. “…Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it.” (1 Samuel 17:34-35) David was not intimated by the confronting challenge that was posed by Goliath neither was he slowed down. Instead, David dwelt on what The Lord his God had enabled him to do in the past and he gave a testimony, “The LORD, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” (1 Samuel 17:37) David, by the word of his testimony, was able to overcome the giant challenge of Goliath that was before him.
God is a good God. He is a God that distinctively pays and hears the words of mouth to honor for His name alone to be glorified. As a believer, allow good treasure of heart bring forth good by confessing, declaring testimonies of the word of God.

Prayer for today: Ask for the grace to constantly meditate and confess for positive result.

FAITH CAPSULE: Are you placing more focus on what you want more than how the Lord has been providing for your needs?

Exodus 16

It is written, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is in the Lord.” (Jeremiah 17:7) Trusting God without having hope in God shall result to no blessing. Trusting God and having hope in God makes man to rest on God and not be rebellious.  Many times the Israelites trust in God but no hope in God. The Israelites trust God to bring them out of bondage but could not hope in God meeting their needs.
Are you troubling to seek after want rather than after needs?
The Psalmist confessed, “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). Having faith is to trust and hope on what He has for us.
During the wilderness journey, the children of Israel wanted what they left behind in Egypt instead of trusting and hoping in God to meet their needs. Without trusting and hoping in God they resulted to complaint. The children of Israel’s remembrance of what they were eating in Egypt (fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic – Numbers 11:5) was a clear demonstration of the fact that their wants were overriding the Lord’s provision of their need for the journey.
Are you placing more focus on what you want more than how the Lord has been providing for your needs?
The children of Israel’s lack of want at hand turned them to a vessel of complain before God.
Complaining instead of complementing God for His provision is a very act of rebellion.
Complaining is a destiny terminator and it denies getting to the Promised Land.
The Israelites craved for a pot of meat and bread. In God’s provision for them, God gave instruction to make them have enough according to their need stating, “…Let every man gather it according to each one’s need, one omer for each person, according to the number of persons; let every man take for those who are in his tent.” (Exodus 16:16) Despite God’s instruction that was enough for meeting needs, some went above and beyond God’s instruction by taking more than needed. As a result of not following instruction, all the children who took more eventually lost all that was taken (Exodus 16:18-21). The children of Israel were lost in their desire for wants and they could not recognized needs provided by God. Trusting and hoping in God is enough to meet our needs. Be patient, look up to God and know that God’s provision is always on time to meet needs. Paul confirmed, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)

Prayer for today: Ask God for the grace to deliver and preserve you from the spirit of complaining.

FAITH CAPSULE: God is good He wants you to move forward out of stagnation.

Deuteronomy 1:1-19

God is not a God of stagnation.
Are you experiencing any stagnation in the journey of weeks, days, or months?
What is causing you not to move forward?
Have you been staying so long and not recognize the fact that you are not moving forward?
God repeatedly bring His children out of stagnation despite His children are comfortable with stagnation.
Terah the father of Abram decided to move forward but yet stagnation later made up with him.
The word recorded, “And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there. ³² So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.” (Genesis 11:31-32)
Terah’s destination was Canaan but Haran became his place of stagnation where he spent two hundred and five years before he died.
Are you on journey of stepping forward but not of stopover?
Terah’s stepping forward from Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan became his stopover at Haran as his dwelling place. God who called you out of bondage or stagnation did not design your stopover as a dwelling place. God is a good God. It is time to search heart and step forward in God’s design for your life. Trust in God that the enemy is a failure.
God spoke to the concerning stagnation of Israel from bondage of four hundred years in Deuteronomy 1:6, “The LORD our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying: ‘You have dwelt long enough at this mountain.’” Are you experiencing self-created stagnation while God is moving you in plans of going forward?
God said to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 1:7-8, “Turn and take your journey, and go to the mountains of the Amorites, to all the neighboring places in the plain, in the mountains and in the lowland, in the South and on the seacoast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the River Euphrates. See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give to them and their descendants after them.” God told them to turn and take their journey forward. He also asked them to see what was in place for them. Faith demands from the children of Israel to turn from where they might have been having comfort to where God committed to take them.
Faith demands from the Israelites not to make dwelling place at stop-over.
Faith also demands from us that we see the promise of God and not submit to comfort in the place of commitment.

Prayer for today: Ask God for the grace to move forward.

FAITH CAPSULE: Evidently, challenges will not change its way of knocking after a believer

2 Timothy 2

In the life of answering to the calling of God, challenges, hardship or afflictions cannot be ruled out not to experience. Challenges, afflictions and hardship are always birds of the same feather and they flock together in the name of trouble. Challenges, hardship and affliction are often found in association or cannot be separated from the calling of every servant of God. The bible makes us to realize in 2 Timothy 2:3-4, “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”
As an acclaimed believer, is there any unexpected challenge or hardship in your path? Is it affliction knock on your path?
Can you consider self as a good soldier of Jesus Christ?
If yes, be assuredly confident that God never forsake His assigned soldier regardless of challenges, hardship or affliction. Psalmist admonished, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” (Psalm 34:19) God never forsake His children.
Imagine Jeremiah, in the calling of his life God warned him, “They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you. For I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you.” (Jeremiah 1:19)
Do you wonder why God allowed Jeremiah to face any challenge while he is attending to God’s assignment? The great thing is that God is God and He will always have His way. God is able to deliver; God is the same God yesterday, today and forever.
Evidently, challenges will not change its way of knocking after a believer. As an army of God, hardship might raise its weapon and affliction will possibly try to take over in the calling, but the Lord God shall deliver His own out of them all.
Evidently, challenges will not change its way of knocking after a believer. As an army of God, hardship might raise its weapon and affliction will possibly try to take over in the calling, but the Lord God shall deliver His own out of them all. Being an acclaimed believer or a good soldier of Jesus, one should not go about looking for trouble where there is no representative of trouble. As acclaimed believer, as a good soldier of Jesus it is for you to know and be encouraged that whatever your challenge is today, God alone that is above all alone shall deliver you in all. Answering to the calling of God is not enough but fully completing God’s assignment is what counts. It is wisdom to know that answering is not a ticket not to experience challenges. God is able to deliver you out of all.

Prayer for today: Ask for God’s enablement to endure challenges in the calling of calling.