#‪#‎GRABYOURBIBLE‬-05/31/16
READ Luke 15:4-7
(“And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing” Vr. 5)
The Words of Jesus (written in red ink in mostly the King James Version translations) are the most powerful and assuring of all Words and Revelations in His Word.
From the scripture above we are told by Jesus himself of the ordeal gone through by the shepherd to find the lost sheep. When we fall from the faith there is a multiplicity of Grace to bring us back to Christ, because in such cases we need special attention from God, and He does give such attention to us. It is that increased indescribable Grace of God that causes the shepherd to leave all ninety nine sheep just for the lost one. And when the sheep is found, He does not lead it by His voice literally, but carries it on His shoulder. When His voice becomes louder, clearer, and softer (For no man in settling a dispute with his child scolds, but rather speaks in calmness). He makes an extra effort to keep the sheep from going astray.
This scenario baffled my mind and for a moment shattered my theologies. I have come to learn and wish you to understand that, WHEN I, YOU, WE HAPPEN TO FALL FROM THE FAITH, GOD, EXHIBITS SOME SPECIAL ATTENTION FOR OUR RECOVERY. There is an extra effort to bring us back to the faith, an extra attention, a fine tuning of God’s beam light focus on us, overlooking the other very strong believers and just following our trace to find us. Isn’t that reassuring my dear? .
I for one was once in that shoe, I was lost, I was blind, I was in obscurity, I was on my way to perdition. However, that Great Grace found me, now I am found, can see, I’m enlightened and I am on my way to see my Heavenly Father. And because he has done this for us, we also must grant other backslidden sheep (Christians) special attention. “The strong should care for the weak until the weak become strong” (Rev. Dr. Robert Ampiah-Kwofie).
We need to know that “not everybody doing something wrong is wicked or careless. There are people who do wrong and go wrong not because they are evil but because the devil is pressing a peculiar pressure on such people. ” (Rev. Dr. Robert Ampiah-Kwofie). But rather let us bare one another in the faith. Let us support each other. God doesn’t conclude on people, He believes, that with new information your mind can change. The Word of God can change anybody. The Word of God will make you into the image of Christ. So instead of judging people who fall in the faith, rather apply the extra peculiar pressure of care, of love, of the word in softness and when necessary in hardness. Because when their minds are renewed, they shall make good things happen.
Remain blessed church.
#‪#‎CONTEMPORARY‬.CHRISTIANITY©
O.Charles

Whatever God wants to do in our lives, He has
attached other people to survive on that
assignment. A good leader and christian does go
not alone. Moses wasn't fighting for anything
but for the people. He understood the value of
the people around him. At times we feel we can
just make it on our own. The people around us
are divine links. Relationship is of great
importance to our fulfilment in life.
One person in our lives does not have all the
answers to what God wants us to become. God
gives us relationship to give us different answers
at different times. For the different answers at
different places to take place, we need different
people.
Whatever we do not have, God has hidden it in
someone who is just next to you. We almost
always don't have everything we ever need. They
are hidden in someone close to us.
I value relationship so much. But it is just
unfortunate that most people we relate to
misunderstand us and our motives.
Maybe you are having a bad, difficult,
challenging and hard time with your relationship
with family, a friend or a loved one. Just hold
on. Don't give up. It must work, God wants it to
work.
Never mind if you are despised or ridiculed.
Just hold on for love sake.
One day, you will be victorious.
To all brethren in Christ.....
- O. Charles

IS IT WRONG FOR CHRISTIAN YOUTH TO ENGAGEIN KISSING IN RELATIONSHIP?Before we answer this question we have to define ‘‘kiss’’Now according to CAMBRIDGE ADVANCE LEARNERS DICTIONARY to kiss means to touch with your lips, especially as a greeting, or to press your mouth onto another person's mouth in a sexual way.Now our argument is on ‘mouth to mouth kiss’ by unmarried partners. Everyone has his or her opinion on kiss. And many people have food of thoughts and excuses to defend what they do and why they do it. But we must understand as Born Again Believers that we are New Creatures (2 Corinth. 5:17). That means we are have a standard to check everything we do as believers, which is God’s Word. The Bible is never silent on any detail of life; don’t be deceived, it gives an answer to every issue of life. But it is hidden, it is a hidden treasure that must be found (Matt13:44). If you haven’t found an answer from the Word regarding your challenge, don’t say the bible is silent on it. Christianity is a spiritual journey, we can only see answers when we walk in the light of the Spirit and weigh everything on the scale of the Spirit-God’s Word (Rom. 8:14) I don’t think the Bible will encourage us to follow God’s Word fully nor will it endorse God’s Word as ‘…profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ NKJV 2 Tim. 3:16-17 if the word never had all answers to our issues of life. Then Prov 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. NIV would be untrue. GOD’S WORD HAS ALL ANSWERS TO OUR PROBLEMS.Back to kissing, I am of the view that kissing (mouth to mouth kiss) amongst unmarried partners is ENTIRELY WRONG. (1Thess 4:3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: KJV, It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; NIV) What is fornication? It is simply sexual sin or sexual immorality (Morally wrong or evil).And Jesus in his most incredible sermons in Matt 5:27 gave a good lesson to believers on Sexual sin, which are 1. Fornication- all sexually related promiscuity and sin both by married or unmarried partners 2. Adultery-sexually related sin by individual married people.Matt. 5:27 "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to LUST FOR HER has ALREADY committed adultery with her in his heart. NKJV. In this scripture we realise that Jesus gave a higher standard of purity. He instituted a purity that went beyond physical and outward purity to inward purity (such as the circumcision of the heart). It becomes a bit difficult to address this issue if we look solely at sex as just the ‘penetration’. Sex is the consummation of love by married people; it is a whole process of expressing deep intimacy by the use of the body. This entails kissing, smooching, touching, caressing and more. If we calm that sex is just the ‘penetration’ hence, approve kissing then we should as well approve caressing and the rest.But not so, because all these acts will be immoral and sinful if practiced by unmarried partners. Jesus clearly states that the very act of sex starts in the mind. Before any act of immorality there is lust which takes place in the heart, mind, and conscience. Jesus said that the desire to engage in sex with a person other than your spouse is mental adultery/fornication and thus immoral and sinful. He emphasized that if the act is wrong, then so is the intention. To be faithful with your partner with your body but not your mind is to break the trust so vital to a strong marriage. Jesus is condemning not natural interest in the opposite sex nor even healthy sexual desire but the deliberate and repeated filling of one’s mind with fantasies that will be evil if acted out. Sexual immorality is a whole evil institution on its own with several subsets such as have been mentioned earlier including kissing. And the Bible frowns on it in 1 Thess. 4:3.There are arguments that the lust for sex comes in the act of kissing and thus kissing is permissible so long as it doesn’t lead to sex. But we must be careful my brethren, because we are living in a generation where people will only follow opinions and ideas that will buttress their weakness, excuse their wrong doings and satisfy their itching ears (2 Tim 4:3-4 For the time is coming when [people] will not tolerate (endure) sound and wholesome instruction, but, having ears itching [for something pleasing and gratifying], they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold, And will turn aside from hearing the truth and wander off into myths and man-made fictions. AMP). The standard for us as believers is the Word of God and nothing else.Before every act of sin is lust (James 1:14-15 But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desire (lust, passions). Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death. AMP.) And this goes on in the mind. Jesus moved the focus from the action to the intention, motive, and thought. WE DON’T KISS BEFORE WE LUST BUT WE LUST BEFORE WE KISS. If your partner is the one demanding for a kiss then he/she is already defeated in the battle over lust going on in her mind, and that calls for carefulness for you the victim. Let no one deceive you that you can kiss and not lust, of course you can kiss and not have sex, but you cannot kiss and not lust nor remain pure as a Christian, which is still sexually immoral.However, I understand the struggles of our youths, there are a few Christian youths who are in relationships and yet are struggling with lust. They do not want to lust but they find themselves occasionally doing so. (Gal 5:16-18 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. NKJV). The Scripture above explains the struggle in our mind to please God and overcome lust. If there is a contention to please God and not to please God, we then ask the question, how do I overcome this battle and please God? It is simple-Walk in the Spirit. The mind is like a window. When we look through the window we see a lot of stuffs but our attention is focused on what we set and stay our eyes onto. When we expose our windows to light our room is full of light but when we expose our window to darkness our room is full of darkness. God’s word is the light, in the course of decision making alongside the constant battle in our mind we need to make room for light. The devil is ready to place suggestionsbefore us to twist the will and word of God as he did to Eve, (Gen 3:1"Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" NKJV). We are now to choose what to focus on and pay attention to. It is either the tricks of the Devil or the sure word of God. Thus, if we want to make room for God’s word, we need to go as David did. (Ps 119:11Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You. NKJV). Read, Study, meditate, practice, and teach God’s Word. In doing so, you give the word of God priority in your heart and gradually sin and evil leaves your mind. Amen.I will end by saying that God expects purity from us and purity goes beyond sex. It encompasses complete wholesomeness and uprightness before God. And we can’t do so when we don’t stay away from evil. (1 Thess 5:22 Abstain from evil [shrink from it and keep aloof from it] in whatever form or whatever kind it may be. AMP, evil. 1 Peter 2:11-12 Beloved, I implore you as aliens and strangers and exiles [in this world] to abstain from the sensual urges (the evil desires, the passions of the flesh, your lower nature) that wage war against the soul. Conduct yourselves properly (honorably, righteously) among the Gentiles, so that, although they may slander you as evildoers, [yet] they may by witnessing your good deeds [come to] glorify God in the day of inspection [when God shall look upon you wanderers as a pastor or shepherd looks over his flock]. AMP)I SAY IT ONCE MORE, KISSING BY PARTNERS OUTSIDE MARRIAGE IS IMMORALITY AND ALL IMMORALITY IS SIN.3(O.Charles)

what a message!!! Bless you sir.

Anything you don't love you don't have patience for. And most times the things we don't love are the things that fight us. Because there is always an unseen battle of hatred within us. Let us love my brethren. Let us love...in the midst of love offenses are powerless. When we are offended we achieve less because we don't give out our best. When we are offended we are unhappy, we refuse to impact. But I think that amongst the greatest achievements in life lies positive impact. I pray we shall be ready to impact our generation no matter the cost. Bless you church (O. Charles)

SACRIFICE....
Every sacrifice has a reward. But certain sacrifices receive instant reward. When such sacrifices hit the altar, the altar must respond to prove that it has power. In l kings 3:4-15, when Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings without a request, that same night while asleep God answered by reason of the sacrifice. Imagine the animals, blood, time and human resource required..Solomon was a wild man, he meant business. God in heaven upon receiving the sacrifice without a request attached considered it an error. Hehehe, goodness. God said (paraphrased) " Solo, your gesture of worship is incomplete, this level of sacrifice requires a request attached." Eiiiiiih. What a shock!!! So even when Solomon requested, God still said" it is not enough son, l will complement the error." May that be your story today!! Amen. The altar needed to respond to show its power, for God is able to do more than you can ask or think. Hence, the need that the altar responds with a miracle though there was no request attached. May God, Jehovah, the I am...respond to our sacrifices this year. As u give, pray, and follow his will, amen. Bless u church. (O. Charles)

@ikerene, your point isn't wrong about genuity in the human sense. But we a saved people. People bought by the blood of Jesus. We are genuine because our righteousness is of God through the death penalty of Jesus. Henceforth we know no one after the flesh. If we say we are not genuine after encountering Jesus and his saving grace then our faith Is not worth it . l believe that there are genuine people. Genuine people not because of their life but because of their love and submission to God.

I believe there are. The proof of genuinity is when there is an evident visible contrast of the very good thing we are looking for. If there are uncommitted Christians that means there shall also be committed ones.

Thank you very much dear..... I prayer to have a better time this time than before. to

It is easy to fall into something we call a routine when you start and continue with something for a long while. When our act becomes a routine it loses its power and influence. It becomes so because the faith factor becomes lost.
Hence the need to recall from whence you started and stir up once again the passion. Good things tend to sink to the bottom. It must be stirred to be recovered. I pray for you and myself that we shall stir up all virtuous efforts and values again.
There are so many good things at the bottom side. We therefore must be annoyed with ourselves in order to stir it up to the surface.

You are right dear
...but u arent going through loneliness because God is there for you. u r just feeling alone.

Thee major difference between achieving people and average people is their perception of and response to failure '' John C. Maxuel ''

How can we possibly be strong if we have an easy life?

Every storm and calamity carries an expiry date. Our storms will not last forever but we will.
Never neglect that within every adversity in life, there is always a seed of an equivalent or greater benefit. We have to look for it and find it.
I have come to discover that in every man there is a kid and in every kid a man. What we suffers reflects our 'kid' and 'man' nature............
There is need to be joyous in tribulation because ''God knows you are a kid.....''

Your creator is aware of your capacity to cope with the pressure of life hence His foreordained boundaries and limitations on all storms. Just as He did in the case of Job, there is an invisible line that the enemy or storms cannot cross....

Remain Blessed...........................

O. Charles.

What you make happen for others God will make happen for you. That is why we must not make evil out of people's offense to us. We have a mandate from God to love one another. So even when we are hurt by others we must make it happen for their good, for God will do the same for us as we do for others. Many times l have suffered pain as a result of the pain l have caused others. So be careful what you say, wish, intend, desire for others. Our motives are very important to God. We can love when hated

Just in need of friends to share cultural diversities and have fun........

It is actually God's will that we find ourselves with the right partner. And l know that God is still in the business of working out for the best for His children when it comes to marriage. One time l told a friend pastor about my intention to start a relationship, and he said, '' how many books have you read on relationship, and on what basis do you intend to start a relationship''? Those where hard questions for me. He advised me to read about 7 or more books on relationships and godly dating before l ever take a step. Somehow, l have come to realise that the issue about the right time is rather about how prepared we are. Relationship is for people who are matured. Most of the time we go in search of the right partner, but you know the truth is that we need not take the trouble to search for a Good or Perfect partner when we invest time in making ourselves potential partners. WHEN WE INVEST IN OUR LIVES TO BE GOOD PARTNERS WE AUTOMATICALLY ATTRACT THE RIGHT PERSON. So as you keep on waiting for the special one, pray the more, read the more and search for qualities and virtues and l know that these coupled with the leadings of the HOLY SPIRIT will lead you to that special person.

I totally agree with you

Thanks for the comment..........
Remain Bless

If all we want in life is to live for ourselves then we are of all men the most miserable. Many great people have come and are gone. They attracted the name ''great'' because they affected lives and made global impact. But we live in a generation where almost everyone wants something for just himself/herself.
A husband wants a good wife for himself, a wife wants a good husband for himself, an employee wants a good job for himself/herself and many more.......it is just complicated.
There is no more love in the system, sadly enough; the few who are ready to impact are discouraged at the verge of success. Where is the love of God, we almost always go to church and tag our room doors and vehicles with stickers that quote...''I SHALL NOT DIE BUT LIVE AND DECLARE THE WORKS OF GOD'' But then, where have we declared it?
God has been faithful to give us live but have we been faithful to live it for Him?
How may souls do we win a day? How many times do we say '' don't worry l will help you out''? How many times do we say ''l am sorry for what l did? l was wrong'', How many tears have we wiped? How many smiles have we made? We are too quick to say...''I will show him l am smarter'' But Jesus said the other day, '' If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them....'' John17:13. We know it but we ignore it.
The Movie industry is corrupt, contemporary music is infectious. Our world is morally decaying, who can change this world?
IT IS US, THOSE BOUGHT BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS, IT IS US, THE CHOSEN OF GOD. WE ARE THE WATCHMEN SET ON THE WALLS OF OUR NATIONS AND THE WORLD FOR TRANSFORMATION. The attacks are bound to come but we have what it takes to hold them back. We can restart our God given assignment by starting with ourselves.
There is an emergency call for reformation and it must start now. To my fellow believers in Christ.........

Jesus was dying for our sins; men were gambling for His clothes. Do not gamble with the cross. The tragedy in life is not just what men suffer, but also what men miss! All of us are selling our lives for something. Men gambled while God was saving them! Men were more interested in the worth of a robe than the life of a man. Things where more important than people. Are we any different? Are we any better? We know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Jesus went back to heaven; what happened to that robe? What if Jesus had saved Himself? This would have doomed man. Jesus could not save both Himself and us.

we all wish 4 many things in life. when talking with one another we wish for a lot of things ..but its sad we don't find them happening...but l have discovered that when we spend more time talking with God we wouldn't have to wish the second time..all things are possible with God. just pray...