Faith Capsule: Love is a costly sacrifice.

Genesis 22

1 John 5:3 stated, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.”Keeping God’s command is obeying and seeking God. It is sacrifice to keep His command and it means loving God. Sacrifice is not cheap but costly to give. King David once stated in 2 Samuel 24:24, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.”” King David was responding to Araunah who had offered him a free land for sacrifice to God. The sacrifice was meant to deliver the children of Israel from death that was caused by David’s census. It was a clear demonstration of what a costly sacrifice before God should be. To consciously engage a costly sacrifice is a proven mark of love for God.
God did not just ask for love rather He gave us a standard of acceptable love when He stated in Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” To love God means to give Him our all. Those that gave Him all were able to live a fulfilled life and accomplish great exploits to the glory of God.
Abraham demonstrated his love obeying God. Abraham was seventy five years old when he was called out to unknown land and he left as commanded by God. Abraham’s strongest demonstration of his love for God emerged after the birth of his son Isaac. God said to Abraham, “…take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Genesis 22:2) God’s repeated emphasis on Isaac’s status to Abraham could not discourage Abraham. He loved God with all his heart when he followed through and obeyed the instructions of God. A three day journey to sacrificial ground was not enough to dissuade Abraham to change his love from God. Genesis 22:4 stated, “Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off.”  Despite all, he continued because he loved God with all his strength.
Abraham love God with all his soul when he carried out the sacrifice in his heart. “Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.” (Genesis 22:10) Abraham’s attempt called for heaven’s attention and the angel called on Abraham, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”(Genesis 22:12) Abraham feared God. To love God is to fear God.

Prayer for today: Ask for the grace to know and to love God with all your being.

Faith Capsule: Loving God is fulfilling.

1John 3

Know God to love Him. The knowledge of God is to love and know Him. It is not possible to love God which you do not know. Loving God cannot happen without knowing God. No man is born with the knowledge of God. By His divine grace and spending time in the word of God is the major route to knowing Him. Determination to love God will only lead to one’s termination and failure in the journey of life. It was out of love for Jesus that made Peter determined and declared, “Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death.” (Luke 22:33) With the word of mouth, Peter declared his love for Jesus while he was determined to love Jesus with all his heart, strength, and soul. Often time word is easier said than done. Jesus by virtue of Him knowing man and all things said to Peter in His conversation with Peter, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me.” (Luke 22:34) Peter determined not to deny Jesus but he did just as it was predicted by Jesus. Determination will fail but when we prayerfully desire God will deposit.
God is not a slave master but a saving master who will not force Himself onto us to love Him. God is the one that will make us to love Him if we are willing to. He will also help us when we continually desire for Him. David desired for the Lord when he stated, “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)
Loving God is fulfilling. This what will happen to every believer that Love Him to fear Him by fully obeying His word and not just by the word of mouth, ““And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.” (Deuteronomy 28:13)
It is important to personalize Deuteronomy 30:6 and prayerfully engage it by meditating day and night as we go in all of our ways in the course of the days ahead of us by His grace, “And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”

Prayer for today: Ask God to circumcise your heart. Ask from the depth of your heart the grace to love God.

Faith Capsule: Do not allow pride to intercept your miracle breakthrough.

2 Kings 5

Naaman was a remarkable figure. All of Naaman’s great remarks were in the eyes of his master and not in the eyes of God. Just like Naaman, are you a man of great remarks in the eyes of your pastor and among brethren? How do you fare in the eyes of God? What you are in the eyes of God is that which matters. Naaman was described as, “…commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper.” (2kings 5:1)  At the time he came to Elisha he did not know God and his great exploits was to himself and his people.
In the life of Naaman, there was a “but” and his but was leprosy. Naaman needed a cleansing that would get him to know God. What is the “but” in your life that needs the kind of cleansing that will cause you to know God and not just know about God? The “but” in Naaman’s life that needed to be cleansed was leprosy on the outside that is rooted in pride. The pride in the life of Naaman was exceedingly destructive. The pride in his life was not visible compared to the leprosy. Pride is the opposite of humility; pride kills; pride does not give life and pride goes before destruction. At the juncture of Naaman’s healing, “… Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became furious, and went away and said, “Indeed, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’” (2 Kings 5:10-11) The pride inside Naaman almost denied him his healing when he became furious and left in rage. Pride is like a treat with many branches. Among the branches of pride are, anger, rage, malice, bitterness and all could operate as a silent killer. Silently, Naaman could have walked away because of his pride and died as a leper. Many are dying in their poor condition spiritually and physically because of their pride.
As God would have it in Naaman’s life, he was persuaded by his servants to go back and act according to the word of the prophet. Naaman responded and went and got cleansed in the Jordan River “And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him; and he said, “Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel… “(2 Kings 5:15). Do not allow pride to intercept your miracle breakthrough.

Prayer for today: Ask God to deliver you from area of your life that is occupied with pride.

Faith Capsule: By your assumption, do not make a move to remove yourself.

2 Samuel 5

The word of God encouraged us, Ask, seek, and knock. (Matthew 7:7-8) Are you asking or assuming? If you will resume asking instead of assuming, you will cover grounds that are beyond your assumptions. It does not matter how long you have been assuming correctly, but it could take one wrong assumption for to experience an epic failure. Switch from assumption to praying and asking God for directions God has never failed. A command to ask, seek and knock is a connection to receive. God declared King David as one “…Who kept my commandments and who followed Me with all his heart, to do only what was right in my eyes.” (1 Kings 14:8) It is evident in the life of David that he was a man that personalized God by the testimony of his ways in asking. David would repeatedly go before God to ask the same thing before making his move. In David’s obedience to God’s command, there was no assumption in any of his operations.
David was going back and forth to inquire from God before making moves of war. The bible recorded in 2 Samuel 5:18-19, “The Philistines also went and deployed themselves in the Valley of Rephaim. So David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will You deliver them into my hand?” And the LORD said to David, “Go up, for I will doubtless deliver the Philistines into your hand.” God gave David the go ahead, and he went and defeated his enemies. After God had given the victory to David over the Philistines, the Philistines did not disappear, but they showed up again and repositioned themselves against David. It could have been reasonable for David to assume that the same God is still at His throne, and will move on his behalf instead, “…David inquired of the LORD, and He said, “You shall not go up; circle around behind them, and come upon them in front of the mulberry trees. And it shall be, when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you shall advance quickly. For then the LORD will go out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines.” And David did so, as the LORD commanded him; and he drove back the Philistines from Geba as far as Gezer.”
The way David went to war and defeated his enemy the first time was not the same way the Lord commanded him to take on his enemy the second time. If David has assumed and gone to war, it could have been a different result. Do not make a move to remove yourself by your assumption. God is the Unchanging Changer; take it all up to Him, because the anointing of yesterday will not carry you for today.

Prayer for today: Ask for the grace to constantly engage asking and not assuming.

Faith Capsule: Trusting God is not just the word of the mouth.

Psalm 34

Trusting God is walking in obedience listening to the voice of God doing as he has spoken. It is written, “Cast your bread upon the waters, For you will find it after many days.” (Ecclesiastes 11:1) Do you trust Him enough to cast your bread upon waters? Have you been casting your bread upon the waters? If yes, do not lose heart because you shall reap shortly. Do not grow weary because he is about to bless you in ways you never could expect. God blesses in many ways. If you will trust Him enough expect your blessing to come through different avenues.
Have you been placing your trust in man? Do not look to man, but God will use men and women to bring blessing to your life.  God is unlimited.  He has many windows of blessing that will open up. When people trust Him enough to listen and act based on what He is saying there is no limit to the blessings that can locate one. Do you trust Him enough to listen? If yes then you are set for abundance blessing to flow in your direction. With trust in God, expectation will be manifested from ways you least expected. Things that could not move for you shall begin to gain motion. Ideas that seem to have been stalled shall be installed. Mockery shall be converted to miracle. Do you trust God to rely on God? Trusting God is not a mouth act but an act from the heart. Many claims to trust God with no understanding of the root of what trusting God is about.
The foolishness of God is wiser than men. (1 Corinthians 1:25) It is foolishness to trust on what you do not see when you insist praying to One you do not see. God does not sleeps nor slumber, He alone knows exactly all those who trust in Him and He is good to those who trusts in Him. Nahum 1:7 testifies, “The Lord is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble; And He knows those who trust in Him.” Do you truly trust in God or you only talk your trust in God? The Lord spoke in Jeremiah 17:6-7, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the LORD. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited.” Have you been placing your trust in a man? Trusting God is not just the word of the mouth. Many claim their trust in God but goes after man for help because they could not trust with all their heart. Some claims to trust in God but constantly lean on their understanding by not acknowledging Him in their ways.

Prayer for today: Ask Him for help that enables man to trust in Him fully.