Isaac's Success Key I

Thursday 6 August
READ: Gen. 26:1-25
MORE LESSON: Prov.22:29

The Bible passage today tells the story of a man who began to prosper, continued prospering until he became very prosperous, so much so that his enemies envied him. How did he begin? What did he do to grow and sustain his prosperity? The story about Isaac's prosperity is very often used by preachers to take offerings and tithes in Church. While it may not be out of context to use the passage to encourage believers to sow into Kingdom work, we must also come to terms with what Isaac really did to enter unlimited prosperity. Isaac actually invested his time, labour and material resources in a productive venture. Then Isaac sowed (planted) in that land, and received in the same year a hundredfold: and the LORD blessed him: Gen.26:12.

One of the fundamental secrets of financial and material prosperity is being involved in productive ventures. The man who produces what others consume will always increase financially. You must stop being a consumer only; get engaged in providing goods and services. You must immediately get involved in producing goods or providing services that others can come to you for.

There was famine in the land. The Philistines who were the original dwellers were idling away, while a stranger came and re-opened all the wells his father Abraham once dug around the territory to irrigate his crops and water his animals. I guess he was producing fruits and vegetables which an average Canaanite was longing for. In a short while, Isaac took over the market and there was no need for importation of fruits and vegetable from Egypt to Gerar. The buyers were the same Philistines because they loved to eat such.

Friend, what are the things your community cannot do without? These are the things to sow in the land. Even if others are already doing it, join them to produce more. For example, the market for sachet and bottle water can never be saturated because people must drink water. Eateries can never be too many in a city that has a working class population. Only be more innovative, and the customers will switch over to you. Isaac did not give in to the jealousy, intimidation and harassment of the indigenes who engaged in an unhealthy competition with him over the wells he dug nor did he pack up the business. He simply relocated each time the competitors came to harass him, and soon, he wearied them. So, the man began to prosper, continued herein until he became very prosperous. Do you want to enter into prosperity? Start investing your time and resource into productive ventures.

Prayer/Action
* Lord, inspire in me the resourceful spirit that will enable me to always meet the needs of others. 
* Ask the LORD to lead you into a productive venture that you can invest in from today,

PROPHETIC PRAYER
Father cause me to have an encounter with your glory and may this month befilled with evidence, in Jesus’ name.

Discipline of God

Wednesday 5 August
READ: Heb. 12:5-11
MORE LESSON: Prov.29:15

As a young man in Secondary school, I never liked to hear the word “discipline” because it was most often used when you are to undergo punishment for an offence. At that time, discipline meant receiving strokes of the cane on your buttocks, or kneeling down with hands in the air for a period, or cutting grass. At home, it was also punishment; you were deprived dinner or made to kneel down or stay inside the house while your mates played outside.

When I first read the Scripture passage of today some years ago, I was not comfortable because of my concept of discipline. How can it be that the one God loves He chastises (discipline)? We are punished, whether at school or home, because we are seen as “bad” boys/girls or stubborn children. Those who discipline us are never our friends, and we run away from them because we think they don't love us. If God will also punish me, why should I endure it and see Him as my Father? But with maturity and better understanding, I have come to appreciate this scripture and what our parents, elders and teachers were doing to us when I was in school. I have come to understand that discipline is actually meant to make you conform to set patterns that will make your life orderly and meaningful.

The rod is applied to drive away the “foolishness” that abound in the heart of a child (Prov.22:15). Discipline is meant to inculcate behavioural patterns that will make you a better person to yourself, society and humanity in general. I have also come to know that those who discipline us actually want the best in us to come to limelight. They do so because they believe in us and truly love us. Those who are robbers, vandals and perpetuating violence on our streets today were either not disciplined (corrected, chastised) when they were young, tender and malleable, or they did not take to discipline.

God's chastisement is much more encompassing in accomplishment. Today’s Bible passage tells us why God chastises His children. Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but later on it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it (Heb 12:10 -11 NIV). Note the following benefits of discipline and remember them for life:

1) God's chastisement makes you share in His holiness. 
2) It is a training that will produce a harvest of righteousness and peace for you. Will you still resist chastisement today?

Prayer/Action
* Lord, please forgive me of hating those who disciplined me in time past; bless them and their children wherever they are today.
* Lord, do not hold back Your discipline and help me to respond appropriately.

PROPHETIC PRAYER
Father, in your mercy, use my life to advertise your glory this year, in the mighty name of Jesus.

Race of Faith

Tuesday 4 August
READ: Heb. 12:1-4
MORE LESSON: 2Cor.5:10

We are all running a race in this life and the finishing line is at the judgment seat of Christ. There, every man will be rewarded for the way he ran his race. The essence of the race before us is not about who comes first, second, third place. It does not matter what time you arrive at the finishing line because no two persons start the race at the same time or on the same mark. We only have one finishing point. Whenever you arrive at the finishing line, you will be made to stand before the Chief Umpire and be assessed on your own merit. There are some peculiarities about this race.

1) We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses- a host of others who successfully ran the race and were commended. Some of these witnesses are those listed in Hebrews Chapter 11. So if you fail, it is not because you are the first to run this race or that you have no example to follow. Your failure will be because you did not run according to the rule. There are many others who ran the same race and succeeded.

2) Several things can easily distract, pre-occupy or frustrate a man's performance in this race. The Bible refers to them as weights and sins which easily ensnare. These include burdens, worries, anxieties, labour, daily runs that are natural but do not give you time to fellowship with God. Some may be abominable practices that the world system deliberately instituted to trouble, entangle, and ensnare believers. Examples include: institutional corruption, falsification of receipts, inflation of contract sums, sexual immorality, etc. Everyone in the race is confronted with weights and besetting sins, but you must lay them aside and run to finishing line. Jesus said all that labour and are heavy laden should come unto Him and lay their weights at the cross. You must do this if you want to run the race without excess baggage.

3) You must run this race with endurance, and the consciousness that you are in for a very long distance race along hills and valleys.

4) Keep your focus on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. He is the one who sets the starting and finishing points of the race. He is also the one that rewards. This same Jesus endured hostility and contradictions from sinful men without avenging Himself. His blood was shed that you may be free.

5) The race may cost you your blood. Be prepared to pour it as an offering if need be in the same way Apostle Paul testified of. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing: 2Tim.4:6-8.

Prayer/Action
* Lord, help me to run my race to the finishing line and be celebrated by the cloud of witnesses.
* I denounce every known and unknown weight and sin that ensnare and prevents me from running well, in Jesus’ name.

PROPHETIC PRAYER
August 2015, you will respond to me positively and all the goodness in you shall be opened to me, in Jesus’ name.

Demand a Change

Monday 3 August
READ: Luke 16: 19 - 31
MORE LESSON: Matt 11: 12

Do not be satisfied with mediocrity in life. Your situation can be better; you can be more blessed than you are now. When things are not yet the way you want them to be, don't sit down with your legs crossed and say, 'Well if is the will of God, it will happen. It will never happen that way. Remember that from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force: Matt 11:12. For example, a good way to die fast is to be sick and lie down hopelessly saying, 'If God says I won't die, then I won't die but if God says I will die, I will die.' I assure you that you will die and it will happen real fast. Instead, get on your feet and shout to the hearing of men, the devil and heaven; I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord: Psa. 118:17. Then you mean business and I can assure you, based on the integrity of the Word of God, that you will not die.

In Luke 1: 19 – 31, you will find the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus was the righteous beggar who sat under the table, full of sickness and poverty and waiting for crumbs from the rich man's table. He lived all his life with sores on his body, poverty ruling him, then he died and made heaven. Do you know that a man can live under a curse, get born-again and preach to others but the curse remains unbroken till he dies and goes to heaven? Such a man will go to heaven but he would not have lived a fulfilled life on the face of the earth.

Lazarus went hungry and sick all his life on earth but went to heaven. The question that should be asked is that if God could not feed him during his short life here on earth how will He be able to feed him in heaven for eternity? So, it wasn't that God couldn't feed him but he didn't care to know and demand more from God beyond the fact that he will go to heaven one day after his suffering on earth. He never got up one day and said; 'Whatever it will cost me, I renounce this curse of poverty and sickness today'. He was more interested in begging for food from the rich man than in rising up, a healed man, to go and preach to the rich man. So it wasn't as if God could not prevail for Lazarus. The issue was that Lazarus never got to the point of rising up and demanding that his situation must change.

If you will rise up and place a demand, your situation will change. Your destiny is in your hand to fulfil. Take hold of bow and arrow and ask heaven for help until your change comes.

Prayer/Action
* Raise a standard against every force working against your success in destiny by the blood and in the name of Jesus.
* Command a change of every stagnant negative situation prevailing against your life.
* Ask God for divine direction and speedy turnaround over every burden and challenge of your life.

PROPHETIC PRAYER
I decree that the dark clouds of August shall be neutralised and great blessings shall come down as rain for me and for my family, in Jesus’ name.