GOD FIGHTS FOR HIS BELOVED

In Genesis 30 we see Jacob worked so hard for Laban his uncle for twenty good years and God prospered him. But his journey wasn’t easy. He served with all his strength yet His wages were changed ten times this bothered him so much. That he had to make an agreement with Laban for his wage to be the speckled sheep and the ones which were not speckled would be Laban’s. Laban agreed to the plan but  that same day he secretly removed all male goats that were speckled and spotted and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted and put them under the care of his sons and sends them away to another place. He thought that by doing this Jacob wouldn’t succeed. But God had a plan.

At night God revealed his plan to Jacob in a dream. He saw that the rams which mated where streaked, speckled and spotted. Later Jacob took branches of fresh poplar, almond and plane trees, peeled white stripes exposing the white in the branches and set the branches which he had peeled in front of the flocks in watering troughs. So when the flock came to quench their thirst they mated and conceived by the branches and gave birth to speckled, streaked and spotted offspring. This is could only be God’s strategy!

We see God vindicating his own servant Jacob. God’s intervention in his predicament makes Jacob’s flock increase numerously than Laban’s. It took Jacob’s faith to rise out of his predicament. He completely trusted God and didn’t let how Laban treated him make him doubt God’s promise. Because of God’s divine intervention, Laban realizes that the Lord had blessed him because of Jacob.

You may be going through a difficult situation, maybe it’s at your place of work or home. God says, that he knows and fully approves the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish. Just as he fought for Jacob until he went back to his place very wealth more than his uncle Laban, this God will also fight for you and vindicate you. Don’t doubt his word, keep believing. He will change your story.

GOD OF MERCY

God’s incredible mercies are seen as God rescues Lot and his family from the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. When angels came to visit Lot, we see all men from the city come to his house. Because of their wickedness, they become violent and want to break in but the angels struck them with blindness. We see the angels of the Lord showing them mercy by holding their hands and bringing them outside the city. After they had left, the Lord rained down brimstone from heaven and fire on Sodom & Gomorrah. He demolished all the inhabitants of the cities and whatever grew on the ground.

Lot was saved for the sake of Abraham. Who pleaded for his Nephew’s life to be spared when he learnt of the Lord’s plan to destroy Sodom because of its wickedness.

We also know that the Lord showed mercy to Job’s household because of his constant prayers and the sacrifices he made for himself and his sons and daughters.

God is a merciful Father. He hears the cry of his servants. He says, when the righteous call on him he will answer them. I would like to encourage you not to lose hope on your loved ones. It could be your parents, siblings or even friends that you want God to change or transform their lives. You desire to see the mercies of God operating in their lives.

So just like Abraham did not stop to plead with God for the sake of his nephew Lot; he asked the Lord to spare the city if fifty righteous people were found. He went to forty five then forty, thirty down to twenty then ten and the Lord said that he would not destroy the city for the sake of ten. But the Lord did not find ten righteous people in the city of Sodom except for the sake of Abraham’s prayers Lot’s family was rescued.

Let’s keep standing in the gap for our loved ones.

LEAVE IT!!!

When God gives us an instruction he expects us to follow without hesitation. Lot’s family was told to escape for their lives and not to look behind, or stop anywhere. If they did, they would be consumed and swept away. It’s not easy leaving a place where you have leaved for so long and started prospering, but when God’s word comes forth, it needs total obedience and complete trust in God for your life. We know what happened when Lot’s wife disobeyed and looked back. She became a pillar of salt!

As the children of Israel began complaining in the wilderness and desired to go back to Egypt, none of them saw the Promised Land. Because when God brought them out of their slavery in Egypt, he wanted them to trust him and not to look back! This act of murmuring and complaining made God angry with them and prolonged their stay in the wilderness for forty years. This could have been avoided if they completely believed God.

There are some things that God has told us to leave and not look back. They could be behaviors/habits that do not please him. They could be friends or even relationships that God is telling us to leave behind and follow him.

It is a simple instruction, but some of us what to still linger on those things. Please remember what happened to Lot’s wife when she decided to look behind and also the children of Israel, God’s chosen nation. Am sure none of us would like to become stagnant in one place for the rest of our lives or even not reach our promised land and fulfill our purposes?

It is for your own good. God is your creator he has good plans for you. That’s why it’s so so vital for us to just leave it! And trust God for his greater.

FRUITFULNESS

“Be fruitful and multiply.” was the first command that God gave man. God desires that human beings be fruitful in all that he has given them. He himself is a fruitful God. This is seen as in the time of creation, the earth was void but God made it fruitful the animals in the field, birds of the air, and living creatures of the sea. He made them so that they can multiply and fill the earth. This is a great example of being fruitful.

God has given us the ability to multiply since He created us in his own image and likeness. He has given us gifts and talents and desires us to be fruitful in them. Everything God has put in our hands should reflect his power of fruitfulness. We see at the garden of Eden God visits Adam to see how he is doing with the gift he had given him. This shows that every now and then God will always come to his servants to see what they are doing with their God given abilities. Are they being fruitful?

Your ability to bear fruits determines the level of stewardship God will grant you. Every time God visited Abraham or even Jacob and saw that they were being fruitful with what he had entrusted them, he gave them more. God made Kings to become a blessing to Abraham e.g. King of Gerar Abimelech who gave Abraham sheep, oxen, male and female slaves and a thousand pieces of silver. Melchizedek King of Salem who was also a High priest blessed Abraham.

We also see Isaac planting seed in a foreign land and reaping same year a hundred times as much as he had planted. The Lord had surely blessed him. He became very wealthy; he owned flocks and herds and a great household such that the Philistines envied him! Genesis 26.

God increased Jacob so much that he surpassed his master Laban in cattle and sheep. He became fruitful even as he went back to his father’s house; he had two wives, eleven children, servants, numerous goats, donkeys, cows, bulls…

Fruitfulness also comes as a result of walking in obedience to God’s commands. Leviticus 26:1. Just like God promised His blessings to the Israelites, if they walked in obedience they would be fruitful. God’s blessings of fruitfulness are contingent on our responsiveness.

Who Are You?

You are the redeemed of the Lord. Christ paid a high price for you. The enemy has no control over you.You are a chosen generation called to manifest Christ's Excellencies, to proclaim his praises on earth. You are a Royal priesthood.
Our backgrounds, circumstances or people around us do not define us.

Jacob was a supplanter but that was not what God created him to be. He went through life thinking that was what he was meant to be, until he encountered the Lord who transformed him. He was told that all peoples on earth will be blessed through him & his offspring. He became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel!

 Simon whom Jesus named Peter  was a fisherman but when Jesus commissioned him to proclaim the Kingdom of God, he did not hesitate. He stepped up to the task and in Acts we see him professing the gospel in great boldness and performing miracles.

Joseph knew who he was and he did not let his background stop him from being a governor in Egypt. He saw his journey and hardships as a preparation for his calling. He was  second in command in Egypt. He ruled in authority, what he said was established because he knew he was the son of a King!

Queen Esther knew who she was and didn't let her background deter her destiny.
Do not be afraid of being whom God has called you to be. Stop listening to lies from the enemy. He is just out there to deceive you. Step up and be all you were created to be. Look unto Jesus who has called you into into glorious riches.