Our father is always ready to lead us into excellence! Be confident that He will will lead you always.
Category: BIBLE AND WEALTH
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EVERY CHURCH HAS THE ABILITY…..
And this is the offering which ye shall take of them: gold and silver, and brass, and blue, and purple and scarlet and fine linen and goats’ hair, and rams’ skins dyed red and badgers’ skins, and shittim wood….. (Exodus 25:3-7).
It is the quest of every church to develop, that is, grow in number by winning souls, build an edifice for fellowship, make positive impact on society and so on. All these development activities of the church require funding. When it comes to raising of funds, the church has to look within and raise funds. In the scripture above, the Almighty God told Moses to take offerings from His people. God always gives the ability to every church to be able to raise funds internally for development.
In some cases, one has come across churches sharing envelopes to the general public for the purpose of raising funds to develop their churches. This idea may seem good, however, these churches should know that it is possible to raise all the funds needed from within to advance the course of the gospel. The ability to raise funds from within is a special ability granted by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Members of the church should be taught the importance of giving funds willingly to advance the course of the church. More often than not, members of churches do not have knowledge about giving and receiving. Church leadership should therefore teach members to know that, it is for their own benefit and blessing when they give willingly to support the gospel. Every church has the ability!
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JETHRO PRINCIPLE!
And Moses’ father in law said unto him, the thing that thou doest is not good. That wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou are not able to perform it thyself alone. Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God. So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said (Exodus 18:17-19; 24).
Moses did many great things to ensure that the Israelites were delivered from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. Some of the things he did are that, he parted the Red sea into two for the Israelites to walk through to the promised land. Moses most of the time mediated between God and the people of Israel. He also provided Manna and Quail for his people and solved several other problems.
However, Moses was not doing very well in an important area of his ministry. Moses was spending a lot of time (from morning till evening) to judge cases irrespective of the gravity of the cases. So when his father in law (Jethro) visited, he gave him a very good advise which is sometimes referred to as the ‘Jethro principle’. Jethro told him to get capable men who are honest to head thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. These leaders are supposed to judge cases and bring the hard cases to Moses to deal with. Leadership is a big task that requires a few people (not only one person) among the masses to function in. One leader cannot do it all alone! The Lord Almighty functions in us as leaders but we need to appoint others who qualify to assist us to function successfully.
Sometimes, a leader might want to do it all alone because of bad past experiences, however, we are at risk of wearing out ourselves when we do it all alone. When one is worn-out, efficiency greatly reduces and one is not able to achieve so much. Secondly, the people you are leading may lose trust in you because transparency becomes suspect. People will trust in you when you work with a team who may sometimes better explain issues to your followers. One leader cannot be the jack of all trade! With the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we can get capable men and women to assist us.
The Almighty God has deposited different gifts in each of us. Each of us functions in unique ways therefore the need for leadership that is dynamic and made up of several or a few capable people depending on the needs of the people we lead and the objectives set by the group.
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PURPOSE OF EASTER
The Christian calendar has some activities which are celebrated to commemorate historic events which occurred during bible days. Mention can be made of Christmas and Easter. This time around, Easter is being celebrated the world over and it is very important that the purpose of Easter is explained to inform persons who do not know the essence of Easter and its celebration.
Simply put, Easter is celebrated to commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ when He appeared on earth over 2014 years ago.
The first sin was committed in the Garden of Eden. God created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden. Adam was charged not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden (Genesis 2:9). However, Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree because of deception of the devil who appeared in the form of a snake. Adam and Eve became spiritually dead (that is, spiritually separated from God) and consequently died physically after some years. This was not the intention of God for man but because man had the power of choice, God did not stop Adam and Eve from eating the fruit though God could have stopped them from eating the fruit. Man’s power to dominate the earth was then willed to the devil. All men and women became sinners!
For men and women to be saved from the sin brought about by Adam and Eve, it had to take another person not born of the seed of man to triumph over the devil. That was the reason God sent Jesus into the world. Jesus was not born of the seed of man but of God just like Adam. Isaiah 53 portended the coming of Jesus Christ as the savior and what He must go through. Finally, Jesus Christ shows up so as to wrestle with the devil to restore the glory of mankind. Because the devil owned the world before the advent of Jesus on earth, he (the devil) had the power to tempt Jesus but did not succeed.
Jesus was crucified on the cross. Since the sin of man was laid upon Him, He died spiritually therefore His confession in Matthew 27:46 “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?”. Jesus died physically after this confession. What happened after the physical death of Jesus?
Jesus went to Hell to war with the devil. Colossians 2:15 states “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it”. Jesus defeated the devil and all other principalities and took back from Hell what the devil snatched from Adam in the Garden of Eden. So the resurrection of Jesus from the death is a great sign of victory for every child of God. The child of God has no tangible reason(s) to fear the devices of the devil because of the victory of Jesus. Jesus became poor so that through His poverty, we may become rich. He has restored us back to our previous glory plus much more glory. This is purpose of Easter.
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