Dominion through Worship

" But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.  
 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:23 - 24

Noah obeyed God and he and his family ,and the other living creatures who went with him into the ark  were the only survivors of the rains and flood  which  destroyed all living beings on earth. Genesis  8 :13 -19. 
When Noah stepped out of the ark  after the flood , he saw the devastation all around him. Destroyed by the flood were his homestead , his livestock and farmland , all his neighbours and friends and the life he had known for decades were all swept away by the great deluge.
The scene before Noah was that of a total wipe out by flood waters with no immediate remedy in sight for Noah and his household .
God saw Noah and his household surveying the devastation all around them .
Then God waited , expecting to see and hear reactions from them .
There were two options before Noah ; either he offered sacrifices of thanksgiving unto God  for sparing his life and for sparing the lives of his family ; or Noah could have chosen the other option which was that Noah and his family could have raised up a huge lament  to God ; bewailing the loss and destruction of their houses , lands ,fields , farms, livestock and other worldly possessions .Noah could have cried out  like this :
" Oh my God ! All we see  every where is muddy , smelly water !
God why did you allow millions of souls to perished here? !
Are you not supposed to be a merciful God ?!
 Everything is gone ; our  homes and land,  our crops  and livestock !
How can we farm and what shall we eat ?!  God?! Can you see us now ?"

 Sacrifice has been aptly described as" the giving up of the indispensable third leg of the stool".
 The heart of men is linked to their worldly treasures which is everything which they hold dear.
 Sacrifice is  that offering which is as special and precious as it is costly to the giver .
The word  "sacrifice", would readily ,come to mind as the giving of spiritual offerings of songs, dancing , of cash or goods to God and the giving of donations  to needy  human beings.
 There are diverse forms of sacrifices in the forms of either spiritual offerings to God or giving something valuable as donations and gifts to help the disadvantaged.
God appreciates all sacrifices which are offerings from genuine hearts
 Usually the poor and the needy would appreciate immediate reliefs and so they would prefer cash donations  to cashless ones. 
Gifts in cash and kind minister to immediate human needs quicker and more effectively than greeting and hugging the poor and the needy  or preaching and singing  to them.
Therefore cashless sacrifices are not accorded the same value and appreciation as those made in monetary forms . 

Sacrifice is not only that offering or donation which is tangible and which is in form of offerings of cash and goods only .  
Offering praise and  prayers  are worthy sacrifices acceptable  to  God so also are

The Circle of Ingratitude

"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth!

For the Lord has spoken:

“I have nourished and brought up children,

And they have rebelled against Me;" Isaiah 1:2.

"Hath God said..."( Genesis 3:1) is the seed of rebellion planted by the enemy in the minds of people.
This seed produces the fruit of rebellion and ingratitude towards God.

 Right from the beginning  of human existence, the rebellious souls have been quick to accuse God and to question God's mercy and goodness.

Adam : " Dear God,  Why did you give me  this woman?" True , I was alone  but definitely , I was not lonely. 
Do You see the  upheavals and chaos Eve has caused  now?

Eve :"Dear God,  it wasn't me ! Someone  created  this wicked  being called the Devil .  That someone was not me . 
Instead of locking Satan up and throwing away the key , why was he allowed  to roam about freely , even to enter inside our beautiful  garden ?!

 And by the way, what was the tempting, delicious  fruit  doing on the Tree ? "

How easily and how quickly human beings choose to forget the goodness and mercies of  God!
The children of Israel  went on a futile journey to the Promised Land , going round and round , back and forward and then back to their starting point ; they roamed in a pathetic circle for 40 years in the wilderness ,because they rebelled against   their God.

One would expect people who had witnessed first-hand miracles and the awesome deliverance of Jehovah ; to appreciate the difference between Heaven-sent manna  and quails and the flesh pots of Egypt !

"And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Exodus 16:3.

Rebellion in the face of challenges is vintage Homo Sapient  behaviour.

Even today FOOD and the search for it is big "politics" with some people.

At the slightest sign of  challenges and obstacles , ungrateful souls are very quick  to rebel , to jump ship , abandon God and go seeking  for help from all kinds of gods.

Accusations of incompetence  flow from the lips of the ungrateful soul who in the thick of life's afflictions chose to forget that the same God who delivered yesterday  has not changed .

He is the same , yesterday , even today and tomorrow.

"Then they said 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?" Exodus 14:11.

^" For they said to me, ‘Make us gods that shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." Exodus 32: 23.

One has to first  recognise  the mercy of God , before  being able  to appreciate the joy of  being alive;  healthy and bubbling with zeal and zest .

MInds filled with  gratitude would give praise and thanksgiving  to God. 

Rebellion warps the human mind and clouds the reasoning faculties.                                 

Eyes blinded by grief and hearts numbed by pain and disappointments cannot  see  anything good and cannot  meditate on the mercy of God .
Ingratitude  causes  an unending circle of woe .
‘Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter “What are you making?
”Does your work say,   “The potter has no hands”? Isaiah 45:9 ( NIV )
Life for such persons is one continuous self-defeatist  cycle of  Ingratitude which begins with  Bitterness then unto  Rebellion - Blasphemy - Sin - Sorrow - Despair- Defeat ; and then back to more bitterness and  the circle goes on and on. 
As it was in the  past , so it is  today. 
Instead of appreciating the mercy of God , millions of rebellious people are blaming God for every evil under the sun.
Some  people speak out rebellious words ;but others keep their  rebellious questions inaudible ;harboured and hidden in the secret recesses of  their minds .

Questions are seething even in the minds of those who have had close fellowship with God and have tasted of the goodness of the Lord,
It is not unusual  to hear questions like these from  some people ;

"  Lies travel faster than the truth. Why?"

" Why did God create this world when He knew that things would become very bad and that  humans  would become very wicked , to this extent? "

"Why do wicked people  escape justice and innocent people suffer unjustly?

Why do the  unrighteous rich continue to  get richer and to live long  ?

Who allowed  tsunamis, tornadoes, fires , earthquakes , famines, pestilence and epidemics to take place? Where was God when thousands of people were killed?"

" Why did God allow  the apostle of Satan and founder of the evil religion which spreads hate , murder and chaos worldwide,  to be born into this world. Why didn't he and his present day disciples die in their mothers' wombs?!"

" Why do people who do not attend church or pay any tithes and offerings , get  financial miracles and the best jobs in the country?!"
"This world is not our home ; we belong to a higher realm ? Then why are we living here? "

" Why did a minister of God who was on an inter-city preaching mission die in a horrific plane crash; but the lives of many evil people in that same ill-fated aircraft  were spared?" 

"Why are people who do not desire children ; couples who have aborted several
pregnancies  blessed with repeated unwanted pregnancies ; but childless married couples who have been waiting on the Lord for many years ; are yet to be blessed  with even one child?"

"Why are millions of  people starving  and lacking the good things of life , on the same planet  Earth where others  have more of everything than they need and so  they waste tonnes  of food and  waste millions of cash on unnecessary  luxuries ?

"Why does excess rain fall , flooding those  countries where too much rain is not needed  , yet the areas of the world where millions of peasant farmers are struggling to survive get no rain for years on end ? "

The pit of Hell is the place from where all  rebellious  words issue from.

The Devil  is a liar and is the father of all liars and he is the source of  all  accusations against God. 

 Ignorance of who God is , is  the  fuel which  cooks  the anger and bitterness  against God .

The "beauty" of rebellion and ingratitude against God is that these two evils are unfailing paymasters , yielding well-deserved dividends. 
Those who ridicule and question the mercy and wisdom of God would one day, ultimately, remember God and acknowledge His mercy. 

There are two ways to it.

People would appreciate God's mercy either by the easy way of accepting the salvation of God or by the hard way of receiving the rod of affliction from the Devil ; which would make them to repent and embrace the merciful  God who has loved all men unconditionally.

Asking  "Why , why , why"? does not change the nature of God . 

My take on  all such questions  is :if rebellious human beings can question the mercy and goodness of God , God too is questioning Man's rebellion  against God and  Man's inhumanity to Man .
"What could have been done more in my vineyard, that I have not done in it ? ..." Isaiah 5:4.
While rebellious humans point their one finger against God , their other four fingers are pointing back to themselves. 
 People who question the power  and mercy of  God  should also reflect on the following points:

Why did God hand over the dominion of planet  Earth to Man and not to angels and to the  animals who were living on Earth before Man ?"

What did  Man do  to show gratitude to God ?  Man lost his dominion  to Satan.

The resources created by God on Earth are enough to go round every living soul and to make life meaningful for all humanity . But a small minority of very selfish men and women have  taken control of the world's resources for themselves and their generations unborn.  Why?
Who polluted the fresh air,  the rivers and oceans and stripped the forests of the earth bare ? 

Mankind has abused  the beautiful environment  and destroyed the Ozone layer which God put in place in the beginning ,to protect life on earth .

 These abuses by Mankind have led  to climate change , floods and other natural disasters.

 God has given all living souls the gift of life ; to glorify God during their life time.
Human beings could decide to use  their God-given freewill to choose between good and evil ; people could  choose to be vessels of peace and progress on earth or they are free to choose to  be deceived by Satan and be used as his messengers of  world-wide terror and death .
Whatsoever human beings sow, unfailingly ,  they will reap the judgement from God.
If there were no places on earth where people are living under the terrorizing reign of evil religions , how would Christians be able to appreciate what Jesus  Christ has done in their lives and to say , "Thank God  for Jesus Christ  and thank God I am a Christian ! " ?

 God sent His Son Jesus, to die  not  for "good" men only , but  for ALL men .

And what did mankind do  to Jesus Christ  when He lived on earth ?

Why  did mankind reject Jesus Christ and millions are still rejecting Him today ?
Those who have rejected  the salvation of God , have they not heard the words of the Lord Jesus in John 3 :16 - 18 , and have they not  heard  that : 
"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved ". Acts 4:12.

Yes they have heard .
 Billions  of human souls have heard the Gospel preached several times , out of which  millions have chosen to ridicule and reject the Gospel of JesusChrist.

Why has God  not sent down His fire to destroy all those who blaspheme against God's Son and who  reject  the fullness of  God's mercy and grace expressed in Christ Jesus ?
God has not done so because He is merciful , loving and compassionate and does not desire the death of  the sinner but  God calls all men to repentance. 2 Peter 3: 9. 

You who have been questioning  the  love and  mercy of God ; it is time to face reality.
 What are you doing with  your God-given  life and freewill ?
Are you one of those  who have been blinded by  Satan from acknowledging and receiving the Salvation plan of God for mankind? 2 Corinthians 4 : 3 - 4 
 If you die today and stand before God , what will your life record of activities show ?

You cannot stand before God and question Him. 

Come out of that Satanic web of lies and deceit  and accept  the mercy and righteousness of God through Jesus Christ.

The life which Jesus  Christ gives is the only way out of the miserable circle of ingratitude.

"Let God be true  but  every man a liar...." Romans 3: 4.

 God is not a liar. Believe His Word while you still have breath in you and LIVE  by it. 

When life's challenges and afflictions come knocking , the way out of them and the way forward is  not  to become  bitter and  rebellious and it is not by railing accusations and curses against God .

The way forward is to remember that God is good and there is no turning or changing from goodness in Him.

What to do is trust God , that He is good and faithful ; accept that God knows what  He is doing , that He is omniscient ; God sees and  knows about our all challenges .
Standing on God's word concerning the challenges of life  gives peace to every mind troubled  and perplexed by  rebellious questions .

This is your year of  glorious testimonies of the goodness of God . 

Happy New Year and be blessed indeed. Amen.

Utter the memory of His Goodness

" For who is God save the Lord? or who is a rock save our God?

Psalms 18:31.

During this season of  the beginning of a new year  , whatever your refrain  or your  song , have  you paused to appreciate the gift of life which is your gift of  getting a second chance; of  "going for it" and achieving those elusive dreams?

For some people, this is the time to lift up their faces , their hearts and their hands in praises , worship and thanksgiving to God.

But for others , it is the time for bitter  reflections , time to regret the missed opportunities and to declare that : "Phew! Never again! That was a very bad year! Why me?"

Yes  maybe the facts  of your situation indicate it was a (very) bad year , even  your  worst year so far.

The lie of the matter is saying or  even believing that going through bad times are a sign that you and anyone who are the victims of such challenges were punished because God forsook them because they did something  wrong ;or  that they did not  speak or practise "enough faith" 

But the TRUTH of the matter is :
God did not say  righteous  people would not pass through afflictions. He said :

^" Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. 

Psalms 34: 19.
* You still are standing  AND you saw the back of  it  all and so you are the VICTOR !

The bad times are mirages which have passed on ; they  passed with their intentions of flooring you. The bad times  bowed out of the boxing arena as defeated foes  : and so you are standing as  the winner !.

^"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance  ".  Psalm 42: 5.

The shout of a king is in the camp of  favoured people! Numbers 23: 21

In the camp of  praise , there is vibrant  life , there is Hope unto Faith and Faith gets God's attention .

Which camp are you in , on whose side are you ?
Just in case you have forgotten how to praise God or  you do not even know what you should praise God for and why you should praise God , let me remind you of why and how to praise Him. 
Join me  to praise this wonderful God  and by the time you're  half way through this my  write-up , you will get up , and

The Pleasures of Worship

"And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!
And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the LORD".
2 Samuel 23:15,16.

"Worship", usually, conjures a picture of praising God with slow songs, low- sounding organ music,with our eyes closed and hands clasped in " humble adoration".
Worship entails music and praise; for worship is praise and praise is worship.
However Worship is more than the words and the instruments of our worship songs.
God the Father is seeking for true worshippers who would worship him in spirit and in truth. If we are going to worship in Spirit, we must develop a spirit of worship.
True worship begins in holy expectancy and it ends in holy obedience.

"The only music minister to whom the Lord will say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," is the one whose life proves what their lyrics are saying, and to whom music is the least important part of their life.
Glorifying the only worthy One has to be a minister's most important goal!"
~ Keith Green

Worship is recognizing God for who He is; it is ascribing worth to Him; it is God's people telling Him about the worth they see in Him.
That they see so much worth, glory , praise and honour in Him that they are willing to surrender everything in their being and in their lives ; just to worship Him.
The lifestyle of Worship is the Christian's duty . Ecclesiastes 12:13.
Worship , therefore is

A New Thing.

"For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. ”Isaiah 61 : 11

Happy New year to you my beloved friends!
I believe you had a peaceful and delightful holiday .
I did have a pleasant holiday with my family and friends.
It is good to be back , to be refreshed and bubbling with the joy of being alive and well in a New Year.
Time . How time flies and it waits for no one!
We experience fleeting time on this plane of existence as we measure Time in nano-seconds, minutes, hours, days and in years.
But He who pre dates Time and who lives forever sees Time as a continuity of His agenda for Eternal Life.
With Him , there is no turning or variableness and He understands Man's haste and impatience to accomplish as much as he can in one life time !

The beginning of the year is an exiting time for me and I hope for everyone, too.
Now is the time we are full of excitement as we watch the year opening before us, like a lovely flower bud!
What would Life be like without the excitement of looking forward to things new, unusual and beautiful?
Life would be bland , indeed!
Although , one could have some unfinished projects pending from the previous year ; it is the expectancy of the unfolding events of the future that keeps us rearing to go .
Ready to move on with determination to draw up our annual "Goals and Dreams Schedule"a.k.a. "New Year Resolutions", "New year Strategies",etc!
Never mind that this schedule- making has become a yearly routine which we draw up , but we rarely follow to fruition during the year!
No harm in dreaming and planning ; the starting point of all achievement is desire.
All glory comes from daring to begin.
Sometimes in our haste , we forget that God sees the end of each life from the beginning of it because He wrote each script and mortals are given the opportunity to act the scripts.
In the process of acting out our life-scripts, Man could falter , stammer or miss his lines ; but the loving Father is there to gently guide and set us straight.
For each person, there is always another chance to get it right and start a New Thing.
Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending, according to the will of the all-knowing and Eternal God.
He is able and willing to make all things new and beautiful ; so that in human lives and in every nation ,His righteousness and praise would spring forth.
That is our portion in 2011. Amen.
"Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?
I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert ". Isaiah 43:19.