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Father keep me from..................... |
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Written by ola aroyehun
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Saturday, 13 November 2010 |
Sinning against you. I had yet another experience recently that I simply must share with you. The details of the incident are perhaps not as important as the lesson to be learned from it.
As a family, we were relocating to another city. It was important that we moved before the new school term started. As the weeks went by, we quickly realised that it was going to be too late to buy and settle into our new property. So we decided to rent temporarily, whilst we took our time to buy.
We soon discovered that renting was not an easy affair. You had to give so much detailed and personal information about yourself – an experience we had not been accustomed to. In addition, there was a shortage of rental property, and particularly the size that we needed. Sometimes for a property we were competing with 10 other people.
So we decided to develop a strategy, we would simply withhold important information i.e. provide just enough information to get by. In some cases, we did not answer questions in a straightforward way. We took on the attitude of the world. There are times of course when you don’t and should not divulge information about yourself but this was not one of those occasions.
Guess what! It became almost impossible to get a place and things became more difficult. I used to lay on my bed wrestling with God. My conscience was not clear because I was withholding information and feeling guilty about it. So, the next time around, we decided to give them all the information that was requested. Immediately I felt at peace and in fact, we were actually able to rent a property.
However, that’s not the end of the story. I went back to the Lord to ask why all that had happened and his words startled me. He said ‘I kept you from sinning against me’. The Bible encourages us to keep away from the appearance of evil and many times; we try our best not to sin against God. But it is a different story when God keeps you from sinning against him. There is a precedent in the Bible when God prevented a man from sinning against him. The story is recorded in Genesis 20:1-18 and particularly verse 6.
6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.
The direct intervention of God to stop us from sinning against Him is still available today.
The Lord further told me that that incident that would have caused embarrassment to me and more importantly to the body of Christ in the future. We all know how it is, sometimes as we spend time trying to do what we think may be ‘an easy way out’ in a difficult situation, knowing that in our hearts of hearts God’s word would be put into disrepute, not to talk of the accompanying stress this may have on us.
I learned something else through this experience, it is not enough to want to keep away from sin, we need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Why not pray a simple prayer with me .. ‘Lord, keep me from sinning against you’. How lovely when God Himself stops you from sinning against Him. I know because I have recently been there.
Trust that this post has been a blessing to you; so until I appear again in your inbox, stay blessed
Ola
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No man indeed is an island |
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Written by ola aroyehun
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Friday, 30 April 2010 |
Two things have informed this week’s post – one is a revelation from the word of God and the other is a personal experience.
Recording through the book of Luke, we come across the following statement. Luke 1:39 Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah,
Have you ever wondered why Mary got up immediately and went to Elizabeth her cousin?
Well let’s backtrack a bit and look at Elizabeth’s experience in Luke 1:36
Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For a start, there were differences between the two women. Mary was a young unmarried woman from the tribe of Judah whilst Elizabeth was an old married lady from the Aaronic priesthood
However, they both had supernatural encounters of God that they could each relate to. Mary could share her story about the visitation of the Lord in a way that Elizabeth could relate to. What God was doing in both Mary and Elizabeth’s lives was so precious that they could not share it with just anybody. Elizabeth had gone through a period of reproach ( Luke 1:26) because to be barren In Israel in those days was a sign of reproach. Mary on the other hand, was to go through a similar time or period of reproach. An unmarried woman, who was engaged to Joseph, is being suddenly found to be pregnant.
No doubt Mary would have been greatly blessed by Elizabeth’s situation and vice versa. Remember that Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband had been made mute by God and so communication was limited! Though Mary would have found some encouragement from her cousin Mary, it was now time for Elizabeth to give birth and for Mary to go back home.
But returned to what? Return to another source of encouragement.
Well again God had stepped in and Joseph in the meantime had an encounter with an angel of God. ( Matthew 1:20-24). Joseph, we know had wanted to divorce Mary privately but changed his mind because he had a supernatural experience with God and now he could relate to Mary and somehow now they were in this together. Mary found encouragement with Elizabeth and Joseph.
We all need encouragement and God will always connect us to people that will understand what we are going through.
Now to my personal experience. For the past 2/3 years, I have subscribed to a number of internet marketing newsletters – most of which have provided content and a source of encouragement. I used their tactics to develop an action plan to reach as many people as I could through my writing.
However, at the beginning of the year, every time a newsletter appeared in my inbox, it was deleted even before it was read. Recently, I realised that my subscriber list had not grown as I had anticipated and then I realised that because I was not as encouraged as I used to be and therefore was not acting much.
Reflecting on both of these occurrences, I realised that no man is an island. God would put you in touch with people who will compliment and encourage you. We all need encouragement, particularly from people who have been where we are going or have experienced what we are about to experience.
I pray that God would bring people alongside us along the journey of life that will encourage us.
So until I appear again in your inbox with some more insight into the scriptures, stayblessed
Ola
www.christianbusinessmagazine.com
www.purposeforchrist.com
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Are you working from Him? |
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Written by ola aroyehun
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Sunday, 03 May 2009 |
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I read something recently that challenged my thinking about work. The author was asking the question ‘Are you working for Him or from Him?’ This is not a play on words but a serious question that we all need to ask ourselves. In this post, I want to focus on the concept of working from God. Work is anything that we are currently putting our hands towards.
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Read more... [Are you working from Him?]
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Wealth of the wicked for the believer? |
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Written by ola aroyehun
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Wednesday, 29 October 2008 |
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I hear so many believers make reference to the fact that God would transfer the wealth of the wicked into their laps. Therefore, though the title of the article might sound like a rhetoric question, there is an important truth that we need to be aware of.
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Read more... [Wealth of the wicked for the believer?]
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Don’t believe a lie - Christians can be trusted |
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Written by ola aroyehun
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Sunday, 31 August 2008 |
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I have written this article in response to comments I have heard repeated recently within Christian circles. The statement goes along seems the lines; “Christians cannot be trusted”. And some people would even advocate that they’d rather do business with non-Christians than Christians.
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Read more... [Don’t believe a lie - Christians can be trusted]
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Christian Business Is Not about Hard Work (2) |
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Written by ola aroyehun
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Friday, 08 August 2008 |
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In the last post, we examined how Adam was given the task of maintaining the Garden of Eden. Adam was expected to tend and keep the garden. The book of Genesis records how Adam disobeyed God and as a result, sin entered the world.
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Read more... [Christian Business Is Not about Hard Work (2)]
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