Sowing and Reaping

Pastor Chris Oyakhilome's teaching on sowing seed-offerings in last month's issue of Rhapsody of Realities spoke so clearly to me that I wanted to share this excerpt:

"The ransom of a man's life are his riches" -Proverbs 13:8

Material riches that you ar eblessed with are not just for you and your family to enjoy and spend. They are the seeds the Lord provides you with to sow as offerings to ransom your life from evil.

Sowing seed-offerings over and above your tithe silences Satan and prevents him from gaining any foothold in your life. It obliterates all obstacles and snares in your path.

Money is often a weapon of war. When the walls seem to be closing in on you, you need to declare war in the realm of the spirit by taking a seed (somthing of value to you), speak over it by faith and hand it over to the Lord. That seed represents your understanding of the situation you are in and what you expect to come out of the situation as you hand it over to the Lord. When you operate in that kind of faith, no evil can touch you. God Himself becomes the only security you need and keeps you moving from victory to victory.

"May the Lord remember all your sacrifices and accept your offerings.

May He give you the desires of your heart and make all your plans succeed"

-Psalm 20:3-4

God created you with a plan

It is such an honour and a privilege to have our first dedicated partner on board with us that I want to share an excerpt from her book.

Sanyika Calloway Boyce is a speaker, author, financial intelligence and expert and radio show host but above all these accolades she is a wonderful woman of God. Her best-selling book for the youth : Cracking the code-What every college student should know about money will undoubtedly touch many peoples' lives but what profoundly touched my life was the ministry work she began and is less well known for. It is my prayer that through her partnership with us her message to God's people about Kingdom finance will spread and reach all those who are yearning to know God's purposes and plans.

This is an excerpt from her book 7 Steps to understand what God says about money, wealth and possessions:

God created you with a plan in mind.

Regardless of your current circumstances, in spite of what your life is like right now, you have every reason to believe that God's Plan for your life is perfectly clear. God wants us to develop a right attitude towards money, wealth and posessions. He has made us stewards of everything we own. Doesn't it make sense that He also gives us proper instruction about how to manage these things?

What does your life say about you? Could a non-beleiver look at all aspects of your life and see a clear difference? The world teaches people to rob God by becoming overworked and unwilling to give of their time and resources to anything. When you are so busy trying to keep pace with the world that you are no longer available for service, you are "of the world". Christians are called to be "in the world" but not of it.

Work is sacred. God designed all forms of work for His purposes and when we are obedient in the work we do to please Him, we are always rewarded. But those who are of the world work only for money and end up mis-using all their resources.

Through the work that you do, God wants you to have:

• Direction for your life



• deliverance from debt



• Knowledge of God's will for your finances



• Peace



• propserity in all areas of your life.

Today I give Lord Jesus all the honour and glory for bringing "True Love Waits" to Lesotho. This is only one project that our ministry is working on to change mindsets in Lesotho but it represents a tremendous breakthrough as the doors were never opened before for this programme to take root here. In our pastors' meeting this morning, a member of our advisory board said : "I think we have about 8 chapters to work on all at once but could we just concentrate on chapter 1 for today?" This was an extremely apt remark -so I am leaving chapter 1 in God's hands and waiting for His prefect timing to reveal when to move on to chapter 2. But i was so excited about chapter 8, revealed through Sanyika's partnership with us, that I couldn't help sharing it! Hope it blesses you as much as it blessed me.

New Year's Day

I spent New Year's eve and New Year's day with friends from Word of Life who were visiting from the U.S and the team from Life Ministries. Pastor Dube from Word of Life held an all-night prayer vigil to pray us into the new season the Lord is ushering in.

To describe this new season, the Lord told Pastor Dube to look up all the references in the Bible of the Hebrew word 'Kabod'. It is most commonly translated as "glory" but Pastor Dube discovered the hidden layers of meaning of this term as he studied the way it is used.

It first appears in the book of Isaiah, where it is translated as 'glory' and is affixed to the Hebrew word 'Doxa' which means to shine. In the Old testament, God makes it clears that when His glory descends on Israel, His children shine in all that they do.

In the New Testament, the word 'Kabod' appears when Jesus is telling the disciples that they are a royal priesthood, that as they ask they shall receive, that all things work together for the good of those who love God and that he came so that we could have life and have it more abundantly. (Books of Mark and Romans). It has thus been translated in English as abundance, importance or divine favour. Then it appears again in the Book of Revelation with the word 'Doxa' affixed to it, to show that when the Sons of God become manifest, they will shine so brightly that they will leave no doubt that Jesus Christ 's glory has descended over them.

As we prayed all believers in our congregations, communities and spheres of influence into this season of "Kabod', miracles started to unfold. By the time New Year's day was unshered in, I knew that my time of serving at the Louis Gregory Foundation is coming to an end, having prepared me for the mininstry the Lord is now calling me into: helping Life Ministries to develop and grow their new Christian school. It was a very brief season of opportunity at the Louis Gregory Foundation and I realise now that this was not where the Lord wanted me to serve but only the environment that was conducive to my training for ministry. As I realised that this is the season of bringing glory to Lord Jesus, it became perfectly clear that God is always in full control even when we don't understand where His plan is taking us. It can only ever take us Higher, to become seated in heavenly places, or deeper into His Word. As you glorify Him in this new season, may you learn to Shine!

Don't start 2009 in neutral

In Joshua 1, verses 6-9, the Lord tells believers who are called to lead others 'Be strong and courageous'. He says this 3 times, reminding us Christians are called to be on the offensive.
As we prepared to put 2008 behind us and embrace the coming season, the Life Ministries team was extremely blessed to receive funding from the Louisiana District Action Leadership to build a Christian school for the 180 children who have been attending Bible classes this year. They will also be sending dvd's to train the youth pastors in using drama to build a childrens' ministry.
Now we have to continue praying and moving into this new season with clarity, focus and confident trust in the Lord.

I asked the Lord yesterday how to practically translate this understanding into action and I beleive the Holy Spirit answered through a letter I received from Gary Blair, founder of the 100-day Challenge. Now that the 2008 challenge is over and some of us are taking time to enjoy time with family, there is a danger that we will miss the next move of God by staying in neutral. While balance in all areas of our life is something we must constantly strive for, we should never use this an excuse to become lukewarm or passive about the things of God. When Gary Blair reminded me not to start 2009 in neutral, I immediately realised that the Lord was dealing with me.

Praise the Lord that there is always an answer to our prayers. Mine came in the form of the Contemplative questions Gary gave me to ask myself as I prepare to get in gear for 2009:

1. How should I live out each day so that I am fulfilled in 2009?
2. Am I becoming the person I am meant to be?
3. In order to reach my goals in 2009, what habits and disciplines must I initiate immediately?
4. what can I begin doing today to leave a lasting legacy?
5. Which vices must I replace with virtues?
6. How can I best contribute to the lives of others?

" Habits- both good and bad alike- are lifelong companions and hold court every day, acting as judge and jury over our development"
-Gary Blair