ASSOCIATES    < ?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>2Kings 9:1-13

God is worthy to be praised! After crossing the Red Sea, Moses and the children of Israel sang and spoke, ÒWho is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders? (Exodus 15: 11) He is indeed and in truth fearful to be praised. He is the Great I Am that I Am. When you praise Him, He will raise you above and beyond your expectation. Why not give yourself unto praising the Lord as the days, weeks, months and years go by? Praising Him will make you to be raised above the plans and purpose of the enemies concerning your life. Praising God can be done anywhere, any day, and anytime as long as you praise Him with your whole heart. God does have His way of rising whom he chooses to rise. When it was time for Him to raise Jehu, Elisha instructed his servant, ÒNow when you arrive at that place, look there for Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, and go in and make him rise up from among his associates, and take him to an inner room. 3 Then take the flask of oil, and pour it on his head, and say, ÔThus says the LORDÕ: ÔI have anointed you king over Israel.Õ Then open the door and flee, and do not delay.Ó (2 Kings 9:2-3) No man can determine the move of God because determination will fail. It is only the move of His Spirit that will continue to and will always pass. Nothing qualified Jehu but God Himself qualified him so man could disqualify him. Why not take to praise as your avenue to be raised by God? The way He moved for Peter is different from that of Paul. He is not a stagnant God. Praising God with understanding will always bring the presence of God. Jehu was raised from among his associates right after the anointing, ÒThen each man hastened to take his garment and put it under him on the top of the steps; and they blew trumpets, saying, ÔJehu is king!ÕÓ (2 Kings 9:13) Jehu was made to rise up from among his associates to become a king. In your sacrifice of praise that is reasonable to God, you too can also be raised. Praise God and ask Him to raise you up from every ungodly associate, every association of failure and every associate that is slowing you down or delaying and disrupting you from what God has called you to do in the name of Jesus. Praise God all the time and He will extend His outstretch hand to raise you above and beyond every confronting issue. Keep on praising Him because He is faithful and He will not fail in raising you.

MONTH OF PRAISE2 Chronicles 20:1-30

 < ?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>

Praise is the way to bring God to you and it is also the way for you to get to God, but it has to be through a conscious understanding. In any attempt to get to a king that is on throne, there has to be a process and the process is in traveling through the gate that will lead to the court where the king sits and reigns as the king. The psalmist clearly understood this when he stated in Psalm 100:4, ÒEnter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him and bless His name.Ó Is there any other means that is better and faster than praise? Our God is the Almighty King of kings and the Lord of lords! All that is required is praise that is guided by understanding and not praise that is guided by noise making or emotional roller coastal. Psalm 47:7, ÒFor God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with understandingÓ. Have you thought about what the understanding could be beside knowing the words and singing it with your heart? Hebrews 13:15, ÒTherefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.Ó Praise is a sacrifice. Sacrifice is not what you want to throw to God anyhow or in just any form because you want Him to accept your sacrifice as a reasonable sacrifice. Romans 12:1, made us to understand that there is a reasonable sacrifice and there is unreasonable sacrifice, ÒI beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.Ó Let your sacrifice be a living and holy one because God is a living and Holy God. Jesus already paid the price for us to get to Him and when we choose not to go through Him and rather go through by our own determination or religious activity, we end up not going the distance with God. If you will forget yourself and gather unto Him in thought and in sincerity and render your praise unto Him without self-distraction, you will find yourself in the presence of God. He is not a distant God. He is a Father that has thoughts and concern for His children. As you continue in your daily journey, praise Him continually and you will see Him move consistently. Praise will deliver you; it will make God to ambush your enemy. The king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, needed to get rid of his enemies that were mightier than him and praise became his weapon. 2 Chronicles 20:22- ÒNow when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were defeated.Ó Praise Him continually with understanding and He will come and raise you above and beyond in all walks of life.

WRONG ASSUMPTION< ?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>Numbers 16:1-40

Assumption can be consuming and permanently terminates anyone who engages in its wrong. Many times we have assumed wrongly and come out of it without getting hurt or without being consumed. Coming out of wrong assumption without any hurt is not a sign for anyone to make it a habit, but it is a sign that a proper care has to be taken to avoid assuming wrongly and if possible, not to entertain assumption at any time. Proverbs 3:5, ÒTrust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.Ó  Korah, Dathan and Abiram resume a wrong assumption and they were consumed in their assumption. When anyone assumes what he has not been called to be. such person will become that which he hates to become. Numbers 16:1-3, ÒNow Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men; 2 and they rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown. 3 They gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, ÕYou take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?ÕÓ In your church, home or among any of your gatherings or at your workplace, can any of your thoughts or actions be likened to that of Korah and his group or rebellious ones? Have you been thinking you can be of better service to the congregation than your pastor or your boss at work? Do not assume what He has not called you to be. The move of Korah was not a pleasurable one for Moses as he went before God and requested from God to show the difference between which He has called and those that are assuming he was not called. Moses requested from God to do the unusual that would determine and demonstrate who He called from the ones He did not called. Numbers 16: 31-33, ÒNow it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, 32 and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods. 33 So they and all those with them went down alive into the pit; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly.Ó Ask God to help you and deliver you from every wrong assumption in every area of your life so that your story will not be like that of Korah and his rebellious team.

MOUTH KILLETH< ?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>Numbers 14

God is not a man that He will tell lies and He has never failed to deliver what He promises to do. At the time He was taking the children of Israel out of Egypt, His plan was to fulfill His promise by taking them to the Promised Land. When it was time for spying, ÒAnd the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 ÔSend men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.ÕÓ (Numbers 13:1-2) God emphasized His promise again by asking the children to go and spy the Land which He was giving them. God did not talk about the land as the land, which He will, or he might give them. This testifies that the Land was set for sure and they just had to go and possess it. In the course of their journey, however, they encountered all kinds of challenges that could not overtake them. The Red Sea was not able to stop them and their enemies failed to stop them from going in the direction of the Promised Land. If there was anything to make the children of Israel to be happy, it should have been the calling of God on them to go and check the land. Having checked the land just as the Lord commanded, they saw negativity in GodÕs promise. God has never failed neither does He oversleep when it is time for Him to act on behalf of His children. The children of Israel failed to remember GodÕs promise and all that He is capable of doing in time of deliverance. The people that could not fall into the hand of enemies terminated their journey just by the negative confession of their mouth. When the report of spying of the land came back it was not encouraging but was rather discouraging. The people that went to spy came back with all kinds of negativity. ÒSo all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, ÔIf only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! 3 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?Õ 4 So they said to one another, ÔLet us select a leader and return to Egypt.ÕÓ (Number 14:1-4) Acts of complaint is an act of rebellion against God. Are you complaining in regard to any confrontation in your life? Give up complaining and do not give into it. If you will ask God to endue you with praising Him always, your mouth of praise will take you up and not down.

QUESTION AND ANSWER   < ?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>Mark 8:1-10

Every time the Lord asks you a question is not because He does not have an answer. Most of the time when He asks you a question, He wants to show you the greatness of His power. He is the Almighty God and He alone haves an answer for every situation that persists in your life and on the face of earth. God sees everything and nothing is too far for Him that He cannot reach. Moses when called by God to lead the children of Israel out of bondage of over four hundred years, exhausted every reasonable excuse not to answer the calling of God, but God invested all that it takes for him to answer. God made it clear that whatever is in our hand can carry His presence for power demonstration. He asked Moses in Exodus 4:2, ÒSo the LORD said to him, ÔWhat is that in your hand?Õ He said, ÔA rod.ÕÓ When God pointed out the rod in MosesÕ hand, it became a power in the hand of Moses. Despite the power demonstration of the rod in his hand, he returned to give more excuses and God stated to Moses, ÒAnd you shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs.Ó (Exodus 4:17) God asked Moses a question and He backed His question with an answer that was enough to carry Moses in leading the children of Israel out of the bondage of over four hundred years. What is in your hand that God can use for the manifestation of His glory in your life? Just as it was in the Old Testament so it was in the New Testament when Jesus needed to make provision for thousands that had followed Him for three days with nothing to eat. Jesus wanted to know what was in the hand of His disciples that could feed the multitude that had followed Him. Jesus did not want to send the multitudes away in hunger. ÒHe asked them, ÔHow many loaves do you have?Õ And they said Ôseven.ÕÓ (Mark 8:5) The Lord is ready to work with what is in our hand if we will know to hear and understand what He is telling us. Do you know what is in your hand or what you have that is enough to carry you through in the calling of your life? Let God know your situation and He will respond to you with a question that will bring the best out of you. Just a rod in the hand of Moses was enough to answer for him in all areas of life. Also, seven loaves in possession of the disciples was enough to feed four thousand and there was even leftovers. Out of nothing, God will bring out surplus. Are you ready to answer His question? Answering His question will answer all the questions in your life.