God Has a Plan for You

Jeremiah 29:11. I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for.

Are you at a point where it seems your road is blocked and you really need to break through? Are feeling that all hope is gone and there is nothing you can do to change your predicament? There is hope for you. The situation you find yourself in today is not final. It is the beginning of the plan that God has for you.

The future is not as bleak as you will imagine it. There are many people who at once thought it was over for them, but the intervention of God made them realize that life is not just about feelings.

Joseph in the dungeon in Egypt thought that was his end. The dreams he had about being a king, to him, could no longer come to pass since he is now a condemned slave in a foreign land. But the hand of God lifted him from there and the unbelievable happened: a slave became a king in a foreign land.

At the crossing of the red sea, the down to earth practical Israelites knew that they were going to die, because the devil in form of Pharaohs army is after them and the Red Sea (not even a blue one) was before them. They saw no future for themselves. Even Moses was about to give up. His cry to God was out of desperation rather than faith. Yet the hand of God intervened and there was a future for them.

In the same way, your future is still assured even though you don’t know how. You don’t need to know how it will happen; you only need to wait to see it happen. Your horizon is limited by a lot of things, but God’s horizon is broader. When you come to the end of the road, don’t give up. There is song that says:

“You may not know how,
You may not know when
He will do it again”

He has a plan for you. It is a good plan. God would not take his time to create you just for fun. Don’t take yourself for fun.

God Knows You

Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I consecrated you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.

Before we came into the world, God had made a plan as to how we should live and the purpose we should fulfill. We are therefore born into the world with a purpose a job to do. There is no way we can really succeed in the world if we don’t get to know this purpose for our lives.

There is no one who is an accident in the creation of God. What this means is that God does not make a mistake by creating anybody into the world. Every one of us deserves to exist in the world and to impart the world.

However, people can make a mistake by assuming that they don’t have a place in the world, and that is a great mistake. No matter how useless you feel today, you still have a place and a role to perform. It is only God who can decide whether your purpose in the world is over or not. People may look at you and write you off; but so long as life is still in you, God has not written you off.

Most of the times, we fulfill the purpose of God in very little insignificant ways. But it is those insignificant actions that keep the world alive. Human life is a total dependence on one another. The absence of one person makes the world uncomfortable for all. That is why you are needed, no matter where you are, and what you do.

You should therefore get out there in full confidence to play your part, no matter how small that part is. You are needed in the world until God decides.

KEEP ON LIVING.

You Are What You Think

Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God.

The mind is the source of all that we do. There is nothing that we do that was not first conceived in our minds. Even the most impromptu actions we undertake are only after a very fast process of conception. That is why those who wish to control people try to take control of the minds of people. Once the mind is under control the body is fully under control.

You must strive hard to be in control of your thoughts and you will be in control of your life. A quote from Proverbs 23:7 says “for as he thinks in his heart, so is he”. The way you think makes you what you are. A person’s life is the product of his thoughts.

When you spend all your day thinking about what will make you good, you will surely become good. If you spend your whole life thinking about how bad you are or will be, you end up being bad. Our thoughts have tremendous power. If you think always about how difficult it will be to succeed in any project, you fail to find the many reasons that make success possible in that project.

If this is so, then the best thing each person should do is to think only about what is good, what is positive and what is progressive. If you want to make a change in your life, then begin to think the change. That is what it means by being transformed by the renewing of the mind.

If you succeed in changing your way of thinking, your life will change in response. So what are you thinking about now?

THINK SUCCESS, SEE SUCCESS

You Are Wonderfully Made

Psalm 139:14 I will praise You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are marvelous and my soul knows it very well.

Every one of us is special. There is no one who should be written off just because of the circumstance in which they find themselves. God has created each and everyone for a purpose. For that reason he takes his time to create a unique person, not just a copy of another person. God does not keep molds when it comes to making human beings. Like a perfect artist, he takes time to craft each person in very unique ways so that each individual is different.

There are a lot of things in you that show that you are precious to Him. When you contemplate a little on the verse for today, you will agree with the Psalmist that you are wonderfully and fearfully made.

The whole human body and how it works is a big mystery. There are no Doctors who will fully comprehend the things surrounding the human body. If there is any complex mechanism in the world, then the human body is the first. And you are part of that wonder of God.

Take a little time and consider how your body has grown over the years. Look back to when you were just a child and lacking knowledge and wisdom in many things. Compare it to what you are toady and you will see the wonders of God in you. You are a wonderful creation and you must accept that and treat yourself as such.

That is why you need to respect yourself. There is no one like you, and there will never again be another you in the world. You must let this show in your actions and relations. You are highly esteemed before God. If God could take his time to create such a unique person like you, then you must also treat yourself well in reverence to God, as a way of gratitude to him. Destroying yourself in any manner – physically, emotionally or spiritually is the greatest ingratitude to God.

Before you do anything to yourself, remember this little fact: YOU ARE FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE.

You are blessed.

You are the image of God

Gen 1:26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth.

This is one the wonderful things you get to know when start reading the Bible. Man is in the image of God. Man in this sense is gender neutral. You have been our very nature is a reflection of how God. We must however be careful not to take it the other way round by assuming that God is the reflection of man. The image cannot take precedence of the real object. The image is but a small drawing or representation of the real. God is the real and man is the image.

Being the image of God should not only be a matter of form, but it should reflect in our actions and behaviour. We know generally that God is good. This means that his image must be good. If you see a photo of a beautiful person, the photo is beautiful because the person is beautiful. If the image is not beautiful, then it will be rejected by the owner.

Being the image of God also mean that you should not be mishandled by anyone; not even yourself. You deserve to be treated well; you must give the necessary care to yourself. Don’t allow anyone to look down or you, no other human being is superior to you. All human beings are created the same.

No matter your circumstances, you still deserve dignity and you must work hard to preserve that. God whose image you are is a dignified being; and so is his image.

STAY BLESSED

Love Yourself

Mark 12:31. And the second is like this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

I have chosen to talk about this topic because this week the word love will be receiving a lot of attention. The 14th of February is celebrated as the day of showing love to one another. There has been, and there will continue to be a lot of controversy as to how this day should be celebrated, and whether it should even be celebrated at all. But there is one thing that I want you to consider as you go through the day and the week that follows; and that is “Are you loving yourself enough”

We have been told time and time again that we should love our neighbours and most often those who give this admonishment forget to add the second important part of the saying “as yourself.” In trying to love others, the standard we must follow is the standard we must apply is ourselves. Those who love themselves well will be quick in knowing what is good for them and so transfer the kind of love they give themselves to others.

Loving yourself does not necessarily mean being selfish. It only means giving yourself the best treatment that you can give to anybody. It will be very difficult for any human being to give more than he/she has. By giving more love to yourself will mean that you will have more love to be given to those who need it.

If you love yourself, you will not do anything that leads to your own destruction. Then you will not do what will destroy your neighbour. That is because, by destroying your neighbour, you destroy yourself.

We fail to love others because we don’t love ourselves. The time has come to start fixing the standard of love in the world. That is by showing more love to yourself.

Let Go

Heb 12:1 Therefore since we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us

As we journey through life, we pass through many situations and challenges. These surely leave various impressions on us. We form habits, some good some bad. There are certain habits that we know are bad and we must just let go. But because they are habits, we find it difficult to let go. There is nothing best for us but just to let go. Letting go will free us and give us the opportunity to move ahead without any sense of guilt coming from self examination.

There are other things that, though they are not bad in themselves, prevent us from forging ahead in order to achieve our goals. That is where the difficulty comes. But, in order to move ahead, we must let go.

The passage chosen for today’s message talks about weights that draw us back. Those who desire to move ahead must by necessity throw away the weight they carry. When you watch athletes in an Olympic race, especially women, you realize that they throw away all the heavy jackets they wear just before the race starts. This they do to give them extra advantage to run as fast as they can. You cannot imagine any athlete running in suits today.

That is what your life is about. There are certain things in your life today; there are certain people you are holding to, there are several things that you consider good for you; but those are the very things, the very people that draw you back or slow you down. For the sake of progress, tell yourself when you realize: “It is time to let go”.
Take time and search for such unnecessary baggage and LET THEM GO.