In search of God

Mark 9: 43-48 “And i f your hand makes you sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed, than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched – where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your foot makes you sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, than having two feet, to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched – where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your eye makes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire – where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.” How can your hands make you sin you ask, by taking things that do not belong to you or writing things that are untrue about someone online. What about your legs you might ask, by taking you to places that you know you shouldn't be going. What about your eyes, looking at things

Psalm 7:14-16, ‘Whoever is pregnant with evil  conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment. Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out   falls into the pit they have made. The trouble they cause recoils on them;   their violence comes down on their own heads. ’ We are living in evil times. News today is full of sad, heartbreaking, evil stories you would be mistaken to think that men are falling over themselves to see who is the sickest and vilest of them all. Our leaders are no better because all they conceive is evil and wickedness. They promise one thing with their mouths but plan the opposite in their hearts. Even though we are living in the age of great advancements, we are the most disillusioned lot. Suicide rates are higher all over the world than half a century ago. And the median age for those that are committing suicide is getting younger. All that are engaged in evil think that they are ahead of the pack, they are smarter than the rest, but little do they know t

Acts 3:1-8, “One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer at three in the afternoon. Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, "Look at us!" So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.” God is sovereign. He is because He is. He does what He pleases. He is good. He is love. He is the creator of Heaven and the world

Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.” God has an acceptable, good and pleasing will for us. He wants us to have life while the Devil wants us to perish in sin, He wants to be a blessing to us and the Devil wants to destroy us. God has given us the freedom to choose. Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial. The world promotes a culture of ‘everything goes’. The shape and direction of our culture right now leaves you with more questions than answers as to what is right or wrong. But the word of God provides us with the wisdom to make up our minds what is beneficial for us or not. There is a battle going on for your soul. God is a just God and wants us to choose for ourselves who we want to abide by. It would be cruel if you did all you could to turn away from Him and His Kingdom now

What is the cross? Why is the crucifixion of a Jew called Jesus of so much importance to us Christians, after all, He was not the first or the only one to be crucified. And why was there a need for a cross? And oh, did we really need a Saviour in the first place? To answer these questions let us first ask ourselves, did we need a Savior in the first place? The answer is yes we did need a Saviour. God is Holy while we on our own are not holy for the word in Romans 3:10-11 says, “As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.” All of us have a problem, a SIN problem, that separates us from a holy God. Now sin is not the act but it is our very nature assumed at the Garden of Eden when Adam rebelled against God’s command. To explain further, a mango tree is not a mango tree only after it produces mangoes but it is naturally a mango tree and can only produce mangoes therefore the sins we commit are the outward manifes

Genesis 6:5, ‘The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. After the fall of Adam (not from grace as is usually put) in the Garden of Eden when He rebelled against a life of obedience to God, his nature became sinful (rebellious, disobedience, selfish). It did not take long before the evil became prevalent in the world. Now sin is just a manifestation of the sinfulness of our nature but it is our nature that is sinful. For example, when is a tree a mango tree, is it when it produces fruit that it is called a mango tree or is it even before it produces fruit. Of course the tree is a mango tree even before it produces the mango fruit. The fruit is just the manifestation of the nature of the tree and so it is with the nature of man, you are sinful not because you sin but because that is your nature. Now the nature of man is not gained from the world after birth by exposure to sin

Proverbs 14:12, 'There is always a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death.' Isn't this a telling proverb and a great reason to trust in the plan of God? You might be planning to do something that in your eyes seems to be right, a decision or plan that looks like it will benefit your tremendously, but later on, with the benefit of hindsight, you painfully realize that there was something ahead that you had not foreseen that brings so much pain and unravels your plan. But God, who sees the beginning from the end, He who has a wonderful plan for you, to give you hope and a future, if you let Him will guide your steps, your decisions, your plans to align with what He has in store for you and you will not be destroyed. Eve, when enticed by the Devil saw that the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil was beneficial and ate it, but that choice, led to the beginning of suffering, pain, separation and death for man. But God in His divine wisdom and beca

Isaiah 61:3, ‘They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of His splendor.’ Under the new cross, we are clothed with the righteousness of God in Christ, not because of our own effort but because of the efforts of the second Adam, that was judged and found to be without sin and then He was made sin so that we may be righteous. We do not earn our righteousness but receive it by faith through the amazing grace of God, therefore we are a planting of the LORD, so that through us His magnificence can be seen and He may glorifed forever more.

Joshua 2:24, ‘They said to Joshua, “The LORD has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us.”’ The LORD is faithful and has already given us victory over all circumstances of this life. All we need to do is trust in Him and depend on His grace. Be it financial, health, mercy, love, hope, faith, He has given us abundantly above and beyond our imagination or what we could ask. Isn’t that wonderful news? Rejoice in Him who has called you according to His purposes, dwell in His amazing grace and see yourself lifted from glory to glory, not because you deserve it but because He loves you and has clothed you with His righteousness in Christ and therefore you can access all the promises due to the righteous. Because of His Mighty hand upon you, your name will precede you, wherever you go, people will glorify the name of the LORD, saying there is the LORD’s anointed, His favor has rested on Him, everything He touches prospers, so that as y

Psalm 28:6-9, ‘Praise be to the LORD, for He has heard my cry for mercy. The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to Him in song. The LORD is the strength of His people, a fortress of salvation for His anointed one. Save your people and bless your inheritance; be their shepherd and carry them for ever.’ We are all God’s workmanship, so that no one can boast that he is saved by his own deeds, might or will. It is by the grace of God that we are saved, by having faith in He who He sent to suffer our judgment and die in our place, to be our fortress of salvation, so that those that believe in Him, who submit and wholly trust the anointed one of God – the Christ – then they will be redeemed, they will be strengthened, filled with peace and joy of God that is circumstance defying. Those that know who their Savior is, their Redeemer, sing shouts of praise to Him, thanking Him for all He has done, for His

Mathew 6:32,33, ‘For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.’ These are dangerous times for the fellowship of believers’ whose faith and trust in God is like what Jesus warned us of as the seed that fell on good soil but was choked by the weeds – the cares and concerns of this world. We have steered away from the path of salvation, seeking first the desires of our hearts instead of seeking God and His kingdom. Our God is a holy God and all of us that are called to Him must live holy lives in Christ. Salvation We need to re ask ourselves if we know why we are saved. Why did Christ die for you and me? Did He do so for us to have wealth and health only, for us to have big cars, for us to be important or did He shed His blood at the cross, facing its scorn to redeem our relationship with God, to restore our relationship with Him, to experience

Job 33:14-28, ‘For God does speak – now one way, now another – though man may not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds, He may speak in their ears and terrifying them with warnings, to turn from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword. Or a man may be chastened on a bed of pain with constant distress in his bones, so that his very being finds food repulsive and his soul loathes the choicest meal. His flesh wastes away to nothing, and his bones, once hidden now stick out. His soul draws near to the pit, and his life to the messengers of death. Yet if there is an angel on his side as a mediator, one out of a thousand, to tell a man what is right for him, to be gracious to him and say, “Spare him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom for him” – then his flesh is renewed like a child’s; it is restored as in the days of his youth. He pr

Psalm 51:1-13, ‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to yo

Psalm 118:14, ‘The LORD is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.’ In Jesus we find salvation, in Him we find the strength to forge ahead, move on towards that prize, that has been promised to us through Him. On the cross, Jesus suffered the judgment once and for all, therefore taking the sting out of death by satisfying the requirement of the law that demands death as a just payment for sin and in God’s divine wisdom now affords any that choose to believe in and surrender their life in total obedience to Him eternal life. Jesus was given power and authority over everything in this world by the Father and now that we as believers are in Him, we have access to this power and authority over the sin of this world, able to live as new creatures in righteousness in Christ able to patiently wait with confidence the judgment day, knowing that our sins are remembered no more while we are in Him for we are covered by the blood He shed at Calvary. Therefore when we feel fearfu

John 15:9-13, 17, ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends. …This is my command: Love each other.’ Jesus wholly depended on God the Father while He was on earth, and whatever He received from Him, He shared with us, His love, His power and authority. He showed us a perfect example of humility and obedience submitting to the Father’s will to die at the cross as atonement, a sacrifice, for our sins and to provide a way for our salvation. His love for the Father was selfless and unconditional, obeying to the point of shedding His divinity and living as a servant. His love for us was also selfless and unconditional in that He

John 15:1-6, ‘“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. Jesus is the tree of life and the church is the branches that are attached to and wholly dependent on Him. Without Him we are nothing but in Him we are more than conquerors. If we allow ourselves to be fully ingrafted in Him, allowing Him to be the supplier of all our needs, feedi

Titus 3:4-8, ‘But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.’ Salvation comes to us as a gift of God by His grace through faith in Jesus Christ. No one can claim to have earned his salvation because none of us is worthy; we are all sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. Through Jesus the Christ, we are credited with righteousness before God and we therefore have the confidence to stand before Him in prayer. At baptism

Isaiah 12:1-3, ‘In that day you will say: “I will praise you, O Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.’ We were sinners, facing a hopeless and miserable end, but the Lord God, even when we were His enemies; He came down and died for us, to give us salvation. In His great mercy He has forgiven and forgotten our numerous iniquities. He has become our Savior, comforting us, encouraging us, building us up, so that we may become complete, mature in Him. He strengthens us in our times of weakness; he is our only hope of salvation and life. Rejoice as you draw the water of eternal life from Him and quench your thirst.

Isaiah 25:1, ‘O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.’ Praise and exalt the name of your God, for in His wisdom He has done a great and marvelous thing, planned since the beginning of time. He has crafted a plan to redeem man from the shackles of sin to Himself. He has given man the chance to be clothed in righteousness and to enjoy His presence again. He has showered us with His mercy and abounding grace, our sins He will remember no more. We that have been called into him are now to be called His sons, and all this not because of our own right standing but because of Jesus the Christ who has died our death and given us His life. Praise God indeed, rejoice in His faithfulness, exalt His Holy name.

Isaiah 42:5-7, ‘This is what God the Lord says – He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breadth to its people, and life to those who walk on it: “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness…”’ This is the good news to the world, that we are no longer slaves to sin, we are no longer captives to Satan, sitting in the darkness of sin but have been called to the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. He calls out to us, asking us to place our hand in His in trust and let Him guide our steps, to be the master of our lives. Jesus Christ is our light, lighting the path for us so that we may be credited in righteousness for His name’s sake. Through Him we have access to the th