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Focus on the Promise and the Promise Giver

Numbers 13: 27,’28 ‘They told Moses, we came to the land to which you sent us; surely it flows with milk and honey. This is its fruit. But the people who dwell there are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, there we saw the sons of Anak [of great stature and courage]. God had promised Abraham to give His descendants the land of Canaan as their inheritance. Over 400 years later, the descendants had been redeemed from Egypt by their God and were now at the brink of entering their promised land. In conformity to the disbelieving nature of man, they sent out spies to inspect and confirm if indeed the promise was true. They selected 10 men, one from each tribe of Israel, to go to spy on the land out of which two report were given. In the first report, all the ten confirmed that indeed the land was flowing with milk and honey as promised by the LORD. They even had evidence of fruit and produce from the land. The second report was given by 8 of the 10 spies who s...

Side Tracked

Psalm 106:13-15, ‘But they hastily forgot His works; they did not [earnestly] wait for His plans [to develop] regarding them, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted and tried to restrain God [with their insistent desires] in the desert. And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls and [thinned their numbers by] disease and death. The above passage details how the children of Israel after liberation from Egypt through miracles and wonders, after crossing the Red Sea and seeing their enemies vanquished, they rejoiced in the LORD for a short while but were quick to forget their God and started to rebel. They forgot the mighty deeds God had done before and for them in His faithfulness and love for them. They did not wait for His plans for taking them to the promised land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey to unfold. Impatience was their downfall. It was a manifestation of their lack of trust in their Heavenly Father. They rebelled against ...

CHOOSE LIFE

Genesis 2:9, 16, 17, ‘And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground-trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.’ ‘And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."’ When God made the Garden of Eden, there were two particular trees that were specifically mentioned, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now the command God gave was for man not to eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and His wife were free to eat of the tree of life. Had they eaten the tree of life instead of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they would have enjoyed eternal life with their Creator and Father; living a life free from shame and condemnation that came with their choice to eat frui...

Signs and Wonders

Deuteronomy 4:35-39, ‘You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides Him there is no other. From heaven He made you hear His voice to discipline you. On earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words from out of the fire. Because He loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, He brought you out of Egypt by His Presence and His great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today. Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.’ God shows Himself to us through signs and wonders so that we may know His mighty power and majesty. The LORD choose the Israelites as the people through which to show the world Himself; His love, His faithfulness, His power, His mercy, His majesty, His judgment and so many other characteristics of His divine nature....

A Montage of Love

John 3:16, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ The birth of Jesus was a love gift – a sacrifice made by God for the world, (that is you and me) that He loves with immeasurable and incomprehensible love. To fully understand this, we need to go back to the beginning, to the genesis of all things. John 1:1-4, ‘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. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.’ You see God is the beginning of all things and in all things He has set laws to govern. Because He is a just God, He will not break even one of His laws that He has set. The first man Adam sinned and as a consequence his nature became sinful which we have inherited as his descendants. The consequence of man’s sinful nature was death and e...

Forgiveness Leads To Repentance

In Romans 12:17-21 'Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.', It is hard for us to forgive because the world teaches us from a tender age that tit for tat is the order of the day. If someone wrongs you, you must avenge yourself so that you can feel better about it. Even us Christians, when we are wronged, we might not do it ourselves but we ask God to avenge on our behalf so that we can feel better. But is that why God commands us to forgive and do good to those that have wronged...

Living In The Spirit

Numbers 13:31,32, ‘But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.’ Pessimism is defined as having an attitude of anticipating undesirable outcomes or believes that the hardships in life outweigh the good. The world that we live in is pessimistic. We in turn have become pessimistic in our nature anticipating that the undesirable or negative outcome is more likely to happen and that the evil in the world triumph over good. This is just the way the natural world is. This is the attitude that the ten men chosen from the twelve tribes of Israel had. And because of this pessimism, they spread a negative report among the camp of Israel about the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by God on oath, a land flowing with milk...