Faith Capsule: How do you see in your confronting challenge?

Numbers 13

What you see determines what you receive. What you receive is what becomes of you. The Israelites were not strangers to the wonders of their deliverance from the bondage of over four hundred years The Israelites saw how God dealt with Pharaoh and the whole land of Egypt with ten painful plagues which prompted Pharaoh to allow their departure from bondage. As they advanced in their journey to the Promised Land they could not keep focus on the source of their deliverance but on what they saw around them. During the course of their journey, “…when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.” (Exodus 14:10)
Are you one that lifts up eyes to behold confronting challenge with negative confession? The Israelites saw fear and failed to cling to the testimonies of how they came out of Egypt. In response to what they saw they confessed negative by saying to Moses, “…Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt?  Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.” (Exodus 14:11-12) How do you see in your confronting challenge? The Israelites could not cling to the testimonies of their deliverance as they saw and confessed death in their journey. It is written, “Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart.” (Psalm 119:2) Seeing positive in the face of negative is the evidence of seeking God with whole heart. Joshua and Caleb could not see negative when they went with their brethren to spy the land.
God promised the Israelites Promised Land but the spy went and could not cling to God’s testimony but confessed negative that compromised and complicated the Israelites’ journey. Moses spoke in Deuteronomy 32:9-12, “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, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.” Joshua and Caleb kept the testimony of God and wholly followed God.

Prayer for today: Ask for the grace to cling to His testimonies.

Faith Capsule: Pouring out our soul before God is laboring in prayer

Luke 1:1-25

Where there is a closed door that needs to be opened laborious prayer is the key. Truly, the bible is written for our learning only if we study it and engage the demands of the word of God. Prayer is labor and not a fun fare. The word of Paul in his letter of greetings and appreciation for his beloved workers pointed out that prayer is labor when he wrote, “ Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.”(Colossians4:12) The bible also testified about Jesus’ prayer session stating, “He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:44) Prayer is not a funfair. A closed door will answer to laborious prayer that is not filtered with doubt. It is doubt that builds up for one to become afraid on the prayer altar. Are you one that labor in prayer but partners with being afraid?

A certain priest named Zacharias was warned to do away with being afraid concerning his prayer. The bible recorded that the certain priest and his wife were righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.  But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years. (Luke 1:6-7) The priest and his wife were experiencing a close door that needed to be opened. While prayer was being rendered to God, “Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.  And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.” (Luke 1:11-13) Imagine a priest in prayer of expectation getting warned not to be afraid? The angel’s approach to Zacharias testified that to be afraid is a prayer hinderer. Prayer and being afraid cannot go together. Prayer opens heaven for the extension of God’s hand over every door (opened or closed). Absolutely, there is no door that prayer cannot open. Barrenness will succumb to laborious prayer that is, a prayer rendered to God without being afraid.
Pouring out our soul before God is laboring in prayer and it will open every door that has been closed. Barrenness represents closed door but will respond to prayer. In the life of Zacharias and Elizabeth, prayer opened door and they were blessed with fruitfulness. Are you experiencing barrenness in any area of life? Today be encouraged, in your experience, experiment with laborious prayer and see God move on your behalf.

Prayer for today: Ask God for the grace of strength on your prayer altar.

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.