FAITH CAPSULE: Keep focus and meditate on the goodness of God.

1Kings 19

Loneliness is what will cause man to misplace focus and be lead into discouragement. With discouragement comes the willingness to give up where and when there is a need to stand against confronting challenge. Are you facing any challenge that is re-directing you focus? Elijah, as great as he was used by God, at a certain stage of challenges in his life, he experienced loneliness. Focusing on what God has done and what He is doing will encourage man to hold onto God as a Deliverer, Preserver, and God who cannot fail. Are you one that is experiencing loneliness for any reason whatsoever? Is there any overwhelming challenge in your life? As a child of God, you are not alone. It is time to take your stand and regain your focus on Him. He alone is abundantly able to see all through in any confronting challenge.

Elijah called for rain to stop for three and half years and it was so. He called for the rain to come back and it was so. Elijah alone called fire from heaven during a sacrifice on Mount Carmel and fire fell without delay. Elijah alone executed four hundred and fifty-five Baal prophets. All during this period, he repeatedly confessed that he alone was the only prophet of the Lord who was left behind. Elijah was focused on God to have been able to execute all the exploits as mentioned above. Despite his great exploit in the name of God, he fled because of Jezebel’s threat to kill him for executing the prophets of Baal. Elijah ran from wilderness to mountain. Twice in the course of his running, he responded to God’s calling, “…I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.” (1 Kings 19:10) Loneliness sounded clearly in Elijah’s excuse for running where he was not called by God to run.

Are you walking on a ground that demands running? Are you the one that is running for a challenge that only calls for walking? Loneliness was the evidence of lost focus when a man like Elijah could request from God during his running away from Jezebel, “It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” (1 Kings 19:4) Elijah’s request was to the extreme.  It does not matter if you have given your life to Christ or not, but it is certain that the One who created Heaven and earth loves you and all of His creation more than you can imagine. Under heaven, no one with focus on God is alone. Keep focus and meditate on the goodness of God. God is a good God and He will always show up for our deliverance.

Prayer for today: Ask God to help you, ask for His deliverance from the spirit of loneliness.

FAITH CAPSULE: God does have a standard for us to seek and see Him.

Deuteronomy 28
Jesus said, “…I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) Jesus gave His life on the cross for us to live life abundantly. He is closer to us more than we know but yet we are very far from Him because we are short of the living standard that will makes us to see Him God does have a standard for us to seek and see Him in every way of engaging life. The standard is to be diligent. Dictionary defines diligent as: To be diligent means to be constant in effort to accomplish something. That is to be attentive and persistent in doing anything.

Across the pages of the Bible, diligence describes the standard that is in place for us to see God and if we do not find Him now we will found no place with Him after the life we are living now. Paul the apostle gave a valedictory speech and stated, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4:6-7) Paul’s statement indicated that living life is like we are in a race. If we are not in a race, Hebrews 12:1 would not have stated, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”  The race we are in is not about who get to heaven first and that is why Ecclesiastes 9:11 stated, “The race is not to the swift…” The race is about those who run it continually…continuity with endurance is the rule of the race to make heaven and not hell.

Our race demands diligence especially when we do not see in the physical what we are running for. Or do you not know that we are in a race?
Are you aware of any ensnaring sin such as lie, deception, and manipulation in your race of living life? Is your race according to God’s standard? Without doubt, we are to live life according to God’s standard and that is to be diligent to God’s word as regard to how we live life. Deuteronomy 28:1 admonished us, “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.” Living life diligently is the standard that is laid for us to live for and be able to see God in our living life.

Prayer for today: Ask God for the grace to seek Him diligently.

FAITH CAPSULE: There is no reasonable excuse to avoid the calling of God.

Exodus 4

When the calling of God sounds in a man’s direction, there can never be any excuse that is reasonable enough to avoid the calling of God. When it was time for Elisha to be called by God, God spoke to Elijah, “…you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel. And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place.” (1 Kings 19:16) It was God that called Elisha through Elijah but Elisha had excuse not wanting to answer at God’s timing for the calling upon his life. When Elijah approached Elisha, the excuse was, “…Please let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” (1Kings 19:20) Elisha’s excuse took him back but could not keep him for long before turning back to answer the Lord God’s calling upon his life.

Are you holding on to any excuse against the Lord’s calling upon your life? It is time to come out of excuse and answer to God’s calling. It is important to know that God will not call you for assignment without empowering you. God wanted to introduce Moses to Moses so that Moses could know what the Lord has deposited in his hand to back him up in the calling upon his life. “So the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A rod.” And He said, “Cast it on the ground.” So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. 4 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail” (and he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand),” (Exodus 4:2-4) A rod of God in hand is power of God in hand.

Moses could not have been able to carry the assignment if the Lord did not show to him what He had deposited in him. If you have been called, know this day that He has put a fitting rod in your hand for the assignment. Among all the disciples that walked with Jesus while He was on the face of earth, none contributed to the assignment of the Kingdom of God like the apostle Paul. Apostle Paul did not walk with Jesus on the face of earth but he knew himself in the Lord more than any of the disciples. Paul testified, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:10) Know yourself and take off into the direction of your calling.

Prayer for today: Ask God for the grace of understanding to know and answer fully to the calling upon your life.

FAITH CAPSULE: Get serious with your time in the word and God’s success (good success), will get to you.

Joshua 1

The word of God is God. The book of John 1:13 said it better and made it clearer stating, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” Spending time on the Word of God is spending time to listen to God. The Bible makes us to realize that, “if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God.” (Deuteronomy 28:1-2) God was speaking to the children of Israel on their way to the Promised Land. What God said to one speaks to all. It is good to listen to the Word of God, but it is not enough when there is no obedience to what His Word says to you. Doing what the Word says is obedience. Without observing what the Word says, the chance of doing what the Word says is not possible.

Just as commanded by God, observing the Word of God is obeying God. The key to obeying is in the Word of God to Joshua as stated in Joshua 1:8, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.” The Word of God in His book of law demands meditation day and night before it becomes a thing of observation. Until the Word of God becomes what you constantly and consistently observe, doing accordingly to it is not going to be possible. Often time believers memorize to quote the word of God instead of meditate to observe and know to do the word of God. Clearly the message is not only about memorizing, but also meditating. There is no better way it can be emphasized more than when God repeatedly warned Joshua about the need to observe the Word in the book of Joshua chapter one. God is not talkative, but when He talks it has to be activated for the result to be accomplished. There has to be meditation day and night to be able to observe and do according to the Word. Get serious with your time in the Word and good success, which is God’s success (not just success), will get to you.

Prayer for today: Ask for the grace to live by God’s, instruction, teaching and guidance that is laid in the ages of the bible for all who observe the word of God.

FAITH CAPSULE: A prayer-less life is an open door for pain to come in.

1 Kings 19:17-21, Matthew 7:7-12,

It is written, “But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.” (1 Peter 4:7) How is your prayer life? Prayer is work and it excludes no man regardless of title or position inside or outside of the church. With God, prayer can never be too much but it has to be with understanding. The Bible pointed out how Jesus often withdraws to all night prayer by Himself. A prayer-less life is an open door for pain to come in. Regardless of how long one has been getting away in life without prayer, it will only take one day for pain to gain access. Apostle Paul, a giant in the hand of God knows better to pray for himself when he stated, “And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly Kingdom. To Him is glory forever and ever, Amen!”(2 Timothy 4:18) He asked for deliverance despite being in position to carry out deliverance for many. He could not hide his need for being preserved by God.

In these days when wickedness is the order of the day, a believer needs a constant prayer like Paul prayed. Will you take some time to pray this prayer if you believe that God answers prayer? Surely, the Hand of God is for deliverance and preservation. When God defends His children deliverance answered in the life of His children. When God preserves His children, surely His children are blessed by being rescued from the forces of wickedness. God does have His way of working out deliverance and preservation for His own. God told Elijah at the time he was running from Jezebel, after he had killed four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, “Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” (1 Kings19:18) It is only God who can keep us by divine reservation, not our determination or our strength. Anyone’s determination and strength will fail just as it failed Peter when he promised not to deny Christ. However, the faithfulness of God will not fail you. Today, take time out to sincerely ask Him for deliverance and preservation. Jesus commanded, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8) If Paul the Apostle could ask for such, it is not beyond you to add such a prayer to your prayer list.

 Prayer for today: Ask for the grace to be strengthened on the prayer altar.