'THE LIVING WORD' SERIES- PASTOR TOCHI MADUBUOBI

You are all welcome to the beginning of the new session, and most importantly I want to cease the opportunity to congratulate every one of you on their respective promotions to another level of your departments. Be sure to know that God has availed you with every grace you need to surmount all academic challenge that comes with the new session. Once again, I'm most excited to have your partnership as we share in God's word and ultimate purpose for His children.

We begin this semester with the aim of coming to a full understanding or reminding ourselves of how powerful God's word is to make the christian live that which it says. Infact God wants to bring you to a point where your natural thoughts are a reflection and outflow of His will and purpose for you. It has never been God's intention to make His will too abstract and unfathomable for the Christian to understand.

Catch them young for God

In doing this, God conditions our thinking with His word. The word of God remains the only known premise for God to occupy our minds. Until you fill your hearts and minds with much of God, we will can only think too little of Him and be left to our wildest imaginations of His power and glory in our lives. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks- same applies to the things of God in the your life.

You can only act on the much word of God that you know, and God can only change you with the much of Him that you have exposed yourself to. So the Christian has the responsibility of desiring God's word and praying for a deeper revelation of Himself through the word. Thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit- that prayer is already answered.

Hebrews 4:12 puts it that "For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."- (NIV) The latter part of that scripture confirms how much God's word can influence the content of a man's thoughts and his attitudes- make him drop all manner of ungodly habits and attitudes, whilst teaching him the ones that make him grow up. This kind of growth becomes the one that makes him steady in living the God-life effortlessly, not religiously through tiring self-efforts.

Listen to God keenly like you do music

I must also draw your attention to the need to desire more of God through listening to Him. Christians are primarily called to hear God talk to them, not the other way round. It has been customary for christians to storm their prayer places, make a three-hour-long prayer and immediately stomp out the same way they rolled in. How many times have you even allowed your conversations with God to be a dialogue (two way communication), than a monologue (one-way communication) where you do all the talking?

How many times have you decided to ignore your troubles, save a second just to hear what God is saying about your situation? We are sharp-eyed to zoom-in on our problems and worries that we ignore and lose sight of what God has long said to address your seemingly terrible situation. In Psalms 46:10, God tells you "Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth."- (KJV)

In some cases we are so much in a hurry to do, and do, and overdo for God that we go misfiring and shooting blanks. Quit fussing about how much you want to do for God and invest more time making yourself vulnerable to His word...and you will be astounded how much its inherent power will override your seeming willingness- make you do what it says.

You are called by God primarily to listen, because with each word comes the default capacity (grace) to act. In most cases even our willingness to obey only ends up putting up a billboard of how wretched we are in the things of God. Infact Apostle Paul helps us to understand that wretchedness is way past its literal implication in the things of God. Wretchedness is least estimated by one's inability to afford a snack...it is most glaring in one's incapacitation to do that which he wills to do- obeying God's word inclusive.

You have to believe that there is grace for every moment, even in the need to obey God's word. 1 Samuel 2:9 shows us "He keeps the feet of His godly ones, But the wicked ones are silenced in darkness; For not by might shall a man prevail."- (NASB) It becomes crystal here that we cannot rely on our own very will to carry out the instructions and precepts/principles of God, but through faith and continuous consciousness of His ever-sufficient grace for us in all things. Glory to God!

Your faith is ENOUGH!

The much faith we have NOW is all good enough to make God's word and instructions work for us. Work your 'flat-bellied' faith to a six-pack, Christian! Agreeing with God's word is actually the first rung up the ladder of believing. You have to desire it, hear it, be willing to do it, meditate on it attentively '...with a fixed gaze' till it produces results for you. It is in so doing that that these snippets of The Word Truth become die-hard doctrines in you, that unbelievers will come to see you as the word of God on two feet for easy-read.
So choose to remain alive and fired up by desiring to know more of God's word and what he has long said about you in His word, and watch how much and well your mind, soul and spirit get rejuvenated. I love you! Welcome back to The Den and don't forget to speak life and power into your week like we do it. Do have a blessed week!