Sinking with Fear

 

“Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. ‘It’s a ghost, ’ they said and cried out in fear.

Immediately Jesus comforted  them ,saying it was He. However, Peter asked to walk on the water also. Indeed, Jesus called him.

“Then Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water and came towards Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and ,beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’

“Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him.” ‘You of little faith,’ he said, ‘why did you doubt?’ “-Mathew 14 : 25-32.

Many a time we start by noticing people do certain things that we feel we can do also. However,  in the course, we see the tumultuous wind rocking that situation. Then we fear and ‘begin to sink.’ Failure dawns.

You lose all the hope you had initially. You forget all that motivated  you to venture into that particular activity. You face  reality and fail to cope.  Failure to cope implies no other alternative but to begin to sink.

It could be in business. Once you begin to fear that you will make losses, you begin to sink. The whole business simply crumbles. Just like losing  sight of Jesus, instead of you to optimistically look at better ways of doing business and making more profit, you concentrate on why your business should fail. Certainly, it will sink.

It could be your marriage relationship that is faced by some windy rocky situation. When you fear that wind,  you begin to sink. Instead of focusing on the problem pay all your attention to the solutions of your marriage and it will stay afloat.

Some people who were not supposed to be in graves  at all died because they had  become fearful in various situations ; forgetting what had made them  live up to that time. Once a certain diagnosis was given to them, they lost all their hope. Fear had overwhelmingly  taken over. Some patients who have not written any wills start sharing their estate verbally right at the bedside!

When you see the wind, do not fear and lose faith. That is the time you are supposed to look at Jesus and demonstrate faith in Him as the savior of the world ; Indeed, your personal savior.

You should have hope and not  forget the  call to ‘walk on the water’ when you see the wind. In a precarious situation, that is when you are supposed draw closer to your saviour for salvation. Nothing shall separate you from the love of Christ. Do not fear at all. Have faith in God and the God-given victorious abilities  in all adverse situations.

Wise at Twelve

 

“And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast,” Luke 2:42.

His parents went with Him to Jerusalem.

“And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it,” Luke 2:43.

That was the situation. Come to think of it, the parents leave a twelve- year -old behind. How agonising! How worried!

In the modern world, once your child is missing, what haunts your mind is the worry of finding the kid murdered.

However, when the couple returned to Jerusalem, they found Him in the temple sitting in the middle of doctors…listening and asking questions. Amazing!

He did not wait until forty  before interacting with people in connection with His mission. He was only twelve.

Asking questions and listening involve thinking. This means a person should start young to be reasonable about his life. One should ask adults around and think of the future.

Starting young makes things easier concerning one’s purpose in life. It makes one avoid some obvious mistakes that may ruin his life.

Because of the lack of learning to be reasonable at a young age, most people start by being delinquent. By the time they realise that they have a life to lead, some already have HIV and AIDS, or are drug addicts and probably in prison serving lengthy sentences.

Many  people have died prematurely because of making foolish choices. Trouble could be avoided by learning to sit with wise adults at a young age ,listen and ask questions.

Some people have pursued certain careers ignorantly. By the time they realise that they could be better elsewhere, it is too late. Some end up being fired because of choosing wrongly.

Sitting down with wise people and asking questions leads one to making better choices  than drifting along amidst peer pressure. It is knowledge that makes people wise. Getting wise at a tender age is the greatest choice ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Your Life Withers

 In the story of Jesus, there was a time when he wanted to eat, according to Mark 11:12-25. Christ was hungry. He wanted to eat figs. However ,when Jesus reached a fig tree, He discovered that there were no fruits because they were out of season. 

Seeing that the tree had no figs, Christ cursed the tree. By the next day the tree had withered.

"In the morning ,as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots," Mark 11:20.

The tree was cursed by Jesus because it had no fruit for Him to eat. The result was it withered from roots.

The same applies to us humans. We need to be useful to one another in all seasons. We should be handy when other people have problems so that they can lean on our shoulders for our help.

Nevertheless, many are cases when people are not helpful at all to fellow humans. In some cases, they even become inimical to society.

Take criminals for example, they not only steal, but also kill in some cases. They are destructive to society.

When someone is not helpful to society, that person is like the fig tree that does not produce any fruits. What follows is that the individual 'withers from the roots'.

If it is criminals, they 'wither from the roots' when police gun them down. Indeed, like what happened to the unfruitful fig tree, it is just a matter of time before police catch up with notorious armed robbers and gun them down.

You have to understand this. If you are not doing anything that fosters the betterment of society; if you are not doing good to your neighbour, trully it is just a matter of time before you meet your fate. It is anything negative, just like withering from the roots.

When people deliberately do not come to your aid, reflect on your life. Certainly, you may have mistreated some people somehow in the past. You wither from your roots when society abandons you at your time of greatest need.

If you have something to spare, look for someone in need and give. If you have clothes you no longer wear, look for someone in need and help. That way you will be a fruitful fig tree. No one will find cause to curse you.

 

From Manger to Majesty

 My dear reader,it is doubtless that you were born in a hospital.after your birth,very good medical attetion was given to you.Then yourn parents took you to a nice home.

Not the birth of Christ.Jesus was born in a manger.Such was the beggining of the saviour.It was absolutely a humble beginning.However,that sad beggining did not define who Christ would be.

Since he was born in a manger,that did not determine who Christ would be forever.It was just a beggining.The ending was yet to come.

Jesus went through through trials and temptations until he resurrected and was translated into heaven where he is now King.

Similarly, you could have been born in a disadvantaged environment like Christ.Maybe you were born in  a refugee camp or to an imporverished.That does not matter.

what carries weight is  how you are going to use the time you have and how you will end. Are you going to end in glory like Christ ,or misery like Judas who committed suicide after betraying his Lord?

Amidst all the horror Jesus went through, he never gave up. He stood firm despite all the storms that pelted His life. Christ did not waver at all. He focused on achieving His mission regardless of birth in a manger. The manger did not affect His  future at all.

The same applies to all of us. As long ad we are still alive, we still have that chance to live our lives according to our dreams. The past has nothing to do with what we struggle to attain in the future.

The past only belongs to history. We cannot relive it. The bad beginning is not the benchmark for living our lives. We have a life to live on our own terms.

If your parents failed to take you to school because of poverty, that belongs to the past. Blaming them through out your life will not help you. Do your part of struggling to improve your life and certainly it will come to fruition.

Your own manger belongs to the past .Yes, focus on working upon your life until you reach your own majesty. That is it. No one will improve your life for you .It is your own life so work on it.

Stand up and Walk

  Near the pool of Bethesda at Jerusalem, Jesus found a man who had been lying paralysed for thirty-eight years waiting to be taken into the water first after an angel had stirred it up.

Having asked the patient if he wanted to be healed, Christ told the man to stand up, take up his bed and walk! Indeed, the paralytic stood up and walked away!

It was not as easy. To rise and walk, the ill man had to believe that he could do it. Second, he had to act. These are the two ingredients to his healing; indeed, to solving personal problems. It is about what happens to us and how we react.

To start with, this shows that in this world, one needs to stand up to his challenges and 'walk', just like what that patient had to do. There is no shortcut. Friends and relatives are there but their help is not obvious. You are bound to be left alone at one time or another in life so that you stand 'up and walk' without anyone supporting you.

Such is life. When faced with problems, our response usually becomes the bigger problem. For example, one man a few years ago jumped into a river after throwing his seven-year-old daughter into the water, just because he had quarrelled with his wife!

Yes, the man had a problem; differences with his wife. But killing his daughter and suicide were bigger problems. Certainly, in life, we will face problems daily. What matters is walking as he walked; believing that each problem can be solved and acting.

Hopelessness when facing challenges should not be one's way of life. Rather belief that every problem has a solution and acting are what need to be embraced.

When we believe that each problem can be solved and act, that way we will be walking as Christ walked. For he did not fail to solve a single problem when he walked on this earth.

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Jesus Totally Purposeful

 

When one reads John 3:16, the Bible clarifies that God gave his beloved son to the world, so that we can believe in him and have eternal life. That was the purpose for His leaving the glory of Heaven; to severely suffer and die on this sinful planet.

This should be an indicator that there is nothing God does without a purpose. Unlike false prophets who work miracles to benefit nobody as wolves in sheep's skin, whatever Christ did still has a massive everlasting purpose.

No wonder when Herod demanded wonders from Jesus, Christ did not work any miracle because everything he did was purposeful. Nothing was done without adding value to His mission. His purpose was to bring salvation to the lost souls and not show off His glory and divinity anyhow.

Whatever step Christ made was absolutely purposeful towards accomplishing His mission in this sinful world; to have the masses believe in him and inherit eternity.

There was a definiteness of purpose. His mission was clear to Him from the creation of the universe. There was no doubt in His heart about what he was doing for the lost humanity.

The same applies to all of us. Each person living under the sun has a purpose for which he was born so that the individual can serve God's people purposefully. No one lacks passion for at least something. Everyone is overloaded with the potential to do something for the betterment of this planet. Everybody's task is to identify that gift and develop it for the betterment of humanity.

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The Prerequisite to God's Blessings

by Irvine Syazyombo

There are so many things that you have done  for various reasons. As you attempt to do what you do,you  mainly  expect success at the end of the day.

You have seen many people succeed in their endeavours in life. You have looked forward to God’s blessings in what you do for a living too.

God’s blessings do not just come by chance. You have a role to play. You have a step to take as a creature that came from His creative hands.

The Bible is clear on the kind of person God will bless in his or her efforts. The Holy scriptures put it plain on what is required to qualify for a blessing from the Almighty God.

“But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does”, says James 1:25.

This is the key to open endless blessings in whatever you do. It lies in being an effectual doer of what the law prescribes.

Mind you, when the Bible says ‘the law’, it  refers to the ten commandments as given to Moses. That does not exclude the forth commandment that demands the keeping of the Sabbath day holy.

No wonder Christ Himself kept the seventh day Sabbath(Luke 4;16).It is up to you whether to desecrate the law, including the Sabbath and lose your blessing, or follow it along with the promised blessings from heaven.To follow Christ's example,the fundamental of Christianity, means to walk as He walked,including keeping the Sabbath day holy as he did.