Pastor’s Corner |
Though 2008
began with great expectations in the hearts and spirits of we the believers yet
from the middle of the year to the end marked the beginning of very tempestuous
winds that would release upon the Body of Christ, forces, trials, temptations
and challenges that would intensely test the faith of many believers. Clergy
and laity alike were bruised in many ways through offenses, rejection, hurt,
disappointment, exploitation, abuse, usury and gross unfaithfulness. Many could
not get their wounds healed completely by the time we arrived at December 31,
2008. Many planned to quit serving God completely while others thought it was
not necessary to commit themselves to any particular Church at all. Rather they
would prefer to stay at home to serve God in their own way. These decisions,
seemed right in the eyes of the decision makers however, there is no Biblical
Validity to any of them. In the end all of them would lose unless the Lord
himself stepped in Sovereignly to help them in the Christian Life and the
challenges that accompany it. On 31December, 2008, just before the clock of
time was to tick to usher humanity into 2009, the Holy Spirit, representing the
Father and the Son in matters pertaining to Heaven and Earth spoke to the
Church about what will happen in 2009 and beyond.
2009 will
be a year of "Birthing
and Judgment". A woman
needs energy, strength and good health to be pregnant and throughout the
entirety of the pregnancy. At the time of delivery, the same energy, strength
and good health is needed to deliver a healthy, un-deformed baby and with great
safety. Therefore the Holy Spirit declared to the Church that the first quarter
of 2009 will be dedicated to mending, molding, healing and making whole the
believer before starting to birth. "TO
BE MADE WHOLE TO BIRTH". This
healing process will not happen without the good effort of the believer. The
complete Healing will require an Absolute Adherence to the Word of God and a
Transparent Admission of Sin and Error in ones life.
We must run
the Race of Life and win. Destiny is given and God wants us to fulfill destiny.
The believer must enter his earthly Canaan no matter the challenges and the
battles on the way. If we would only look up to the Lord we would make it just
as the Obedient Israelites made it. REBELLION WILL DO US NO GOOD.
The Church's
attention was seriously drawn to certain spirits we should be careful to avoid
in order not to abort our destinies. The first book of Corinthians Chapter
10:1-12 was the scriptural reference [Please take time to study and meditate on
each verse until you thoroughly understand it].
First of
all permit me to give you the dictionary definition of "DESTINY"
before I proceed to sequentially give you the five [5] spirits that can destroy
or abort your destiny with some latitudes of elucidation.
DESTINY IS
THE PURPOSE OR END TO WHICH ANY PERSON OR THING IS APPOINTED: UNAVOIDABLE FATE;
NECESSITY.
Therefore
as people created by God, we would then say that destiny is God's
purpose or end to which we were created. God's
unavoidable fate for our lives. [God meant for us to fulfill our destinies, He
placed in each and everyone of us what it would take for us to fully accomplish
our destinies]. God does not and will not abort our destinies,we rather do so
to ourselves. Destiny is God's necessity
for your life and my life. Without it life is unfulfilled and unwholesome.
What
hindered other people from fulfilling their God-given destinies can hinder you
and I if we are not careful. Remember, destiny is determined by God alone and
not by man. Not by our parents or by virtue of our race, color, creed,
nationality, nature of our birth or background.
Let us look
at the five [5] spirits that the Israelites associated themselves with which
stopped some of them from reaching their promised land------- Canaan.
1.LUST
2.IDOLATRY
3.FORNICATION
4.TEMPTING CHRIST
5.MURMURING
Canaan
land, how does it apply to your life and my life? Canaan land has always been
God's symbol of
mankind's maximized
potential. Canaan is the place where God's
promises are fulfilled in our lives------the place where God maximizes the
potentials of his people both individually and collectively. And it affects
their spirits, emotions, minds and bodies------their marriages, children and
professions. Canaan is a place of establishment, peace, prosperity and maximum
accomplishment. God, in the Old Testament days wanted the Israelites to live
forever in Canaan after he has delivered them from bondage. They were to live
there in "faith"
so God would fulfill his promises to them.
God wants
the same for you and I today. Canaan is real------- your destiny is real and
planned by a REAL GOD.
God wants
men and women to have Canaan land marriages, businesses, healthy parental
relationships and educations. Yet men and women today are not maximized in
their marriages, businesses and relationships----- people with unfulfilled
potentials. THAT COULD BE YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW.
Now
let us look at each one of the five sins of Israel in the wilderness.
LUST........
This lust here is not necessarily sexual lust only. This is the kind of lust
that is based on satisfying self at the expense of God and other people. It is
paramountly what self wants. This is the satisfaction or gratification of the
flesh. Love is of God, and true love is always giving. God's
love desires to satisfy the object of His love. John 3:16. God is love and love
gives. Love is patient and always waits.
But lust wants to get. It is basically selfish. Love gives whereas lust only
gets. Lust is impatient and cannot wait. Lust sees only now. Love sees afar.
Lust has no understanding and is shortsighted. But love is longsighted and has
great insight and understanding.
The
Israelites craved what they had in Egypt. Their feet were taking them to Canaan
and yet their hearts kept going back to Egypt. They wanted to be in the new
land yet they would not let go completely the old land. Just like Lot's
wife in the Bible. They were lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
You can
tell in our day when a man or a woman is loving or lusting. They desire to
satisfy themselves at the expense of the other. Lust chooses to violate God's
ways and plans. A married man can lust his wife sexually when he only cares
about satisfying himself. A young man can profess love for an innocent girl
only to find out he was lusting when he leaves her to face pregnancy alone and
fearful. When a woman makes up many bills for her husband who finds it
difficult to pay, is not loving but lusting.
Proverbs
6:23-29, 32-35.
IDOLATRY...
Is a value system that we create, and in which we esteem something to be more
worthy of our devotion than to God. Power, prestige, education, money,
business, position, religion, prosperity, ego, pornography...
Can all become idols. A television set can become someone's
idol. All pornography is idolatrous because it's
based upon man's ability
to create a fantasy or image in his mind which satisfies him and to which he
can wholly devote himself. Idolatry keeps men from being maximized in their
potentials. Personally, maritally, professionally and spiritually.
FORNICATION.....
Fornication is having a sexual affair with a man or woman that is not
legitimately married to you. Fornication is very popular and sexual promiscuity
is acceptable everywhere today. Even in the Church. Many a men today including
women cannot develop the potentials for their manhood and womanhood because of
their repetitive and chronic sexual sins. Both single and married men and women...young
and old are subject to the desires, appetites, passions and temptations that
take their toll and prohibit them from becoming what God intends for them to
be. Men's
ministries are undeveloped or lost completely. Men's
characters are undeveloped, weak or bankrupted completely. And so are women. It's
only over- comers that will reign with Christ the Lord. Over-comers are Godly
achievers. They achieve or win only by THE WYAS AND METHODS OF GOD. Not BY THE
WAYS AND METHODS OF MEN OR THE WORLD. The Israelites who committed fornication
died in the wilderness, and never stepping on the soils of Canaan. Men still
die in their wilderness, bogged down in a moral morass, missing God's
best for their lives. God did not plan so for them and He has not planned so for
you and me either.
Proverbs
5:3-13, 15-23.
TEMPTING
CHRIST..... Tempting
Christ is demanding that God does what is contrary to His Will or inconsistent
with His Character. We are doing the same thing today. Lying and cheating in
business, in paying our tithes and offerings, faking our tax returns to get
more money and yet demanding that God blesses and prospers us any way, is
tempting Christ. Men and women not living right though they know it's
wrong, children rejecting the Godly counsels of parents and elders,
congregations demanding the Pastor builds the Church on social programs rather
than on the Word of God, Prayer and the Holy Spirit, or believers wanting to
enjoy the benefits of salvation and pleasures of sin at the same time are all
tempting Christ. It kept Israel from Canaan and in our days, it's
keeping men and women from their Canaan.
MURMURING.....
Simply means negative confession.
Complaining,
criticizing, faultfinding, rumor- mongering, gossip, tale-bearing, character-
assassination. These are all classified as murmuring. God hates people like
these. God hates slanderers, blasphemers, and revilers, dissension sowers and
HE wants us to deal with them with utter vehemence and discipline. Look at 1
Corinthians 5:11. [I suggest you read from the Amplified Version]. "How
great a matter a little fire kindleth."
James3:5 KJV. The tongue is like that. Small remarks, sharp and cutting
comments, sarcastic jibes, eventually create roaring bonfires of hatred,
warfare and enmity. Destroying relationships, marriages, friendships, Churches
and Ministries, leaving nothing but red-hot ashes [embers]. Men and women
murmur about their companies and their bosses and wonder why they are not
promoted. They murmur against the Church, the Preacher and wonder why their breakthroughs
are not coming and their children and loved ones do not respond to the gospel.
Luke 20:19-20.
They murmur
against God's Word,
take offense when they are counseled and corrected by God's
Word or Godly men and women and then complain when they do not see faith,
growth, stability, contentment, progress and maturity take place in their
lives.
INVITATION
TO REPENTANCE AND CHRIST.
If you have
thoroughly understood this message/admonishment and are committing, adultery,
fornication, incest, homosexuality or lesbianism, or habitual masturbation,
indulging in pornography, gratifying yourself with sexual fantasies or any
other sexual sin such as oral or anal sex, I COMMAND YOU IN THE MIGHTY NAME OF
JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH TO REPENT AND BE RESTORED TO A RIGHT RELATIONSHIP WITH
GOD THE FATHER BY BEING RECONCILED THROUGH JESUS CHRIST AND THE POWER OF THE
HOLY SPIRIT NOW!
BE
THOU LOOSED AND SET FREE TO FULFILL YOUR DESTINY.
God richly
bless you and give you the grace to do what's
right in His sight and in the sight of your fellow human being from this moment
onwards.
SINCERITY,
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Transparent
honesty, genuine purity, manifested clarity and unsullied innocence.
It
describes one who does not fear thorough examination of his motives and intents,
because he or she has nothing to hide. Let's
strive to be sincere in all our dealings.
By Bishop
Peter Morgan.
WWW.VISIONINTLM.COM