All Languages

Wednesday 27 April 2011

You Can Have It

"Your pace is legal. Some run, some walk, some crawl. Reward in life is for those that endure and finish."


I came across this tweet by a friend I follow and it really made sense to my everyday living. Many have been caught in the instantomatic idea of our time and do assume all things should be the same. The difficulty for most I come across has been the ability to accept they are unique and with that comes a different calling or purpose in life.If care is not taken, the tendency to measure yourself with the successes of others will leave you lame and unable.


The pressure of life increases with every passing minute. The greatest coolant you have will be the knowledge that your pace is legal. Its been mandated by God who created you and truly blessed you with everything you have.The steps of the righteous individual is ordered by God. Every place, situation, circumstance you will face in life is well planned by Him. To rise to the challenge of being you demands a deeper introspective search and also a recognition of talents, skills and abilities. I have always postulated whenever someone controls your money, knowledge and relationship, they will control your life.


Some run, some walk, some crawl but the reward of success in this life is for those that endure and finish well the race of life. Life is a race but learn to stay in your tracks and develop yourself. Never measure your future with that of any one living. At best learn from them... at most be yourself.God respects those who respect His ability to create a unique person like yourself. One walk at a time, one run at a time, one swim at a time and you will surely get to the place of your intended purpose. At the end of the day, society, friends and even your conscience won't be interested in what others did but what you did with your uniqueness. 

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Divine Strategy: Pursue, Overtake, And Recover!


“And David enquired at the Lord saying, shall I pursue after this troop, shall I overtake them and shall I recover all (emphasis added)? And he answered him Pursue, for thou shall surely overtake them and without failure recover all.”
                                                                               1 Samuel 30:8

The preparation of the heart belongs onto men but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. A man’s ways are pleasing to him but it is the Lord who weighs the Spirit. Alas the entirety of the ways of man and his desires are summed up by this powerful saying in Proverb 16:1. There is a divine strategy to help you become the total person you desired to be. Free from all the negatives of this wicked and painful world. There are only a few great ones who impact our world. This I believe is due to their adherence to the divine strategy of God for their lives.
Walking according to the divine strategy of God will mean to go through God’s education to attain the fullness of God for your life. It is costly yet if you are able to pay the price, victory for yourself and your generation is what is assured. The painstaking question will be whether if you arise to the challenge. God is prepared to give the tools you need in order to pay the price. We make decisions and live by them. Any decision you take, will be costly good or bad. To take a risk is a risk and not to is also a risk. And you can do so when you are convinced of the prize of higher calling. If you want the cake, then learn how to mix the flour, eggs, sugar, and butter and finally how to regulate oven.  
Jesus himself understood the purpose of having a divine strategy in place. He could not contend with God in the garden of Gethsemane about the cup of death. Several times he complained yet ended by giving into the divine strategy of God for his life. David understood divine strategy that is why he prayed in 1 Samuel30 with the exact words pursue, overtake and recover it all knowing that what you ask for, is what you will get. When you understand 1 Samuel 30 very well, to comprehend the value of being created for God onto the best of His doings is exhilarating. You will then muster patience to wait for Him to finish His good work in your life. There are three levels of the divine strategy which every believer should be familiar with- preservation, preparation and production.

Preservation
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp around me, my heart shall not fear: though war should arise against me, in this shall I be confident. One thing I have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple.
                                                                                                    Psalm 27:1-4
Preservation is the period where God shields you from the overtness of your gift or calling. He does this to prevent early death of the purpose He has chosen you for. Many at times we do run with the prophecy without understanding the directives.  Due to this immaturity, many easily lose the gift as they are deceived by the enemy. When David boasted of the Lord being his shepherd, he was also taken through the valley of the shadow of death to be trained. The end result was that his head was anointed with oil and his cup run over for goodness and mercy to follow him. There he was alone in the Desert separated from his family because of a few sheep yet it was in keeping the “few” sheep that the Lord taught him administration, worship and warfare whilst preserving him. These skills were invaluable later on for the career God had destined him for.
As a little boy, God took upon Himself to preserve Jesus from harm’s way. He commanded them to take Jesus to Egypt until the set time when the adversary has been dealt with. Herod wanted the baby dead because He was going to be king of the Jews. At twelve years He challenged the teachers of the law which was a premature launching of His ministry. Again God used His parents to save him until He was ready to launch him out.
Allow God to preserve you and do not try and spread yourself everywhere. It is the silent yet the most beneficial period in a person’s life. On a personal basis, the preservation period I am experiencing has afforded me the privilege of ministering to my talents, skills, abilities and other areas of studies. I am quite careful not to waste so much time with the dogs and swine of this life. God’s preservation is the best times for anyone who believes in achieving their destiny. The whole purpose of preservation is to create the value of having confidence in the Lord alone in order not to be afraid of what is waiting for you outside.

Preparation
I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined onto me, and heard my cry. He bought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my going. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise onto our God; many shall see it, and fear and shall trust in the Lord.
                                                                                                                Psalm 40:1-3
Preparation! Not the best of the periods for any believer if we will be honest. It is one of the most excruciating moments of a person’s life especially when the question of peer pressure and threat of living with failure comes to mind. Can you imagine Jesus had to remain silent for eighteen years before his ministry? The bible records that He went home with his parents and was obedient onto them. He learnt humility by the things he endured.
David when had slain Goliath and every saw a “king” in him had to run because it wasn’t his time. Interestingly, those were the times God used to bring the best out of him and gather ordinary men onto him. He could have killed Saul when he encountered the sleeping King in the cave but David knew what meant to wait and be prepared. He spared Saul because of the waiting spirit he had developed.
The anointing upon anyone is like the raw material. The factory of life and its encumbrances coupled with the word of God will be used to manufacture the best out of you. Character and attitude are the two most important components needed for the fulfilment of any vision an individual possesses. Until you begin to see as God wants you to, there will always be a delay in the manifestation of the vision. The anointing will take you there but your character will determine your longevity.
Moses, one of the greatest leaders histories will ever produce, had to go through forty years of preparation before being released. From a prince to being a fugitive of the Egyptian penal system for forty years, being called and used by God at eighty, changes were what he encountered. His preparation period had bred in him a divine level of maturity that when everyone around him had given up he could easily inquire on the Lord for his next move. Patience is such a powerful virtue that any one called onto greater works needs to pray for it. For preparation without patience only leads to a destruction and disgrace. Unfortunately we have too many impatient individuals in life who eschew the concept of preparation.  

Production
But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixty fold some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
                                                                                                   Matthew 13:8-9
What sort of impact do you want to make in the world with the skills, talents and abilities that you have? Many at times I do hear people talk about the great visions and dreams they have and how they plan to achieve it. You meet them the next time and they have already given up on a dream they are yet to start. There are certain principles and natural laws which one cannot ignore with regards to using the divine strategy.
When the sower was out sowing, he never envisaged that some of his precious seeds will fall on rocky, patchy and thorny ground. His intention was to sow all in a good ground in order to reap well. But life has a way to thwarting dreams. As long as we don’t control the elements, our dreams and aspirations are subject to their buffeting. Regardless, God still sees potential in that which life wants you to discard and is well prepared to turn things around.
It is a privileged to be chosen of God for an assignment. There is commandment to go forth and be productive. What most fail to realise is that as long as it was God that sent you, the purpose will be achieved.  It is against the law of fruition for any individual with a seed not to be productive. Remember the story of the king and his three stewards? The one who complain bitterly of having only one talent was brutally dealt with when the King came back. What we are not told is that the king spent his time and effort to train them before handing over to them the talents. You can have the world’s greatest talent, skill or ability but if it’s not exposed to the right environment, you are doomed.  
How much fruit do you want to bear? The concept behind fruit bearing is not about the now but that which will transcend into the next generation.  They will be more blessed not about what we left them but what we leave inside them. You cannot leave the continuum of a vision to any successor if they don’t have a suitable inbuilt character to handle it. When the process is completed, the commandment that whatever you have should remain will do so. The Lord himself will give you the best successor, methodology and medium of expression in order for his name to be glorified. That is why I am encouraging you the reader to give it all to Christ and allow him to preserve, prepare and help you produce the best the world is yet to see.

Saturday 9 April 2011

HUMANS NOT CYBORGS!!



Cybernetics as a discipline intrigues me a lot. It is defined as the science of communication and control theory that is concerned especially with comparative study of automatic control systems. This is normally seen in the creation and manipulation of robots. I have always been fascinated by the way information is sent to the artificial mind of the robot for performance. Living our lives based on information systems is normal these days. (Click here to tweet this) Everything from what you wear and eat is now processed through the information highway. With the explosion of social medial with Facebook and twitter leading the way, information is constantly in your face. In just 140 characters, governments have been overthrown and lives have been changed. (Click here to tweet this). Ordinary people have gain prominence as they learn how to change their lives and that of others through the information highway.

Interestingly, almost every information is stored in the "SERVER" of a computer. It’s the brain of the whole computer network and it allows for the retrieval of information based on the correct CODES. The scientist who created this information highway never envisaged that the only thing destructive enough to crash the whole system will be a "VIRUS". (Click here to tweet this).

The human mind is just like the server. It will only allow you to retrieve the information you put in.(Click here to tweet this). Selah (pause and consider)! Now you understand why you behave, earn and relate to a certain groups of people? Now you understand why certain things attract you and others don't? What information are you feeding your server? You've heard them say garbage in garbage out? Well I beg to differ. Garbage in, garbage stays and reproduces unless it’s attacked violently with the right information. (Click here to tweet this).

When you allow contrary information to take charge of our mental computations, the contaminants or viruses contained in it will destroy the proactive word of God in us. (Click here to tweet this). Thus everything you produce will be affected. A good spring will not produce bitter water and vice versa. (Click here to tweet this). It’s a terrible and a dangerous thing to waste your mind.  Its about time you take charge of it. For Christians the word of God is the only recognised anti-virus powerful enough to fight viruses that find their way into our data bank- the mind.(Click here to tweet this).

Questions- Can you relate to this subject? How do you fight negative words? Have you benefited from changing your thought process?

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Yours In His Service

JOSEPH AKUOKO II

Tuesday 5 April 2011

CARRYING THE EXTRA OIL


The difference between two people is the word extra. (Click here and tweet this). Am sure you are quite familiar with the word extra-ordinary. In simple terms it means something a bit more has been added to the original. In our times, an individual’s ability to win in life demands the input of extras.  Many will disagree with me but fear too has a positive factor. The stress that fear brings creates a sense of urgency that pushes us to fight and change our lives. The extra could mean spending a bit more time with your kids, reading more to improve your vocabulary, listening more in order to sustain the relationship, saving and planning more financially and praying for long hours.


God anoints in trickles and through a person’s faithfulness, much is released. (Click here to tweet this). Success is intentional and successful people have that “intent” to make it. The intent is what allows them to plan skilfully and strategically in order to get the results. Whilst everyone has given up, successful people put in the extra and this is what carries them through. Paul valued the extra in the work he was called to do and became a success. People who make it in life understand why they need the extra.


Having in readiness the extra oil will allow you to survive the turbulence of the enemy. (Click here and tweet this) In the face of adversity, the extra is what will bring the victory you need. It is a secret that keeps you in motion even when all is done.  It is what defeats the enemy and never allows him the last laugh. David picked five stones when he decided to face Goliath. In the immediate, it never made sense for David to pick five stones to kill just one person. You only read the bible further to understand that Goliath had four other brothers who were also giants and these will rise to terrorise Israel. Prophetically the five stones David picked meant Goliath and his extras had already been dealt with. (Click here and tweet this). David’s great men killed the four brothers of Goliath. The extra fasting, studying, practice will definitely yield the needed results.

Questions: What extras do you need in your life to make the difference? Why do you want to stand out? Kindly leave your comments on the blog.

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Yours In His Service

JOSEPH AKUOKO II

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