Month: January 2013

Morning Dew

Key Text: Matthew 21:22 – And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.

For the last one month, by God’s grace, I have written about the grace of God and the manifold manifestations of His marvellous grace. Today, I am prompted to simply, PRAY!

Dear Heavenly Father, You are so amazing. You are so wonderful. You are so good. You are so wise. Today I want to thank you for the wisdom of your grace. Father, I can see that you really thought about the perfect way to save men and you established it all by your self. You sent Your Son to the world and having lived for 33 years, He died on the cross for the sins of all men, and then after three days, He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Since then, You simply threw open your arms and with it the gates of heaven to all men. You called this whole process “grace”. Father, without your grace we would still be in our sins. Without your grace, we would be condemned. Without your grace, we would never make it to heaven. I thank you that you have not left us to our devices, but as a loving Father, you solved the problems of humanity and packaged it in a simple word called Grace.

Thank you My Daddy in heaven for you wonderful, indescribable, magnificent, extraordinary, all abounding, all sufficient, all-powerful, all encompassing, ostentatious, expensive, expansive, lavish, perfect grace. I ask you to please help me to be permanently baptised in the ocean of your grace. Let me be smitten by grace and may I never recover. Let me be so full of grace, that I become a dispenser of grace. Let me never think that I deserve anything from you, but let me always remember, that through your grace, I can ask you for anything. Let me be a sign of your grace. Let your grace be visible in my life.

I love you Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I love you so dearly and I am so grateful for your grace. Father, I affirm that I am what I am by your grace, and without your grace, I am nobody. I am unable to hold it together without your grace, so Father, please never withdraw your grace from me. Please Father, keep me till the very end by your grace. On that day as I enter those pearly gates and see the magnificence of our eternal home, let me hear clearly in my ears, GRACE! GRACE! Through Grace you made it!  In Jesus name. Amen.

Morning Dew

Key Passage: Mark 7:24-30

Key Text: Mark 7: 28 – “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs”

Everyday we are confronted with challenging situations. Sometimes they can be offensive and irritating, and how we speak in those situations, invariably determines how things will turn out. Speaking to people in authority requires skill and tact and quite honestly, one needs grace in such situations. If I can say, most times in dealing with people in authority, one needs not just grace but a dose of humility, to get past the offenses and get the request stated plainly and met.

Today’s story, (please read it) is about a gentile woman, whose daughter was demon possessed and she came to Jesus for help. Jesus threw her a conundrum that would have got lesser people really angry. Jesus said, using a figure of speech that it was not right to take the children’s bread and give it to dogs. Was Jesus abusing her? No. Was she a dog? No. But gentiles were classified as outside the covenant blessings of God in those days. She was not allowed to partake of Abraham’s blessings. But this woman had graceful lips. She knew how to answer.

Her answer is quite profound. She said, You are right Lord, but the dogs are permitted to eat of the crumbs that fall off the table. She got through to the point. I am not asking for the main things you are giving, just the little scraps will sort my problem out. This woman was wise and her heart was in the right place. She had grace.

Jesus was so impressed with her words, that He remarked “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” WOW!!!

Sometimes we just need this gift of grace that would give us that turn of phrase that would move things in our favour. I think this is just another manifestation of graceful lips.

Let us pray: Father God, please help me to realise that what I say is very important. Let me have grace filled lips, so I know how to speak to those in authority and influential positions. Give me wisdom and grace that would turn things in my favour. In Jesus name I pray.

Morning Dew

Key Passage: Psalm 45

Key Text: Ps 45:2 – grace is poured upon your lips

This is basically a sequel to an earlier blog on grace(full) lips. It is amazing to see how listening to a person, you can begin to discern who they truly are. Words coming out of a person, most times are formed deep in the heart and as such when people speak, they often exhibit what’s in their hearts. Jesus said in Luke 6:45 “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart^[a] brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

This is why a person with graceful lips, has had their heart kissed with grace. Let me explain this further. Only a person, who has been under the influence of grace, can release grace to others. Only people who have encountered grace, dispense grace. People who condemn and are unforgiving have no idea how much they have been forgiven. So they cannot be graceful in words or deeds.

But there is a deeper side to having graceful lips, and that is what really exercises my heart today. It is the fact that we can choose what to say in different situations, depending on our state of heart. So in the case of a bad report, we can choose to react with exclamations and fear and say things that actually empowers the situation to continue; or we can allow grace to wash over our hearts and as we open our mouths we speak a word that changes the course of that situation.

So many have bound themselves up by speaking negatively. They say things that are not consistent with God’s plan and purpose for them and wonder why their lives are in such a mess. Others, filled with graceful hearts, speak positively about themselves and their future and seem to have a dream life. This is not a simplistic spiritual principle, but a deep and profound one. The bible tells us Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:21.

Can I tell you that what you see in your life today, may be partly a fruit of something’s you had said in the past. So we need to be quite careful with our words and allow grace to fill our hearts, so we can speak words of grace in every situation.

So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. ²³ For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. ²⁴ Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

You can have what you say!! So please let grace in and your words will change and your life will change.

Let us pray: Father, I want you to help from this day on to be filled with grace so I can always speak words of grace. I ask for forgiveness for all my negative words and I choose today to speak with a grace-filled heart and mouth. Thank you Father, for I have prayed in Jesus name. Amen.

Morning Dew

Key Passage: Ephesians 1: 5-10

Key Word: Ephesians 1: 8 – “….it is the gift of God….”,

One of the greatest challenges of the rational human mind is the word free. People are quick to point out that nothing is free and that not only has someone paid for it, you who are the recipient of the ‘free gift’ are just not aware of the hidden agenda behind the free gift.

So people naturally struggle with anything free. The human mind wants to believe that there is something we need to do to enjoy the free riches of God’s grace. We believe we have to qualify in some special way for this grace. We have to earn it somehow. But the truth is you can never earn God’s grace. There is no doubt that grace costs. But God through Christ bore the full price of the free grace and He does not expect us to pay a dime for it. We are just to receive it and enjoy it.

Think about it, and please think deeply about this. The air we breathe in everyday. Do we pay for it? Do we work to earn it? Do we qualify to breathe? The answer is self-evident. No one pays to breathe. Yet do we even know how the air gets supplied? Yet air or in our case oxygen, is most vital for life. We cannot last more than 5 minute without it. We take as much as we want and it never seems to run out. This is exactly how the grace of God functions.

It is like the air we breathe. It is always there and it never runs out. It is very vital for life and we cannot do without it. It comes from the God who made the Oxygen we breathe in every second. In an uncanny way, God provided air for breath and grace for life.

So today, I want to encourage you to inhale deeply and get your lungs full of oxygen, and then breathe in again, but this time breath-in the grace of God. Open your heart to receive grace and know that you really do not need to pay for it. Just receive it and live in it. It is a most liberating experience to receive God’s grace of forgiveness, mercy, redemption, justification, and glorification.

Just breathe today. Grace abounds.

Let us Pray: Father, Thank you for the free provision of your grace. Thank you that just like you gave us air to breathe, you also have given us grace to live. Help me to always take as much grace as I need for my daily living. In Jesus name I pray. Amen

The Grace to ASK!!!.

Morning Dew

Key Passage: Matthew 7:7-11

Key text: Matthew 7:7 – Ask, and it will be given to you;

One of the most profound discoveries of life is that there is ‘someone who knows’. No matter how complex the situation is or how deep the conundrum is, there is someone who can unravel it. So one must of necessity walk through life in the humility that we don’t know everything. Also, on the same vein, what we do not have someone else has. This is also quite profound. We cannot know everything and we cannot own everything. But there is someone who knows everything and owns everything.

This is why we must develop the grace of asking. God our Father and creator, created man to be both interdependent and dependent. Interdependent on each other, (no man is an island) and dependent on God. Only a fool will say in His heart there is no God. So we must learn to ask others for help in our areas of deficiency, when it is obvious they have that knowledge or skill we lack. But even more importantly, we must learn the act of asking God to help us with our lacks and deficiencies.

God loves the “askers’. Those who have learnt to take Him at His word. There are so many promises in the bible about Asking. I will proceed to quote a few:

Jeremiah 33:3 – Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

1 John 5: 14-15 –And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

Ps 2:8 – Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.

John 14:14 – If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

James 1:5 – If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

Matthew 21:22 – And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.

Some people make the mistake of thinking that there is request is too mundane for a very busy God, who is dealing with much more significant issues in this world, like wars, flooding, famine, corrupt leaders etc. They reckon God can’t have time for their puny little requests, so they never ask and as such forfeit the opportunity to be surprised by God.

Let Us Pray: Father thank you that you have given us the invitation to come and ask you. Please let me not dishonour this invitation, by not coming to ask. I ask you for the grace to always know that you know and that you have what I lack and the simple wisdom to come and ask you. Thank you Lord. In Jesus name I have prayed.

Morning Dew

Key Passage: Ephesians 1: 3-14

Key Text: Ephesians 1:7 –In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

During the rainy season in Africa, the clouds can get really dark and the rains really heavy, especially around the equator. But it is always so calming to see the beautiful rainbow form in the skies just as the rains begin to subside.  As a child I did not know the significance of the rainbow, but it made me happy to see it and I always wondered where the rainbow ended, as I had heard that there are great riches at the end of the rainbow. (There is a popular fable that says there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow).

Today the rainbow means something completely different to me. It reminds me of God’s promises to Noah that he would never again destroy the earth with water and that every dark foreboding cloud has a limit to its effect. The rainbow is so beautiful, so rich, and so perfect; you really have to acknowledge that God is a master craftsman. But the rainbow is only a natural phenomenon, expressing the incredible mercy and grace of God.

Have you ever wondered the world without colours? Everything in black and white and shades of grey? I can’t even visualise that. It would be rather ugly. God is the God of rich colours.

The grace of God is rich and colourful. The grace of God made Him choose us before the foundations of the world, to be holy and blameless before Him in love. His grace made Him adopt us as sons in Christ Jesus. His grace made Him accept us in the Beloved. His grace gave us redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. His grace made Him grant us the forgiveness of our sins.

Not only these, but His grace made Him bring us back from the dead, because we were dead in our trespasses, raised us up and seated us with Christ in the heavenly places. In the future, as we reign with Him, we would be displayed to all as the objects of the riches of His grace and kindness.

Much like the rainbow, the grace of God gives us hope of a brighter day, a better tomorrow and a glorious future. WOW!

Finally, when we get to heaven, we would see something quite amazing. The rainbow is all around the throne of God. The rainbow comes out of a God of colour and beauty. A God of grace and mercy. The rainbow really does have something exceedingly valuable at the end of it, not a pot of Gold, but a throne of grace and mercy. Have a grace-filled colourful day!!!

Let us Pray: Father thank you for your grace. What an amazing God you are. Thank you for the rainbow that it speaks of the riches of your grace and mercy. I thank you for making your throne a throne of grace and mercy. Father, help me to live a life full of the colours of your grace. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Morning Dew

Key Passage: Romans 6: 1-23.

Key text: Romans 6:1 – What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

I often hear parents complain that their children are ‘spoilt’ because they seem to have indulged them too much. They compare their generation with that of their children. They say things like ‘in our day we never had these luxuries’. We walked to school. We did a lot of house chores. There were no vacuum cleaners, no electric irons, no colour TVs and certainly no satellite or cable TV. We were severely punished for our errors and even the neighbours smacked us if we were naughty. They conclude by saying that their children are fortunate.

This analogy is quite similar to the dispensation of grace that we live in now. I bet the generation of the Old Testament looking at us will feel the same way. That perhaps we are actually spoilt kids and don’t really appreciate God and the marvellous provisions of His grace. Perhaps they are right. I did not get to come to the world when the law of God was the rule. I am born in the time when grace and truth has come through Christ Jesus.

But the truth of the matter is that the grace of God does not spoil a person, rather it makes a person better. There is no space for a person’s action in saving grace. It is God’s work from start to finish. Can a dead man raise himself from the dead? So how can a sinner save himself? God and only God through His grace saves man. Therefore the thought that message of grace could be misinterpreted that it is okay to sin, though plausible, is yet quite uninformed. Because if one truly understands the transforming and redeeming power and work of grace, then there is no place for sin in a person transformed by God’s grace.

Consequently grace cannot make you want to sin more, the converse is actually the truth. Grace makes you a saint. You not only hate and abhor sin, you have the empowerment to shun sin. In saving us by His grace, God did more than rescue us from sin, He did more than cleanse us from sin, He changed us from sinners to saints.

This is Paul’s answer to the question: “By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Martyn Llyod Jones, an English preacher renowned for his teachings on grace made this comment “ … I would say to all preachers: If your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you really are preaching the salvation that is offered in the New Testament to the ungodly, to the sinner, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, to those who are enemies of God. There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation … ‘

Grace is not a licence to sin, but a permission to live right. So grace does not spoil it makes.

Let us Pray: Father thank you for your marvellous grace. Thank you that in your grace, I have been set free from the love of sinning and I have been recreated with the nature of Jesus Christ, who is sinless. In my new nature, I abhor and hate sin and love righteousness. Thank you for the power of your grace. In Jesus name. Amen.

Morning Dew

Key Passage: Isaiah 53: 1-12

Key Word: Is 53:5 – But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.