Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness. (Psalms 143:10 KJV)
In deciding who to marry, the singular most important factor is God’s direction. This cannot be traded with the fact that you met in church. Here is a story narrated by a lady some years back. I read the account in a Newspaper (It was either Punch or Daily Sun)
She was going out with a guy that she met in a big Pentecostal church in Lagos. Everything looked good. ‘At least they met in church,’ so she thought. The guy had a jeep and would often drop her for choir meetings and pick her up later. This went on for about six months.
One of those days after choir meeting, he came to pick her as usual. But that particular day, he seemed to be in a hurry. He asked that he needed to dash down to a place before dropping her. That was no issue for her; that was her fiancé talking!
So he drove quite a long distance and just drove and drove.
‘Sorry dear, we are almost there.’
The next thing was that he veered off the road and drove far into the bush. Then he packed, got down, dragged her down and wanted to cut off her head. The girl screamed, but there was nobody to help in the bush. He pressed the knife to her neck hard to decapitate her head, and the lady struggled. She was a little bit strong, she fought back, but the guy held the knife firmly on her neck, knowing she would become weak after losing much blood.
Then, some movements were heard. The guy jumped in his jeep and drove away, with the intention to come back for the head.
Some hunters showed up, but on seeing the sight of the girl, they ran away without offering help. The case could be turned on them.
In a daze, losing blood and already weak, this lady stood up and just began to move in just a particular direction. She got to a particular hut where she got help with herbal care and then she was later moved to town.
Of course, the ‘brother in the Lord’ was nowhere to be found.’ It was from the hospital bed that this lady narrated her ordeal.
You can read about this because she lived to tell her story. How many of these would have happened that the victims never lived to tell the story?
This story is to let you know that meeting a person in church does not automatically translate that you are in God’s will or God’s choice for your life.
You will always be responsible for the choice you make because you will always live with your choice.
There are different kinds of people in the church.
There are sincere people, deceptive people, and deceptive people who want to become sincere. There are newly born again Christians whose minds are not renewed at all. There are Christians who are still very carnal. There are those who are very religious who think being in the choir can insure their habitual sexual compromise. So you see all kind of people.
There are people who come to church not because they want to serve God but because they want a man or a lady.
Tomorrow, I will share with you lessons we can learn from the above story.
Don’t miss it!
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I will not fall in love with the wrong person. I will not be meeting the right person at the wrong place.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Ask that God will arrange your meeting with the right person
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness. (Psalms 143:10 KJV)
There are benefits to praying in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of God, the third part of the Godhead. He empowers us in the place of prayer, interceding for us when we don’t know how to pray or what to pray for.
“At that time the Holy Spirit will teach you what you must say.” Luke 12:12 ICB.
Praying in the Spirit is a great and powerful way of connecting to God. Once you have accepted Christ into your life as Lord and savior, you have a right to the Holy Spirit –
“God poured out to us that Holy Spirit fully through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Titus 3:6 ICB.
Before Jesus ascended to heaven, he told the disciples that He had to leave for them to receive the Helper (the Holy Spirit) –
“But I tell you the truth. It is better for you that I go away. when I go away I will send the Helper to you. If I do not go away the Helper will not come”. John 16:7 ICB.
After Christ’s departure, the believers received the Holy Spirit as promised, on the day of Pentecost. They received tongues of fire – praying in languages they didn’t know. That’s one way of praying in the Spirit.
You are speaking in heavenly language when praying in the Holy Ghost. It is direct access to God. Only you and God know what is spoken. God’s spirit has connected with your spirit. At that point, both spirits have become one. Praying in the Spirit thereby brings such unity of spirits that is so great.
Praying in the Spirit helps you to concentrate more on God and reduces distractions. God vividly shows you things in your spirit, you can see things through your spiritual eyes. As God reveals things to you, more faith is released in you, praises flow from you, and strength is made more available for you.
Tomorrow, we will see some more benefits of praying in the spirit as children.
Prayer: Dear Holy Spirit, thank you for all that you are. I ask that you come upon me and teach me how to pray. Help me to pray from the heart of the father, in Jesus name. Amen.
Thismorning, I will like to share with you how to recognize if you are going too far in a marriage. There is no child of God that outrightly proceeds into an adulterous relationship. It is usually a subtle happenstance, an innocent friendship, albeit, the subtlety and innocence would never be an excuse for compromise.
There is a difference between a platonic friendship and a romantic relationship. When you have a platonic relationship with another married person, there would be no qualms. But the moment the relationship crosses the line from platonic to romantic, there would be issues and one can be easily trapped. An emotional affair is just a step before a full-blown affair and it is as sinful as adultery.
The question then is at what point does a friendship cross from platonic to romantic?
1. When that which ought to be kept secret between you and your spouse is divulged to the other person. This is the first sign that you are playing with fire. When a married person begins to share with you what ought to be secrets between him and his spouse, it is a good place to run away.
Or when as a married person, you begin to share with that young single lady what ought to be the exclusive reserve for you and your spouse, you are crossing the line and trying to hug some fire.
Also, when a married woman begins to look forward to seeing a single male friend, adultery is knocking.
2. When you catch yourself fantasising or daydreaming about somebody else apart from your spouse. You are travelling beyond the platonic into the romantic, and definitely, something will soon happen that might culminate into regrets later.
3. When you start discussing your marital problems with somebody else. When a married person of the opposite sex starts discussing his marital issues or starts reporting his spouse, the conversation is probably going too far. You might be feeling cool that the person trusts you to divulge such prized information, but if you are not careful, emotions would soon be involved.
You might even have the righteousness complex where you become a counsellor, trying to encourage him or her. The problem is that compassion can turn into confusion very quickly. It is all a ploy when a married person stands before you like or she needs help from you.
What wisdom does a thirty-five-year-old married man need from a single beautiful twenty-three-year-old girl? Where are the pastors and counsellors? It is a trap. At what point did you become a counsellor? Did you read Guidance and counselling in school? Many people have attempted to counsel others like that and ended up cancelling their destinies.
To be continued…
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY I am not careless with my destiny
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, guide me from stepping into wrong paths
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. [ Pro 6:23 ]” (Psa 119:105, AMP)
ACTION PLAN FOR THE DAY Run away from every friendship that has crossed the line
Marriage likeany other structure or organization can fall or fail. Ours will not fall in Jesus’ name.
It is amazing how people, CEOs, general overseers, managing directors put a lot of energy and structures into their businesses, organization, churches, and empires and care little about their marriages.
We think differently about our businesses and differently about our marriages. It won’t work that way. We should aim at putting as much effort, prayers, faith, learning, structures, principles that we put into other vocations into our marriages and things will work out better.
To get a different result, we should do things differently. We respect team work in our organizations, let’s do same in our marriages. We respect other people’s opinions, we are kind and nice to others, we value other people’s uniqueness, let’s do same with our spouses. We spend time, energy, money learning strategies and implementing new ways of doing things, let’s do so with our marriages too.
Here are five simple things that will help keep our marriages strong
1. Never neglect your spouse no matter what Neglect could be in various dimensions. First seek what neglect is to your spouse. Be willing to adjust and avoid neglecting each other spiritually, emotionally and physically. Neglect will cause your love for each other to dwindle.
2. Never stop real communication Communication is very important. In fact, the health of a marriage can be determined by their level of conversation, it’s quality and quantity.
Communication in marriage should not just be reduced to passing of important information and instruction. To keep communication going, there must be a lot of understanding.
Decide to have meaningful, heart to heart conversation with your spouse daily. It warms your heart to each other. Never be too busy. Sexual communication is also important.
3. Never take each other for granted Taking each other for granted is similar to neglect but slightly different. When you take your spouse for granted, you treat them casually or with levity, or without much concern. Never be a one man gang that is always, only concerned about your own affairs.
4. Never harbor hurt or unforgiveness When there is hurt or offenses, try and talk about it. Make your self easy to talk to and with. Some spouses have made themselves so defensive their spouse can’t express their real feelings to them. Hurts will cage your feelings and make your heartthrob grow cold towards you.
5. Never stop forgiving, praying and loving your spouse No matter how rough or tough it may seem. Never stop forgiving your spouse. Never stop praying and trusting God for the best in your marriage.
God is able to bring His beautiful plans and purpose out of your marriage. He is able to make all things work out for your good.
God bless your marriage.
CONFESSION FOR THE DAY My marriage will never fail
PRAYER FOR THE DAY Lord, grant me wisdom I need in my marriage.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Col 3:18 – 19 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
In the last post, we talked about praying from the bible. Today, we will be looking at some of the importance of prayer.
Prayer is how we connect to God, so, the more time you spend with God, the more you learn how to pray.
How does spending more time with God increase your capacity to pray?
More time spent in God’s presence helps you to develop your spiritual muscles, much the same way you put your body through a regular exercise routine to build your muscles and level of fitness. And you keep adding more minutes to it as you go on. It’s the same with prayers. This is one importance of prayer. The more you stay in God’s presence, soaking yourself into His presence, reading his word (the bible), and attending church regularly, the more you grow spiritually.
You can increase from ten minutes a day to an hour. The more you want to grow the more time you have to give to prayer. The length can even be broken down into little chunks spread over the day. You can decide to spend thirty minutes in prayers early in the morning and thirty minutes of bible reading and meditation later in the day. How you do it doesn’t matter. The major thing is that you are praying.
Another importance of prayer is that spending more time in prayer will increase your capacity to receive more from God. You get to know more things about God, discover new things about his word, and Christianity.
Sometimes, you need to spend more time with God and/or His word concerning a particular issue before you get your answer. That could be how God wants to reveal the answer to you.
Another way this will help you is in your daily life. God will give you answers or solutions to situations in your daily life. Things that will be hard for others to accomplish, you will do so fast and with little or no effort, just because God is your helper and constantly is with you. This is an importance of prayer.
God loves to spend time with you. It’s how He grows His relationship with you. You bond with Him through prayer. And the more time you spend with Him, the more the bond between the two of you grows stronger and stronger.
When your bond with God is very strong, you get many benefits that others won’t have. That’s because the God of the universe counts you as his friend. This is a very good importance of prayer.
So, increase your time with God. Add more minutes to that prayer routine today.
God bless you as you do so. May He give you strength for this. Amen.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for connecting with me in prayer. I ask that You strengthen me more as I increase my prayer time, having learnt some of the importance of prayer.
Action point: Add five more minutes to your prayer time today. Increase it gradually as the week progresses.
