Faith Capsule: At all times, in all situations know not to confess negative but positive.

Numbers 14

Whatever you say is your confession and it will find you and become of you. It is very important for man to know and pay attention to what comes out of mouth. When thinking right becomes a man’ way of life, speaking right will become a man’s portion. The Israelites could not think right enough to remember how God brought them out of the bondage of over four hundred years. They forget all the miracles before Pharaoh in Egypt. Pharaoh and his forces could not stop them; Red Sea failed to trap them. However, words of their mouth that is what they spoke to their life terminated them from getting to their Promised Land. It is written, “And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!  Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”  So they said to one another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.” (Numbers 14:2-4) Imagine those who have seen great miracle and yet could not fashion their thinking and their spoken word to be positive? Are you shaping your destiny right with right thinking and right communication?
How a man thinks and what man says determines God’s response to man.God responded to the Israelites negative thought, “Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you:  The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above. Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in.” (Numbers 14:28-30)
God is a good God. Without faith He is not please…if without faith we displeased Him, with faith we surely please Him. It is lack of faith for a believer to be thinking negative in the face of impossible challenges when God says with Him all things are possible. Also, it is lack of faith to be confessing negative in the face of challenges. At all times, in all situations we should know not to confess negative but positive. Indeed, we should constantly keep our heart with all diligence, for out of it spring every issue we engage in living life.

Prayer for today: Ask for the grace of God to take charge over your life that you may constantly keep your heart with all diligence; that no negativity shall have a place in your heart or flow from your mouth.

Faith Capsule: With God on your side, enemy cannot be more powerful.

Luke 6:1-19

At every avenue to miracle breakthrough there are adversaries waiting to deny and derail man from possessing God’s promise. Apostle Paul testified in 1 Corinthians 16:9, “For a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.” Adversary is a force or one that opposes or attacks man. Adversary is an enemy that wants no good to have a place in man’s life. However, one thing is clear and that is the truth that the enemy cannot be more powerful. The bible recorded how adversaries attempted to deny a man with the withered hand at his point of miracle encounter, his restoration breakthrough. The book of Luke 6:6 recorded, “Now it happened on another Sabbath, also, that He entered the synagogue and taught. And a man was there whose right hand was withered.”
It was not mentioned how the man with the withered hand came across Jesus but it was a Sabbath day, a time when the Pharisees wanted to put Jesus to test. The Pharisees wanted to find charge against Jesus for healing the man with the withered hand. The man with the withered hand in the presence of Jesus had approached his open door. In his open door, the Pharisees took the position of adversary. In your open door to deliverance or breakthrough is there any adversary in place attempting to deny you your deliverance? The man with the withered hand needed a breakthrough from the state of lack to state of abundance, from mockery to miracle but adversaries have taken a place at his open door waiting to make sure his miracle failed.
To be withered is not to be complete but Jesus the Restorer of the lost; changed the withered man’s story by making him whole. Jesus, the Restorer of man ignored the adversaries“…When He had looked around at them all, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. But they were filled with rage, and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.” (Luke 6:10-11) In your life, what do you need to stretch out from? Before the withered man received his healing, the Bible recorded that Jesus said to him, “…Arise and stand here…” (Luke 6:8) The man with the withered hand answered Jesus with no evidence or demonstration of doubt. He rose and gained wholeness of his hand. By virtue of his miracle, adversaries in his open door, “…Were filed with rage…” (Luke 6:11) Are you willing to take a stand according to Jesus’ word and have your adversaries embrace their shame and disappointment? Stand for Jesus; receive your miracle and have your adversaries become grounded and not rise again.

Prayer for today: Ask God to frustrate all your adversaries.

Faith Capsule: To hear and see in the word of God is the key to open door.

Joshua 6:1-21

The Lord God spoke concerning the challenge of the children of Israel, “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.  So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.” (Exodus 3:7-8) Does that sound like He is speaking to you? Are you experiencing any challenge that seems like it is taking forever? It is true that what He says to one speaks to all. Just like He said to the Israelites, He is also speaking to you. If you have cried or you are crying to Him because of what takes a position of taskmasters in your life, be rest assured that God has spoken and it shall come to pass.
The spoken word of God is a done deal. When He speaks, nothing under heaven is in positon to deny His word. When He speaks agents of delay also strike in attempt to deny man from possessing the promise of God’s word. It is important for man to know that delay cannot deny when God speaks to one’s challenge. Regard less of the magnitude of any hindrance; man must know to see the word of God by hearing and receiving the promise of God as the key to open door of deliverance and preservation. Imagine God speaking a way out of bondage of over four hundred years without any concrete force on ground to challenge Pharaoh. When He is set to deliver His promise all that you need is to see what He says as a done deal.
Among the great challenges that stood against the Israelites, was a closed gate where no one went out, and none could come in. Are you experiencing any challenging confrontation that insists on stopping you from where God has spoken for you to go to? The children of Israel needed to go through Jericho, in order to continue their journey according to God’s word but Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out none came in.(Joshua 6:1) Is your confronting situation like that of Jericho? Joshua’s victory over Jericho was encased in God’s key message to Joshua as written in Joshua 6:2, “…See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king and the mighty men of valor.” (Joshua 6:2) Joshua heard the word; he saw in the word and was able to receive victory according to God’s word of promise.

Prayer for today: Ask God to open your eyes and begin to see in every of His word.

Faith Capsule: Trusting God to deliver as promised is to wholly follow Him.

Numbers 14:1-38

Complying to the word of God with consistency is what it means to wholly follow Him. Obedience should be in full compliance and whenever it is short of full compliance it becomes disobedience. Thousands of the children of Israel followed Him but only two (Caleb and Joshua) were able to follow Him fully. The spy that went to spy the Promised Land came back to discourage the children of Israel. Those that went to spy could not to hold on to the promise of God. The book of Numbers 32:8-11 stated, “Thus your fathers did when I sent them away from Kadesh Barnea to see the land.  For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, so that they did not go into the land which the Lord had given them.  So the Lord’s anger was aroused on that day, and He swore an oath, saying, ‘Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and above, shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they have not wholly followed Me.” A man that does not believe God for His word has refused to follow Him. The word of God testified that Caleb and Joshua were the only two that stood against the negative report of their fellow spy. All that were not able to hold onto the word of His promise could not make it to the Promised Land “except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.” (Numbers 32:12) Trusting God to deliver as promised is to wholly follow Him.
King Saul’s life story demonstrated half obedience. God commanded Saul to go and attack the Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they had by not sparing them. God wanted Saul to kill all including animals because of what the Israelites suffered at the hand of the Amalek when they were on the way from Egypt. Saul took command into his hand in 1 Samuel 15:9, “But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.” It is disobedience in it is own class when there is a failure to fully comply in His word. Half-obedience makes hypocrites out of those that come to the Lord, and do not follow him. The children of Israel, because they were not following Him fully, journey was terminated in the wilderness. To obey God is to follow His Word. Following the Word of God is obeying God.

Prayer for today: Ask God to deposit in your life the spirit that makes man to follow Him fully

Faith Capsule: It is the way of God for us not to judge.

John 8

Condemning an act is arriving at judgment. Condemning one’s self or another is passing judgment on one’s self or others. Jesus alone is the true judge and there is no man in position to judge is fellow brother. Jesus specifically warned in Matthew 7:1-2, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” Nothing qualifies any believer to be a judge. The Bible declared it in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” God alone is the perfect judge because He alone is holy and sinless. God alone cannot misjudge man. Condemning others by our judgment is looking into other’s shortcomings while we are yet to take the step to look closely into ours. Jesus said in, Matthew 7:3-4, “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? As a believer, proper care needs to be constantly placed so as to eliminate our arriving quickly at condemning others, especially outside of what we believe. With the understanding of the fact that no one is perfect but God, forgiving others should be a knowledgeable way of approaching the world of sin and iniquity.
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus, and they wanted to know why she should not be stoned. Have you been greatly offended and wanting to know why your offender should be let go without your judgment? This is what Jesus said to the scribes and the Pharisees, which also speak to us, “So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” (John 8:7) To let go and let God take over can be very challenging when looking for an instant judgment that fits any offence against us. The fact that there is none that is perfect is enough to hold back, rather than carrying out judgment. This was Jesus’ response to the woman caught in the act of adultery, “Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience,went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.” (John 8:9). It is the way of God for us not to judge. Restrain from your way, and let the Lord have His way.

Prayer for today: Ask God to deliver you, from conscious or unconscious ways that you have taken outside of His word.